singularity

Tom and Neil,

Your discussion omits the currently most important part of science - that's the applied science. When engineers see an opportunity for FTL information transfer, they just rush ahead and they get serious funding - remember the "quantum teleportation of photons"? If one intends to take a stab at a mainstream theory, it's advisable to propose a clear practical advantage from the alternative one.
If we could get to lowering the inertia, interplanetary flights would become cheaper, but most importantly to some, warplanes would fly faster and longer.
If we propose a practical way to modulate the graviton flux, it'd be possible to communicate over a non-diverging graviton beam through the Earth and also between planets. That's FTL, btw.
So get some friends among experimenters and engineers. If you have a working machine doing a useful job - the big money could silence all the shrewd fundamentalists in no time.

You guys have covered a lot of ground since my last visit. It is clear to me Einstien is not the problem and so I'm not going there. What is underlying all this chat is a change that is coming somewhat like the discovery the that the Earth was not the center on the universe way back. The intellectual interests before that event are like now.

I am starting to lean towards the notion that it is like the man said about change only occuring when all the old scientists die off. I have seen no signs in the science journals that there is any substantive acknowledgment that there are ANY problems in the theoretical tapestry whatsoever. When one arises they do like epicycles and add another fudge factor to the theory that we have to wait another ten years and millions in tax dollars to show false. And then they merely add another fudge factor. I thought galactic rotation curves would knock them off stride. Nope. Just invent dark matter. When the dark matter doesn't pan out then invent cold and hot dark matter. If a star appears to be too dense to be a neutron star call it a quark star even though you haven't proven neutron stars exist. Occam's razor doesn't seem to mean much to the current crop as is evidenced by their eager acceptance of any concept that maintains the beloved relativity no matter how conceptually rediculous.

You would think the recent appearance of apparent FTL velocities in some experiments might raise an eyebrow. Nope, things only APPARENTLY are going faster, surely information will NEVER be transmitted at FTL rates. When it is I am sure they will leap like a pack of wolves on whoever performs the crucial experiment.

Perhaps I am too pessimistic. However, I do think it is going to take a major observational discovery to get the current crowd to wake from their hypnotism.

The flat world model lasted a thousand years and by the time it was overturned the great thinkers were calculating the number of angels that could dance on a pin head- what is being calculated these days is not that different. And then as now no one saw how things could be any different.

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Perhaps I am too pessimistic. However, I do think it is going to take a major observational discovery to get the current crowd to wake from their hypnotism.


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Jeremy,

Information has been transmitted at 4.7c in experiments of Guenter Nimtz; and that was not just a couple of bits, but a full Mozart's symphony. Just do a google search for "guenter nimtz ftl".

To all:
BTW, in one of my earlier posts I put up a simple example of how the inertial mass appears in consequence of finite speed of momentum transfer in matter. That was a very non-trivial result, despite the oversimplified and seemingly self-evident nature of the example. A lot of heavy-math theoretizing happens in attempts to prove the EM nature of mass along with crazy ideas inventing elementary mass-carrier particles, one may check for Haish and Rueda attempts as an example. I would appreciate any comments on that matter.

Agorabasta > "If you have a working machine doing a useful job - the big money could silence all the shrewd fundamentalists in no time."

The big money uses the shrewd fundamentalists to silence the inventors, preserving the staus quo (their profits) with the excuse of national security. <img src=icon_smile_8ball.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_8ball.gif border=0 align=middle><img src=icon_smile_8ball.gif border=0 align=middle>