Why is the Speed of Light Squared in Special Relativity?

[russ_watters]

Rather hard for me to consider a massless bundle of energy as being an object (or thing) in conventional terms.

No one ever said light was an object, just that it is something, and not nothing. You're being really loose with your word usage here.

When we're talking about things that do not necessarily conform to our sense of time and space how (when the process is uncertain) can we be sure that the observable result is the only result?

That's a philosophical question (what is science?). The answer is that in order for science to work, we cannot randomly assume the existence of things for which we have no data. Thus your question of what goes on with radiation through a window is moot: if the energy measured on one side is the same as that measured on the other, then there can be only one conclusion: the photons are interchangeable.

As for "conform[ing] to our sense of time and space", you're looking at science backwards: you must conform your "sense" to the "observable result," not the other way around. If your "sense" doesn't match the observable result, then its wrong, period.

I don't have a philosophic problem with light–I have a problem understanding photons.

You have a problem with both - you don't understand light, and you don't understand how science works. As a result, you're making things up as you go along and not really listening to people who are trying to teach you.

Again, please tell me if I am making factual errors when I say that:

Ok...
1. Correct.
2. Not specific enough. If you're talking about em radiation (light, radio waves, etc), saying it is a wave is an incomplete (at best) explanation of what a "photon" is.
3. Sounds about right.
4. Again, if you mean em radiation, essentially yes - objects radiate energy as a function of their temperature.
5. Your characterization of light as waves is inaccurate/incomplete. That statement is pretty much meaningless.
6. The nature of light conforms to my "sense" just fine. Again, if it doesn't conform to your "sense", you need to change your "sense" to conform to it. Human knowledge is all learned. Apparently, you have learned incorrectly (not terribly surprising, since in high school, they teach a version so watered down it gives people incorrect impressions of what is really going on).

 

[Swampeast Mike]

"To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"

E = M (C^2)

Where is the opposite when time and space are relative across the equivalence?

If time and space were the same, the first atomic bomb would have unified the universe.

 

[russ_watters]

Mike, that entire post is gibberish. To use my word-of-the-week, its meaningless word-salad.

 

[jtbell]

"To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction"

E = M (C^2)

Where is the opposite when time and space are relative across the equivalence?

"Action" and "reaction" in your statement of Newton's Third Law of Motion refer specifically to the forces (as in F = ma) that objects exert on each other. You are generalizing those words into a context where the statement has no physical meaning.

A more explicitly restricted statement of the Third Law is: "If object A exerts a force on object B, then object B exerts a force on object A which is equal in magnitude and opposite in direction."

 

[Janus]

This thread has more than outlived any usefulness.