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Speedometer
Imagine this:
You are jogging and want to know your speed. Easy. Measure the CMB from all directions, and you will see that the CMB becomes bluer in the direction you are moving to, and redder in the direction you are moving from. Is such an instrument possible? In principle of course. The software in the quantum computer inside the device calculates the speed of the earth rotation, movement of the earth, the sun, the galaxy, etc. And subtracts all that giving you a terse reading of 5.2 Km/hour. Besides the small engineering problems :-) does the CMB give us an absolute frame of reference? [[Mod. note -- The CMB gives us a reference frame in the manner the author describes. Whether or not it's appropriate to call this reference frame "absolute" is a different matter. So far as we know the laws of physics don't operate any differently in that frame vs any other frame. E.e., we know of no experiment which can distinguish such a reference frame without "looking out the window" at the outside universe. So the CMB frame is a property of the universe as a whole, but is not a property of the local laws of physics. -- jt]] |
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