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Yes, hindsight is 20/20 as they say. With enough effort you can read a prediction as accurate.Quote:
Originally posted by Jakester
Nostradamos (or however u spell it) was a pretty smart man. He made many predictions that can be interperated to just about anything you want to. None of his predictions have ever come true yet, so I wouldn't bother reading him.
My theory is (and I studied under Einstein): If time travel were possible, why has no one came to our time from the future? Time travel would be a very popular thing for the rich. I just can't make myself believe it is possible. :)
Quote:
Originally posted by dudephil
My theory is (and I studied under Einstein): If time travel were possible, why has no one came to our time from the future? Time travel would be a very popular thing for the rich. I just can't make myself believe it is possible. :)
i believe people will go back in time when our time goes in the future..i could be wrong though.
But who's to say that the future hasn't happened? With time travel when does life begin or end? Who's to say that we are all not just human props for someone who is travelling from the future now? When they finish their time travelling adventure will time just freeze for us until the next one comes around? I think time travel is a fascinating subject, but I still believe it is impossible.
"Granted, during space shuttle missions clocks are different from those based on earth, but does this "prove" time travel is possible or does it prove that ammonia vibrates faster without gravity."
No, but the speed of the space shuttle does prove that the rate of the passage of time depends also on the speed of the observer.
"Our galaxy is said to be moving away from the other galaxies (big bang theory). Our solar system also moves inside our galaxy, and we move around the sun. All of these being true, our earth is constantly in extreme motion. So, that being the case, how do we know what rest is? Assume that Einstien's theory is correct. Does that mean that time for us has been drastically slowed down because our galaxy is in constant motion? We could very possibly be moving at the speed of light, relative to another galaxy."
Outstanding question and it gets right to the crux of relativity. The main point of relativy is that a state of rest is pretty much irrelevant and it depends on your own desired frame of reference. So we could indeed be moving near the speed of light - its up to you to decide. But the beauty of relativiy is IT DOESN'T MATTER!! No speed we measure for ourselves or any object will ever be equal to the speed of light. And you can consider the earth as the center of the universe with all the universe revolving around it and it makes no difference to the laws of physics.
Think of the ping pong ball on the train problem. What speed is the ping pong ball traveling when you hit it? Its moving, the train is moving, the earth's surface is moving. The answer is you pick the frame of reference to make the problem as easy for you as possible.
That just sounds too convenient for my liking. I have read some of Einsteins work. But like all great minds, a theory is just a theory.
I am a firm believer that time travel is possible, and that it has been done already. Maybe not by humans but who knows. Can someone tell me what goes on in the Bermuda Triangle? Some scientists have postulated that there are fantastic gravitational forces there that may be buried deep under the seabed and intermittently oscillate. A giant superadvanced device, left by a bygone civilisation? Who knows? Anyway that is too speculative for my liking. On another note, theories in due time are disproven by other theories and pratises. Science is too fickle at this point to put all your eggs in one basket. And every good scientist keeps an open mind.
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"No, but the speed of the space shuttle does prove that the rate of the passage of time depends also on the speed of the observer."
"The passage of time" is the issue about which I posted. The measurement of time is arbitrary and based on a flawed perspective of time and its relevance to matter. So, it is a moot point.
But then, what about conservation of matter? Conservation of matter would also have to be replealed if time travel were possible. Sending mass back in time increases the amount of energy that exists at that time a violation of conservation according to local, global conservation GR, SP and even esoteric physics.
So, my point, as I should have stated clearer is: is possible for people to travel faster than light, maybe. But does traveling faster than light transend time, I don't think so.
Very thought-provoking. Personally, I lean towards the theory of multiple dimesions (more than 4). I believe that there are so many things going on outside of our range of perception that we probably couldn't even fathom it completely. Is the universe the same to us as it is to an insect? Who knows. We both perceive the worlds differently. The real truth of the universe(or should it be called multiverse) may never be known to us but it sure is fun speculate. Check out this site: http://www.mkaku.org. Great site for anyone interested in this subject.
My thought is that each 'dimension' is nothing more than some collection of rules that everything within it is controlled by, length, width, height, time are the four obvious ones we are controlled by, but lets say there is one with length, width, and something we do not know about... it could be 3 dimensional but we couldn't understand it. Of course, a being not affected by space or time would be 'God' to us, wouldn't it... Just some food for thought there.Quote:
Originally posted by chucko
My boss at work was trying to explain how, for example, a 2 dimensional thing can't understand a 3 dimensional thing. his example was that you can unfold a simple box into a line and vis-versa, then you can unfold a cube into a box; similar to unfolding a 3 dimensional object (hypothetically speaking) into a 2 dimensional object then unfolding again into a 1 dimensional object. if this pattern is consistent, then a 3rd dimensional thing could fold into a 4th dimensional thing, unimaginable to a 3rd dimensional human. eh, hope thats kinda clear, my boss did a good job of explaining it to me with a drawing :p .
well anyways, then he was saying how some scientist believe that there are like 20 dimensions or something. when it comes to trying to understand the universe, i dont even know where to begin, theres so many possibilities its crazy.
Since this universe is affected by space and time, it is obviously finite, so there is no way you can leave it, but I cannot even say what would happen when you hit the end... To us it is so large we could never reach the end before we became extinct, no matter how advanced our technology gets.
*reaches out and grabs his Mt. Dew*
Well, I can control the x,y,z. I wouldn't be astounded if it is possible to control time, but it is something we do not understand as well as x,y,z since mankind has been able to study and view those for a long time, while it is still blind to time, and only sees the effect of something it doesn't truly understand at this point.
One theory is that if you pass the speed of light, that you would be traveling backwards in time. How you would do that is beyond me, but just a suggestion.
Also, acording to another of einsteins theories, time travels in a circle, so if you go forward far enough, you will eventually go into the past
when you get to the end of universe......
you have to reformat http://www.nature.com/nsu/020527/020527-16.html
The common consensus among physicists seems to be that the Universe is finite in size, but unbounded (ie, you can never reach the edge). A simple example of such a structure is a circle. It has a finite size, but if you keep travelling along the circle, you never reach the "end".Quote:
Originally posted by e_dawg
Since this universe is affected by space and time, it is obviously finite, so there is no way you can leave it, but I cannot even say what would happen when you hit the end...
That would screw up x,y,z, wouldn't it? If you travel in one direction, you are not travelling around a circle (hopefully), so you should be able to reach an outer edge eventually. As I said, there is no way we could do it no matter how advanced our technology gets due to the fact that humans could not last long enough for that trip. Think about it: We live in one of a very large number of galaxies, we live on a planet that is absolutely tiny in comparison to our own star, which is not even a very large star... Now, look up into the night sky, and try to count the stars you can see (a very limitied number are visible to your naked eye from earth) -- that is a just small fraction of the stars in our galaxy. And that is just one of an unbelieveable number of galaxies.Quote:
Originally posted by Hey Yoda
The common consensus among physicists seems to be that the Universe is finite in size, but unbounded (ie, you can never reach the edge). A simple example of such a structure is a circle. It has a finite size, but if you keep travelling along the circle, you never reach the "end".
Not if the curvature was in a forth dimension. Think of it this way, pretend you are a being only capable of perceiving two dimensions. (Heck there are a lot that can only perceive one in the CPU forum. ;) )Quote:
Originally posted by e_dawg
That would screw up x,y,z, wouldn't it? If you travel in one direction, you are not travelling around a circle (hopefully), so you should be able to reach an outer edge eventually.
Now imagine you are walking along the surface of a ball. Since you have no perception of height the ball seems perfectly flat to you. You start out walking along that surface in what you perceive to be a straight line. Eventually you end up back in the same place even though you never turned. The truth is you did turn, just not in a dimension you were capable of perceiving.
Similarly, our x, y, z coordinate system could be obeyed perfectly, with the same effect.