Recent content by workmad3

Not only is it defined like that, but it makes sense intuitively in a geometric view. The two numbers are equal if they make the triangles they make with the axes are identical without transformation on an argand diagram. The argand diagram view also shows an interpretation of why the...

As for the time period... don't forget that it took 300 years for Newtonian physics to be replaced with relativity, and Newtonian mechanics is a bit easier to understand than relativity (although that may be due to 300 years disseminating into popular thought). Another century or two and...

There is a circular definition, but no circular reasoning. You can change the units of the speed of light to anything you want and it all still works out the same. c is constant due to it being a constant of proportionality in the equations (and with appropriate units to make c = 1, then energy...

I think that if the notation had d2x2 then people may be tempted to do silly things like cancel the d2 and the x2 and get really confused :) As it is, there's only a slight bit of confusion in areas such as this :)

It may be it has a meaning we haven't discovered... it may be there is no reason. I haven't heard of a meaning for the integration of volume though.

In the context you are looking for, it may very well be meaningless. Just because you can do something doesn't make it useful. Or it could be that we haven't found a useful thing that it models yet. Integration and differentiation are just operations that can be performed on formula. They...

That doesn't remove the problem from consideration in general principles, just shows that you can construct a problem where the effect is negligible. The point of simultaneity is to define exactly when 2 things can be regarded as 'the same time'. There is no way to pinpoint an exact point on...

That doesn't define any form of simultaneity though. My view is that entanglement is actually a way of adhering to the SR view of simultaneous spaces in a correct fashion. If you have two observers carefully selected, their simultaneous spaces will differ as to which measurement of an entangled...

The acceleration is very important as previously stated. It is the acceleration that breaks the symmetry in the situation. Say you were accelerating away from someone else. To an observer, the relative motion is the same from either perspective, but from your perspective you can feel...

Changing it from sec to arccos stops the integral from working on wolfram as well. I'm not sure that is a good or bad thing though, considering the integral it returns for the one identified as correct by the OP :)

This is where the balloon analogy has it's flaws. Space (as far as can be observed) isn't expanding into anything, it is just expanding (the fabric of spacetime is expanding, so two things in spacetime get further away over time if they remain stationary wrt each other). The question of what it...

I said it wasn't necesarilly correct, just something that helped me resolve the issues in my mind initially :)

The way I've come to resolve these issues is as follows (I make no statement as to their correctness, just that it makes sense to me :)): 1) The speed of light is constant in any frame of reference and in every direction(given as part of Relativity and Maxwell's field equations) 2) In order...

More importantly than just being a short-hand, the factorial is a tool to add to a mathematicians toolbox (for lack of a better word) that can allow us to write more things in a closed form. I'd also subscribe to the philosophy that maths is both invented and discovered. We state our axioms...

'Quantum mechanics. The dream stuff is made of'