Seasons

That makes sense to me, Prob123, but I have only a superficial understanding of physics. I once read a book called "Flatland" that had 2 dimensional characters arguing about the possibility of a 3rd dimension. Something in this discussion reminds me of that.

The speed of light discussion also reminds me of an earlier thread we had here when people posted links to sites explaining how the speed of light may vary in our dimesion, and isn't really as constant as all that.

If Jasake, Einstein and Hawkins are correct and time is based on the speed of light, that variation would mean time "varies" in our dimesions as well, right? Please correct me if I am wrong. We never covered this in law school.

Another little thing I've come accross (and may have been discussed here too) is the "Spooky" effect (where far-distant particles appear to influence one another instantaneously, see e.g. http://focus.aps.org/story/v10/st29) which may indicate somethings must travel faster than light (or the nature of space is completely different than we imagine it). It's all very weird. It kind of leads me to the "space and time are an illusion" way of thinking.

Prob123, this shouldn't make your head hurt, even if there are many here who know a lot about the topic. You are a Terry Pratchett fan. Who needs Hawkins to tell you about the other trouser leg of time when you can read Lords and Ladies or The Theif of Time? To know is good, to imagine is better :-)

Oh, and I meant Hawking (I drop the g in my head). Never could learn to spell or type. :-)

I've finally got round to writing a Brother Jerome homepage - http://www.be9.net/BJ/ - with some coding examples (tic tac toe and square/cube roots ATM. Still haven't finished the poker), links and (the beginnings of) a page of handy hints/bot-building tips. It's all a bit sparse ATM, but I aim to expand it considerably.
Hope it's of interest.

Here is a theory that that may shed some light on the "spooky action at a distance" observation - this theroy views the universe as a hologram where all matter is connected:

http://twm.co.nz/hologram.html

Indeed, the notion of a holographic universe is an appealing model, but it is still bounded by the problem that it is a notion. As soon as you start to describe things, you've stopped dealing with the things, and started dealing merely with descriptions.
I don't believe that any descriptions are objectively "better" or "worse" (whatever those terms mean) than any others, but I admit I do find the hologram analogy more appealing than most.

And I agree with Bev - there's no need to get a headache. Consistency is for cakes, and true understanding is that no thing is known.

but...
To know is good, to imagine is better :-)

I'd have to say "to know is impossible". But imagining's fun

further to "spooky action at a distance", and why it's not actually as paradoxical as it seems, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox
No information, energy or matter actually travels faster than light at any point in any possible demonstration of the phenomenon. So the whole thing boils down to co-incidence (and I use the word carefully in a very Latin sense, with no implication of "chance" intended. I might say instead "contingent", but with no implication of causality intended.)
There is a repeatable and reliable co-incide - they happen in different places at exactly the same time.
And I've always wondered why that should seem so spooky, when we don't consider it at all spooky when things apparently happen in exactly the same place at different times.

The problem comes down to a basic incompatibility of the concepts of locality and causality as we understand them.
My intuitive prejudice (as most people's seems to be, though I probably try to fight it more than most,) is that locality exists - there are different points in what we call space that things may occupy and move through. Despite intuitively sharing this prejudice, I am very uneasy about it in a number of ways that largely result from my views on causality. I don't so easily share the common prejudice that there are "real" causes and effects that emanate from them. I guess that's because I find it easier to see time as an illusion than space.
But like Augustine, (to paraphrase from memory) "when I think about time, I know exactly what it is. But when you ask me about it, I open my mouth to answer - and realize that I can explain nothing about it."

So, I'm going to end there - I have bread to bake, and that somehow seems more productive than indulging my concept-mongering tendencies any more at this time (as it were.)

Hmmm. To know is impossible. Failure is impossible. Therefore, to know is failure. My poor students. All this time I've been telling them to learn things.

Hmmm. To know is impossible. Failure is impossible. Therefore, to know is failure. My poor students. All this time I've been telling them to learn things.

But just to be difficult: What if we had some entwined particles, and we put one on a space ship and kept the other in a lab on Earth. Then, when the ship is very far away, we purposefully measure/change the Earth particle according to a code previously worked out with the ship. We have just sent information instantly. Isn't that faster than light?

Im not quite sure what you are asking. But if you are talking about the speed at which we communicate with spaceships, its at the speed of light. For isntance, the mars rovers that we piolt from earth have delay times, i think its a few seconds are so. The moon wich we view is 2 seconds old because the light takes some time to reach us.

Note: I found somewhere, I bleive it was the science channel, that light is the only thing in the universe not bound to general reletivity. Light appears to us, no matter how fast we are going, 186,000 mps. That means we could be going 100,000mps and it would still look to be the same speed as always.

To bring back up the time travel, (if i may), Time travel is not completely impossible. I'm a bit rough on the subject so I will try to explain the best i can. There is no possilbe way to travel into the future as far as we know. However, traveling to the past is not impossible. You could create a field of some sort (we have the designs for it, but i dont remember the specs) This would create a general "rift" in time. The problem is, You would have to leave it on for 200 years so someone who is 200years in the future could travel to your time. So there is no going back to see the dinosaurs. Unless someone had a time machine on and left it on the whole time.