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Re: Hedonism, Happiness, & the God of the Ever-Smaller Gaps
Posted By: Enigma, on host 204.60.51.82
Date: Thursday, June 22, 2000, at 22:40:24
In Reply To: Re: Hedonism, Happiness, & the God of the Ever-Smaller Gaps posted by Brunnen-G on Thursday, June 22, 2000, at 14:40:04:

This is sort of a round-about way of saying what I'm trying to say, so please bear with me:


Scientists have recently made use of a transparent chamber filled with cesium gas, which is normally used to amplify light, to instead speed it up to 300 times c in a vacuum (55.8 million miles per hour). The end apparent result is the beam already exiting the chamber BEFORE it ever enters the chamber in the first place.

The explanation so far runs along the lines of a "precursor" to the light beam, that contains all of the information about the beam, hits the cesium first, and the cesium atoms rebuild the beam of light based on the information in the precursor, and the precursor then bounces back and cancels out the original beam as it enters the chamber, leaving just the "future" beam that's by now already left the chamber.

At least, that's the explanation they gave for the phenomena. Personally, it's way over my head and I think they're just guessing.

Anyway, the moral of the story is, paradoxes (including "apparent" paradoxes) ARE allowed to exist in this universe, but they probaby also have really complicated answers. Light IS allowed to leave the chamber before it ever entered, and free will and predestination ARE allowed to both be true at the same time. I have seen evidence of both in my life.

I personally can easily grasp each one, but not both together... but my failure to grasp the concept does not make it any less true.

- Enigma


Link: NEC Research Technical Reports - Dr. Lijun Wang

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