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Palomar

Member

From: USA

Registered: 2002-05-30

Posts: 9,734

Re: Riddle of the Zero-Time "Ghost"

*Okay, the author of a book I've been reading gives an analogy of a particle (referred to in the analogy as a "person")...which I think could be turned into a riddle.  Of course I could likely be wasting my time typing this out, as someone smarter than I will likely guess it >pronto<.  I doubt I could have guessed correctly.  Will give the author's name and book title later (to reduce the risk of someone having the book and looking up the answer...sorry). 

Here goes (I'm -not- quoting the book directly, just rephrasing it):

A person travels crosstown for 3 light-microseconds (i.e., 3 blocks) and uptown for 3 microseconds.  He was born at the beginning of his brief journey and dies at its finish.

As 3 microseconds are a distance in imaginary space, what is to be said of this person?  He was observed to live for 3 microseconds and to travel 3 light-microseconds. 

But from his own standpoint, he didn't live at all (okay, this part really has me :hm: ).  Going on...

This person existed in zero-time (the hypotenuse of the spacetime triangle -- I can reproduce that here, if anyone asks).

Did this person actually exist or not?  Could there be a particle which behaves in this manner? 

According to relativity he didn't go anywhere either, since according to his own reckoning he spent no time.

-*-

What is the particle this analogy refers to?   

--Cindy

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We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,017

Re: Riddle of the Zero-Time "Ghost"

Sort of like a snow globe that has been shaken and then layed to rest. Was the snow ever floating?

Mark Friedenbach

Member

From: Mountain View, CA

Registered: 2003-01-31

Posts: 325

Re: Riddle of the Zero-Time "Ghost"

EDIT :: *REMOVED*

Eh, whooops.  I thought you were asking a question about the riddle.  I don't want to spoil the answer yet

C M Edwards

Member

From: Lake Charles LA USA

Registered: 2002-04-29

Posts: 1,012

Re: Riddle of the Zero-Time "Ghost"

Hmm... 

It's either a photon moving in a Minkowski spacetime, or someone like me trying to get to work in the morning.

Not really sure which...

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"We go big, or we don't go."  - GCNRevenger