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Talk:Counterexamples to Relativity (view source)
Revision as of 02:34, November 9, 2010
, 02:34, November 9, 2010→Counterexample 4 (limiting behavior)
:The "keeping its energy constant" is a new condition that has no clear relevance to the discontinuity. Please explain further.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 09:54, 14 August 2010 (EDT)
:The "keeping its energy constant" is a new condition that has no clear relevance to the discontinuity. Please explain further.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 09:54, 14 August 2010 (EDT)
::In the article, we are considering a particle whose mass tends to zero first and whose velocity tends to c second. This gives the results you posted, but there is no reason to do the calculations in this order. You could, for example, have the velocity tend to c first and the mass tend to zero second. Neither of these works; one results in the discontinuity you referred to, and the other results in divisions by zero.
::The situation we described has two degrees of freedom (particle mass and particle velocity) which vary independently. Tending to infinity only removes one degree of freedom, as the relative rate at which the two values converge is not fixed and can affect the result. We need to introduce a new constraint to remove the last degree of freedom so that we can end up with a meaningful answer. Fixing the particle's energy is one possibility, but you can also fix the momentum (or indeed the relativistic 4-momentum, which covers both of those). Both of these methods give the same answer as each other, and also remove the discontinuity. This result is much more elegant and is in fact correct.
::Of course, this is just an intuitive way of looking at things. So as not to clutter this page with equations, I can post a more in-depth analysis in my userspace, if somebody makes a post requesting it. (I'm not going to write anything unless someone wants to read it.)
::I apologise for the delay in replying - apparently I was temporarily banned, so I have been careful to abide by the Conservapedia Commandments this time. In particular, I want to be clear that this is based on the 24-lecture course on Dynamics And Special Relativity I took last year, not Wikipedia or 15 minutes of Googling; and I don't think I have violated the 90/10 rule since I have made 1 article edit and 2 talk page posts (is this right?). I want to learn, so if there's anything I have done wrong, please let me know immediately so I can fix it. [[User:Toph|Toph]] 21:34, 8 November 2010 (EST)
== Counterexample 9 (Jesus action-at-a-distance) ==
== Counterexample 9 (Jesus action-at-a-distance) ==