[Fl_Gulfer]

I watched a program about time travel and Steven J.Hawkins said in his opinion it was impossible to travel back in time but he did believed it was possible to travel into the future.
I wonder if this will change his views on that?

[Just1MoreDave]

I watched a program about time travel and Steven J.Hawkins said in his opinion it was impossible to travel back in time but he did believed it was possible to travel into the future.
I wonder if this will change his views on that?

I just traveled into the future right now.

[Rupert]

So could this lead to faster AF?

[hcarvalhoalves]

So what would then be non-Einsteinian would be travel FTN not FTL. Oh FTW!!

300 km/sec:
It's not just a good idea
IT'S THE LAW!

Always entertaining remarks by RioRico. I wonder why you don't have more likes!

[jac]

So could this lead to faster AF?

What's Otis's opinion, I wonder?

[hcarvalhoalves]

So could this lead to faster AF?

Neutrino-powered AF motors going at +299,792,458 m/s. Good idea.

It will lock instantaneously - and rip your arms off while at that.

[Ratmagiclady]

So could this lead to faster AF?

Truly-predictive AF, with our resublimated thiotimolinic ring motors...


Patent pending. Really.

(And if your subject fails to appear in focus, you truly can blame the equipment, ...or Jove: (Warning, may throw the city of Cambridge, and or determinism, into temporal chaos. Again. *eyeroll.* )

---

Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 09-23-2011 at 11:03 PM.

[les3547]

I watched a program about time travel and Steven J.Hawkins said in his opinion it was impossible to travel back in time but he did believed it was possible to travel into the future. I wonder if this will change his views on that?

There have been plenty of thinkers who believe the notion of time travel is mistaken thinking, that Hawkins and others who imagine it are so lost in science fiction speculations they've forgotten what time actually is.

Time is the measurement of a rate of entropic (disorganizing) change; if it is to be thought of as a "dimension" it is merely a measurement dimension, not an actual physical realm that can be traveled around in. Movement, and especially acceleration or gravity, affects the rate of entropy. The faster mass travels, and/or the more mass is subjected to acceleration or gravity, the more it constricts that frame of reference, which in turn slows the rate of entropy. So that clock on the spaceship (in the twins paradox) which accelerates nearly to the speed of light and then comes back to Earth will find Earth clocks been moving faster than the space ship clock because constriction slowed down the ship's rate of entropy. Likewise, if he'd sat out in space for 10 years motionless and in a gravity-free environment, his clock would have moved faster than the clocks on Earth.

Another way to think of it is, if a person traveled from point A to point B, rather than saying so much time had passed while traveling, one could more accurately say some quantity of material disorganization had occurred in the universe—that is, so many universal entropic events had happened. This would be referring to universal time. And then (and here's where the time travel science fiction thing got started), while universal disorganization is going on at an overall rate, at one particular place in the universe, where a certain neutron star resides, relatively few entropic events takes place because of its intense gravity; so for that unique situation, time (rate of disorganization) passed more slowly.

Using an analogy to help explain, imagine the universe is a large chunk of melting ice. Say we know there are ten thousand ice crystals in the chunk that must melt before it returns to its natural state of water. One side of the ice chunk is near a radiator, another side is near the cellar door. The top has a warm air blowing over it and the bottom is subject to the coolness of the concrete floor underneath. Each of these unique factors makes the ice melt at different rates on each side, even though overall it is melting at some universal rate.

Now a little worm on the ice chunk notices the ice chunk gets smaller and smaller as the water grows. At some point he decides he'd better figure out when the ice will disappear completely, so he counts the number of ice crystals still left to melt and finds it to be approximately five thousand; he calculates an average rate crystals on all sides of the chunk are melting, and he builds a device which goes around in a circle every time (on average) one ice crystal melts. From this he knows when the device goes around about five thousand times his ice chunk will be gone. Similarly, time is relative to the strength of constriction force ("frozenness") and the rate of entropy ("melting").

We use cyclic features of physical things, like orbits and cesium oscillation to "count" as the universe (overall) entropically winds down. Counting the rate, and the fact that the count can be affected by motion/acceleration/gravity, doesn't create some mystical dimension where past and future exist, and it therefore makes no sense to believe past and future can be traveled around in. If one understands that the universe is firmly in the grip of disorganizing pressures, atoms constantly decay, light hanging around in the universe oscillates slower as the universe expands, etc., then one can see "time" is just how we measure the rate of decay/slow down/disorganization at a given point.

[pixelsaurus]

Stephen J Hawking folks

[RioRico]

If one understands that the universe is firmly in the grip of disorganizing pressures, atoms constantly decay, light hanging around in the universe oscillates slower as the universe expands, etc., then one can see "time" is just how we measure the rate of decay/slow down/disorganization at a given point.

Except that time is variable and c (in a vacuum) is constant. Hmm, but if c varies in different media, then spacetime fluctuates constantly. No wonder I feel dizzy!

Always entertaining remarks by RioRico. I wonder why you don't have more likes!

I guess I'm just under-appreciated. [/me wipes away tears]

[Fl_Gulfer]

Well since the Mayan's believed that there calander would end on Dec. 21 2012, who is to say that someone didn't go back in time on that day and told the Mayan's that time will end on that day. Maybe this is just the begining of the end.
Since Einstein stated that Time Travel was Impossible to...... hummm

[RioRico]

Well since the Mayan's believed that there calander would end on Dec. 21 2012, who is to say that someone didn't go back in time on that day and told the Mayan's that time will end on that day.

Actually the Mayas filched their calendar from the Olmecs, and had it filched in turn by the Aztecs; and then it was grabbed by some newage (rhymes with sewage) wonks who made good money publishing misinterpretations. Such is life. The calendar doesn't end in 2012, just a counting cycle. It's sort of like starting a new century. None of the Mayan curanderos I knew were much worried about it.

Note: I sometimes stay in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas, deep in the Mayan heartland. I've hung around Chiapa de Corzo, where the oldest dated Mesoamerican inscriptions have been found, using this calendar. Those inscriptions date to near the beginning of the current cycle, the cycle that will roll-over in 2012. Time existed before this cycle and will continue into the next cycle. So don't sell all your possessions yet. Just give them to me, eh?

Another note: Maybe the Mayans stole an existing calendar, but they also improved it, making the most accurate timekeeping system known. (And they sometimes bent history to make it fit the calendar.) Also the Mayans were only the fourth culture in the world to independently invent writing. But I digress.

Maybe this is just the begining of the end.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Since Einstein stated that Time Travel was Impossible to...... hummm

I read that there are solutions to the general relativity equations that allow time travel. It's just not something that you'd want to endure. Like, your constituent atoms would probably be torn apart in the process. Bummer...

[Mike Cash]

There once was a girl named Bright
Whose speed was faster than light
She started out one day, in a relative way
And returned the previous night

[RioRico]

The bartender said, "We don't serve no faster-than-light neutrinos here!" A neutrino walked into a bar.

[jolepp]

The bartender said, "We don't serve no faster-than-light neutrinos here!" A neutrino walked into a bar.

Prudent: it might be against the law[s of physics].