Alex,

You need to qualify the statement that the speed of light is constant. It is only constant in a given medium. We presume the speed of light to be traveling in an unencumbered vacuum. In water, glass or some other medium, the speed of light changes. where there are strong enough gravitational forces it changes too.

Avi

Avi,

The speed of light goes down as the density goes up; that's correct. Einstein's original concept (in General Relativity theory) was that speed of light in vacuum (as ~300,000,000 meters per second) does not change, but the strong enough gravitational forces change the shape of space-time, and as a result, the meter and the second become different near a heavier object than near a lighter one.

Alex

Avi,

Actually, I need to qualify my statement even further. In our world, the speed of light is the maximum speed attainable - as you corrected - in a given media. But mathematically, there is nothing to say that it cannot be the other way around, the speed of light being the minimum speed attainable in a given media. Particles for which it is true have been called tachions. Their mass is not zero and not negative, but "imaginary" - an actual mathematical term referring to the square root of a negative number. I can expand on it more, but I don't want to bore everybody with complex-numbers calculus: stuff interesting to some may be boring to others. Let me just say that, for me, reading in high school about tachions was the proverbial straw that broke the back of the camel of Soviet propaganda of atheism.

Alex

Alex-- that is alright-- those who are bored with it can ignore the posts. Do go on.
Yocheved

Avi-

How does this fit in to the theory that there is an alternate reality quite opposite of the laws established here, on say the other side of a black hole, (the white hole theory/ worm hole theory, etc.)? What I mean is, if the model of the opposites is true-- is there a way to work out mathematically those laws and therefore determine light behaviour according to them based upon what we know of light behaviour in this genre? I am sure there is work on this, pardon my ignorance, but we don't discuss mathematics much in the field of the arts. Stephen Hawking is one of my favorite people to get information on this stuff from. His books are outstanding onthe subject of "macrocosms for dummies" hahaha!
Yocheved

Yocheved, thanks for the kind words For me, it really is a fascinating subject. A complex number is a sum of its real and imaginary part, recorded as a + i*b, where i is the square root of minus 1. Accordingly, complex numbers are not represented as a point on a line anymore, but as a point on a two-coordinate plane. Back in the 1900s, a Polish mathematician Minkowski formulated the concept of space-time continuum, described by 4 coordinates (x, y, z, i*t), where x, y, and z are the length, width, and height coordinates, and t is time. A few years later, Heisenberg came up with the equations of electromagnetic Doppler effect (it is what is used in radars today), and Einstein came up with the idea of speed of light being constant in any given media.

Taken together, that meant the potential existence of tachyon - the "virtual" particle, or a particle with imaginary mass.

So, we live in the world of baryons - particles with a non-zero mass of rest, but we also observe photons - particles with a zero mass of rest, but which have a mass of motion (yes, the electromagnetic Doppler effect predicts that the mass depends on the speed, and since photon moves at the speed of light, its mass of rest is zero, but it does have the momentum, which is a mass-related property of moving objects). And in our world, we have the Minkowski space-time continuum.

In the tachyonic world then the space-time continuum becomes an "imaginary" version of Minkowski's space-time, described as (i*x, i*y, i*z, t). And what's funny is that to the tachyons, it is us who are the mathematically imaginary world.

Then, just as we view a complex number as a point in a 2-dimensional plane, the baryon and tachyon are merely two coordinates of the complex particle in an 8-dimensional hyperplane.

When we look at a 2D plane, we do so from a 3rd coordinate, height. That means that there is a 3rd set of the 4 coordinates from which it is possible to see this 8D hyperplane.

So, the "actual world" becomes 12-dimensional. But what's to say, mathematically, that the 12 dimensions are not one side of a hyper-complex world, wherein there is a 12D virtual world corresponding to each 12D actual world, and another 12-coordinate hyperdimension from which to see this hyper-complex world. 36 dimensions! This kind of fractal design can go on indefinitely, and I believe that is what the Sages referred to when they said that G-d is infinite in His dimensions.

Sounds kookish?

could be part of significance of 12 tribes,

and if 3 fold to 36 hidden Tzdikim

rm, that's brilliant! I didn't think of it this way. Yes! Please elaborate.

Could someone explain in a nutshell what the discussion of the last few days are? I'm trying to understand it all but I'm very confused.

Sam, it's just an attempt to bring us all up to speed on the discoveries and existing theories in modern physics and mathematics in the past 100 years.

You see, the scientific methodology teaches to only reject theories that have been proven false by observations. Based on the observations of the past 100 years, the material of the Bereishith cannot be proven false anymore. Therefore, following the scientific process, they have to accept it as true.

Moreover, the theories underlying atheism are consistently being proven wrong by the recent discoveries and observations.

quote:

Originally posted by rm pearlman cta:
could be part of significance of 12 tribes,
and if 3 fold to 36 hidden Tzdikim

The number 12 for the tribes/sons of Israel was known before and not from hind sight.
Leah knew after her third son Levi she had bore her fair share (12 divided by 4 Mothers is 3), after her six son Zevulan that she had half of those destined.
In the Midbar we were camped by tribe around the Divine presence at the Miskon.
So if the building blocks of physical matter have 12 facets it would add symbolic significance to our encampment.
If an additional 3 phase facet to 12 could be represented by Cohanim, First Born or Levites then regular Yisroel.

String theory where atoms composed of vibrating strings of energy consistent with Hashem using the letters of the Aleph Beit in ten utterances to Create the physical universe.

Another lesson from string theory even though stings to small to be subject to scientific verification, does not stop top scientific minds from dedicating selves to its study as it makes sense.
Even more so does Torah make sense and reconcile all scientific fact.

12 stones on breastplate
12 months of year
12 astronomic alignments