The World's First Time Machine

[Naoki09]

http://video.google...eed&hl=undefined

This is a BBC documentary, that has probably just thrown my mind into a whole new world of possibilities. It's a full feature, over 40 minutes, but I thought you would enjoy it... It's not exactly poilitcs, but I figured that this section is alot more educated then General. Again, this is simply amazing... discuss your theories and beliefs here.

[wwwyzzerdd]

If time-traveling is possible, then why hasn't anyone yet to visit us from the future today?

[SkyCube]

At 10/16/06 07:03 PM, wwwyzzerdd wrote: If time-traveling is possible, then why hasn't anyone yet to visit us from the future today?

Maybe they have. If they did I expect they wouldn't want to risk fucking up the timeline by making themselves known.

[Cereal]

At 10/16/06 06:55 PM, Naoki09 wrote:
I figured that this section is alot more educated then General.

wrong

PS: First off, when scientists talk about time machines, you don't mean actual "machines," right?
AO: Right. It's not such successful terminology. My "machine" is merely a certain configuration of gravitational fields.

PS: So what are you describing?
AO: What I describe is some configuration of spacetime, some distribution of curvature that will allow a physical object or person to move along an orbit and travel back to the past. I wrote mathematically the initial configuration of spacetime, which, according to the laws of nature, will evolve into a time machine, provided that the process is not first destroyed by instability. The question is: Will nature allow such a configuration?

PS: And you think the answer is yes, that nature will permit it?
AO: “May.” I think “may” is better.

PS: Curving spacetime sounds difficult. Can we really do it?
AO: Presently we don't have the technology to create significant gravitational fields.

PS: But could we develop this technology in the future?
AO: I believe that in the future there will be developments toward creating this. But maybe we will never have the techno-logy. To me that would be disappointing.

PS: Say we did manage to warp spacetime in the right way. You'd still need a vehicle to travel back in time, right?
AO: Obviously the practical way to navigate in this configu-ration is to have spacecraft equipped with a rocket.

PS: And then we could visit the past?
AO: You can go back in time, but only to times later than the moment of the construction of the time machine. So if we construct it now, in 2100 they will be able to visit us now, or later, but not earlier.

PS: No hope of visiting the dinosaurs, then?
AO: If the laws of nature allow the construction of a time machine, maybe it could have occurred naturally a billion years ago. Then people would be able to visit the dinosaurs.

me and my dad trailer park bingo night.

[JakeHero]

At 10/16/06 07:03 PM, wwwyzzerdd wrote: If time-traveling is possible, then why hasn't anyone yet to visit us from the future today?

That's actually one of the most well-formed paradoxes I've ever seen.

[Cereal]

At 10/16/06 07:03 PM, wwwyzzerdd wrote: If time-traveling is possible, then why hasn't anyone yet to visit us from the future today?

who said they haven't :O

[SolInvictus]

didn't some sciency guy or other work out that we can only go forward in time?

[JudgeDredd]

At 10/16/06 07:03 PM, wwwyzzerdd wrote: If time-traveling is possible, then why hasn't anyone yet to visit us from the future today?

Because some theories state you can't travel back before the Time Machine is invented.

Yet another theory states that all Time Machines dimension-slip their occupants into a Hell Universe.

[Naoki09]

Listen, I'm no physicist, but I do understand how possible this is, only with a few technological advances. I'm aware of the "Why has nobody visited us?" theory, but the video explains that there is a theory that counters it, stating "One can only travel back in time, to where the time machine was invented."

[ImmoralLibertarian]

Woodstock 69 here i come.

[wwwyzzerdd]

At 10/16/06 07:05 PM, ClottedCreamFudge wrote: Maybe they have. If they did I expect they wouldn't want to risk fucking up the timeline by making themselves known.

That's one of the inaccurate things stated in this movie. In fact, the entire theory of time-travel is a complete paradox. In the first 10 minutes, I've caught so many inaccurate statements/ideas.

1) @ 1min 36 sec in the movie, all people of the future will have weird haircuts and flying cars. Most likely everything will tack the prefix "Astro-" onto it to look futuristic.

2) @ 9min 9sec in the movie, Dr. Mallett flags down a taxi cab in New York City. There's no such thing as a taxi cab that stops for black people!

3) @ 3min 6 sec in the movie, the narrator explains if someone were to go back to stop the Titanic or Hitler. Lets say that hypothetically, that the Titanic carried a passenger that would later fuck FDR in the 1920's, and end up giving him an STD and killing him; or someone killed in WW2 turned out to be a crazed scientist that would go on to develop the first A-Bomb and destroy the world. None of that is out of the realm of possibility.

4) @ 4min 50sec in the movie, Dr. Mallett describes his father's death, and says that his wish to save his dad from dying is what got him into physics. So lets say that he does somehow save his father by traveling back in time or by sendng a message from the future. In theory, that would mean that he would no longer have the will to study time-travel since he would then have no reason to have wanted to study it.

I do like the idea though of being able to send yourself a message from the future (plus it's been proven that light can be used as a medium for storing information, and therefore you can send information at the speed of light). Although how could you technically tell yourself in the past something like lotto numbers? How will you all of a sudden have money in the future if your ticket in the future was wrong? Is the ticket just going to morph into the winning ticket? Will yourself in the future be poor, while you're rich in the past? I don't see the logic in that.

[Dash-Underscore-Dash]

Push it to the limit!

[EnragedSephiroth]

I find it hard to accept the principle that light moves at the same speed no matter how fast you are moving. I agree it would be difficult to tell the difference between 680 million mph and 340 million mph because it's still faster than anything, however, if we are able to leave sound behind, then shouldn't we also be able to leave light behind if you're moving faster than the speed of light? The example they gave with einstein and bertran in the spaceships was flawed in that sense because they didn't discuss what would happen if bertran were doing faster than the speed of light.

In order for us to know, it's difficult because we'd have to break the light barrier. I can see how jumping to the future would be possible in theory but to the past?

To avoid a time paradox sounds pretty foolish if we can interact with time, so the only way I can imagine someone travelling to the past is if they do it on a non-interactive dimension a la Ghost of Christmas Past. Afteer watching the video, this was confirmed because one would only be able to go as far back as the time machine was operational, not before then. The first 20 minutes or so of the video made absolute sense, but the last 15 were a bit dodgy... good thinking though :)

[EnragedSephiroth]

Btw, watch the video before you post because the video answers a lot of the questions I see people posting, hence why he linked it.

[Elfer]

Time "paradoxes" are based on the assumption that there exists only one real non-diverging worldline that you cannot deviate from. Maybe that isn't true.

[EnragedSephiroth]

At 10/16/06 07:59 PM, Elfer wrote: Time "paradoxes" are based on the assumption that there exists only one real non-diverging worldline that you cannot deviate from. Maybe that isn't true.

THe movie talks about interferences in the past stopping something from happening so it occurs after all. It also goes into parallel dimensions, but that's the bit where I was like "wha?" so um... feel free to rewind that part a couple hundred times.

[Dash-Underscore-Dash]

At 10/16/06 07:40 PM, Dash-Underscore-Dash wrote: Push it to the limit!

Heh go to 38:02.

[Humbucker740]

At 10/16/06 07:53 PM, EnragedSephiroth wrote: I find it hard to accept the principle that light moves at the same speed no matter how fast you are moving. I agree it would be difficult to tell the difference between 680 million mph and 340 million mph because it's still faster than anything, however, if we are able to leave sound behind, then shouldn't we also be able to leave light behind if you're moving faster than the speed of light? The example they gave with einstein and bertran in the spaceships was flawed in that sense because they didn't discuss what would happen if bertran were doing faster than the speed of light.

I didn't watch the movie or anything so i might just be fucked up, but it is impossible to go faster than the speed of light. I can prove this mathematically if you want. Iight is PURE ENERGY, photons untehthered by gravity, and most of that hoohah. Its not like sound which is waves which lose energy over time.

In order for us to know, it's difficult because we'd have to break the light barrier. I can see how jumping to the future would be possible in theory but to the past?

To avoid a time paradox sounds pretty foolish if we can interact with time, so the only way I can imagine someone travelling to the past is if they do it on a non-interactive dimension a la Ghost of Christmas Past. Afteer watching the video, this was confirmed because one would only be able to go as far back as the time machine was operational, not before then. The first 20 minutes or so of the video made absolute sense, but the last 15 were a bit dodgy... good thinking though :)

[Naoki09]

A solid argument, but how can you say that about black holes? If black holes have the power to suck in light, they are in essence moving light. The way he suggests making a time machine involves using a bunch of small high speed lasers, that spiral, creating a time vortex... really hard to explain, just watch the last 10 minutes or so.

[TheSovereign]

Time to kill bushes mother!

[Freemind]

At 10/16/06 09:10 PM, Humbucker740 wrote: I didn't watch the movie or anything so i might just be fucked up, but it is impossible to go faster than the speed of light. I can prove this mathematically if you want. Iight is PURE ENERGY, photons untehthered by gravity, and most of that hoohah. Its not like sound which is waves which lose energy over time.

Light is effected by gravity.

[HoboPorn]

At 10/16/06 07:03 PM, wwwyzzerdd wrote: If time-traveling is possible, then why hasn't anyone yet to visit us from the future today?

For all we know they have, for all we know if they didn't visit us,and give us technology, we would still be in the old days of peasents and kings :|

[bradford1]

At 10/16/06 07:05 PM, ClottedCreamFudge wrote:

At 10/16/06 07:03 PM, wwwyzzerdd wrote: If time-traveling is possible, then why hasn't anyone yet to visit us from the future today?

Maybe they have. If they did I expect they wouldn't want to risk fucking up the timeline by making themselves known.

I'm from the future.... Oh shit, what've I done!

At 10/16/06 10:11 PM, TheSovereign wrote: Time to kill bushes mother!

Time to kill your mother! Also is there not a chance that manipulating time such as traveling it could possibly destroy the entire universe?

[EnragedSephiroth]

At 10/16/06 10:11 PM, TheSovereign wrote: Time to kill bushes mother!

Neah you can just go back in time to when Bush was a kid at school and punk him for his lunch money so he'll grow up to be a little sissy and not such an idiotic macho.

At 10/17/06 04:22 PM, EnragedSephiroth wrote: an idiotic macho.

Dear god. Speaking of which do you guys think that we might misuse time to the point of destruction?

[EnragedSephiroth]

At 10/17/06 04:29 PM, hatredofallanime wrote: Dear god. Speaking of which do you guys think that we might misuse time to the point of destruction?

Lol, Crhono Trigger and Star Ocean 2 come to mind...

One concern I have is... if the lasers are to create a condition similar to that in a black hole... wouldn't that essentially tear apart the whole office building?

Also, if it is indeed possible to send messages to the past from the future once the machine is turned on then... if in the following hundreds of years people are sending back messages to the past, wouldn't the machine just about explode with information and matter as soon as it would be turned on?

[Elfer]

At 10/16/06 08:01 PM, EnragedSephiroth wrote:

At 10/16/06 07:59 PM, Elfer wrote: Time "paradoxes" are based on the assumption that there exists only one real non-diverging worldline that you cannot deviate from. Maybe that isn't true.

THe movie talks about interferences in the past stopping something from happening so it occurs after all. It also goes into parallel dimensions, but that's the bit where I was like "wha?" so um... feel free to rewind that part a couple hundred times.

The part about stuff in the past affecting stuff in the future affects stuff in the future on that divergent timeline, while the timeline you came back from would be one where said event had already occurred unaltered, and therefore couldn't be undone on that timeline, but in the parallel dimension created by your interference, the event would not take place, therefore the future of that timeline would be different from the one that you came back from, so you would still be there, rather than blinking out of existence when you had no reason to go back in the first place.

In the timeline that you alter, you in fact wouldn't go back in time because you would have already done it in your own past. However, this means you wouldn't turn up again in the timeline that you left behind.

Get it?

However, this is only if the many worlds theory is true. Otherwise we might be getting into a lot of temporal wackiness.

[EnragedSephiroth]

At 10/17/06 05:09 PM, Elfer wrote: Get it?

Hey so long as donuts exist I'm cool :P

[Hybrid]

At 10/16/06 09:46 PM, Naoki09 wrote: A solid argument, but how can you say that about black holes? If black holes have the power to suck in light, they are in essence moving light.

No, they are a phenomenon of extreme gravity, most likely created at the end of the life cycle of a star that exceeds a certain amount of mass. While it is true that their gravity is so enormous that it even affects photons, they are not capable of moving beyond light speed and neither are they capable of accelerating other objects to that extent.

At least as far as our current level of insight into such phenomena goes, as available to the general public.