>create a stick several light years long >tap said stick

>>8757017

anyone that thinks information / causality and the speed of light have fucking anything to do with each other is actually, legitimately, unironically mentally retarded.

>>8757017
it'd take a long time--slower than the speed of light--to move the stick

>the sun goes out

>it takes 8 minutes for the last light to reach earth

supposedly smart people:"the sun didn't actually go out until we saw it go out"

fucking morons.

>>8757042
The stick would break first.

>>8757056

if it were a perfect stick, say a light-second long (doesn't need to be a year), and you had a perfect machine that pushed the stick and simultaniously shot a burst of light the same direction, the stick would hit a button before the photocell received the light. i don't understand why this is hard to conceive for people.

>>8757076

But a perfect stick has to reliably transmit energy through a light-second's worth of solid material.

You do realize the potential problem with this?

>>8757088

it'd have to have great tensile strength. practically such a stick couldn't be engineered, any force at either end would either crack it if it was hard, (unless perfect force was applied) or else if it was malleable it'd wobble like spaghetti, since it's relative width would be a thousand times finer than a human hair. but it's an engineering problem alone - not a 'causality' problem as some would posit.

theoretically, if you pulled a string rather than pushed a stick, you might be able to accomplish it if we ever learned to make infinitely long woven carbon nanotube braids or something like that. as far as i'm aware they have no stretch.

The information, taps, will only move at the speed of sound through that specific material.

>>8757113

that's a rigidity problem.

imagine a chain laying in a pile on the floor. you grab one end and pull; later links in the chain won't even move until it becomes taut up to that point. lay the chain out in a line on the pavement, and pull on the first link. the last link moves simultaneously as the first.

a string of a substance without any stretch and perfect tension would see the first atom and last atom in the 'chain' move simultaneously, no matter what distance apart they were.

this is epistemological no different from two events on opposite sides of the universe happening simultaneously with the common first cause however many trillions of years ago. if indeed the universe ever did begin.

>>8757107
>>8757132
>infinite tension is just an engineering pri lem
Idiot

>>8757141

>we don't know how to do it

>"it can never be done!"

ok

>>8757026
Are you retarded? If the movement of the smallest building blocks of the universe isn't information then what is it? Information is movement, you fucking moron. Not all movement is information, but all information is movement. Fuck off.

>>8757017
Now all I can think of is a really long stick attached to Earth spinning around at smacking asteroids and planets out of orbit

The information would be transferred at the speed of sound through wood.
That's literally what the speed of sound means.

>>8757168
What kind of wood, anon?

>>8757159

>information is a literal physical thing

...

next you're going to tell me that you don't believe in god because we have airplanes and there is no castle resting on the clouds with a bunch of angels walking around and a golden thrown with an old man with a long white beard.

i don't even know what is wrong with you.

maybe you meant 'energy', rather than information, because information isn't a part of physics. if it 'exists' at all it's a nonlocal philosophical metaphysical thing that we invented in our heads.

>>8757173
Whatever kind of wood the stick is made of, obviously.

>>8757154
>infinite speed is just an engineering problem! We just dont knoe how to do it!

Idiot

>>8757222

are you implying that it's NOT just an engineering problem?

inb4 some fucking meme.

>>8757250
You're physically limited by the speed of sound in an object. Which is limited (though in practical terms will still never get anywhere near) the speed of light.

A better example would be something like this

We can detect Exo-planets by watching them pass in front of their star and recording the periodic difference in light output over time.
In other terms, the planet creates a "shadow" moving laterally across the universe that we can record as a flicker of light output when it passes us.
This shadow is cast across our solar system at a rate much faster than the speed of light, but because the "shade" is light-minutes, days, weeks wide, we can detect it.

That information we glean by tracking these "shadows" can be said to be moving faster than the speed of light. There is no contradiction there

>>8757250

Engineering involves working with the constraints of local-universal law.

Infinite speed is hard because the energy needed to move a unit of mass approaches infinity the closer you get to light speed.

>Infinite energy is just an engineering problem!

Not until we exploit some universal property which allows us to bypass normal limits or we grab energy from non-local universes.

>>8757271

if that's the way you want to approach the problem, then no, 'the speed of sound' isn't limited by the speed of light. and sound is the wrong word for it.

>>8757280

memes. all memes. you would only have to brush this perfect, long stick with a feather, for it to register on the other side of the stick before light reached the other side of the stick. ie; an infinitely small force can be at cause for infinitely large effects.

>>8757132
>a string of a substance without any stretch
all materials stretch to some degree. Everything is at least slightly compressible or slightly stretchy.
Go read Terence Tao's blog about Navier Stokes if you don't believe me when I tell you incompressible fluids are impossible mathematically.

>>8757299

the threshold and curvature for a substances properties to be able to transmit force will cross the speed of photonic energy at some arbitrary scale.

>>8757284
The speed of sound is essentially how quickly particles can bump into each other. That limits how quickly you can transmit information through the stick.
You might not realise it, but when you push a stick, the other end doesn't move until the movement is able to propagate through the length of the stick (which happens at the speed of sound in the stick). We just don't notice the effect because we don't tend to deal with objects long enough for it to have a noticeable effect.

>>8757317
That why you can cut the air?

>>8757317

what you just said is, 'the speed at which force propogates through a stick is faster than the speed at which light moves'...

because we're very capable of measuring the speed of light, but we're not capable of measuring the latency between one end of a stick and another.

>>8757324
>the speed at which force propogates through a stick is faster than the speed at which light moves
I'm saying completely the opposite. Can you read?

>>8757325

you thought that's what you were saying, but you inadvertently proved the opposite of what you meant to say.

>>8757328
No. No I did not.

>>8757289
>infinitely small force can be at cause for infinitely large effects.

There's a problem with all the mass that has to propagate the force!

>>8757332

yes you did. you proved it when you pointed out that we can measure the speed of light, but can't measure the speed of force through a stick.

we can't measure it because it's a finer, faster event.

force is faster than light.

>>8757342

ever seen a rubes goldberg machine?

>>8757343

Rube Goldberg machines don't act within a percentile of light speed.

LIght is faster than anything with mass.

>>8757343
>you proved it when you pointed out that we can measure the speed of light, but can't measure the speed of force through a stick
I never said this. You said this.
I said we don't tend to notice it, because we don't use enormously long sticks to measure things. That's completely different to saying it is not measurable.

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>when you're in a troll thread and haven't realized it yet

>>8757179
Youre fucking stupid. Information is definetly a part of physics. Maxwells demon clarifies this ajd you would know that if you werent an imbecile

>>8757372

oh, i didn't know we were discussing metaphysics. i thought we were discussing regular physics.

>>8757159
Information is structure, which can be static

>>8757180
I think cedar or mahogany would be nice

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>>8757372
>maxwell's memon
>proving anything

>>8757372
>Maxwells demon
the fucking demon is an intelligent agent. Yes he's reducing entropy but fucking barely compared to himself.

>>8757017
>information is transferred faster than the speed of light

No it doesn't

>>8757017
The movement of atoms from one end of the stick doesn't convey to the other end faster than c.

>>8757026
The speed of light is the speed of causality, moron.

>>8757076
Electromagnetic force is slower than c, so no.

>>8757076
>if it were a perfect stick

Special relativity forbids such a thing, so your explanation is bunk.

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When I was in grad school my adviser gave me this series of like thirty video lecture on the propagation of shockwaves in solids, including inelastic deforemations, spallation, etc..

About 5 min in the video he clearly wrote on the board, this was a video of a grad class that he taught, that if you tap a rod at one end then the other end will start to move even before the primary acoustic wave even gets there.

I WAS LIKE NO WAY ARE YOU KIDDING ME IS HE EVEN SERIOUS RIGHT NOW WHY ARE THEY HIDING THE TRUTH ABOUT ACOUSTIC WAVE PROPAGATION!?!?!?!?

>>8757017
>a stick several light years long
>tap said stick
speed of sound versus speed of light, fgt pls

>>8757660
Kek

>>8757351

>implying photons don't have mass
>implying the speed of light doesn't vary so it can actualy become faster than the previous have been thought
>implying "speed of light" is actually a "constant

>>8757689

because they lie, they always do

>>8757017
>pictures can be represnted as 0s and 1s
>just send people a book full of 0s and 1s and they can type it up in their computer to get the whole image again

DIGITAL STORAGE AND NETWORKING BTFO

>>8757076
>if it were a perfect stick
fuck you and your standards, shitlord!

>>8757790
Photons don't have mass. Or rather the current upper limit is really really small, on the order of 1e-14 or 1e-17 eV (depending on whether you like astrophysical limits or not).

Why is /sci/ getting so triggered about this? I haven't seen anyone refute OP's point yet.

>>8757271
>limited by the speed of sound
You realize we have achieved manned flight well over double the speed of sound right?

>>8757828
HIROMOOKY HATES HIM
LEARN ONE WEIRD TRICK FOR IMAGE SHARING NOW
>>8757836
Bait threads don't deserve proper responds. If you're a 3rd party that legitimately doesn't know the answer, it's that the push of the stick would propagate at the speed of sound in the material the stick is made of, like a pulse from one end to another

>>8757835

exactly

>>8757277
This is a good example.

Thee information is horribly outdated due to the distance involved, but the shadow is still moving laterally faster than the site of light. I think this is pretty conclusive.

>>8757277 that shadow doesn't carry any information from one end of our solar system to the other, only from the exoplanet to us

>>8757017
Your method doesn't work because the motion wave you instill on the stick travels less than the speed of light.

It's equivalent to creating an earthquake wave in the stick and expecting it to propagate across the stick faster than light. It's just not going to happen no matter how much energy you impart on the stick.

>>8757076
The pressure wave in the stick would travel slower than the speed of light

>>8757277
You're thinking of the common-usage meaning of information, not the rigorous physical definition of information.
Also, you're mistaking a shadow for an actual thing and not merely the gap in a beam of photons (travelling at light speed), the timing and spectrum of which is what provides the information.

>>8757017
Thats as awesome as this
>ride in a train thats going with light speed
>walk towards the front
>you are now faster than light

>>8757860
Yes of course I'm fucking aware of that. That's still not the point.

>>8757076
the movement travels through the stick at the speed of sound in the material you absolute fucking moron

>>8757132
>the last link moves simultaneously as the first
no it fucking doesn't
it moves at the time where the pull is transmitted to it through the electromagnetic forces between the molecules of the material.
>le when i pull a string it moves instantly so wave propagation doesn't real

are you baiting?

>>8757021
Short answer: speed of push

Long answer: you moving the stick would require a compression to move from where you touch the stick to the end of the stick. This process is not instantaneous, and the compressions travel much slower than the speed of light.

>>8758147
this

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>this thread

>>8757017
Why not just communicate with Morse Code via photons?

Problem cell-fagsz?

>>8757017
> create black hole approx 230 tonnes mass
> laser said black in morse code
> information is gone after 1 second

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>>8757372
>gold thrown
What did this brainlet mean by this?

>>8757076
Do you realize that light waves are faster than simple vibrations in an object?

>>8760999
>implying light isn't a simply vibration in the aether

gtfo

>>8757076
The stick is not a single particle. The parts of the stick would all have to bump into each other and propel the stick forward to reach whatever destination. The light will always get there first.

>>8757017
Sticks are made of atoms. When you push the stick on one side all those atoms collide in series from one end to the other. Energy is lost throughout the series.
>>8757076
You could say the opposite and have exactly the same amount of proof for either. You dont know the answer but you know the way to prove the correct answer.

push one end of stick, that energy transfer to the opposite end of the stick moves at the speed of sound in that medium (wood)

>>8757860
Are you aware of what "breaking the sound barrier" does?

>>8757017
Except vibrations don't work like that otherwise the speed of sound through denser mediums would be nearly as fast as light

>>8757168
what if you push it harder than the speed of sound tho

>>8757076
Of course, the length of the "perfect stik" is not that important -- a perfect stick 1.0167e-9 light second long is as good as one that s a light second long.

Do foot-long sticks break the speed of light when you tap them?

>>8757277
Reifying a shadow may be an error.

There is no shadow-substance sweeping through space, there are only the "beams" of light... which are moving at the speed of guess-what!

>>8764951
"Hardness"of pushing is not a speed.

>>8757343
>but can't measure the speed of force through a stick.
Buy a stick and a strain gauge. Adhere strain gauge to stick, and hook it up to a machine/computer that records the strain at precise increments in time. Repeat at second location on stick. Tap stick.

You may now trivially calculate the speed of force through the stick.

>>8764951
IIRC it will reflect the incident push, transmit it, or deform/break. Usually the latter. That's an area of ongoing inquiry in solid mechanics, however.

>>8758120
This is a good explanation for non-trolls trying to understand.

>>8757179
>information isn't a part of physics

Kek

>>8757168
>>8757173
Redwood, nigga. All you would need is the twig, not even the whole tree. lol

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>>8758988
It's probably a black man cursing in tribal languages. Nobody knows or cares what it means.

>>8757168
A bit more indepth into this post.
Feel free to correct me if I make a mistake or just am straight down incorrect.

The speed of sound is defined by it's density of matter. Sound goes at the speed of sound (Really?) and is a compression of air.
So, the speed of wood would be significantly faster because the spacing between the atoms is less (that means the density is higher) but that could never be at the speed as a massless photon because the speed of sound isn't going at the speed of light either.

>>8765465
>>8757173
The type of wood can define the density. Or a faster 'Speed of wood'
>'Speed of wood' sounds aweful much like a cheesy porn title

>>87666
The wood doesn't move at that speed, so "speed in wood" is probably better

>>8768049
You bumped this thread, a shitty fucking thread that must have been on it's way to 404, for that? You didn't even reply right. Fuck you anon, fuck you.

>>8768053
We brainlets are worthless. Can't even link right. Gives me conniptions.

this entire thread and nothing about planck length sticks

>have a stick one electron long, button at the other end turns off light
>have flashlight at other end, with a light-sensitive strip that will kill you if light touches it
>push stick
>it turns off light before you die since the electron is faster than the light

btfo

>>8757017
Plot twist: the stick can be of arbitrary length.

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>>8768341
>there is still a photon traveling after the button has been pressed
>anon dies before his brain could even register the observation of the deadly experiment