Title text:
Unstoppable force-carrying particles can’t interact with immovable matter by definition.
Transcript:
[An arrow pointing to the right and a trapezoid are labeled as ‘Unstoppable Force’ and ‘Immovable Object’ respectively.]
[The arrow is shown as entering the trapezoid from the left and the part of it in said trapezoid is coloured gray.]
[The arrow is shown as leaving the trapezoid to the right and is coloured black.]
[Caption below the panel:] I don’t see why people find this scenario to be tricky.
Source: https://xkcd.com/3084/
so if god creates rock so heavy that it can’t lift it, its hand just passes through the rock? makes sense.
A rock so heavy you cannot lift it is not an immovable object. Just cause you are weak does not mean you are right.
tell that to god
Dear God,
A rock so heavy you cannot lift it is not an immovable object. Just cause you are weak does not mean you are right.
Kind regards, me
Dear nerd,
Get smote.
God
Joke’s on you, old man! I have a chariot of iron!
Even if they are able to lift it, it still would mean god wasn’t powerful enough to create a rock so heavy even they couldn’t lift it.
Making them essentially weak again.
Bro do you even lift
I create an immovable basketball hoop.
You have an unstoppable basketball.
What’s the issue?
I like to jam, but sometimes I also like to slam
I think if God creates a rock so heavy he can’t lift it, it’s probably a black hole. By definition we can’t know what happens inside a black hole, because no information escapes the event horizon. As it’s now consistent with known physics that we can’t know many aspects of this interaction between God and the black hole, I think this paradox is basically solved. We don’t know any more about the interaction, but it’s no longer a paradox, it’s consistent with physics.
Actually, the new theory is that the hawking radiation exfiltrates information from inside the black hole via quantum entanglement. Of course, it hasn’t been tested yet for obvious reasons.
But black holes have finite mass. By “heavy” you’re implying it’s infinitely heavy or something.
You can definitely also lift a black hole.
Well I don’t know about any objects more massive than black holes. I think a black hole is really the only viable form a body can take once there’s enough matter in one place, like there’s an upper limit for the size of stars and after that anything larger collapses into a black hole.
An object of infinite mass is a contradiction, a universe can’t exist with a single object of infinite mass, it would consume everything instantly.
OK, but being very massive is not the same as what was being discussed.
You can also “lift” a finitely massive black hole with anything else massive.
It may be worth it to decide how we define ‘unstoppable force’ and ‘immovable object’.
An Immovable Object has 0 velocity:
v = 0
Acceleration is the time derivative of velocity:
a = d/dt(v(t))
a = d/dt(0)
a = 0
And we know that
a = Fnet / m
An object with infinite mass would satisfy this equation, but an object with no net force would too. We could add a correction force that will satisfy the constraint of 0 net force.
|Fnet| = 0
∑Fi = 0
Fcorrection + … = 0
To satisfy Newton’s 3rd law, we would need a reaction force to our correction force somewhere, but let’s not worry about that for now.
A physics definition of ‘Unstoppable Force’ is:
|Funstoppable| =/= 0
In this case the gravitational force fits this description, given a few constraints
Fg = Gm∑ Mi / xi2
As long as the gravitational constant G is not 0, our object has mass, and
∑ Mi / xi2 =/= 0, then
|Fg| > 0
But this does feel kinda like cheating because it’s not really what people mean by ‘unstoppable force’. the other way to define it is just immovable object in a different reference frame.
a = 0, |v| > 0
I’m gonna stop here because this is annoying to type out on mobile
God is distinct from the creation and has no physical shape inside the creation so the idea of “object too heavy to lift” is already conceptually nonsensical.
But also in the scope of our physics: What would an object be that is too heavy to “lift” for anyone and anything? It would be the heaviest object in the universe. So what will happen with the heaviest object in the universe? It would be the main center of gravity for everything else. In the same way you cannot “lift” the earth, but rather lift yourself from it as your force will just propel you away from the earth rather than the earth away from you, while you are inside the area dominated by earths gravitational field.
When you jump you are pushing the earth away from yourself a little bit, and then some of your gravity pulls the earth back toward you. You have moved the earth, and for a brief moment your jump has in fact altered Earth’s orbit.
Relative to the sun, which is the next center of gravity. As you go up the chain you end up with the heaviest object which you cannot move relative to anything, as it is the logical point of relative movement for everything else.
Not relative to the sun, relative to momentum. Changes in the magnitude or direction of velocity are objective, not relative. These translate to real changes in momentum, from any reference frame. A real change in momentum is imparted upon the Earth roughly equal to your velocity relative to the earth multiplied by your mass at the moment your contact with the Earth ceases.
ETA: I do actually agree with your salient point above: that lifting an object is relative to a given “down”, and so it is meaningless to expect to be able to “lift” the most massive object in the universe.
You need to be thinking about n-body physics though, everything affects everything. If the earth moves, that moves the sun a little, if the sun moves, that moves the local cluster a little, etc. Why wouldn’t that affect this heaviest object?
I mean, are you suggesting that this heaviest object is simply the center of the universe and that all coordinates are defined around it? Because while that seems practical, I don’t think it’s how matter and space interact.
The universe is expanding everywhere all at once in all directions. So space itself is “moving”. It is impossible to define movement except relative to another object made from matter.
Ok, I think we’re on the same page here. But I’m still not sure about one of your previous comments, you suggested that this “heaviest object” can’t move because it would be the logical reference to which any other body is measured.
But I want to think about that a bit. Let’s say this heaviest object (HO) has something orbiting it and we’re looking at it from earth with a telescope. As the smaller body orbits, we would probably see this HO wobble, right? Meaning that even if it’s the most massive thing around, it’s still affected by other objects, it can be moved.
That is a good question. I have to think about it.
nothing is distinct from xkcd, if it exists there is an xkcd about it
No that doesn’t make sense. The thing you’re alluring at is a classical thought experiment showing contradiction in allmightiness.
P1: God is Almighty, meaning he can do anything
Therefore he must be able to create a stone he can’t lift. But then there is something he can’t do: Either he can not lift the super stone, or he can not create a super stone that he can’t lift.
Easy to resolve that conflict. A creator would by definition be outside the universe since he predated it. However, if he went into the universe, his presence there would be subject to its laws
We can easily say the creator could make an immovable object, within its environment. If the creator went into the environment, he would be subject to its laws, and the front would fall off …. Er, the object would be immovable. However when his being s beyond the environment, creating an immovable object is just part of his plan
lol I am not alluring to anything I am just giving a xkcd twist to this well known paradox
… it’s ‘alluding’, y’all
I don’t know, heavy things attract other things, so maybe it is alluring ;)
An omnipotent and omniscient being would have the ability to change words definitions or logic. They cant be stopped with a logical contradiction