Mapmyrun.com Question (Read 1707 times)

I think you may be on to something.

Wait a second! Are you calling me smart?!?!

Man, I hate to bring this up, but I'm not so sure you guys have it solved yet. Glob had the basics of relativity without actually figuring in relativity itself. The distance of a meter is Chicago vs New Orleans in his example is based on the idea that the poles are stationary and that Chicago and New Orleans are not. Unfortunately, we all know that nothing in the universe is ever stationary. The poles, much like Chicago and New Orleans, are hurtling through space at breakneck speed. But that's neither here nor there. The part that was left out of Glob's example was that the distances in Chicago and New Orleans are not measured relative to the poles or even to one another. Instead they are measured relative to the position of the satellite at the time. Now that brings up a whole bunch of issues. Was the satellite "stationary" relative to both locations at the time the photos were taken? Were the photos even taken with the satellite in the same position? For all we know the satellite gathered data over Chicago and then moved to a point of exactly equal distance above New Orleans to gather data there. If that's the case then both sets of data were collected from points equally relative which means the measurements would be equal. As for the idea that New Orleans is traveling faster through space and therefore would measure a meter differently than Chicago, this also overlooks special relativity as it pertains to the topic. If we assume SR and Lorentz to be accurate, then we must also consider that the transformations are made once again relative to a "stationary" pole. The reality is that a runner in Chicago will experience a meter to be exactly the same distance as a runner in New Orleans. This is because Lorentz has the same effect on the runner as it does on the road. The runner's strides and even his / her feet would decrease in size at exactly the same proportion that the measure of a meter decreases in size. The result would be that the runner in Chicago expends just as much energy and travels an equal distance ( relative to the runner, and that's all we really care about ) as the runner in New Orleans. Long story short.... when viewed experientially the distance is equal and therefore any discussion of special relativity and Lorentz is a red herring.

It all makes sense now.

Indeed. Just as I suspected, the stationary poles are for the dancers. Not for some silly misapplication of science.

"They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper...you f-ed up!" - Chris Rock

BTW, bringing into this discussion a theory originally designed to measure stuff at speeds near that which light travels and applying it to runners... total +10!

If a train leaves Chicago at 9:00 AM traveling at 100 miles an hour, and a train leaves New Orleans at 9:30 AM traveling 150 miles an hour.... ah, nevermind.

... at the very same time Trent's race starts, they will both derail due to the effect of all his participants' pounding the earth into a new rotational pattern.

Import/Export are on the short list that will follow the log update (which I have previewed and which is pretty cool) and will come with GPS import. Worth the wait. Map resize I understand is coming as well, and lord knows I have asked for it for my big monitor at work. And I'm hurt. How dare you snark in such a snark-free thread?!? For real question though: if adblock blocks a section of the screen, then what makes the wasted now-white-space any better than the wasted then-ad-space? Then again, given how rarely I need to import/export my maps, I don't see the need to spend 12 seconds a day teaching my computer to filter ads.