Physics

Its funny: moving FORWARD in time is theoretically almost possible. Yet, travelling BACK in time is theoretically impossible. Scary. Even though you know what happened and the events are "laid out" there, you can never touch them.

But, you can actually move to a time before time catches up with you.

But the question is this: If you move faster than time, when you get there will there be anything there to see? If you can "beat" light to a certain place, you therefore travel FORWARD in time. Yet, if you get there before the light does....how can you see anything? Then you get into the pobability of Shroder's (i hope thats right) Cat experiment. If there is abosolutely no light, since you got there first, then you can't see ANYTHING. And if you can't see it, can you prove that anything exists?

Weird stuff, huh?

EDIT: I wanted to amend somthing that I said. "And if you can't see it, can you prove that anything exists?" If you look at Shroder's Cat experiment, that is, you will read about his theories. In them he talks about the reality that at the time the cat is in the box it theoritically exits and doesn't exist at the same time. This is what I was summing up with that last hypothetical question. Certainly, beings such as God and Allah have their own followers (I am one of them) that claim that they (we) can prove/not-prove the existance of such a being without seeing it. [/END EDIT]

On another note: I would LOVE to get a glimpse of that guys findings. I'm intrigued by the spinning/rotating laser beam. I wonder why he came up with that?

...ponders...

Can time ever be negative? If so please explain, because I don't think its possible.

Such as in going back into time? Or being in a state of regeneration?

It will work, it has to! So that the machines can go back in time to destroy Sarah Connor so that she cannot have her child John. John's father, Reese, is also from the future therefore requiring a time machine for him to exist so that he can lead the revolution to stop the tyrannical machines. Although if the machines knew that John was the product of a man using a time machine. Then you would think that they wouldn't have started this cycle in the first place by inventing a time machine. Hmm, how did the machines get so smart by missing something like that?

Sure, if you have a 30 minute unpaid lunch break. 8.5 hours - 0.5 hours = your total paid time at work.

NASA also uses negative time, T-xx:xx:xx to takeoff. As does your CD player, -xx:xx time left in the song.

Negative is relative to positive.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by mellojoe
moving FORWARD in time is theoretically almost possible.

---

Moving forward in time isn't theoretically possible, it happens every day, day in and day out by every person and everything in the universe.

Its just at the moment everybody is stuck going forward at the same speed. :p

Unless you are talking charge, negative and positive are simply mathematical concepts.

Isn't time a concept? You need a point of reference for time as you do any other thing measured.

The laws of physics are all consistent with "negative" time. By that, I mean they are reversible. The "direction" of time is arbitrary. In theory, there is no reason you couldn't run the entire universe "backward" - things would fall up and water would flow uphill. However, I think this breaks the laws of thermodynamics that state the over-all entropy of a closed system must increase with time.

From a philosophical point of view, the sensation of the passage of time is an interesting concept. How do we "sense" time passing ? What is it that makes us able to differentiate the current "now" from the "now" that happened just a fraction of a second ago ? And where did that past "now" go ? Imagine all the energy states of all the atoms around you - did that information just disappear ? Is it still there ? On a related issue - do photographs violate any laws of physics ? For example - if you take a picture with a digital camera, you are recording the photonic flux in an environment at a particular time. You can - in theory - keep that information for ever, until the big crunch (or whatever the fate of the universe). Suppose you started recording your entire life on a digital medium - supposing *everyone* did it. Think of all that information trapped in all those Petabits. Supposing we recorded *everything* and were able to store it in the most effecient way possible (say - the energy states of the atoms in a crystal latice). On the other hand - aren't the energy states of all the atoms in a crystal just the result of the collective "experience" of all the atoms in that crytal ? Could we reconstruct history from examining the energy states of those atoms ?

I better stop here before I get really stuck in, or I'll be here all night, and I need to sleep .........

Quote:

---

Originally posted by mellojoe

But the question is this: If you move faster than time, when you get there will there be anything there to see? If you can "beat" light to a certain place, you therefore travel FORWARD in time. Yet, if you get there before the light does....how can you see anything? Then you get into the pobability of Shroder's (i hope thats right) Cat experiment. If there is abosolutely no light, since you got there first, then you can't see ANYTHING. And if you can't see it, can you prove that anything exists?

---

You also run into Einstein's Twin Paradox.... :)

You are also confusing time with light....time is not a "particle/wave" of matter. Time does not move, it progresses.... :p

Btw, its Erwin Schrödinger... :p

Quote:

---

Originally posted by mellojoe
But the question is this: If you move faster than time, when you get there will there be anything there to see? If you can "beat" light to a certain place, you therefore travel FORWARD in time. Yet, if you get there before the light does....how can you see anything? Then you get into the pobability of Shroder's (i hope thats right) Cat experiment. If there is abosolutely no light, since you got there first, then you can't see ANYTHING. And if you can't see it, can you prove that anything exists?

---

How about with a lamp? :D

The way we define time in the absolute sense is starting at zero at the big bang. What happened before that is completely beyond our reach because the laws of the universe break down at the big bang. So in that sense there is no negative. And as Slarty said, there is also no negative RATE of time because of thermodynamics. Time MUST always flow forward (or stop). Relativity predicts the RATE of the passage of time for individual observers. Together they explain why time travel (from the other thread) is theoretically impossible.

But as Blacktooth so eloquently illustrated, there are times you need to make time calculations that end up with a negative for the frame of reference you define.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Blacktooth
It will work, it has to! So that the machines can go back in time to destroy Sarah Connor so that she cannot have her child John. John's father, Reese, is also from the future therefore requiring a time machine for him to exist so that he can lead the revolution to stop the tyrannical machines. Although if the machines knew that John was the product of a man using a time machine. Then you would think that they wouldn't have started this cycle in the first place by inventing a time machine. Hmm, how did the machines get so smart by missing something like that?

---

K fine lets say Steven King is right also!
Then John and Sara Conner are safe!
See there is nothing in the past only emptyness and the Langoleers!
See if a T2000 went any further than say 2 days past in time.
The the T2000 would have to face the Langoleers.
Since Langoleers eat reality ,past time and space.The T2000 would have no chance!

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Sparky_D
You also run into Einstein's Twin Paradox.... :)

You are also confusing time with light....time is not a "particle/wave" of matter. Time does not move, it progresses.... :p

Btw, its Erwin Schrödinger... :p

---

Shrodinger, yes, thank you.

Oh, and nova: PPPpppppbbbbbbbttttttt! :p

Quote:

---

Originally posted by mellojoe

Oh, and nova: PPPpppppbbbbbbbttttttt! :p

---

:D :D :D :D

Oh yeah DrDeath... more proof that this guy is a crackpot ;)

The following excellent observation was brought up by frontline lamb on a different forum:

Quote:

---

The real problem with all this is that his experiment ignores the fact the earth is moving. If he moved his particle to 1 second in the future, everything would have moved what, 27 mi away?

This also messes up any go back in time and shoot my grandfather ideas. If you jumped back in time 75 years, you'd pop out in deep space. Unless your time machine was also a teleporter...

---

I would love to ask this professor about this.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Blacktooth
Oh yeah DrDeath... more proof that this guy is a crackpot ;)

The following excellent observation was brought up by frontline lamb on a different forum:



I would love to ask this professor about this.

---

Go right ahead. A quick search on Google kindly provided me with his address, telephone #, fax, and email. Take your pick :D


>>>> http://www.phys.uconn.edu/faculty/mallett.html <<<<


As to the actual theory.. I don't think it'll work, I'll just leave it at that.

Jeez, if he can do it, I'll be as nice as possible. Who wouldn't mind winning the lottery every day for a year?

Regards,
Chris

P.S.: The earth moves around the sun. Go back in time till a point around the sun, then go forward in time and stop at 30 years before you left, and voila, wait a few days, and Earth is back where it came from. Just go around the sun enough times until you are back in time enough.

P.P.S.:I know, I know, asteroids at light speed, right.

The solar system moves through the galaxy at tremendous speed, the galaxy itself moves... There's no telling where you might end up if you travel in time.

However, relativity theory tells us all motion is relative, so maybe we would end up at the same spot on Earth :confused:

Heres a Theroy I have .
This is my thearoy for travel and it negates the time rotation problem.
Folded space and harmonic resinence.
We all know space does bend and that the shortest distance between to points is a straight line.
Now instead of traveling from point a to b.
Lets say we just fold the page then punch a hole through.
Viola now the distance is even shorter and the more times you fold it.
Along that line say instead of a to b we go half way or one third you inbetween a and b you`d get time travel.
Without the need for greater than lightspeed travel.
The trick is knowing where a and b are first.
How do you do this?
Harmonic resinence every year our galixy produces a sound and every year it changes!
Now you have your a and b.
Though you`d be limted to the quatium looping .
Aka you`d only be able to travel with in your own time frame.
Also you would not be able to travel foward from your current time but your future self could vist your past self.
I can`t go into further detail in this area till after my tests.
But I hope you followed that.

So what happens if time were to stop?

Quote:

---

Lets say we just fold the page then punch a hole through.

---

You've seen Event Horizon too eh? At first this seems pretty cool, folding a page in half and poking a pencil through it. But a page is in essence 2D, at least in this demonstration, while there are 3 spatial dimensions in the real world (theoretically up to 11 from the bit of M theory that I have read). Not to mention the problem of actually folding spacetime.

Quote:

---

The trick is knowing where a and b are first.

---

A is a starting point, is it not? I could understand "zapping" something and not knowing where it may end up. Not knowing where the starting point is has me baffled though.

Quote:

---

Harmonic resinence every year our galixy produces a sound and every year it changes!

---

OK I'm not employed as a physicist, but I have read a fair share of theoretical physics. The Elegant Universe being my latest. I have read nothing about the galaxy producing a sound every year. Why would it produce a sound every Terran year anyway? Does the galaxy care that much about this lil blue planet? And since when does sound carry through space? I know I would have remembered this phenomenon, if I had heard of it. Can you please back up this statement?

Finally, what is quantum looping? I don't recall that term either.

Good luck DrDeath. May the force be with you.

Thanks for the link jester22c. I sent him an email. If he responds I'll be sure to share it here. His inbox has to be flooded since that story broke. I'm not holding my breath.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by DrDeath
Heres a Theroy I have .
This is my thearoy for travel and it negates the time rotation problem.
Folded space and harmonic resinence.
We all know space does bend and that the shortest distance between to points is a straight line.
Now instead of traveling from point a to b.
Lets say we just fold the page then punch a hole through.
Viola now the distance is even shorter and the more times you fold it.
Along that line say instead of a to b we go half way or one third you inbetween a and b you`d get time travel.
Without the need for greater than lightspeed travel.
The trick is knowing where a and b are first.
How do you do this?
Harmonic resinence every year our galixy produces a sound and every year it changes!
Now you have your a and b.
Though you`d be limted to the quatium looping .
Aka you`d only be able to travel with in your own time frame.
Also you would not be able to travel foward from your current time but your future self could vist your past self.
I can`t go into further detail in this area till after my tests.
But I hope you followed that.

---

Wow, think of energy involved. Thats an engineering problem though. :D

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Blacktooth


The Elegant Universe being my latest.

---

Good book. Didn't Brian Green write that? If so I got attend a lecture and Q/A session by him a couple of years back. It was really interesting.