Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ncis.llnl.gov!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!ucsd!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ethan
From: ethan@ut-emx.UUCP (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Relativity
Summary: no infinities in SR
Message-ID: <9686@ut-emx.UUCP>
Date: 21 Jan 89 16:51:08 GMT
References: <601361839.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
Lines: 37

In article <601361839.amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU>, Dale.Amon@H.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes:
> I would say that I don't believe for one instance that there is such a
> thing as infinite mass, no matter how fast you go. I suspect SOMETHING
> will break long before that, EVEN IF YOU CAN GET THE ENERGY TO KEEP
> ACCELERATING.
>  ... 
> I suspect that when you get up to those high energies that you will
> enter the realm where quantum theory cannot be ignored even for
> macroscopic objects.
> 
> I'm not saying that the speed of light is not necessarily a 'limit',
> but that infinities just don't happen. They aren't neat. And Hawking
> doesn't like them, so who am I to differ?

These are not the type of infinities that pose any real physical
problem.  The troublesome infinities are those where an (apparently)
physically realizable system evolves to contain infinities, like
the collapse of a massive cold object into a black hole with a 
central singularity.  SR includes no such problems.  It may be wrong,
but there are no singularities in it that guarantee that it's wrong.

GR, of course, is a different story.








-- 
 I'm not afraid of dying     Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy, Univ. of Texas
 I just don't want to be     {charm,ut-sally,ut-emx,noao}!utastro!ethan
 there when it happens.      (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU
    - Woody Allen            (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU

These must be my opinions.  Who else would bother?