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AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,573 posts
Blacksmith

Moopie!

Time travel is impossible because to do this you would need to rewind the universe, and thats not TT thats literally reversing every atom, particle and space between atoms and GOD knows what else to a previous state. Everything exists at once and it is in a constant forward motion. Time is not a line, it is mearly a measurment of point A to B, you cant go back to A because it is, in fact now point C. So even reversing everything would still only take you forward.

Thats my view anyway. What yall gonna do bout that!

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Kevin4762
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Kevin4762
2,420 posts
Nomad

All the equation e=mc^2 shows is that mass and energy are equivalent. What's surprising is that not only don't you understand what the formula itself is meant to show, but you also don't seem to understand the squaring function either.

No, if you actually knew shit, you would know that the equation is theoretical.

But in this equation, you only square the speed of light - you don't square the product of the mass and the speed of light.


I meant to put the square in the parentheses. Thanks for correcting me.

I can say things that don't make any sense, too. Watch: Some people say cucumbers taste better pickled.
But yeah, traveling near the speed of light doesn't slow you down. If it did, then light wouldn't be able to travel the speed of light.


Have you read anything? Physics tells us that you slow down the faster you go. Gawd, it seems as if you are purposely trying to make yourself look bad.

Based on what? I mean, I've read some articles where someone like Stephen Hawking says this is possible. He may be a famous physicist, but that doesn't make him a good one.


Excuse me, I meant to say to the future. Never back in time. Also, if you cared to read on, you would notice that I mentioned it could be possible if what we knew about the universe was wrong.

The reason people bring up this particular Einsteinian equation when talking about time travel is to show the impossibility of doing so - not the probability of doing so as you suggested. But what they're actually talking about is a derivation of this equation that shows that you would need infinite energy to get something with mass going faster than the speed of light.


Impossibility? Don't count your eggs before it hatches. It could be possible that we could manipulate light one day and make it faster, as suggested by my AP Physics B professor.

The equation you're talking about is far more useful when analyzing things like nuclear fusion. When fusion happens, there is a loss of mass within the total system, which is released as energy (that's why we say mass and energy are equivalent). Since the very small amount of mass lost in this process gets multiplied by the square of the speed of light, and obviously huge amount of energy is released. This is the process that fuels our sun. But this is of very little help with the problem of time travel.


It meant that mass is proportional to energy and explains that the mass that is lost in such decay is converted into the kinetic energy carried away by the decay products. It has been used for nuclear fusion, I'm not going to lie about it, but it is indeed "relative" to time travel. Hm, when you think about it, mass is equivalent to energy. Geez, I can't fucking remember shit during summer.
AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,573 posts
Blacksmith

Based on what? I mean, I've read some articles where someone like Stephen Hawking says this is possible. He may be a famous physicist, but that doesn't make him a good one.


Stephen Hawking doesnt believe Time Travel to the past is possible. He is consistently misquoted saying that its possible in theory but he usually says that he still doesnt believe its possible to go back, only forward. I agree with him strongly.

One of the reason that he mentions is that there would be feedback, much like a soundsystem, but instead of sound it would be radiation which would destroy the wormhole. I still dont think its even possible and I will use a dvd being played to explain.

Put on your dvd and play it. This is our normal state (loosely speaking, bear with me here).

Now rewind it. Are we going back in time. No. The dvd is reversing its direction (see my OP) but we are still traveling forward thru time in the constant here and now.

Now... throw your dvd player out the window. Your gonna have to travel to the future to get it back.... ta daaa! Not really, but the concept of going back is bogus to me, even with wormholes that appear to link "two different times" doesnt make sense. Particles on each side of the universe connected to the same instant? yes. One in the future and one in the past... no.

There is no other speed faster than the speed of light. To travel NEAR the speed of light, slows you down, so the laws of the universe are in order. If you can somehow defy the order of the universe and do this, you will travel back in time. This is totally possible, if what we know about the order of the universe, is wrong.


We dont know if there is no other speed faster but I do agree that you would need to defy the order of the universe to go back in time, and I believe the only way to do this was stated in my OP. By reversing everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) within a space. This is not truly going back in time, but its a very doable workaround. Well we cant, but Im sure with the right tech and energy we could.
Kevin4762
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Kevin4762
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Nomad

Stephen Hawking doesnt believe Time Travel to the past is possible. He is consistently misquoted saying that its possible in theory but he usually says that he still doesnt believe its possible to go back, only forward. I agree with him strongly.


That was one of the points I was trying to make.

One of the reason that he mentions is that there would be feedback, much like a soundsystem, but instead of sound it would be radiation which would destroy the wormhole. I still dont think its even possible and I will use a dvd being played to explain.

Yes.

Now rewind it. Are we going back in time. No. The dvd is reversing its direction (see my OP) but we are still traveling forward thru time in the constant here and now.


This is a good explanation, though I think mine with the gun was better. Besides, if you go back in time and kill yourself, then it creates a paradox because you wouldn't be able to go back in time if you die before that, so then you don't die if you couldn't ever do it. Get it? Kind of a tricky concept to get around your head.



We dont know if there is no other speed faster but I do agree that you would need to defy the order of the universe to go back in time, and I believe the only way to do this was stated in my OP. By reversing everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) within a space. This is not truly going back in time, but its a very doable workaround. Well we cant, but Im sure with the right tech and energy we could.


I was saying that if what we knew about the universe was wrong, and that we don't slow down when we go faster, then we could do it. It's all theoretical and based on mathematics equations. The Hafele-Keating Experiment proved that the faster you go, the slower time passes. They used atomic clocks on board several commercial aeroplanes and compared the times to the time on the United States Naval Observatory. Though several effects come into place, such as the rotation of the Earth, the clocks on the aeroplanes were slower.

First off, I fucking LOVE YOU, MAN.
AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,573 posts
Blacksmith

This is a good explanation, though I think mine with the gun was better.


Well mine is bigger... wait, sorry wrong argument. But I mean something kinda different when I use the dvd. Im not trying to solve this with a paradox. Im saying that you cant stop "now" happening. It can only happen faster or slower. You can perhaps simulate going back in time by reversing everything but there will always be the "now" happening outside, looking into a bubble of reversing matter/energy.

What Im basicly saying is the past doesnt exist. There is no future and yes... everything IS happening at once.
Kevin4762
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Kevin4762
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Nomad

What Im basicly saying is the past doesnt exist. There is no future and yes... everything IS happening at once.


The past is relative to the present, and the future is relative to the past and present. Everything is relative, no? This reminds me of a bad joke, want me to say it?
AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,573 posts
Blacksmith

Um...


Yeah why not.

Kevin4762
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Kevin4762
2,420 posts
Nomad

The Five Most Influential Jews of History

Moses claimed God was everything

Jesus claimed Love was everything

Karl Marx claimed Capitalism was everything

Sigmund Freud claimed Sex was everything

Albert Einstein claimed Everything was Relative and sent them all back in shame.
AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,573 posts
Blacksmith

Class!

AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,573 posts
Blacksmith

Not possible.


explain
Moegreche
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Moegreche
3,826 posts
Duke

No, if you actually knew ****, you would know that the equation is theoretical.


Whose argument are you trying to refute with this claim? I'm not even sure what to make of this statement, honestly. Of course, any equation in physics is going to be part of a theory. You're talking about an equation dealing with mass and energy and trying to somehow "do math" to show ... something. Maybe just to show you need to take more math classes.

Have you read anything? Physics tells us that you slow down the faster you go. Gawd, it seems as if you are purposely trying to make yourself look bad.


I finally just now realized what you meant here, which I'm guessing is that the faster a subject goes, the slower time goes relative to that subject. This is a different statement from the contradictory proposition you were putting forth.
Nowhere in &quothysics" does anyone say anything about slowing down as you go faster. You must realize this is a contradiction. The only thing that slows is the relative appearance of the passage of time.
I think it's also important to note here that no one who knows anything at all about physics would claim that &quothysics" says anything at all. Particular theories in particular fields of physics suggest particular things. But we certainly don't have any unified theory yet, which is part of the whole problem in even talking about something like time travel in the first place.

Impossibility? Don't count your eggs before it hatches. It could be possible that we could manipulate light one day and make it faster, as suggested by my AP Physics B professor.


I think I'll use this in my next logic class as a clear example of a fallacious appeal to authority. My first response to this is: who the hell cares what your high school physics teacher thinks? He might be a super smart dude, but without any sort of qualification, his opinion is meaningless to me.
On the other hand, I remember reading somewhere that some astrophysicists believe they have observed light traveling at different speeds in the distant universe. I don't know what to make of this, and for all I know it could simply be an error in observation.
We can certainly slow light down - that's not a problem. But speeding it up? Seems like something like that would wreak havoc on current theoretical systems.
Moegreche
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Moegreche
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Duke

By reversing everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) within a space. This is not truly going back in time, but its a very doable workaround. Well we cant, but Im sure with the right tech and energy we could.


This is a good point, and is really the crux of the whole argument. And I think this is precisely where you and I will disagree.
While on a practical level, reversing everything within a given space seems possible, the universe is anything but practical.
So, just consider a finite area of space (or spacetime, if you prefer). We can make this area extremely small - maybe just 1 cubic micron. Within this area, though, are those oh-so-problematic quantum particles.
Now, in order to "reverse time" we're going to have to basically "undo" everything these particles did - essentially we're going to have to put them back where they were. The problem with this is that in order to know where they were, we have to know where they are - and the second we observe these particles, they seem to change their inherent nature.
There seem to be several different kinds of quantum particles that can demonstrate multiple states simultaneously but, one observed, end up &quoticking" a particular state. Now, this could simply be due to a gross misunderstanding of the nature of the particles, but I think that's giving the universe a bit too much credit.

So I think we're on the same page that traveling back in time is not possible. I like this workaround you suggest, but it would seem that our very existence - the nature of our being observant, sentient beings - somehow "locks in" our current situation irreversibly. We can't return particles to their original unobserved states, and that looks like a hurdle that's simply too high to jump.

My conception of time, then, is not of a force that somehow interacts with us and that we can interact with, but simply a human construct. It's a nice way of relating events that happen throughout the universe, but that's all it is. If we take the same viewpoint of the future as we do of the past, it simply seems like an arrangement of particles that isn't "locked in" yet. We can make large-scale predictions on the arrangements of these particles, but never with anything close to accuracy.
Even time travel to the future seems paradoxical to me, almost meaningless.
But I wonder - suppose you were attempting to travel into the future. You get in your time traveling device, lots of lights flash all around you, and you step out into a world of flying cars and farting panda bears. Can you really verify that you're in the future? And what does this actually mean? Is this a possible or necessary future of our world? Or is it simply an alternate universe that experienced a different set of events? How would you ever know?
Psychoace
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Psychoace
384 posts
Nomad

What about space time?

AnaLoGMunKy
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AnaLoGMunKy
1,573 posts
Blacksmith

Now, in order to "reverse time" we're going to have to basically "undo" everything these particles did - essentially we're going to have to put them back where they were. The problem with this is that in order to know where they were, we have to know where they are



And so far, we are not even sure IF they are or exactly how they are what they are. Arent we still looking for the Higgs Bosun?


and the second we observe these particles, they seem to change their inherent nature.


This is my main problem with quantum physics, we are still in the dark ages as far as I can see.

If we take the same viewpoint of the future as we do of the past, it simply seems like an arrangement of particles that isn't "locked in" yet.


I like this and have never thought of it this way.


What about space time?


Spacetime is mearly the measurement of space going from one state to another. It doesnt actually consist of anything. Can you explain further.
Moegreche
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Moegreche
3,826 posts
Duke

And so far, we are not even sure IF they are or exactly how they are what they are. Arent we still looking for the Higgs Bosun?


I need to preface this by noting that my only education going in this deeply into quantum physics is from a buddy of mine. He had to take 2 quantum classes in grad school, I think, so this is my understanding of his explanation of his understanding of things. So I would hold what I'm about to say only slightly higher than, say, wild conjecture

Physicists are still looking for the Higgs boson particle, and from what I understand, the LHC in Switzerland is supposed to be able to find it (if they ever get the thing up and running). And while the discovery of this particle would be an incredible find and would have huge physical and metaphysical implications, it won't even address the problem at hand.
Essentially this particle is supposed to be the "grain" of matter - the smallest possible bit of matter. This is of course assuming that matter is, in fact, granular. But finding the particle will help show this, as well as help physicists to understand exactly what mass is and why things have mass. One of those fundamental questions that is obviously the case but that we can't seem to answer.
But we shouldn't be too discouraged because some physicists do appear to have some understanding of the weirdness of quantum particles and their states. At least enough to make a computer that's capable of doing a huge set of simultaneous calculations based on the multiple states of these particles.
I share your concern that we are merely scratching the surface of the nature of these particles and in 100 years we may relate to them in entirely different ways. But with this new avenue of quantum computing comes some evidence that these particles may actually behave as they appear to be behaving. If they weren't in multiple states, it would seem that quantum computing wouldn't be successful. I realize this is a weak argument, but my limited understanding of the subject leads me to have to think along these lines.
So I guess the basic premise is this: quantum particles seem to function (within a certain context) in a manner that is completely consistent with observed phenomena.
This premise is supported by the point I made about quantum computing and does lend very weak support to the claim that these particles actually are the way we think they are.
But, because I'm an epistemologist and not a metaphysicist, my philosophical interest in these has to be curbed. Not because I'm not interested - I'm fascinated by all this - but simply because it's all I can do to keep up with the current work in my own field.
So we have a very basic and, I think, very defensible premise. But I'm just not sure what to make of it.
Kevin4762
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Kevin4762
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Nomad

tl;dr

It basically boils down to this: time travel to the past, impossible; time travel to the future, possible.

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