h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

By the way I am an engineer also. You can fool all of the people some of the time but you cant fool all of the people all of the time. (where have I herd this before ???)

On a very old show (who's name I cannot recall) in which one of the main characters was played by the same actress (who's name I can also embarassingly not recall -- Wow... I -must- be tired) who played the Flying Nun (on at around the same time) and also much later in Smokey and the Bandit.

HTH.

Would this actress have been Sally Field cause she was in Smokey and the Bandit, I rarly saw The Flying Nun, I must have been out when it was on. If I had been in I would definitly have watched it cause she is one of my favourite actresses

This reminds me I must dig out an old Video tape of the film "Places in the heart" She won an Oscar for best actress in this film, I think it was one of the first big films the Danny Glover & John Malkovich were in.

Yes! Sally Fields most definitely! Thank you!

At any rate... The show to which I earlier referred was on around the same time as Flying Nun (or at least I remember it that way... though time was so fleeting at that point in my life I could have missed a year or two.)

She played this gal who could read minds. As she explained to her new husband (and this became part of the show's lead in) when he asked about her skills and whose minds she could read...

"Well... Some people, none of the time, most people some of the time, and a very few people, most of the time."

"And which category do I fall in?"

"The last one."

We need a thread for "Name that show" !!

However, there are an infinite number of integers, and an infinite number of real numbers out there, but there are *more* real numbers than integers. There's a mathematical proof for that somewhere, but I've quite forgotten it now.

Good god... that last message seems to have popped into existence in such a place that is has absolutely no context whatsoever... Well, if anyone cares enough, they can figure it out for themselves

Can I buy one? Anyway, please fill out my questionnaire at http://www6.bravenet.com/vote/vote.asp?userid=ow288909

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i can't help noticing that the conversation has drifted a bit....

You can't just say "it's wrong" and then sit back with your arms folded. Give us your version!

Aye, Cap'n, but I don't think she kin take much moore!

Okay.. now you're just out to confuse me. _Who_ just said wrong?

wasn't me. i don't think it was anyway.... i didn't say anything was wrong, just that, in true h2g2 style, the conversation has strayed into areas with no obvious link to the subject matter of the forum. i'm not saying this is wrong either, it's just an observation.

Conversations stray at the speed of light around here.

I must be crazy, but getting back to the original question. In fact, the question makes no sense as nothing (unless it has zero mass like a photon) can travel at the speed of light.

Einstein developed this idea through the following thought experiment:

The Laws of Physics are Universal and equivalent in all inertial (i.e. non-accelerating) reference frames. Hence, if I am living in such a reference frame, all physical behaviour is identical and I cannot tell from within the frame how fast I am travelling. No such frame is any different to any other! (I think I've stressed that point enough ).

Ahh, but now let's consider that I am in a reference frame which is travelling at the speed of light (say I'm sitting on a photon). If I were to hold a mirror up in front of me, I would never see my reflection because the light from my face will never reach the mirror. Therefore, the laws of Physics have changed and I KNOW that I am travelling at the speed of light!

Therefore, you cannot travel at the speed of light and, with some effort, time dilation, etc. follow.

It took some years before this was generally accepted, but all the predictions of the theory have been well tested and found to hold, hence we think it's true (for now at least...until something happens that it doesn't explain, and then we'll have to think again).

Oh goodie! Then we can time the thoughts and see if they really -do- go at the speed of light.

you'd need someone with quite speedy reactions though. or a computer.

Well according to relativity the speed of light is constant no matter what you speed, so if you turn on your headlights, it would act normal as if you were going normal speed.

That was with no research either Mr. 15 year old. And, I'm 16, and no what salt is.

But u dont no how too spel

Anyway, although the speed of light is a constant, the RELATIVE speed isn't. If you are travelling at the speed of light, the light can't travel any faster than you. For you to be able to see anything in front of you the light has to travel from your headlights to the object and back. Since the light can't travel faster than you, it would reach the object at the same time as you and you would therefore hit the object before you can see it.

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That's what I said. It's time to start nitpicking and sayig "but how could you survive, given the fact that all the various bodily functions you'd need so to do would require molecules to exceed lightspeed?". Anyone want to say "but it's only a theoretical thing" as the physicist's stock answer when questioned on the validity of the ways in which they choose to waste their time?