Is It Possible to Chase Yourself Around the World?

[Godswitch]

Chasing The Impossible

Lets assume all the elements are in place

If a person was to start from any point on the planet and accelerate and maintain his/her acceleration and continue accelerating, having traveled once round the planet, to the point of origin, is it possible the person could see him/herself self starting.

 

[ghwellsjr]

No, unless he was looking in a mirror.

Let's just say that he accelerated so fast that he was instantly traveling at almost the speed of light. Then if we considered the image of him starting off to be traveling around the planet in the other direction, he would arrive on the other side of the planet at approximately the same time that his image would, correct? But let's say another person is already standing on the other side of the planet. Do people on the other side of the planet see what is happening on this side of the planet? Not on planet earth. Why is that? Well for several reasons, not the least of which is that light doesn't normally travel in curves, it goes in straight lines, unless refracted by some medium. Although there is some refraction of light in our atmosphere, it is no where near enough to cause an image on one side of the Earth to travel all the way around to the other side. Otherwise, it would never get dark at night, correct? So the image of this person starting off, if it survived anywhere would be going out into space, more or less directly behind him. So if he had any hope of seeing himself starting off by going around the planet, he would have to launch himself into space shortly after getting half way around to chase his image which already got a massive head start. But since his image is traveling at the speed of light and he is already so far behind it, he will never be able to catch up to it.

Your question could be phrased in a different manner to point out something very important about light. Once light leaves you, you can never, ever see it again, and you can have no direct knowledge of its presence or location, unless you put a mirror some distance away from you and reflect that light back to you. That is the only way you can ever see the light that starts from your location.

 

[Godswitch]

The idea of "Chasing The Impossible" is very much like the Arrow Paradox...

With the Arrow Paradox, the arrow is always fired.

You would think it is possible to catch up with oneself and even talk briefly​

Lets say for arguments sake light only moves at 1 mph and you place a laser at one end of a darkened room and point the laser at the opposite side of the room some 400 metres away. You position yourself at a point some 275 metres and hold a piece of black card in the line of the lasers travel...

The question is, Even though the light is "ON" would you see the laser before its hits the card

Im completely divided at this point:

In this instance the light is "ON" but you do not see it until it has reached you and theoretically you could move at 10 mph away from the Laser and it would appear to be "OFF"

 

[ghwellsjr]

You've just imagined that you can travel faster than the speed of light and I don't understand why you bring up the Arrow Paradox and I don't understand why you want to image light going 1 mph or how that relates to your scenario or why the room has to be 400 meters.

But I think the answer to your question is no, you will not see the laser turning on until the light from the laser travels to the card, bounces off it, is dispersed and finally some of it ends up in your eye.

But since you asked the question, you must have some different idea of how light travels. Maybe you should explain what your concepts are in detail if you want help to get straightened out.

 

[Godswitch]

But I think the answer to your question is no, you will not see the laser turning on until the light from the laser travels to the card, bounces off it, is dispersed and finally some of it ends up in your eye.

Wrong because the light has to be on before any light can strike the card. You said you would not see the light turning on...a slight misinterpretation perhaps but an important one!

 

[LBrandt]

The idea of "Chasing The Impossible" is very much like the Arrow Paradox...

With the Arrow Paradox, the arrow is always fired.

You would think it is possible to catch up with oneself and even talk briefly​

Lets say for arguments sake light only moves at 1 mph and you place a laser at one end of a darkened room and point the laser at the opposite side of the room some 400 metres away. You position yourself at a point some 275 metres and hold a piece of black card in the line of the lasers travel...

The question is, Even though the light is "ON" would you see the laser before its hits the card

Im completely divided at this point:

In this instance the light is "ON" but you do not see it until it has reached you and theoretically you could move at 10 mph away from the Laser and it would appear to be "OFF"

If, in your example, you want to choose to have light move at 1 mph, then in your example, you wouldn't be able to move at 10 mph. The special theory of relativity doesn't really care what the speed of light is, it simply states that no material object can reach or move faster than the speed of light. It turns out that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, but the postulates of the special theory would still hold true if the speed of light was a different number.

 

[Godswitch]

I realize that piece of theory, hence the need for the Arrow Paradox - Otherwise if all arrows were to travel far and fast enough without entering orbit we'd all be shooting ourselves in the back...

 

[LBrandt]

I don't really know what the arrow paradox has to do with the example that you gave. In your example, light moves at 1 mph and you move at 10 mph. That violates special relativity.

 

[Godswitch]

Fair enough...

 

[Godswitch]

Lets just say...Once again

Lets assume all the elements are in place

If a person was to start from any point on the planet and accelerate and maintain his/her acceleration and continue accelerating, having traveled once round the planet, to the point of origin, is it possible the person could see him/herself self starting/leaving.

Lets just say you had a bow and arrow or a knife and you reach the point of origin you either fire an arrow at you starting/leaving or stab would this arrow or knife hit your back!

Because if this is not possible it proves that a traveller moving back in time is not connected to the future and any interaction by the traveller in the past will have no effect on the traveller as he cannot exist in two places.

 

[ghwellsjr]

I suppose if you didn't like my first answers to you, you're not going to like anything I would say now. Obviously, you have a unique thought process. I doubt that anyone else can figure out what you are talking about.

l'm tempted to repeat the second paragraph from my first respose to you, but since it had no impact the first time, I doubt it would have any impact this time.

Are you thinking that the original image of the person starting out stays in the same location so that when the person goes around the planet and returns back, he will see his image that never moved?

 

[Godswitch]

Ok..OK I understand what you are saying and It looks like we have arrived at a brick wall and that brick wall is the speed of light.

I'll brush up on some theories so next time we can have a better conversation"some things don't have to make sense to make sense"