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Dear George,

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Don't worry. I understand. In my ignorance, I didn't realize I had asked such a difficult question.

I guess there is no dictionary that translates Maths into English.

Apparently the pope's god was also speaking in coded language when he told Benedict XVI to "climb the mountain".

I heard on the radio this morning that the Vatican spokesman explained that the pope will retire to a monastery in the Vatican city called "Mater Ecclesiae" which is currently under renovation and will be prepared for his arrival.

It seems the monastery is just a stone's throw from St. Peter's Basilica and the luxurious papal apartments in the Vatican Palace.

According to the spokesman, Benedict XVI will not be cloistered but entirely free to come and go as he pleases. Just like any other retired gentleman of his age.

Let's hope the pope and his spokesman got that translation right. Otherwise he might find himself headed off in the wrong direction.

Might I add that although no god said anything to me about it at the time, I guess I too "climbed the mountain" a few years ago ... without knowing it.

Indeed, it seems there are so many people "climbing the mountain" these days (without knowing it) it's not sure we shall all manage to survive up here.

It shouldn't be a problem for Benedict XVI though. He will have free board and lodgings, a comfortable old-age pension, a well-furnished library, a private secretary, a team of nuns to look after his every need and a vegetable garden of 500m2 with peppers, eggplants, and orange and lemon trees to supply fruit for preparing his favourite jams.

Nothing like that where I am. Maybe I "climbed the wrong mountain".

Here's Benedict's "mountain":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9S-O104E4o&feature=youtube_gdata

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Dear Banjo Paterson,

I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree to a degree with George's take on this.

It was Einstein's imagination that gave him the insights that made him arguably the greatest physicist who ever lived.

It was that imagination that gave rise to thought experiments like;

"I realized that if I was riding on a beam of light , time for me would stop."

In his later years he became obsessed with conquering the mathematics that would allow for a grand theory of everything but in doing so he forewent the vivid imagery that had made him what he was.

The maths is of course quite important but take it from me your imagination can take you a long way into physics without any great competency.

For instance take my sun scenario posed earlier. If the sun were to suddenly disappear then the conventional wisdom is that it would take a little over 8 minutes for an observer here on earth to register the fact it had gone. Or would it? If the source of gravity that forces the Earth into an elliptical orbit is suddenly removed would the Earth then begin a tangential trajectory instead of continuing as it had been? Would the effect be felt instantaneously? Or does the fact that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light mean that we would experience darkness before a change in the Earth's path?

BTW you actually ask some pretty good questions particularly this one; ”Or does he employ the term "observer" figuratively? In other words, does he consider that his theory is valid even if the "observer" were an innate object.”

Quantum mechanics and the double slit experiments throw up some really interesting answers. For instance the 'spin' of particles are in limbo until an observation is made. Once that occurs then another particle entangled with the first but potentially light years away will reveal its state.

You might enjoy this.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6546462/The-10-weirdest-physics-facts-from-relativity-to-quantum-physics.html

csteele,

"Would the effect be felt instantaneously? Or does the fact that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light mean that we would experience darkness before a change in the Earth's path?

We'd notice darkness and a change in gravitational pull at exactly the same moment.

Warps and ripples in spacetime travel at exactly the speed of light.

Dear Poirot,

"in the case of two gravitoelectrically interacting particle ensembles, such as two planets or stars moving at constant velocity with respect to each other, each body feels a force which is directed at the instantaneous position of the other body, without a speed-of-light delay."

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_gravity#section_5

;)

Dear csteele,

"If one of two gravitoelectrically interacting particles were to SUDDENLY BE DISPLACED (accelerated) from its position, the other particle would not feel the change due to the acceleration, until a delay corresponding with the speed of light." (from your link).

csteele,

On the subject of sudden displacement.

From "The Fabric of the Cosmos":

"...how quickly can warps and ripples--ripples like those on the surface of a pond caused by a plunging pebble--race from place to place through space? Einstein was able to work this out, and the answer he came to was enormously gratifying. He found that warps and ripples--gravity, that is--do not travel from place to place instantaneously, as they do in Newtonian calculations of gravity. Instead, "they travel at exactly the speed of light". Not a bit faster or slower, fully in keeping with the speed limit set by special relativity. If aliens plucked the moon from its orbit [his earlier example], the tides would recede a second and a half later, at the exact same moment we'd see that the moon had vanished. Where Newton's theory failed, Einstein's general relativity prevailed."

(As George noted from your link)