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Modern time travel: A possibility?

KING LITERATEKING LITERATE Registered User regular
edited January 2007 in Debate and/or Discourse
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  • AroducAroduc regular
    edited December 2006
    sdf

    Aroduc on
  • mccmcc glitch Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    I find the 'objections' section interesting.
    In a recent paper by Ken D. Olum and Allen Everett[1] the authors claimed to have found problems with Mallett's analysis. One of their objections is that the spacetime which Mallett used in his analysis contains a singularity even when the power to the laser is off, and is not the spacetime that would be expected to arise naturally if the circulating laser were turned on in previously empty space. Mallett has not offered a published response to Olum and Everett, but in his book Time Traveler he mentions that he was unable to directly model the optical fiber or photonic crystal which bends the light's path as it travels through it, so the light circulates around rather than moving in a straight line...

    Another objection by Olum and Everett is that even if Mallett's choice of spacetime were correct, the energy required to twist spacetime sufficiently would be huge, and that with lasers of the type in use today the ring would have to be much larger than the observable universe.
    Incidentally, as far as frame dragging goes, apparently Gravity Probe B FINALLY finished and they'll be releasing the results this upcoming April.

    mcc on
  • KING LITERATEKING LITERATE Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    mcc wrote:
    I find the 'objections' section interesting.
    In a recent paper by Ken D. Olum and Allen Everett[1] the authors claimed to have found problems with Mallett's analysis. One of their objections is that the spacetime which Mallett used in his analysis contains a singularity even when the power to the laser is off, and is not the spacetime that would be expected to arise naturally if the circulating laser were turned on in previously empty space. Mallett has not offered a published response to Olum and Everett, but in his book Time Traveler he mentions that he was unable to directly model the optical fiber or photonic crystal which bends the light's path as it travels through it, so the light circulates around rather than moving in a straight line...

    Another objection by Olum and Everett is that even if Mallett's choice of spacetime were correct, the energy required to twist spacetime sufficiently would be huge, and that with lasers of the type in use today the ring would have to be much larger than the observable universe.
    Incidentally, as far as frame dragging goes, apparently Gravity Probe B FINALLY finished and they'll be releasing the results this upcoming April.


    About that, why don't they use Dark matter?

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  • mccmcc glitch Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    About that, why don't they use Dark matter?
    Because we still don't know exactly what dark matter is and it's only been in the last year (by some people's estimation), it's really been conclusively shown that dark matter even exists at all, and I don't think we actually know how to make any?

    And use it for what?

    mcc on
  • GarthorGarthor Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    mcc wrote:
    About that, why don't they use Dark matter?
    Because we still don't know exactly what dark matter is and it's only been in the last year (by some people's estimation), it's really been conclusively shown that dark matter even exists at all, and I don't think we actually know how to make any?

    And use it for what?

    It makes it easier to explain how things work. You don't actually have to provide any scientific explanation, you just have to say "It's all powered by this dark matter reactor." If anybody asks how that makes it work, what the hell a dark matter reactor is, or where the hell you got one, you just say, "Dude. Dark matter."

    Garthor on
  • KING LITERATEKING LITERATE Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    mcc wrote:
    About that, why don't they use Dark matter?
    Because we still don't know exactly what dark matter is and it's only been in the last year (by some people's estimation), it's really been conclusively shown that dark matter even exists at all, and I don't think we actually know how to make any?

    And use it for what?

    My bad. I kinda forgot what it was.

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  • For the FutureFor the Future ClubPA regular
    edited December 2006
    Now we are playing with portals.

    For the Future on
  • Hi I'm Vee!Hi I'm Vee! Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C E Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I'm sorry, I don't understand any of this science.

    Can Mad_Morlock please explain it to me?

    Edit: If time is the fourth dimension, shouldn't it be e=mc^4?

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  • RichyRichy Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I'm sorry, I don't understand any of this science.

    Can Mad_Morlock please explain it to me?

    Edit: If time is the fourth dimension, shouldn't it be e=mc^4?
    But you're only traveling in time. In one dimension. So it's e=mc^1. You don't need the other e=mc^3.

    Richy on
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  • KING LITERATEKING LITERATE Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Richy wrote:
    I'm sorry, I don't understand any of this science.

    Can Mad_Morlock please explain it to me?

    Edit: If time is the fourth dimension, shouldn't it be e=mc^4?
    But you're only traveling in time. In one dimension. So it's e=mc^1. You don't need the other e=mc^3.



    I thought that time and space together was the 4th dimension, which is what Mallett is using in his experiment?

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  • MahnmutMahnmut Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Now we are playing with portals.

    :whistle: There's a hole in the sky
    Through which things can fly :whistle:

    Mahnmut on
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  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited December 2006
    Richy wrote:
    I'm sorry, I don't understand any of this science.

    Can Mad_Morlock please explain it to me?

    Edit: If time is the fourth dimension, shouldn't it be e=mc^4?
    But you're only traveling in time. In one dimension. So it's e=mc^1. You don't need the other e=mc^3.



    I thought that time and space together was the 4th dimension, which is what Mallett is using in his experiment?

    Time isn't really the fourth dimension. It's a dimension, in the sense that it's a parameter you can use to measure and graph shit.

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  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    ElJeffe wrote:
    Richy wrote:
    I'm sorry, I don't understand any of this science.

    Can Mad_Morlock please explain it to me?

    Edit: If time is the fourth dimension, shouldn't it be e=mc^4?
    But you're only traveling in time. In one dimension. So it's e=mc^1. You don't need the other e=mc^3.



    I thought that time and space together was the 4th dimension, which is what Mallett is using in his experiment?

    Time isn't really the fourth dimension. It's a dimension, in the sense that it's a parameter you can use to measure and graph shit.

    I believe that we were orginally mocking Morlock, but the question got treated seriously.

    Fencingsax on
  • Hi I'm Vee!Hi I'm Vee! Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C E Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Richy wrote:
    I'm sorry, I don't understand any of this science.

    Can Mad_Morlock please explain it to me?

    Edit: If time is the fourth dimension, shouldn't it be e=mc^4?
    But you're only traveling in time. In one dimension. So it's e=mc^1. You don't need the other e=mc^3.

    So, it's e=mc, as long as you don't move.

    If you move, though, even a little bit, the computer goes apeshit because it's only programmed to calculate e=mc, not e=mc^4.

    Sounds dangerous.

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  • AroducAroduc regular
    edited December 2006
    Richy wrote:
    I'm sorry, I don't understand any of this science.

    Can Mad_Morlock please explain it to me?

    Edit: If time is the fourth dimension, shouldn't it be e=mc^4?
    But you're only traveling in time. In one dimension. So it's e=mc^1. You don't need the other e=mc^3.

    So, it's e=mc, as long as you don't move.

    If you move, though, even a little bit, the computer goes apeshit because it's only programmed to calculate e=mc, not e=mc^4.

    Sounds dangerous.

    Unless you're mcc and e=mcc. That throws everything out of whack though.

    Aroduc on
  • JCMJCM Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    So des that mean people will get to kill Hitler back in time?

    JCM on
  • Hi I'm Vee!Hi I'm Vee! Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C E Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    JCM wrote:
    So des that mean people will get to kill Hitler back in time?

    Well yes, but the time machine would be powered by the souls of innocent children.

    So which is it? Kill Hitler and destroy innocent children souls? Or save those innocent children, and allow the Holocaust to happen?

    Keep the Holocaust: It's For the Children.

    Hi I'm Vee! on
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  • jackisrealjackisreal Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I thought e=mc2 just meant that at high speeds energy and matter can turn into one another?

    jackisreal on
  • Knuckle DraggerKnuckle Dragger Explosive Ovine Disposal Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    If this guy thinks he is going to travel through time, I hope he is inventing a teleportation device as well. So far as I can figure it, a one second shift would pretty much have you sucking vaccuum (I suppose if conditions were just right, you might end up somewhere in Earth's mantle. Not that that would be any better).

    Knuckle Dragger on
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  • matt has a problemmatt has a problem Points to 'off' Points to 'on'Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I'd like to be the first person in the thread to state that I do not believe time travel is possible, nor does it or will it ever exist. The mere fact that we are discussing whether time travel is possible tells me that it is not, as if it were we wouldn't be having this discussion, since someone at some point would have/will have discovered time travel, and everyone would know about it.

    Now, this is not to say that it's not possible to manipulate our perception of time. Atomic clocks placed aboard various missions to the moon, synchronized on launch with atomic clocks on earth, when returned to earth were fractions of a second slower than the clocks that remained on earth. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, stating that time and space are percieved differently based on the observer, has been verified experimentally. But all these things do is deal with our perception of time, not time itself. Time, for all intents and purposes, is an invention of man, a simple system of counting to show duration of an object.

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  • KazhiimKazhiim __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    If this guy thinks he is going to travel through time, I hope he is inventing a teleportation device as well. So far as I can figure it, a one second shift would pretty much have you sucking vaccuum (I suppose if conditions were just right, you might end up somewhere in Earth's mantle. Not that that would be any better).

    You could use the sun and the earth as reference points for the, uh, gravity wells, and... uh.

    Time travel is silly.

    Kazhiim on
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  • KazhiimKazhiim __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    Atomic clocks placed aboard various missions to the moon, synchronized on launch with atomic clocks on earth, when returned to earth were fractions of a second slower than the clocks that remained on earth.
    But all these things do is deal with our perception of time, not time itself.

    Nuh uh. Atomic clocks are based on the decay of elements. The desynchronization of the clock isn't based on our perception of the clock, it's based on the fact that the decay of that element was slowed down. Unless you've discovered some principle of motion that effects half-lifes, that could only happen if that clock was moving slower through time. Or faster.

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  • matt has a problemmatt has a problem Points to 'off' Points to 'on'Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Kazhiim wrote:
    Atomic clocks placed aboard various missions to the moon, synchronized on launch with atomic clocks on earth, when returned to earth were fractions of a second slower than the clocks that remained on earth.
    But all these things do is deal with our perception of time, not time itself.

    Nuh uh. Atomic clocks are based on the decay of elements. The desynchronization of the clock isn't based on our perception of the clock, it's based on the fact that the decay of that element was slowed down. Unless you've discovered some principle of motion that effects half-lifes, that could only happen if that clock was moving slower through time. Or faster.
    To the astronauts, the clock never changed. To the people on the ground, the clock ran slower. The decay remained static to the people traveling at the speed of the clock, but slowed to the people who were static. Again, perception of time, not a time change itself. And honestly, not even a perception of time, but a perception of the speed of light. Which of course deals with time, but man is this a pain in the ass to extrapolate upon. We need Captain Planet rings, but for Einstein...

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  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    eventually he will just start spinning over in his grave so fast that he travels back in time and comes back to live.

    redx on
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  • Knuckle DraggerKnuckle Dragger Explosive Ovine Disposal Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    redx wrote:
    eventually he will just start spinning over in his grave so fast that he travels back in time and comes back to live.

    Everything I need to know about time travel, I learned from Superman.

    Knuckle Dragger on
    Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.

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  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    redx wrote:
    eventually he will just start spinning over in his grave so fast that he travels back in time and comes back to live.

    Everything I need to know about time travel, I learned from Superman.

    err... well I wasn't even thinking about that. The wiki article seemed to basiclly be talking about doing the same thing, but with a freaking laser. Rotional velocity causing frame drag. I don't really get how that would let you travel anywhere, but...

    meh.

    redx on
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  • KazhiimKazhiim __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    redx wrote:
    redx wrote:
    eventually he will just start spinning over in his grave so fast that he travels back in time and comes back to live.

    Everything I need to know about time travel, I learned from Superman.

    err... well I wasn't even thinking about that. The wiki article seemed to basiclly be talking about doing the same thing, but with a freaking laser. Rotional velocity causing frame drag. I don't really get how that would let you travel anywhere, but...

    meh.

    The concept of light having gravity is interesting, but couldn't they just figure that out by comparing the gravity of the sun versus the theoretical gravity of a dark object of the same mass? I think the sun emits enough light where you'd see a discrepancy.

    Kazhiim on
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  • TimmoTimmo Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I'd like to be the first person in the thread to state that I do not believe time travel is possible, nor does it or will it ever exist. The mere fact that we are discussing whether time travel is possible tells me that it is not, as if it were we wouldn't be having this discussion, since someone at some point would have/will have discovered time travel, and everyone would know about it.

    Now, this is not to say that it's not possible to manipulate our perception of time. Atomic clocks placed aboard various missions to the moon, synchronized on launch with atomic clocks on earth, when returned to earth were fractions of a second slower than the clocks that remained on earth. Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, stating that time and space are percieved differently based on the observer, has been verified experimentally. But all these things do is deal with our perception of time, not time itself. Time, for all intents and purposes, is an invention of man, a simple system of counting to show duration of an object.


    From what I understand on my reading of time travel theory. The reason we don't see time travlers is because time travlers can not go into the past beyond the point that time travel is discovered. It would break the universe or something.

    Timmo on
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  • KazhiimKazhiim __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    Timmo wrote:
    From what I understand on my reading of time travel theory. The reason we don't see time travlers is because time travlers can not go into the past beyond the point that time travel is discovered. It would break the universe or something.

    Something doesn't exist by being discovered. That's silly. Let's get back to the serious topic at hand: time travel.


    (I am John Titor)

    Kazhiim on
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  • TimmoTimmo Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    well. Technically time travel is one of the very few things that can come into exsistance by being discovered.

    Essentially its broken down like this:

    in 2006 there were no time travelers, because time travel did not exsist.

    in 2007 there are time travelers eveywhere, because off in Sweden time travel is discovered.

    I know its hard to wrap your head around, but try to imagine for a second that we dont see time travelers because time travel hasnt been invented yet. Time travel can only occur in a time period where time travel exists.

    excuse the terrible typos and grammar. Im drunk and from West Virginia.

    Timmo on
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  • IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Unless time travel somehow involves creating "Free time zones" or something, that's an absolutely bullshit rationality bordering on the "God of the gaps" notion.

    Incenjucar on
  • KazhiimKazhiim __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    which came first: the chicken who time travelled, or the egg who, uh, invented time travel? I don't know.

    Kazhiim on
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  • AgemAgem Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Kazhiim wrote:
    redx wrote:
    redx wrote:
    eventually he will just start spinning over in his grave so fast that he travels back in time and comes back to live.

    Everything I need to know about time travel, I learned from Superman.
    err... well I wasn't even thinking about that. The wiki article seemed to basiclly be talking about doing the same thing, but with a freaking laser. Rotional velocity causing frame drag. I don't really get how that would let you travel anywhere, but...

    meh.
    The concept of light having gravity is interesting, but couldn't they just figure that out by comparing the gravity of the sun versus the theoretical gravity of a dark object of the same mass? I think the sun emits enough light where you'd see a discrepancy.
    According to general relativity, the energy and momentum of light curves spacetime, so theoretically light does exert a gravitational force, but the force would be much too small to measure under normal circumstances. I'm not sure if anyone's done what you're suggesting, but I can say that if anyone had shown that light didn't have gravity, we'd know about it because it would be something wrong with GR.
    Timmo wrote:
    in 2006 there were no time travelers, because time travel did not exsist.

    in 2007 there are time travelers eveywhere, because off in Sweden time travel is discovered.

    I know its hard to wrap your head around, but try to imagine for a second that we dont see time travelers because time travel hasnt been invented yet. Time travel can only occur in a time period where time travel exists.
    Wait, are you saying like "in 2007 BCE there were no sailors because boats did not exist, but in 2006 BCE there were sailors because off around Sweden boats were discoevered?" Because that's just silly, even if it's accurate.

    What we're saying is that if there were time travelers, we'd know, because we would have met them. The whole "you can only time travel back as far as the first time travel device" is stupid and made up purely to explain why we haven't seen any time travelers (seriously, there is no way the universe itself is keeping tabs on humanity and deciding to force physical reality to allow time travel only to the point where humanity first discovered it). You might as well say "you can only time travel back as far as the point where everyone believes time travel is real."

    EDIT: Further note: saying "you can only time travel back as far as the creation of the first instance of time travel" precludes time travel from ever existing, for fairly obvious reasons. You can't ever travel back in time for the first time if you can't travel back in time past the first time.

    Agem on
  • IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Ultimately, the answer is this:

    Some sci-fi writers are visionaries.

    Some sci-fi writers are morons.

    Incenjucar on
  • KazhiimKazhiim __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2006
    Agem wrote:
    You might as well say "you can only time travel back as far as the point where everyone believes time travel is real."

    So in other words, the Technocracy preventing time travel from existing by making sure nobody believes it exists!

    Time travel is a silly sci-fi idea. Now, universal constructors? That's what'll make humanity immortal.

    Kazhiim on
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  • KING LITERATEKING LITERATE Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Kazhiim wrote:
    Agem wrote:
    You might as well say "you can only time travel back as far as the point where everyone believes time travel is real."

    So in other words, the Technocracy preventing time travel from existing by making sure nobody believes it exists!

    Time travel is a silly sci-fi idea. Now, universal constructors? That's what'll make humanity immortal.



    I can only assume you're being sarcastic..

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  • Locust76Locust76 Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    Time travel doesn't exist, at least not in our lifetimes and at least not in a capacity that can be easily accessible by every day people. How do I know this?

    Because if time travel became available in my lifetime, you can be damn sure I'd have already visited myself, and I don't remember being visited by myself... ever.

    Of course, that would assume that timelines occur and we travel through the aftermath, experiencing everything that's already happend as if it were happening now.

    Someone mentioned John Titor... What a brilliant hoax... the man had all and none of the answers. He seemed to have minimal knowledge of everything, a few grainy ass photos (c'mon... in 2036 we will have some bad-fucking-ass gigapixel+ cameras) and he couldn't give any specific information for anything. He explained away his whole story by mentioning timeline divergence; how the 2036 he left isn't the one he's coming back to, how the timeline he arrived in was 1-2% divergent from his version of the past. That basically means that everything he talked about (the civil war, WWIII, the restructuring of society, 50% world population reduction) could ultimately not happen and he still couldn't be discredited!

    Besides, according to tenthdimension.com, when you want to see the outcome of a given scenario had you made a different choice/were the circumstances different, it would be far easier to simply jump from dimension to dimension, rather than going all the way back, changing shit, then going all the way forward to see what happens.

    That means that it would be easier to jump into an alternate 2006/2007 in which Hitler choked on a sausage and died at age 14 rather than go back and kill him yourself.

    Locust76 on
  • AlphariusAlpharius Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    jackisreal wrote:
    I thought e=mc2 just meant that at high speeds energy and matter can turn into one another?

    e=mc^2 is just a formula derived by einstein which equates the energy of an object to its mass times the speed of light squared.

    edit - which, to be fair, gives us the means to calculate how much energy is we'd get if we were to convert a given mass to energy, but is not itself giving us a mechanism for mass energy conversion

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  • GlovalGloval Registered User new member
    edited December 2006
    Okay before I get started. The Einstein equation is dE=dMC^2. Substitute in a delta where the d's are. It proves a lot of things, but not time travel. In fact using just that equation it'd be hard to get units of just time out of it. The change in energy equals the change in mass times the speed of light squared. And if you want me to derive it for you, I'll be more than happy. Any who.

    According to my boss Time travel is possible, technically we are all traveling in time right now. But only in one direction, forward. I'd ask him for a more detailed explanation but considering that my specialization is in heat engines, I didn't think it really was as important as him explaining why my engine didn't work.

    But I can explain some thing from the knowledge i have gathered.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation

    You can travel BACKWARDS in time. According to this book I just glanced over you can travel backwards and forwards in time but not in our universe and only if this theory is accurate. At least based on our current knowledge of Physics. Then you can travel around in time all you want, making as many alternate universes that you want. But quantum mechanics is difficult for me to discuss in detail, seeing as I have not taken that class yet. I'll get around to it sometime over summer probably.

    Happy New Year.

    Gloval on
  • poshnialloposhniallo Registered User regular
    edited December 2006
    I reckon all those time-paradox questions are a reduction ad absurdum for time travel.

    You can't go back in time and kill your grandfather and not exist and that because time travel is impossible

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