Wrong! :D LIGO has been operational for quite some time. Advanced upgrades version has not. I was involved in its electronic work back in the 90's.

Pretty impressive to stand on top of it and see a Semi truck halfway down the pipe/tunnel and it looks like a matchbox truck! The size/scope of the place is so big, I think it plays an optical illusion on your brain that you can only see if you have another object to reference in the distance.

-S

PS. Here is an article observed by LIGO on a Neutron star that is not behaving as expected: http://www.astroengine.com/?p=270 Ligo is operational and has been for years. I may be wrong by the way that it has proved what it set out to do.

PPS. Some science from that article:

I don't agree with him often... but Subman1 is 100% correct on this one. :D

Precisely what I was saying. LIGO has not detected a gravitational wave. It has proven nothing in the context of gravity, which is what we were talking about, right?

I don't doubt that you may be right. Like I said before, I haven't the knowledge to really make a decent case.

Well let me put this all into the simplest layman's terms possible:

Time and space is simply a local affair

What I mean by that is, your reality on time may be different than the guy down the block depending on your environment. You won't find that written in any textbook, but I think it quite clearly explains the whole concept.

Another thing to blow your mind - speed effects time/space/reality as well. Go read up on SR-71 pilots. I read up once that after long trips, their watches were about 2 seconds different on average from when they started it vs real world time. :p

-S

This is also why they have to constantly update the clocks on the International Space Station. Also.. they have done experiments where they discovered that clocks on the tops of really high places move faster than ones at sea level or below.

Are we talking about something different now?
I'm familiar with General and Special Relativity. Despite my inability to comprehend the mathematics, I mostly understand the concept.

I thought we were discussing the nature of gravity. If I remember correctly, I disagreed that space could be folded. Actually, I said space-time, when I should have just said space. Sorry, I fudge up like that sometimes.:oops:

That PBS vid that Blacklight provided was informative, but I have to do some more research to understand some of the fundamental concepts. Space does act like a fabric in the presence of gravity, but that doesn't prove that it IS a fabric.

A good example, IMO, is the black hole. I have been shown graphical representations of a black hole's gravity well that are basically funnels. There's a hole at the bottom of them. A friend tried to point out to me that Hawking (well, I think it was Hawking) had postulated that these holes suggested gravity could be used to warp space back around itself, and may have potential for FTL travel.

Now, I'm no scientist or mathmetician, but this sounds like nonsense to me.
For one thing, the "hole" in the graphical representation of a black hole isn't actually there. There is a ball of superdense matter there. That makes utilizing such a thing for travel quite hazardous, as well as impossible.

Secondly, as I mentioned before, these theories assume you can bend space. But you can't bend space. That's because space is nothing. Excepting the one atom of hydrogen per cubic meter or kilometer or whatever it is. Gravity only affects objects in space, not space itself. There is a lot of matter and energy in space that I don't understand. Dark Matter and the like, but space is just.....space.
It's the physical equivalent of zero.

I admit that I tend to oversimplify things, especially things I don't understand, and spacetime is no exception.


So let's continue the debate:D
I want to be convinced, but I'm not yet.

Space and time can be folded especially very close to a massive gravitational object like a black hole. The Casimir Effect proved that space could be warped in a way that would be conducive to creating wormholes (IE folding space). The ammount of energy needed to do this would be well beyond the energy range that we could generate here on Earth in order to fold space, but it CAN be done.

OK, so if time is different up high than down low, and is directly affected by gravity, how are we going to keep track of time when we start sending people off around the solar system? We're gonna have to come up with a completely new method of timekeeping

Assuming this wave can be created how could a spacecraft survive riding on the "crest" of it?

For example what would a tiny grain of matter or even a gas molecule do to a spaceship if it hit at those speeds?

You guys are missing the point.

Let me put it into perspective for you from Carl Segans perspective.

He described a world where he had flat man - a 2D person that went around life only knowing 2 dimensions. One day, he fell off the table....

This is us and time. Time is the 4th dimension. You know its there, just like Flat man knew the 3rd (up and down) knew the 3rd was there. We are only beginning to understand.

Now let me challenge you with a real challenge to show you how screwed up theorizing something that you know is there, but cannot describe properly what it is. Flat man would have the same problem trying to describe up and down:

Give me a definition of 'time' without using 'time' in the definition, and still make it accurate! :D :p

-S

I think the biggest misconception in this thread is that people here assume time is a constant. Not so.

-S

No thoughts on my question above?

Simple - nothing happens to said spacecraft if it never approaches the speed of light (It may not even physically hardly move). Get close to the speed of light however, and I expect disaster since mathematically, the spacecraft would turn to pure energy at some point, and at this point, said occupants would be killed instantly from said radiation.

Just my two cents on your idea.

-S

Drinking my Maritime Pacific Double Dry Hopped Ale Here (9.0% +) and a thought just popped into my head - are those of us that 'think' faster than the next guy, is our reality longer than those that do not think so fast? Someone answer this question. I already know the answer, but I would like to hear the responses.

-S