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mrvroom 07-Sep-06, 02:20	theory 1 - time travel apart from travelling into the future one second at a time (and even that is arguable!!) I dont believe time travel is feasible.
itchynscratchy 07-Sep-06, 03:22	well, according to einstein's equations of special relativity, time is relative to the speed of light. You can feasibly go back in time if you can feasibly cross the light speed barrier. However, that is not possible for many reasons. One being that mass increases as speed increases and gets infinite at light speed. If mass is infinite then, by Newtons second law (force = mass x acceleration) it would take infinite force to accelerate a body of infinite mass. Infinite force would in turn require infinite energy, and there is not infinite energy in the whole universe. There are thought to be particles, called takeons, that travel faster than light. They just can't slow down to the light speed barrier. Any questions?
jason_886 08-Sep-06, 00:30	Yes, do these particles actually exist?
itchynscratchy 08-Sep-06, 06:20	In theory they do, but they have never actually been found in an experiment. It is a large area of current research to try to devise an experiment to find them
ollie8080 09-Sep-06, 06:18	Travel into the future seems plausible - some sort of stasis/hibernation technology and switch yourself off for a thousand years.
jason_886 18-Sep-06, 06:57	If these particles did exist then wouldn't they require an infinite amount of energy since they are traveling faster than the speed of light?
itchynscratchy 18-Sep-06, 07:50	no, you only need an infinte amount of energy to accelerate (or decelerate) to the speed of light. It doesn't take any force (and hence energy) to keep moving at the same speed
jason_886 22-Sep-06, 01:34	Itchy, forgive me if my questions seem stupid. But how do these takeons come to be travelling faster than the speed of light? Surely they had to accelerate to and beyond the point of light speed, therefore requiring energy?
itchynscratchy 22-Sep-06, 08:00	That's a good question. To be honest I really don't know for sure. My best guess is that when they are created they are already travelling at superluminal speed and so never cross the light barrier. That sounds ridiculous i know but it would make the maths balance. Tachyons (I got the spelling wrong earlier as someone messaged me to point out) have many other very strange properties that seem impossible, such as a mass that is imaginary (which means it is a multiple of the imaginary number i which is equal to the square root of minus 1). Your questions are far from stupid jason, only natural ones to ask in fact. The only stupid questions are those that have no logic in them. Forgive me if my explainations are not the best, it is quite a difficult thing to explain without going into the mathmatics of it.
jaymar 22-Sep-06, 15:27	surely.. ..no one knows the answer as yet. We can only speculate. The most important word in Einsteins work is "theory". I haven't yet seen any work by any physicist in this field that includes the word "fact". In fact physicists are so confused that they now claim that light is a wave and a particle. However thats only a theory as well. Modern physics/maths cannot explain the gap in what is happening in "general physics" i.e how the solar system/galaxy /universe are operating on a massive scale with what is happening on the quantum i.e. minute scale. Things that happen in the "normal" course of our lives don't happen once you get at sub-planck ( very, very small) level. And as far as I know no one can explain why because no one knows. So until someone answers these fundamental questions then of course time travel is possible. Its just that we have no idea how.
itchynscratchy 23-Sep-06, 06:29	''..no one knows the answer as yet. We can only speculate. The most important word in Einsteins work is "theory". I haven't yet seen any work by any physicist in this field that includes the word "fact".'' There is no work involved with physics, or any other science, that is ever fact. There is only theory and experimental evidence. There is a lot of evidence to support relativity and none that disagrees with it, which is about as close to fact as you can ever get. ''In fact physicists are so confused that they now claim that light is a wave and a particle. However thats only a theory as well.'' You say now as if that is new and radicle, and it isn't. That idea was postulated in the 1920's with the development of quantum theory by Planck, Einstein et al. It is not out of confusion, in fact quite the opposite, we now understand light much better that we did in the 19th century because we accept wave-particle duality to be true, not just with light as a matter of fact but with all particles as well. ''Modern physics/maths cannot explain the gap in what is happening in "general physics" i.e how the solar system/galaxy /universe are operating on a massive scale with what is happening on the quantum i.e. minute scale. Things that happen in the "normal" course of our lives don't happen once you get at sub-planck ( very, very small) level. And as far as I know no one can explain why because no one knows.'' That is true, the search for the theory of quantum gravity is an ongoing research area. As of this moment physics cannot explain how general relativity and quantum mechanics tie together ''So until someone answers these fundamental questions then of course time travel is possible. Its just that we have no idea how.'' That is flawed logic. Those questions have nothing to do with time travel at all and so the implication must be that until we know everything, we know nothing. Which clearly isn't the case.
jaymar 23-Sep-06, 11:39	we know.. ..plenty of things although I believe scientists are reluctant to commit 100% to anything. I mentioned light and its strange properties since it could quite likely have something to do with the possibility of TT. If time slows down the faster an object moves then light could be part of the solution. As we know from Einstein, time can be effected by speed. So if it can be altered by that then perhaps it can be manipulated in other ways? I watched a programme on time by the theoretical physicist Michio Kaku and read some of his writings (for the layman) and he certainly doesn't discount it as impossible. Improbable yes but as he points out, Einsteins equations allow for time warping and bending in on itself. He even designed a theoretical time machine. Totally impossible to build of course as it would require an atom smasher the size of our solar system but as he points out who knows what we can do in thousands of years from now. So like I said, just because we have no idea how to do it now. Well who knows? Of course from a technical point of view you can blind me with science itchy and I accept your expertise in the area but I do believe in never say never.
jason_886 28-Sep-06, 06:58	I have some new (well new to me) information regarding Tachyons. These theoretical particles only exist in the fourth dimension and therefore the laws of physics applied in that dimension are different to the ones applied in our third dimension. With regards to my increase in mass question (see above), the reason the Tachyons are not affected is for one simple reason and that is they have never at any time been travelling slower than the speed of light. They have always been moving at speeds accelerated past the speed of light; also never travelling at the speed of light or at sub light speed. The tachyon particle theory has been developed by theoretical scientists and mathematicians simply to "balance" the theories of relativity, but again nothing has been proven to exist in the first place. Tachyon particles, if you can think about them in a different way...never actually have "accelerated" past the speed of light, since they have always existed in a type of universe( a 4th dimension universe)where the laws of physics are different from our own...and the laws of physics on that side state...that matter cannot "slow down" to the speed of light or "below it" else the matter will cease to exist! That universe is parallel and somewhat intermixed with our own, but to only a limited degree. So, in other words, the laws of physics on "our" side (the 3rd dimension) prevents matter from breaking the light barrier, and matter on "the other side" prevents it from slowing down! Tachyons are classified as not only faster than light, but infinite in speeds, way infinite, beyond are comprehension! And they cannot slow down. Sort of like warp speed on Star Trek, but instead of warp 5 or 6,they move at warp googol or googolplex. I also found out that there are 11 different dimensions, and also time is not continuous, as most people understand it to be. Believe super string theory is linked to Tachyons, well super string theory is meant to like all forces together I think.
itchynscratchy 28-Sep-06, 11:39	''I also found out that there are 11 different dimensions'' In one theory, i have also heard it said that in another theory there are 23. ''and also time is not continuous, as most people understand it to be.'' yes indeed. Strange one that isn't it? Time is supposed to be split up into sections of roughly 1x10^-44 seconds (called the Planck time)
jaymar 28-Sep-06, 15:09	jason If you are interested in super string theory I suggest you read "The Elegant Universe" by Professor Brian Greene. He explains it rather well. He also includes chapters on muliple dimensions ( lots of those) and Universes. However I do believe that even ss theory is now being questioned as the way to TOE. Other theories have come along and usurped it or at least undermined it.
saintinsanity 28-Sep-06, 17:29	We have a long way to go before we discover if time travel is even possible. I think we should focus on space travel, and hopefully someone will accidentally discover the flux capacitor in the process. As far as travelling at the speed of light goes...I don't see how we could do it with any of the technology we currently possess. We have a long way to go.
jason_886 29-Sep-06, 02:30	23 dimensions that is a lot. Yes non-continuous bits of time is very strange, what happens in those gaps? I shall check my local library out for that book Jaymar, failing that I shall order a copy. Yeah I think it's still in early development and there are a number of missing links in the theory. Pawn - flux capacitor, perhaps we could all chip in get an old De Lorean and modify it a little? You could be right there Pawn, a lot of many discoveries have been made when people haven't been looking for them.
jason_886 29-Sep-06, 02:32	Planck time seems interesting, had a quick look at it from the sites Google came up with.
itchynscratchy 29-Sep-06, 10:49	''Yes non-continuous bits of time is very strange, what happens in those gaps?'' well, there are no gaps as such. Time proceeds much like your TV. Your TV shows you 23(I think?) still shots every second, its just your eyes don't notice and see everything as continuous. Time is much the same it is just a large collection of still frames proceeding in order.
saintinsanity 29-Sep-06, 19:25	There is also the theory that the still frames don't proceed in order at all. There is the theory that everything in the universe exists in every single possible configuration of matter, and that time doesn't exist at all but is merely the perception our mind has when shifting from frame to frame. I don't think I explained that very well.
jaymar 30-Sep-06, 15:27	I just.. ..read an interesting article in this months "New Scientist" magazine. It is about "retrocausality". Whether the present can effect the past or the future effect the present. Apparently it is permissible within the laws of nature and something that has been discussed within quantum physics for years. The article is about a proposed experiment to test the theory. The experiment will use the wave/particle nature of light by splitting a beam of light into two streams of photons and sending them through double slit screens but with a built in delay on one set. The delayed stream can then be used to change the first stream even though its already passed through the slits. Its a bit complicated but well explained in the article and there's no point in me just repeating it all here. If the test works then we have the present effecting the past. If it doesn't then we have to go back to the drawing board. I particularly liked the explanation of relativity. The past, present and future all exist seamlessly in an unchanging "block" universe. I like to envisage time not as a stream or river that we are all flowing along but as an ocean that we are "bobbing" on. Unchanging in all directions but each wave containing something different. Just a thought.
daddysgirl 01-Oct-06, 11:53	how about 'the theory of everything' I haven't a clue about this stuff.. so I'm just throwing it in here as we're (well you guys) discussing string theory, quantum/relativity etc.. www.economist.com" target="_blank">-> www.economist.com
jason_886 01-Oct-06, 12:06	Thanks for that Itchy. Seemed to explain it ok to me Pawn. So then, is that like saying our mind is only seeing what we want to see and disregarding the rest? Jaymar, is that the magazine with the Global Warming title on the front? DG the link does not work
daddysgirl 01-Oct-06, 12:19	it does for me Jase, I always check em before I post em! an I just checked again...nevermind... www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=7963608 try pasting and copying see if that works?
jaymar 01-Oct-06, 12:22	quite a.. ..coincidental link dg. Lee Smolin, is a man of far greater talent than I but his book falls into a bit of a gap. There is no doubt that string theory has not quite delivered the answers that physicists were expecting. However I think that that is as much a failure of the science as it is the theory. Basically the whole area of quantum field theories has not been proven yet. However the "string" theorists are beavering (can I say that ; ) away and its not a debate that anyone can win until, well, someone wins!! The article I quote does point out that the majority of investment is going into string theorists which intimates that the scientific community regards that as more likely to come up with the goods. My own feeling is that if we are to achieve TOE then this will be just a part.
jason_886 01-Oct-06, 12:22	Strange it works now. Must have been the way I stroked (I mean Pressed) the mouse.
daddysgirl 22-Jun-08, 19:38	anyone won yet? I may never know.. too much for my tiny mind anyway;)
saintinsanity 23-Jun-08, 06:28	Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

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