Deep thought (kinda) whilst showering last night
 

So, I was thinking...

You know how the earth rotates and spins upon its axis?

If you think about it, since we're constantly rotating and spinning, at any given moment, we are in a different point in space in which someone else from somewhere completely different stood, or walked, or slept, or cried, etc. Who knows? You might be where a mountain once was at that point in space.

Granted, this is an utterly useless thought, but just wanted to share :) :crazy:

It would kind of make it difficult for ghosts or other astral beings to keep up with us.

Isn't it proposed that they can travel anywhere at anytime? Sorta like, *poof* there they go?

I know nothing about ghosts, but I always heard they were tied down to whever the kicked the bucket.

hey good thought. like, in addition to being steeped in and contributing to the history of the location you are at this very moment, you are also sharing this history at this precise x,y,z axis of space. i'm digging it.

:cool: good call stbeston.

You assume the existence of some external thing called 'position'.
Position is only meaningful relative to some frame of reference. For convienience, we usually use the earth as this frame of reference.
As such Mt. Everest is always in the same place.
You could take the sun as your frame of reference, but there doesn't seem to be any good reason to do so.

I don't see a need for a frame of reference in this one though.

How about this for deep thoughts:
Because the Earth spins higher altitude locations that are farther away from the Earth's center are moving faster in relation to low altitude locations. This means that the hermit sitting on top of the huge mountain is actually living in a location where time moves slightly slower than other places, according to relativity.

No it doesn't. The hermit moves faster, but he travels farther and ends up there at the same time as people at lower altitudes. A giant clock with perfect time and a watch with perfect time will always show the same point in time.

Hello everyone.

But you just proved the theory of relativity. If you're in a moving train and you see two bolts of lightning that hit at the same time but you see them at different times, they don't strike simultaneously to the train, thus making it relative to the beholder.

But on the same thought with the height of a mountain making you move faster and time slows down, it works just as well if I hope in a car and drive to work and you stay home, time goes slower to me according to the theory of relativity anyhow.

braindamage351
Unfortunately for your point general relativity seems to work, and your argument does not address my statement.

As an object approaches the speed of light time will slow down, finally stopping when the speed of light is reached. This has been observed on significantly sub-light scales.

Sue
Now getting back to the point, a frame of reference is vitally important (see Relativity). Suppose we assumed that our sun and solar system are actually traveling in some direction at 1/4 the speed of light. In this case it would be extremely difficult for a human to ever inhabit the space another human did 5 seconds ago.

Ghosts are in trouble, because as soon as they become ethereal they are massless. This means that gravity no longer holds them and they will be flung off into space at up to 1038 mph! Think of a wet, spinning tennis ball except with souls.

well, Phage, I didn't mean 5 seconds ago or anything fast like that. I do see your point though. But, at some point, in time, we're at some point in space (in the universe that is, or our solar system.. something.. ) where someone else once used to be, regardless of how long ago it was.

My whole gripe with the theory of relativity is that it's all about perception, not about reality. Time SEEMS to slow down, the lightning SEEMS to be hitting at different times. But it isn't. Relative to the speed of light time has stopped. But time has not actually stopped. To the monk time seems slower, but it isn't actually slower.

The theory of relativity works, but only as long as you recognize that it is a relative reality. Everyone I've ever heard use it speaks as if the relative reality is the actual reality. But it isn't. Time may seem to slow down, but it never actually does. The monk's time is slower in relative time, but in real time it is not.

My point was that with that point of reference it would be difficult to ever occupy the same space another person did a significant time ago because that location would be receding at about 167,654,157 mph.

You might want to do some research into time dilation. To the monk time would not seem to be moving more slowly, but it would be. You and Sue seem to think that there is one true time and spatial viewpoint; conventional thinking states that there is not.

braindamage351, if everyone seems to be on a different page than you, consider the possibility that you are wrong.

braindamage: there is no universal clock that holds the correct time. Time dilation has been experimentally proven and is regarded as fact.

Well. Um, What can one say to that?

I guess only that you owe it to the world to get a paper published demonstrating your proof that one of the most sucessful scientific theories of all time is wrong.

Weird. I always figured Gravity was the most successful theory.

But I guess it's a law now.

Along the same lines as the first post, consider also the fact that the water you have drunk today, has, probably, at some point, been touched, ingested, swum, crapped, or bathed in by someone famous. Or a dinosaur.


sweet.

Ya...OK
Have you actually studied it? Or just read about it in popular science trivia type crap?
You realize how unlikely it is...oh im not even gonna try.

Ya, that sums it up.

One can always arbitratily assign positions through a space.

Yep. Also, consider that every atom of your being, everything that makes you you used to be part of a star. We are all, literally, starchildren.