Supersonic Jets

Supersonic jets travel faster than the speed of sound. So is it difficult to maintain a communication with that plane? The plane will be able to contact the ground control, but how will the 'voice' of ground control reach the plane if it is traveling faster than the speend of sound?

I know that was a dumb one. Because the medium of transferring the 'voice' will be radio waves which travel at the speed of light. (Hmm... but this seemed a promising idea when it struck me first.)

Now check out this another scenario. Now the plane travels at the speed of light. How is communication possible with that plane? I suspect that the theory of relativity (I don't know whether the general theory or the special one) will take care of that also. But I have never really attempted to understand it (or rather it would be more appropriate {and honest} to say that I did not understand it!).

Time travel!

I came to Dubai recently. The flight from Mumbai takes almost two and a half hours to reach Dubai. When I reached, I had to set time to GMT+4 i.e. one and a half hours before the IST.

WOW! I get extra 1.5 hours in my life till I am here! So do I live more?

Or, to get those extra 1.5 hours, I spent 2.5 hours travelling... so do I lose 1 hour of my life? Oh, confusing! Or is time just an illusion?

In the longer term

In the long term everything is good. How long is the long term is the general "FAQ" for this term. My question is not that. This post is specifically related to investment in equity shares and the "long term".

They say, if you are a real 'investor' your investment horizon is bound to be "long term". In the long term, the returns are assured. But how is this "long term" measured? Is it with respect to our life spans or without any reference? So a question that comes to mind is "Are these assured returns in the "long term" going to be realised within our life spans?"

Consider a depression lasting for 60 years or more. If one is 40-45 years old at the start of such a depression, he/she will not last long to survive any such depression period. What about our "safe" long term then? Is it really safe? My question is exactly that: Is long term really safe?

Fuel...

For faster traffic, we are manipulating traffic flows by turning roads into one ways, banning a few (rather convenient) turns, diversions etc. Aren't we making people take longer routes resulting in accelerated fuel consumtion? Are we consuming the little of what is left of fuel rather too fast? Should private vehicles be banned and public transport be made mandatory? (At least till the time we find some alternative to conventional fuels...)

Sum total of living beings

The total energy in the universe remains constant. Does, in a similar way, the sum total of living beings remain constant? So can the rise in human population be explained by way of extinct species?

Souls...

If souls are immortal, are we over-populating the 'Soul-land' by over-populating earth? Or is that taken care of by re-births?