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Cake day: September 6th, 2024

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  • WoodScientist@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlWhy would'nt this work?
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    14 hours ago

    It would work, but only in the impossible world where you have a perfectly rigid unbreakable stick. But such an object cannot exist in this universe.

    Pick up a solid rigid object near you. Anything will do, a coffee cup, a comb, a water bottle, anything. Pick it up from the top and lift it vertically. Observe it.

    It seems as though the whole object moves instantaneously, does it not? It seems that the bottom of the object starts moving at the exact same instant as the top. But it is actually not the case. Every material has a certain elasticity to it. Everything deforms slightly under the tiniest of forces. Even a solid titanium rod deforms a little bit from the weight of a feather placed upon it. And this lack of perfect rigidity means that there is a very, very slight delay from when you start lifting the top of the object to when the bottom of it starts moving.

    For small objects that you can manipulate with your hands, this delay is imperceptible to your senses. But if you observed an object being lifted with very precise scientific equipment, you could actually measure this delay. Motion can only transfer through objects at a finite speed. Specifically, it can only move at the speed of sound through the material. Your perfectly rigid object would have an infinite speed of sound within it. So yes, it would instantly transfer that motion. But with any real material, the delay wouldn’t just be noticeable, but comically large.

    Imagine this stick were made of steel. The speed of sound in steel is about 5120 m/s. The distance to the Moon is about 400,000 km. Converting and dividing shows that it would actually take about 22 hours for a pulse like that to travel through a steel pole that long. (Ignoring how the steel pole would be supported.)

    So in fact, you are both right and wrong. You are correct for the object you describe. A perfectly rigid object would be usable as a tool of FTL communication. But such an object simply cannot exist in this universe.





  • The president is also openly corrupt, by orders of magnitude more. That crypto scheme for one is just a blatantly obvious bribery mechanism. Sure, the justices serve for life. But if a president is willing to directly violate explicit court orders, he could easily decide not to leave office as well. He could issue an executive order saying, "in my opinion, the two-term limit doesn’t apply because <bullshit reasons.> And then when the court rules against him, just ignore their ruling. A lawless president is a president for life.

    Ultimately, philosophically, I don’t see why a president that openly defies the law should enjoy the protections of the law. Want to be lawless? Then you can be an outlaw. Those who live by the sword should die by the sword.












  • I guess he could be trying to provoke mass unrest so he can declare a national emergency and start shooting people.

    He’s running the Hitlerian playbook. Why do you think he’s engaging in mass persecution of various minority groups? Behind hatred, his real goal is power. If you put the screws on people hard enough, eventually people start setting off bombs and executing reprisal shootings. If you ruin enough people’s lives, some are bound to respond violently. Then you can use that violence to declare an emergency. And as we saw after 9/11, nothing increases a presidential power like acts of terrorism.