Email or username:

Password:

Forgot your password?
Top-level
Paul Quirk

@doctroid @ZachWeinersmith Einstein's theory of relativity describes time dilation as someone near the speed of light experiences time differently from an observer on earth; a few minutes for them could be a few hours for us. If you were to travel at the speed of light, you'd think your trip was instantaneous, while a great deal of time would have passed on earth. Speed = distance / time, if you divide by 0 you get ∞. We don't observe this, so light must be bending in our universe of space time.

2 comments
Rich Holmes

@quirk @ZachWeinersmith As someone with a doctorate in physics, I can tell you your understanding is incorrect. For one thing, nothing prior to the last sentence has anything to do with curvature, so the last sentence doesn't follow. And we do observe light behaving in exactly the way you describe, curvature or no curvature.

Paul Quirk

@doctroid @ZachWeinersmith your argument from authority notwithstanding, general relativity does tell us that, from the perspective of light, it travels instantly. From our perspective, it does not. We understand this as time dilation. So how do you account for the fact that light does have an observable speed limit in our universe from all perspectives other than light? Or has this theory been superseded?

Go Up