speed of light

[AntonioLao]

Planck's constant is an irrational number determined by experiment as the ratio of a photon's energy divided by its frequency.

http://home.att.net/~numericana/answer/constants.htm#h

[paul tatham]

You cannot solve problems by maths alone, you have to use logic.
Maths is a virtual device and you get unrealistic answers that are imposible in the real world - like 'multiple dimensions'.
The speed of light is due to the time it takes in the process of converting energy into mass as in E = mc2.
Mass is space. Nothing can move until space is created. It is the electromagnetic wave produced by a particle.
If energy is applied to a particle it accelerates and produces space (wave), but eventually space cannot be made fast enough and so acceleration stops.
Paul

[dleviwing]

Nice idea paul, but it has the same drawbacks as our current Standard Models, no practical cause-and-effect mechanism. I might add that nature is not as complex as everyone seems to think.

[Coldcreation]

Nice idea paul, but it has the same drawbacks as our current Standard Models, no practical cause-and-effect mechanism. I might add that nature is not as complex as everyone seems to think.

You're right. In almost every natural phenomenon, there is a competition between order and disorder. The tendency is towards equilibrium. We happen to be far-from-equilibrium systems and so our thoughts diverge often towards the complex, but we are more of an exception than the rule. Most observable things in the universe are simple in comparison: stars, galaxies, atoms, etc. The laws of nature are basic, simple, fundamental.

I forgot who said it (George Bataille perhaps) but it was something like: 'It is far more difficult to write one coherent sentence than it is to write an entire paragraph.'

But at the same time history has taught us it is essential we remain on guard against over-simplifications and dubious interpretations.

Most great ideas, though, have united two previously independent concepts, which is in effect a simplification, a unification.

It was Einstein that stressed the importance of the geometrical relations between things. It was also he who fused the prior notion of an object as an independent concept into a system together with the proper spatiotemporal structure.

It was he too who noted the general view that geometry together with the totality of the physical laws can predicate the behavior of real things.

And the existence of spacetime in the real world is not independent of matter (energy) and field. The field is a structural quality of space. The field does not claim existence on its own. And so, we have a setting within which all events, happenings, fields (electromagnetic, gravitational), ponderable bodies (both animate and inanimate) along with their spatiotemporal surroundings can be described by the same natural laws.

Not bad for starters. Though for some reason, I think there is still simplification and unification to be made on the horizon.

coldcreation