|
|
|
|
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 3:23:45 PM | Interesting point. That also means that once you're AT that speed, you have no control over stopping yourself. You might keep right on travelling until the end of time.
A corollary would seem to be that exceeding the speed of light would cause a reversal of time, although that whole issue of C "^2" could be an issue, since the square of a negative is positive. I'm not highly inspired to do the math. This would seem to be a key difference in Star Trek: they use warp power to both travel back in time, and to travel in space at greater than light speed. Time travel specifically involves supraluminal speed AND a large gravity well, whereas spacial travel doesn't seem to be specifically supraluminal, so much as a warp bypass of real space. I'm sure there are inconsistancies in this - it's rare for any fiction to have complete continuity. | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 4:18:38 PM | Just wanting to throw something in the pot for discussion.
If thoughts are a very real and tangible energy and one can project one self into a past experiance and effect the out come which inturn effects the future out come that you want.
Is this not time travel.
Say some one had an abusive experiance physicly with some one else and you projected in your minds eye back to that experiance with the emotion of love which at the time would be a real energy. And poored love over the person that was abusive to you and at the same time
held the emotion of forgiveness this would perhaps effect the out come for your self in the present and the future. You could do that or remain in the same cycle.
This is real and tangible don't you think ? :-) | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 4:19:10 PM | It's been concieved that strong electromagnetic forces acting in a near zone could possibly affect the curvature of space time, or the geometry of it, if you will. Relativistic effects would most definitely occur and would have some impact on the precession of time as we perceive it.
Time is a convenient abstract in a place where our three dimensional minds can not exist the way we know them to here and now; those of you familiar with these concepts know all too well that an easy explanation of observational frames is difficult without some math to back up the conversation. We attempt to rationalize a concept that is different for all of us - yet continues to elude us. We never seem to have enough of it we say... maybe that is because it simply does not exist in the form we think it should.
To traverse the 'time' dimension as we know it involves changing the precessional rate of the very fundamentals that make us all up - and also the geometry of those particles as well.
Or perhaps, it involves changing the structure of the universe itself - turning the world inside out long enough for a brave traveller to get through.
Perhaps another question to be answered, what is conciousness? A collection of energy? A piece of the infinite? To know the nature of conciousness is to know God; to dream is a possibility to know thoughts greater than us.
Of course it is possible. Nothing is impossible. | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 4:20:25 PM | | I think the acting thoery was to shrink space in front of you, and expand it behind you, to make it a total shorter distance to the next great Earth... | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 4:21:18 PM | It is fun to learn. It is even more fun to do. | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 4:30:00 PM | But the real question is this: Is the "past" still a place in existence? Or is it as dead and gone as ancient Rome ? Do "you" exist not as a discrete 3-d human object, but as a 4-d human-shaped "strip" with one end shrinking into your mother's womb and the other end petering out into a grave? If the past is still in existence (but backwards in the time dimension) and the future also is in existence (down the road in the time dimension), then the continuity of your existence provides a *physical* connection to the past -- which would easily enable "mental" time travel if one can mentally overcome the time dimension.
Another alternative is that the past and future do not exist, instead there is only a continually-changing NOW. Unfortunately that does not hold up at the quantum level, as there are particles which travel in BOTH time dimensions simultaneously. So that one may be easily put to rest...
Another, more difficult to cope with, but even more likely (again due to evidence at the quantum level) alternative is the "Multiple Worlds" hypothesis, that reality continually branches with every tick of randomness -- each possibilty exists SOMEWHERE. Thus time travel would be *reality* travel, and you could never return to *exactly* the same world you left, no matter how trivial a trip.
Paradox happens at the quantum level all the time -- but paradoxes may just be our linear, time-focused minds being unable to cope with the seeming creepy absurdities of the way physics actually works. This is assuming that life is not an elaborate illusion, which is not a bizarre belief considering Buddhist, Zen, and Hindu thought. Our notions of a clockwork universe are derived from a very limited set of philosophies which are not the norm even with very fact-based scientists or religious thinkers.
Just a few things to think about.
samfool
(loves contemplating the mysteries of the universe) | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 4:54:45 PM | If you were to travel at light speed, it would seem to you that no time had passed, no matter how far you traveled or how long it seemed to others that you'd traveled. You would have been effectively "frozen". Since you were traveling at light speed, nothing can happen inside you because any movement not in line with the overall direction you're traveling would cause a violation of the "speed limit". And you would not have aged at all.
Interesting!
Here is a technical question i wanted to ask: let's say i'm using a machine that is stationary. Meaning that it's not moving through space - the only thing it's doing is spinning around at light speeds. If i'm inside this machine, do i need to be spinning with this machine, or can i just be there inside the machine and not spin with it in order for me to experience time travel? | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 5:02:13 PM |
If you were to travel at light speed, it would seem to you that no time had passed, no matter how far you traveled or how long it seemed to others that you'd traveled. You would have been effectively "frozen". Since you were traveling at light speed, nothing can happen inside you because any movement not in line with the overall direction you're traveling would cause a violation of the "speed limit". And you would not have aged at all.
Interesting!
Here is a technical question i wanted to ask: let's say i'm using a machine that is stationary. Meaning that it's not moving through space - the only thing it's doing is spinning around at light speeds. If i'm inside this machine, do i need to be spinning with this machine, or can i just be there inside the machine and not spin with it in order for me to experience time travel?
The real trouble is that when you move an object towards light speed, the energy required to move it becomes more and more immense. To use conventional means of speeding up an object (yes, including nuclear types of power) would require logarhythmically-increasing amounts of energy -- to the point at which it would take more free energy than exists in the known universe to accelerate any macroscopic mass to light speed.
Any means of traveling near or at the speed of light would involve loopholes and tricks of physics that are still purely speculative.
samfool | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 5:27:08 PM | Though one might say that that concept only exists in the 3 D paridym that is mosts peoples reality.
To create light i only need to turn a torch on and that light would bend if shone through water.
What if this machine was to be light it self ? | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 5:39:13 PM |
Though one might say that that concept only exists in the 3 D paridym that is mosts peoples reality.
To create light i only need to turn a torch on and that light would bend if shone through water.
What if this machine was to be light it self ?
Actually that is a good way to go about circumventing such limits. Massless particles such as photons move at the speed of light all the time... and there are theoretical (but as yet unobserved) particles known as tachyons which may move ONLY at speeds greater than light speed.
Also, scientists in the lab have been able to transmit information seemingly FASTER than light, both by phasing photons through certain mediums (the details escape me but can be found with some googling) and also through nonlocal interactions using Bell's Theorem, in which quantum-entangled particles *instantaneously* change spin when the other does, in violation of the speed of light, regardless of the distance between them.
So there may be some ways of using light or other exotic, massless forces to do some communication back or forth in time. They are a lot easier to reconcile with observed phenomenon then trying to accelerate masses to the speed of light.
samfool | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 6:40:24 PM | But the real question is this: Is the "past" still a place in existence? Or is it as dead and gone as ancient Rome ? Good question. Past is past. Future is not yet here. The traversal of time is like a road, wherein you can only see a minute behind you, and a minute ahead of you, and the rest disappears off the horizon.
Now for the interesting bit:
Einstein said that space and time exist as part of one continuity.
He also said that if you keep travelling long enough in one direction, you find yourself coming back to your point of origin from the other side of the universe.
Hence, even if you travel forward in time, if you keep travelling forwards in time long enough, you find yourself coming back to your time of origin from the past. In that way, you can actually time-travel back. Just go all the way to the end of time, and keep going until you get to the start again.
'Course, that's a long time.
Edit: Bell's Theorem shows that everything in the universe is linked, like a spider's web. Light is like the strands of the web. Vibrations can travel much faster through the web than the spider can spin those strands. Hence, one could use Bell's Theorem for subspace communications. The real interesting thing is:
1) How fast can those signals go? Can they traverse galaxies in seconds?
2) Can we read those signals in nature? I.E. Could we construct a Quantum Entanglement Telescope? The results could be incredibly beneficial. Think of it: We could see what is happening on distant stars, right now. | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 6:46:43 PM | If I'm thinking of the same things you are, this may not actually involve movement at all. Quantum entanglement causes a particle at the destination to duplicate the properties of the particle at the source. What "travels" is subatomic forces, which may work instantaneously at any distance. If I am confusing this with "teleportation", could it be because they are effectively the same thing? The implications, if the technology could be devised, are...er...astronomical. Anything or anyone could be instantly transported anywhere in the universe. Light speed becomes irrelevant. With the universe as vast as it is, it would be possible to explore everything. There'd be no-one left on Earth, as each and every person could spend a lifetime exploring a galaxy all of their own.
vvv and apparently we were both typing about quantum entanglement at the same time. I'm inclined to think I was typing first, and as a result of quantum entanglement, your post actually appeared BEFORE mine! Dang, quantum physics is weird! | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 6:57:31 PM | ^^^ Brilliant, idea. Of course, we'd need a very specific type of Quantum Entanglement Experiment: one wherein on one side we are de-constructed completely, and at the other end, each molecular form is constructed in total and perfect symmetry with the original form. Hence, at a single instant, one is de-constructed here, and reconstituted somewhere else. I suspect that such tele-portation would require specially constructed "gates" at each end, so travel would be limited to specific routes and destinations. However, due to the speed, and the total lack of a loss of mass or energy, one could happily work in the quarries on Alpha Centauri or Betelgeuse, and teleport home for dinner. One could holiday on Jupiter or Antares, or go for a day to the Crab Nebula.
So, probably everyone could live on Earth, but teleport to work and for holidays. No more commuting time. No more traffic. Unbelievably cheap and immediate courier services.
Of course, the "gates" would have to be strictly policed. You couldn't take munitions through, or troops of soldiers for war.
I suspect that it would make things a lot more like Stargate, and a lot less like Star Trek. No need for a starship when you can teleport to a distant star in the blink of an eye.
Of course, if we're really smart, then all we have to do is send all the subsequent gates off in robot-piloted spaceships. The robots can construct the gates when they arrive at the correct locations. Then, to ensure that the gates are already there NOW, all we have to do is to ensure the robots pilot the ships through time to the end of time so they come back to the start of time, and keep going forwards to arrive at their destinations today. Then, all we need to do is to construct the initial gate, and the plans for the destination gates, the robots to construct them and the robot-controlled ships.
The gates can be built and sent later on, as they are going to end up going back in time anyway. It's just like Bill & Ted, when they decide to go back in time and set a trap for the bad guy for now.
So that way, we could have a fully-working gate system in under 20 years.
Any time we want to build a new gate, we send it back in time to the day of its initial planning, and it's ready for us then. All we have to do is build it and send it sometime later on. And not forget to do it. | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 7:22:08 PM | Quantuum Mechanics is a form of Classical Mechanics which is based on the Boltzmann Distribution, which is just a form of statistics of particle reactions. I studied the probability of this, which is called Stochastic Processes, or processes iterated on themselves many times. It's a very interesting subject. You can have a net loss of population growth, and STILL predict population extinction after a significant number of generations.
Quantum Entanglement works on the same idea as a multiple car pile-up. You can have a long line of cars in traffic, all moving very, very slowly, due to the fact that each car is limited by its internal speed, and its inability to move before the vehicle in front has moved first.
However, in a pile-up, the first car crashes a small distance into the car in front, which pushes the car ahead of it, and that car pushes the car ahead of it, and in a matter of seconds, the pile-up can traverse a mile or 2, in slow moving traffic. No individual car moves very much, but the message is traversed very, very quickly.
Sound waves are another example of this.
It contradicts the speed of light theory, because no individual particle or photon ever goes faster than the speed of light. Only the message does, and since the message does not technically exist, it in itself is not governed by the limitation of the speed of light. It is not controlled by a signal speed (e-m waves), because it in itself is a signal. | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 7:30:53 PM | I tend to think time doesn't exist in the way people often think of it. I can't prove it, of course, but I think there is chronology and process (and processes can change speeds relative to one another depending on conditions). I think the past and the future do not exist.
Oh, and about thought and emotion being energy. I think the metaphysical and physical definitions get crossed up here. Thoughts, I believe, are not a type of physical energy, though they appear to be an emergent property of the interactions of certain physical structures. Now, it could very well be that there is more than the physical world we see every day. But if we can make physical changes to the physical universe by way of non-physical processes (telekinesis, etc.), then there are truly no rules at all (and thus no need to try and adapt physical terms and theories to metaphysical philosophies). | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/30/2007 8:02:18 PM | Interesting point. That also means that once you're AT that speed, you have no control over stopping yourself. You might keep right on travelling until the end of time.
Or until you collide with something and get disastrously pwnt.
A corollary would seem to be that exceeding the speed of light would cause a reversal of time
If it's possible to exceed the speed of light, then it seems physics and math may need to be introduced to if/then statements.
If R < C, then E = MC², else E = umm... MC Hammer | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/31/2007 8:26:30 AM | nothing with any mass can travel at light speed. E=MC^2
only things that are pure energy can go lightspeed. | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 8/31/2007 10:40:34 AM | I tend to agree, just thinking down the "what if" path.
Just as an aside, I couldn't remember the speed of light, so I searched "light speed" at Wikipedia. It turns out it's 186,282.397 miles per second, but what I really want to point out is that if you go there, you get to see a graphic demonstrating the journey of light from the Earth to the Moon. The way it's done makes it look like we're "layin' the smackdown" on it with a laser weapon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_speed | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 9/2/2007 4:08:39 AM | The problem with the Hollywood speed of light time travel is very simple. As you increase the speed you are traveling, so does your mass. At the speed of light your mass would be so great that you'd probably destroy the earth and several nearby planets, or even nearby stars.
Traveling at the speed of light is only impossible because you would need an energy source of infinite output. It is to note though, that light, or rather photons that make up light, does not age, at all. From the moment it's created to the moment's it's destroyed, it is the exact same age. By age, I don't mean the recorded time, I mean the composition of the photons themselves, they are exactly the same no matter how far traveled or how long it has existed.
However there is one very feasible way to travel at the speed of light, but you'd both destroy your spacecraft and yourself in the process. It's called the bussard ramjet, and was conventionalized in the 60s or 70s. How it works is pretty simple, if you were floating in space and threw a beer can straight out, you would travel away from that beer can. Using that knowledge bussard designed a space craft that pulls matter in the from and throws it out the back, the faster it goes, the more matter it pulls in, the high it's acceleration becomes, very possible to reach infinite speeds. | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 9/2/2007 4:12:10 AM |
Edit: Bell's Theorem shows that everything in the universe is linked, like a spider's web. Light is like the strands of the web. Vibrations can travel much faster through the web than the spider can spin those strands. Hence, one could use Bell's Theorem for subspace communications. The real interesting thing is:
1) How fast can those signals go? Can they traverse galaxies in seconds?
2) Can we read those signals in nature? I.E. Could we construct a Quantum Entanglement Telescope? The results could be incredibly beneficial. Think of it: We could see what is happening on distant stars, right now.
As I understand Bell's Theorem -- the signals are instantaneous between entangled particles ... and yes, for some really interesting theories about the possibilities inherent in quantum entanglement -- try "Moving Mars" by Ben Bova. Quite an interesting take on what could be done under certain models of quantum physics.
samfool | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 9/4/2007 8:33:08 AM | Interesting!
Here is a technical question i wanted to ask: let's say i'm using a machine that is stationary. Meaning that it's not moving through space - the only thing it's doing is spinning around at light speeds. If i'm inside this machine, do i need to be spinning with this machine, or can i just be there inside the machine and not spin with it in order for me to experience time travel?
You'd need to move at light speed yourself.
Pretending we could make such a machine, as far as time/aging/etc goes, just being inside it would be no different than being in the presence of anything else apart from you that is moving at the speed of light, like we are all the time (light itself).
Well, I'm idealizing the situation, really, so as to not have to deal with some physical consequences. For example, the increased mass of the machine would cause time/space distortion, which would, err, not be good for you. Also, in order for the machine to not fly apart as it spun, you'd probably need a black hole inside - not a savory idea if you plan on being in there. :) Also, if the black hole were strong enough to keep the material at the machine's "equator" (the fastest region of spin, assuming a spherical design) from flying apart, it'd probably pull the top and bottom in.
You're not getting me inside that thing! | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 9/9/2007 9:33:02 AM | So much for a time travel machine when it seems that we won't be able to use one even if we invented one.
Anyways, i'm still trying to understand this possibility of time travel. So i'll ask a couple more questions.....basic questions.
If i'm standing inside a train and the train is moving at full speed, or maybe at the speed of light, will i crash against the wall inside the train or will i just remain there standing up in that same spot? Same idea here i guess.....if i jump while the train is moving, will i land on the same spot i was standing?
Another question: the stars that we see at night in the sky, are we just seeing their light which they emitted thousands of years ago? and we probably don't even know if these stars still exist? In other words, is what we're seeing in the sky (the stars, the galaxies, etc) something of the past, and who knows, from thousands of years ago? Hmm, this made me think, if this is correct, then there is the possibility of experiencing someone else's past. No? | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 9/9/2007 11:44:34 AM | To the second question first: correct.
Light from the sun is 8 minutes old. If you look at the sun, you are looking 8 minutes into the past.
Light from the nearest stars is 4 years old, from the most distant stars, billions of years old. This is something I often wonder about - when mapping the universe, do astronomers map it as we see it, or do they account for the distances and movements to map it as it would be now (assuming unreliably that no great changes take place over those millions or billions of years)?
To the first question:
Generally, you move at the same speed as the vehicle you're in. You can observe this every time you drive, take transit, fly, etc. You travel in the same speed and direction, and if you jump, you land in the same spot. However, if your ride STOPS...you are not anchored to it. This is why vehicles have seatbelts, whether speedboat, car or plane. You are moving at the same speed and direction as your vehicle, and not firmly anchored to it. If it stops suddenly, you do not. If it stops slowly, your contact with anything within the vehicle is enough to slow you as well, though you can often feel a lurch forward. Likewise, sudden acceleration causes you to press into your seat. At constant speed, you're at vehicle speed, but during acceleration you're slightly out of synch. | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 9/10/2007 9:10:45 AM | | But just to reiterate, if you were in a train moving at the speed of light, you'd be "frozen". You would not even be thinking and could send no signals to your legs to initiate the leap. | |
|
| Time Travel, again
Posted: 9/10/2007 9:56:11 AM |
But just to reiterate, if you were in a train moving at the speed of light, you'd be "frozen". You would not even be thinking and could send no signals to your legs to initiate the leap. How so? Einstein stated that the speed of light is the same in all inertial frames. Not sure how that can be, but all of the discussions of special relativity use that fact. No matter how fast you are traveling, you will always measure the velocity of light as c. In the train's inertial frame, the train's velocity is zero, the velocity of light is c. Therefore YOUR velocity is zero and you are free to behave and experience normally. Even accelerate to the speed of light!
It is my impression that much of special relativity discusses the (optical) illusions and consequent distortions that arise when your observations are based on a measuring system which is significantly influenced by the velocity at which you are traveling and the distances over which measurements are made. Someone stated that there was an 8 minute delay between an event on the sun and our observation of that event. Therefore our measure of 'simultaneity' with the sun has an 8 minute error. Therein lies the ultimate issue of special relativity. Other planets would have different errors of simultaneity, thereby making their measures 'relative' to their circumstances.
As for changing time. We can slow our OBSERVATION of events by moving faster. As someone pointed out with distant planets. We currently observe their past. If we travel faster than light, we overtake the light carrying the story of our history and therefore 'rewind' our ability to observe it. Special relativity allows us to observe our history but not to interact with it. | |
|
|
|
Home
login 
