3 ms·
Well if Betelgeuse explodes, it technically already happened back in the middle ages and we are only just now seeing it.
by bart_spoon 7y ago
Well if Betelgeuse explodes, it technically already happened back in the middle ages and we are only just now seeing it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- perl4ever 7y agoI've started finding this sort of comment very irritating since I've converted to the idea that everything on the surface of a light cone is simultaneous. The meaning of the so called "relativity of simultaneity" appears to me to be that you just shouldn't talk about simultaneous events with spacelike separation.
- whatshisface 7y agoIf you agree that you can say Betelgeuse is far away without someone objecting with "only in a reference frame that isn't close to it!" then you should also agree that there is an implied set of reference frames that are reasonable to use in the interpretation of comments written on Earth. In the same way that "Betelgeuse is far away" means "Betelgeuse is far away from me," the claim that "an event on Betelgeuse that we are observing today happened in the Middle Ages" means that "an event on Betelgeuse that we are observing today happened in the Middle Ages from a reference frame comoving with anyone on Earth."