posted on Mar, 12 2013 @ 06:59 AM
Originally posted by andy06shake
Ursula Le Guin's Ansible does negate our causality laws but they are Aliens, they must have some pritty advanced physics...
They're not
our causality laws. They are
the Universe's causality laws. Physics isn't something someone comes up with to impose
order on the universe. Physics is simply a way of explaining what we observe in the universe. Over time, more advanced physics
more
accurately explains what we observe, but the actual observations do not change.
For example:
In 1638, Galileo posited that all objects fall at a uniform rate due to gravity.
That same year, a guy fell off a 10-foot ladder and broke his arm.
In 1687, Isaac Newton wrote that gravity is a force between two objects that is directly proportional to the sum of the two masses, and inversely
proportional to square of the distance between their centers of mass. This explained how celestial bodies can orbit each other, and correctly
predicted that objects on other worlds will fall at different rates.
That same year, a guy fell off a 10-foot ladder and broke his arm.
In 1916, Albert Einstein redefined gravity as a bending of space-time around massive objects. This accurately explained anomalies in Mercury's orbit
identified in the previous century, and correctly predicted that we could observe light bending around massive objects.
That same year, a guy fell off a 10-foot ladder and broke his arm.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Einstein correctly predicted and explains such things as relativistic time dilation, the invariance of the speed of light in vacuum etc. that have
been confirmed in countless experiments. That doesn't mean that Relativity will not someday be superseded by a more accurate & all-encompassing
theory,
but whatever takes its place must take into account and explain time dilation, the invariance of the speed of light in vacuum and each
and every other facet of Relativity. These things don't just go away, any more than people stop breaking their arms when the fall off
10-foot ladders.