Quote:
Originally Posted by Angakuk
Quote:
Originally Posted by davidm
But hold on! Lessans also said that if God turned on the sun at noon, although people on earth would see it instantaneously, they would not see their neighbors standing next to them for some eight and a half minutes, until the light arrived from the sun! OMFG! That works out to light having a velocity of speed c, just like Einstein and everybody else said! 
OMFG! Is there still an undamaged corner of your brain, peacegirl, in which you will notice the BIG FAT CONTRADICTION in the very heart of your father's claim? He said that light both traveled infinitely fast and did not travel infinitely fast at the same time! Holy shit! How, then, can we recaculate the speed of light, peacegirl, to please your royal highness? Lessans said it both was, and was not, infinitely fast at the same time! |
David, you are nearly as bad as peacegirl. There is no contradiction.
According to Lessans we see an object instantly so long as it is big enough and bright enough to be seen. Bright enough to be seen means that there is light (either emitted or reflected) at the object. So, the moment that God turns on the sun there is light present at the sun and we can see the sun instantly. Eight and a half minutes later the light from the sun illuminates objects around us (i.e. our neighbors) and they become instantly visible. I know that this is wrong, but where is the contradiction?
As for the camera, this is a little more complicated and not something that Lessans ever addresses directly, but I will take a stab at explaining it in Lessanese. Suppose that your neighbor is holding a camera at the moment that God turns on the sun. The camera ought to be able to take a picture of the sun at that very moment, but not take a picture of anything else. After eight and a half minutes have passed the camera would be able to take a picture of those objects that are now illuminated by the light of the sun. Obviously there is a small problem here. If, for the camera to function, there has to be light at the camera, how could it take a picture of the sun before the light from the sun has reached the camera? The solution to this problem is fairly simple. The lens of the camera, by virtue of being focused on the sun, bridges the distance between the camera and the sun and makes use of the light present at the sun to expose the film and form an image of the sun. This, I believe, is where "instant lighwaves" come in. When the lens of the camera (or the eye) is focused on the sun these instant lightwaves are capured by the lens and directed onto the film or retina, instantly. I might note that this also answers spacemonkey's question about the red/blue ball.
I hope that this has answered all of your questions and that you will now cease and desist from claiming logical contradictions where none exist.
(Note: I would have let peacegirl make this explanation for herself, but I believe that she is busy right now trying to provide a definition for "instant lightwaves" and "instant reflections".) |
You did really good Angakuk! I just want to add that because the lens is focused on the object, the lightwaves are instantly at the film because in efferent vision the distance between the Sun and the film is not 93 million miles. That is the actual distance. The apparent distance is the space within the field of view of the lens. In other words, the lightwave is already at the film the instant the lens focuses on the object.