Wapsi Square Forum

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/that-one-thing/

*sniff*
I think I can smell Nadette's brain frying from within.

Cheesy1 wrote:I think I can smell Nadette's brain frying from within.

She should have expected it. They're sunning themselves by a large body of water... that's just where you would expect to meet a paradox.

Atsali is getting deep

. . .

. . .

I'm not sure if that's genius or madness.



"Madness takes its toll . . . exact change only, please!" -anon.

--FreeFlier

Is Nadette wondering if Atsali has had some of that hippie lettuce?

Thats not a true paradox, its simply a variation of a multidimensional quantum mechanics problem. The problem is almost no one can picture a multidimensional setting. Most people have problems thinking in 3 dimensions.

oldmanmickey wrote:Thats not a true paradox, its simply a variation of a multidimensional quantum mechanics problem. The problem is almost no one can picture a multidimensional setting. Most people have problems thinking in 3 dimensions.

I think trying to draw the picture is the fun part.

She's getting Meta AND Mega, and discombobulating Nad!

Well, Atsali is technically correct... there IS one thing that is nonmoving relative to everything else.

The catch is, thanks to relativity, you can pick any one thing you want and define it to be that one thing, immobile with the universe whirling around it.

Some things make for easier math than others. If you pick the volume knob on your car's radio to be that one thing, as the car spins around it to adjust the sound volume and the freeway passes by at 70 MPH, the math describing the motion of Ganymede is pretty complicated. (And Ganymede may move faster than the speed of light.)

Therefore, we are constantly picking different things. For adjusting the radio's volume, you probably consider the car immobile. For driving the car, you probably consider the planet immobile. For plotting a mission to Ganymede, you probably consider the sun immobile,

how the earth moves...

If your uncle goes on a trip, it that relative motion?

/stolen from my physics prof/

--FreeFlier

FreeFlier wrote:If your uncle goes on a trip, it that relative motion?

Only if he's traveling on a starship that's powered by auntie matter.

FreeFlier wrote:If your uncle goes on a trip, it that relative motion?

/stolen from my physics prof/

--FreeFlier

er, *everything* is relative... if he is moving away from you, he is relatively faster than you..

Perhaps this can be connected to Aristotle's "unmoved movers". Better ask Nadette if she's aware of any celestial spheres or heavenly orbs. . .I'm sure that that could lead the discussion somewhere more along Nadette's liking.

Catawampus wrote:Perhaps this can be connected to Aristotle's "unmoved movers". Better ask Nadette if she's aware of any celestial spheres or heavenly orbs. . .I'm sure that that could lead the discussion somewhere more along Nadette's liking.

We already know that Nadette is aware of a pair of heavenly orbs.

Something I didn't consider until yesterday or so:

If an object is truly at rest, from dimensions one to eleven, how would we know? Could we even detect it? And how do we know that our entire universe itself isn't moving?

Alkarii wrote:Something I didn't consider until yesterday or so:

If an object is truly at rest, from dimensions one to eleven, how would we know? Could we even detect it? And how do we know that our entire universe itself isn't moving?

That calls the question: "Compared to what?"

And that's where you discover it's turtles all the way down!

Well, by "at rest," I meant in relation to the universe itself, not the objects hurtling through it.

But then, there's also the question of whether or not the universe has an actual edge, or if it's just empty space forever. Or if there are entire universes so far away (and probably also "young" enough) that their light hasn't reached ours.

So let's just assume it's this universe, with the point where the Big Bang occurred being the center.

Do you think that people from a civilization a billion years older than ours commonly prank their coworkers at the office by causing random objects (for example, what amounts to a coffee mug) to reach a state of absolute rest?

Atomic wrote:

Alkarii wrote:Something I didn't consider until yesterday or so:

If an object is truly at rest, from dimensions one to eleven, how would we know? Could we even detect it? And how do we know that our entire universe itself isn't moving?

That calls the question: "Compared to what?"

And that's where you discover it's turtles all the way down!

Don't forget the Elephants!

TazManiac wrote:

Atomic wrote:

Alkarii wrote:Something I didn't consider until yesterday or so:

If an object is truly at rest, from dimensions one to eleven, how would we know? Could we even detect it? And how do we know that our entire universe itself isn't moving?

That calls the question: "Compared to what?"

And that's where you discover it's turtles all the way down!

Don't forget the Elephants!

Different cosmology.