Did anyone see the Time Travel presentation on Sunday?

[ProfStokes]

Wouldn't you think that if time travel really was possible that someone from the future, when we should supposedly have the unlimited technology, would have already come back and visited us? 

You mean you've never seen this guy hanging around on the street corner? 

As Midnite mentioned, Frank cited Stephen Hawking's skepticism and time tourism comments. He also speculated that the laws of physics may include safeguards in place to prevent one from tinkering with history.  For instance, you could not go back in time to kill your grandfather: the gun would either jam or misfire.  Or, by going back in time, you could create an alternate timeline through your activities that would exist concurrently with the timeline from which you came.

sallycollins, I'll see if Frank could possibly put his powerpoint presentation on the web for all interested parties to see, but I also suggest that you and anyone else who missed the presentation might send him a PM requesting the same.  Multiple requests may be more effective than one.

ProfStokes

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Love the cartoon! 

[MagnusTrask]

"Don't think about it too much it will just give you a headache" and I agree.

I remember that scene.   They were presenting a simplistic time-travel thingie and acting as if it wasn't, I think.

As for lack of future tourists, this is yet another example of humans thinking they know everything.   We don't know how it works.  Even with simple TV time-travel, we get the idea of an "original" timeline, which can then be messed with, resulting in a different history.   Our timeline has not been interfered with "yet", so no time-travellers.

[adamsgirl]

Like Prof. Stokes, I both read the book and saw the presentation. All the issues brought up here are answered by both. I strongly suggest that those who haven't yet done so get the book and read it. What I loved about it is, it's very easily laid out and explained in terms even non-scientific types can understand and appreciate. The bottom line is, yes, time travel IS possible and backed up by the laws of physics. I mean, let's face it: Who'd argue with the genius of Einstein? As for time travelers, how stupid would it be if someone walked up to you in the street and said, "Hey, you know what? I'm from the future, and you're my great-great-great-granny?" Please! When that technology is invented, and I am sure it will be someday, just as sure as we got to the moon when it seemed an impossibility 100 years ago, there are sure to be some rules governing how one goes about traveling in time. For instance, you and I can't get in a spaceship and go to the moon; only astronauts can. When this does begin (notice I say when and not if), I can only assume it will be done by an elite group of people, just like our astronauts.

[sallycollins]

Adamsgirl, you are a true voice of reason!! As are Midnite, Profstokes and MagnusTrask.

It is very uninformed to say time travel is a "non-issue" and that physicists have a "but who cares" attitude about it. And who might those physicists be? That's like saying a brain surgeon has a "but who cares" attitude about the heart or lungs. Nothing negates that time travel is verified by the laws of physics. I also agree with MagnusTrask that it's arrogant to assume what kind of technology will or will not happen in the future, to state that something "can never" be invented.

I have read the book but have not seen the presentation. Adamsgirl, Midnite and Profstokes have all said the raised questions were addressed in the presentation. I know for a fact they were addressed in the book. Einstein and Hawking both take the issue very seriously. Ronald Mallett of the University of Connecticut is currently devoting himself to the issue, as are physicists Kip Thorne, J. Richard Gott, Jim Al-Khalili and more.

I agree with Adamsgirl that you should read "The Physics of Dark Shadows" available at culturalstudiespress.com. I also agree with Adamsgirl's description of the book as easily laid out for the average person to understand. Very enjoyable, especially for Dark Shadows fans.

I am still hoping for the presentation to appear on youtube, if possible.

Sally

[Garth Blackwood]

All I was saying is that I happen to know a good amount about theoretical physics, and that the antecedent of the "If we can do _(go the speed of light)_, then we can travel in time" statement is so unbelievably unlikely to come to fruition that the statement itself has no practical implication. I hope nobody really thinks money for physics research has or ever will go in that direction just because it is a logical implication of relativity-- it truly is a "but who cares" kind of fact.

[Midnite]

I have only the presentation to go on, but I came from it understanding that while of course it's problematic to exceed the speed of light, one can travel faster than light via a wormhole (which exists theoretically) or a black hole (which we know exists).

[MagnusTrask]

Re the lecture... is that how we're going to travel in time, going faster than light?   Didn't we know about that already?   We're used to the idea of faster-than-light travel in fiction because it's a convenient plot device, but when you start to get an idea of how enormous these forces and distances are, you start to realize what small, powerless, and ignorant creatures we still are, relatively speaking.   No pun intended.

I've heard something about somehow using a couple of spinning micro-singularities in some sort of time machine, mini black holes in other words.   How you make a black hole and stick it in a machine I have no idea.

Google "John Titor" if you want to spend an afternoon getting freaked as I did.   This is someone who claimed around 2000 to have come from the future and is believed in by quite a few people.   You can even google for pictures of the machine.   He said General Electric made it, in the future, and that it does have those two "spinning singularities" in it.

I think if we had time travel it would be a disaster.   We'd destroy whatever we touched.   At the very least we'd end up with McDonald's in the middle ages or something.

The idea of a "wormhole" came up years ago as a total speculation, on what unexpected things might happen if you went into a black hole.    The idea has taken on a life of its own in science-fiction, but probably nothing like that happens in a black hole.   We'd be torn to shreds first then squeezed down to nothing like in a trash-compactor.   

My information comes from years ago and bits and pieces I hear from audio magazines, though, so I'd like someone to catch me up if I'm behind on all this.

Interestingly, technically speaking, you can travel faster than light, as long as you always have been.     The speed-of-light limit goes both ways... we can't accelerate up to the speed of light, and nothing already traveling faster than light can ever slow down to the speed of light.

[KajunDC]

What some of you are failing to realize is that time travel is only possible if time itself is non-linear.  If time is non-linear then all time has already happened and is simply being replayed over and over again.  So the traveling through time itself would happen in the same way over and over again.  Time would have conformed itself to the traveling - it would have to because the simple act of traveling through time would, necessarily, alter the time traveled to.  It would create another variable.  That variable would always have had to exist every time that particular point in time happens.

Many of you talk like, yeah it is possible, we just haven't invented it yet.  But it would HAVE to already exist.  Otherwise you are looking at it from the viewpoint that we in "present time" are going through all of this for the first time, which would not be possible if time is non-linear.  If time is non-linear this has all been done and is just on an "endless loop," which would mean that it could have NEVER happened for the "first" time.  In other words, we would have no free will and not truly be making our own decisions as all of these decisions have already played out endlessly. 

The THEORY of relativity, et al is just that... a theory.  Some of you are SURE that it is fact, just like many used to be SURE that the world was flat and the earth revolved around the sun.  We now know that those facts (theories) are not true.  Yes, Einstien was quite smart but that does not mean the man was right 100% of the time.  He was simply postulating theories based on "facts" known. 

Long story short, if time is non-linear then time travel already exists, if it can exist at all... it HAS to.  If it already exists then it HAS to be built into the time continuum.  If that is the case then nothing can change what has, or is going to, happen as all of this is simply on an endless loop and time travel is already built into that loop.  So there is no "going back and changing" this and that because if it was going to happen it would have already happened due to the endless loop.  Hence whether time travlel is possible or not, it is a non-issue because the act itself is built into time and cannot alter time as it has all already happened.

The books out there do have some cute ideas based on theory but the simple fact of the matter is, if it can happen it is not going to change anything anyway because if it is possible then it has all already played out. 

I realize I might be going over some of your heads, not meaning to sound condescending.  Oh well, I guess I can always go back through time and edit this anyway.   

[MagnusTrask]

I don't know what you just said, and I don't think it's because it's going over my head.   It seems to me though that no one should have such definite ideas about things we know little about.

[adamsgirl]

Well, KajunDC, what you bring up is addressed in the book. Have you read it? I strongly suggest you do. It's very enlightening.

[David]

 

I didn't see the presentation, but I read the book.
Kudos to Frank for making sense of the Roxanne Drew paradox, which has been bugging me for 30 years!

David

[Angelique Wins]

I saw the presentation and I was very impressed!!!!  I'm more into fantasy and romance type stuff, so when Adamsgirl said she wanted to see the time travel presentation, I was like..."okaaaaay..."  But as it worked out, I was there, and I UNDERSTOOD what Frank said.  I mean, not the entire concept so I could re-explain it, but I was very satisfied (not to mention intrigued) with his explanation. 

And it truly did seem like something that of course, we don't completely understand now, but seems quite comparable to other scientific achievements which to someone a hundred years ago or more would just dismiss as being impossible.

So keep an open mind, and we can get together in the future (or in the past) and discuss it.

Judy
 

[borgosi]

I was there and Frank didn't really cover anything that wasn't in the book.

As other have said before me, the book covers the subject very well and answers the questions brought up here. If you haven't read it, you should, it's a very good read.

[barnabasjr]

...just like many used to be SURE that the world was flat and the earth revolved around the sun.  We now know that those facts (theories) are not true...

But I've always thought the earth DID revolve around the sun.