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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 27, 2011 21:40:14 GMT 1
Does light carry information such that in principle you could retrieve information about earth's distant past?
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Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 28, 2011 3:13:58 GMT 1
Starting at earth, you could travel 4o light years away, and be receiving TV signals from forty years ago! But since it would take you more than 40 years to get there (travelling at less than lightspeed), you'd be more up to date if you just stayed at home and watched cable.
Light signals from earths past are in theory still out there, as far away in lightyears as they are in the past in time. So light from a million years ago is a million lightyears from earth. But since it is travelling at lightspeed, we couldn't catch it up -- by the time we'd travelled a milllion lightyears, it would still be MORE than a million lightyears ahead of us.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 28, 2011 8:35:37 GMT 1
Does light carry information such that in principle you could retrieve information about earth's distant past? Don't know why you ask this question Abacus as you know the answer as well as anyone else - well, certainly as well as me! Ae we look at the night sky we are looking at history, but not mich happens because the few hundred years we have been looking at are at a very early stage when nothing much happened. Now if there are alliens on a planet 4-light years away and they they have super-sensitive telescopes that can eliminate the enormous interference frrom other light sources then they could beo bserving today out history from 4 years ago. Hope they don't look at Cornation Street, it is so over-the-top and will give them an even more awful impression of Manchester than it really is. PS -Have you noticed how polite STA is after she exposed her unscientific ignorance on the 'Bollocks To Infinity' thread? Looks as if something worthwhile might have emerged out of those pageloads of startling tripe and insults I wouldn't bet that it will last though |
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 28, 2011 10:44:17 GMT 1
Ok, thanks to both of you. The reason why this question occurred to me was because I was watching a tv programme about dinosaurs and about the people who dig them up and try to piece together what they were like, and I thought if we could (in the distant future) somehow retrieve the images contained in the light at the time of the dinosaurs we could actually see what they were like.
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 28, 2011 10:45:52 GMT 1
Yes, let's hope she's gonna be a good girl now.  |
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Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 28, 2011 12:47:53 GMT 1
No I'm not! You have exposed nothing apart from your own appalling intransigence and inability to reason or learn.
On this thread, a polite question was asked and answered, hence I was polite.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 28, 2011 14:15:41 GMT 1
On this thread, a polite question was asked and answered, hence I was polite. ;D Hmmm.. I hpe that this is the new you, because I recall when Abacus asked you polite questions on the calculus, you called him an ignorant idiot ;D |
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Post by abacus9900 on Jan 30, 2011 12:34:22 GMT 1
Yeah, but from STA that's almost a compliment! |
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