I don't think qhysical travel is, but I believe that you can see into it. All you have to do is get X light years away from earth, or have a really big mirror.

Technically, you are correct: every observation is an observation of the past, due to speed-of-light limits.

... I'll try to explain what I remember reading bout 5 or 6 years ago.

Scientists have successfully send one atom/ion/proton/electron/annoyingly small particle/whatever into the future by firing an assload of "whatevers" at an wall which should have blocked all "whatevers".
At least one of these "whatevers" actually went straight through that wall (by using an electron tunnel or so ...) and was measured to arrive BEFORE it had left the "whatever-cannon".

Of course that does not work for humans.

Okay all you big brainers out there, my explanation was pretty amateurish, feel free to correct me.
My memory is not the best.

Since time is relative, time travel depends upon the ability to move FTL.

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Bloodsage had this to say about dark elf butts:
I'm fairly sure I'd have heard of that if it'd proven time travel into the future . . .

Since time is relative, time travel depends upon the ability to move FTL.

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Yes, that's the catch.
The "whatever" actually traveled FTL.

I wish I could find that article again ... =/

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Kinanik had this to say about Pirotess:
Shoot a billion humans at the wall at a very high speed!

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I'm sorry but that's damned funny

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Kinanik impressed everyone with:
Anyone think it's possible?

I don't think qhysical travel is, but I believe that you can see into it. All you have to do is get X light years away from earth, or have a really big mirror.

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Alls you need is 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, a flux capasitor and a Deloran going 88 mph.

My recollection may be off however, it has been a while since I read that.

I also recall they used some form of gel to slow down light so it wasn't going the speed of light.

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We were all impressed when Kanid wrote:
I remember reading about theoretical particles called tachyons which can tunnel through the FTL barrier and go faster than light.

My recollection may be off however, it has been a while since I read that.

I also recall they used some form of gel to slow down light so it wasn't going the speed of light.

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Tachyons were made up.

The gel used to slow photons is real, however. That was cool.

Send VI $49.99 and you'll be transported back to 1999.

[ 02-06-2002: Message edited by: Black Mage ]

Using lasers this professor somewhere managed to stop a photon of light then make it start again. Wasn't for very long but I thought it was pretty good.

So time travel is theoretically possible. It's just insanely improbable.

Plus there's the worry that nature will tend to abort any paradoxes.

FTL travel is possible, the general theories behind star Trek (TNG anyway) were basically sound, but you'd need incredulous amounts of power, the likes of which only a good anti-matter engine can provide.

Of course, it just relies on the fact that to YOU you havent gone FTL, but to an outside observer, you have. Something about folding the rubber sheet thing.. Anyway..

I want my spice!

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Delphi impressed everyone with:
The god of time posting on this makes it funny.

FTL travel is possible, the general theories behind star Trek (TNG anyway) were basically sound, but you'd need incredulous amounts of power, the likes of which only a good anti-matter engine can provide.

Of course, it just relies on the fact that to YOU you havent gone FTL, but to an outside observer, you have. Something about folding the rubber sheet thing.. Anyway..

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I'm sorry, but what the hell are you smoking?!

FTL is quite explicitly forbidden by physics as we understand it, unless there's been a huge breakthrough recently I haven't heard of.

You see, there's that little E=mc^2 thing that always gets in the way.

I haven't seen the article where Hawking accepts time travel . . .

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Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael had this to say about Tron:
Actually a matter/antimatter engine results in the complete annihilation of the matter and antimatter.

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And in the process throwing off an incredible amount of energy. The trick is to make anti-matter and keep it from destroy the matter you want to keep.

Time travel is possible. We do it every day, infact you are doing it right now. If you want to get a jump on that atomic clock just go upstairs. Now granted that only slows it down a nearly unoticilbe amount but it still slows it down.

If you want to 'slow down' time even more though you just need to go really fast. The closer that you get to the speed of light (aprox. 3.0x10^8 m/s I belive) the slower you age relative to those slowpokes in the rest of the galaxy. The thing is that light travels at the same relative speed to everyone, thus the theory of relativity. That means that if you are traveling at 1,000,000 m/s light would still be traveling at 3.0x10^8 m/s second from your point of reference.

I was going to try and explain it past this point, but quite honestly I don't really understand it that well yet and am still working on it. Basicly it comes down to that time isn't a constant and it is really hard for me to wrap my mind around. So basicly the faster you go since light dosn't go any faster you just go through time quicker the faster you go. Eventually going infinantly fast through time if you ever managed to go the speed of light. Thus why going the speed of light is impossible.

The problem with going the speed of light is that, due to E=mc^2, it takes infinite energy.

And it's important to think of time as a personal variable linked to entropy, rather than a constant or, worse, an objective thing.

We all move in time, at different rates.

I dunno, I just think it IS possible

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The Otaku Penguin impressed everyone with:
This may be reaching, and I'm just playing devil's advocate here but Sage, what if e=mc(squared) was wrong? What if all of the facts used to build that theory were proven false?

I dunno, I just think it IS possible

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E=mc^2 is the reason why atomic bombs and reactors work, so the theroy is atleast a great deal true. Later it migth be added to, Like how seintists view light- It's a wave, It's a Particale, and now it's both.- As for someone mentioning the Matter-antimatter engine before, I think it was When matter and anti-matter meet they turn into pure energy, and i think its been proven that thats happen, I rember something about the air force or some group was able to make Positrons and a few anti-protons.

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Bloodsage wrote this stupid crap:
I'm sorry, but what the hell are you smoking?!

FTL is quite explicitly forbidden by physics as we understand it, unless there's been a huge breakthrough recently I haven't heard of.

You see, there's that little E=mc^2 thing that always gets in the way.

I haven't seen the article where Hawking accepts time travel . . .

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I'm not smoking anything. FTL IS possible. But not from the person who is going FTL. Lemme 'splain.

The basic theory was that you "bend" space. You warp it so that points coincide with each other. Imagine a big rubber sheet. Put something on the sheet, it bends down around it. Gravity. Now, if you could take this sheet and fold it so that point A connects to point B, You could travel from point A to B instantly, even though they are more then 1 light year apart. Thus, faster then light travel.. But ONLY to an outside observer. To you, you've simply hopped a few inches or so.

There is ANOTHER FTL travel, but it involves information. Take two particles. Now, the net of these two particles spin must be 0. Why? Uh, I dunno. So ya got one turning one way, and the other turning the other way at the exact same speed. Now, take one particle and send one off to some far corner of the galaxy. Now, Change the spin of one particle. INSTANTLY the other particle changes its spin to make sure that the total spin is 0. Nobody can explain why information can travel FTL.

Astrophysics is my pet peeve. I love black holes, too.

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Delphi had this to say about Robocop:
I'm not smoking anything. FTL IS possible. But not from the person who is going FTL. Lemme 'splain.

The basic theory was that you "bend" space. You warp it so that points coincide with each other. Imagine a big rubber sheet. Put something on the sheet, it bends down around it. Gravity. Now, if you could take this sheet and fold it so that point A connects to point B, You could travel from point A to B instantly, even though they are more then 1 light year apart. Thus, faster then light travel.. But ONLY to an outside observer. To you, you've simply hopped a few inches or so.

There is ANOTHER FTL travel, but it involves information. Take two particles. Now, the net of these two particles spin must be 0. Why? Uh, I dunno. So ya got one turning one way, and the other turning the other way at the exact same speed. Now, take one particle and send one off to some far corner of the galaxy. Now, Change the spin of one particle. INSTANTLY the other particle changes its spin to make sure that the total spin is 0. Nobody can explain why information can travel FTL.

Astrophysics is my pet peeve. I love black holes, too.

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1. Thats not traveling faster than light, that is changeing you postion in space/time, No actull travel happens. Plus the few things I can thing of that might bend Space like, like a black hole, you would need to be going faster than light to do anything.

2. I have no clue what the hell that ment, nor did it actully say anything. Sounds like the same crap the crackhead that was going on about the time-cube would say. You spend to much time watching Star-Trek I think.

[ 02-06-2002: Message edited by: Pyscho_Pike ]

No, I don't think humans can figure it out. I don't think their brains are wired right to get it.

Why do I think this? Because I believe that the universe likes to fuck with people's heads.

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Delphi impressed everyone with:
There is ANOTHER FTL travel, but it involves information. Take two particles. Now, the net of these two particles spin must be 0. Why? Uh, I dunno. So ya got one turning one way, and the other turning the other way at the exact same speed. Now, take one particle and send one off to some far corner of the galaxy. Now, Change the spin of one particle. INSTANTLY the other particle changes its spin to make sure that the total spin is 0. Nobody can explain why information can travel FTL.

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As near as I can tell, hes talking aboout Quantum entangelment.

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Bloodsage had this to say about John Romero:
Sort of.

The problem with going the speed of light is that, due to E=mc^2, it takes infinite energy.

And it's important to think of time as a personal variable linked to entropy, rather than a constant or, worse, an objective thing.

We all move in time, at different rates.

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Doesn't that just prove that you can't accelerate faster than light? If you, by some unbeknownst way, could just be faster than the speed of light, would it be faster to go faster than light?

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Delphi had this to say about Tron:
I'm not smoking anything. FTL IS possible. But not from the person who is going FTL. Lemme 'splain.

The basic theory was that you "bend" space. You warp it so that points coincide with each other. Imagine a big rubber sheet. Put something on the sheet, it bends down around it. Gravity. Now, if you could take this sheet and fold it so that point A connects to point B, You could travel from point A to B instantly, even though they are more then 1 light year apart. Thus, faster then light travel.. But ONLY to an outside observer. To you, you've simply hopped a few inches or so.

There is ANOTHER FTL travel, but it involves information. Take two particles. Now, the net of these two particles spin must be 0. Why? Uh, I dunno. So ya got one turning one way, and the other turning the other way at the exact same speed. Now, take one particle and send one off to some far corner of the galaxy. Now, Change the spin of one particle. INSTANTLY the other particle changes its spin to make sure that the total spin is 0. Nobody can explain why information can travel FTL.

Astrophysics is my pet peeve. I love black holes, too.

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Well, the first one is a clever idea that has been brought up, but there's no real agreement as to whether it actually works or not. Science isn't really sure space can bend and connect like you (and many science fiction authors) describe. It can't be called a theory, and might only barely be a hypothesis. It's a neat idea, but has no real evidence of possibility in terms of physics.

The second case sounds like you're taking about quantum entaglement. It doesn't work quite like that. When a certain kind of reaction occurs, two particles of opposite spin are created, and sent flying in opposite directions. Since they're known to be opposite, once we know one, we know the other. The spin of the second partice doesn't "change" once the first is measured, it was always opposite to the first. So, it doesn't instantly change, it's just that we instantly know what it must be.

To steal the example from "the quark and the Jaguar", it's no more strange than imagining a person who always wears one green sock and one red sock. Once we see his right foot, and see a green sock, we know instantly that the other sock is red. It isn't that the green sock sent some kind of faster-than-light message to the red sock to tell it to be red, it's just that we know the other foot must be the other color, no FTL travel necesary.

I saw it once!

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Ferrel had this to say about pies:
Beats the hell out of me, but I thought I would post that I agree that the universe is fast, confusing and beats the hell out of people.

I saw it once!

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Rush hour traffic?

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Dr. Vorbis had this to say about Robocop:
Doesn't that just prove that you can't accelerate faster than light? If you, by some unbeknownst way, could just be faster than the speed of light, would it be faster to go faster than light?

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First off, light doesn't accelerate. Ever. It's always going the speed of light, no matter what reference frame you're in. This should be your first clue that something screwy is going on. I'm standing still, you're moving at half the speed of light compared to me. We both measure the same beam of light, and figure out it's speed relative to ourselves. We both get the same answer, which seems impossible, but that's the way the universe works.

No matter what you do, you can never pass the speed of light, in anyone's reference frame.

Let's say you simply constantly accellerated at 1 m/s^2 (which is easy enough to do, just keep that rocket buring, nothing weird going on here). you'd think, after 400,000 seconds, you'd be going 400,000 miles a second (above the speed of light), according to the people who were standing still next to you when you started. It doesn't work like that, though.

According to those people standing still, as you get faster and faster, your time begins to slow down, so you are then accelerating at .998 m/s^2, then as you get closer to the speeed of light, you fall to .9 m/s^2, then a little bit later, you fall to .8 m/s^2, then .7m/s^2, and (as you start getting really close to the speed of light by their view), your acceleration drops to .4 m/s^2, .2, .1, .01, .0001, and so on, as your speed gets closer and closer in their perspective. Hence, when you're virtually at the speed of light in their view, your time has slowed to near-standstill, and you have virtually no acceleration, leaving you stuck under light speed.

In your frame of reference, of course, nothing strange is happening at all. You feel acceleration, but you can't outrun light in your own frame, as it's still going the speed of light away from you.

Any tricks you try to get around this time slowing problem (though calling time slowing is cheapening the effect, it's really a combination of several very interesting proporties) will inevitabely fail. The speed of light barrier is absolute, at least with regards to any phenomenon we've ever encountered, theorized, or imagined.

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We were all impressed when Ryuujin wrote:
Rush hour traffic?

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Actually, it mugged a guy at the mall

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Chalesm had this to say about Tron:
First off, light doesn't accelerate. Ever. It's always going the speed of light

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Ferrel had this to say about pies:
Actually, it mugged a guy at the mall

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Hehe

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Ryuujin had this to say about (_|_):
[QUOTE]Chalesm had this to say about Tron:
[qb] First off, light doesn't accelerate. Ever. It's always going the speed of light

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Alright, you caught me, I should be more careful in my phrasing. Light in a vacuum is always moving at a constant speed, regardless of the observer, and that speed is the ultimate barrier. the actual speed the beam of light moves at, though, is determined by the medium it moves through. for a less extreme example, just shine a light underwater. The light moves more slowly there than in a vacuum. My argument still stands, though, as long as I make sure to use "c" as opposed to the phrase "speed of light", as c is constant, and can't be broken.

I wonder, though, what happens on an atomic level in the experiment mentioned. Are the actual photons themselves stopping, or just being absorbed by electrons and released later? If the photons themselves are stopping, I have to wonder what happens to a particle that has no rest mass.

[ 02-07-2002: Message edited by: Chalesm ]

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Ryuujin had this to say about pies:
Chalesm, explain Superunification/Unified Field Theory to me!

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Well, I do know a little bit about Unified Field theory, mostly what I can regurgitate from books I've read.

The basic idea is that, in theoretical physics, there is a very large problem. On one hand, we have the theory of relativity, which has wonderfully explained away hundreds of old problems (such as murcury's orbit) and make an innumberable amount of amazing predictions that no one would have expected, of which every single one that we can test has proven true. It's a theory that has proven itself time and time again. On the other hand, we have Quantum mechanics, which is every bit as amazingly useful and proven. These two theories stand as the two pillars of modern day science, and are quite possibly the two most proven theories in the history of science.

The only problem is, they're mutually exclusive. They are 100% opposed, each one says the other couldn't possibly work. As one (of many) examples Relativity needs a smooth, curving space-time, which quantum mechanics scoffs at by creating the quantum foam, a churing maelstrom. Every attempt over the last 100 years to get the two to work together has failed miserably, the two theories just pop out garbage when used together. Normally, this isn't a problem, as we can simply ignore the quantum effects when looking at stars, and we can ignore gravity when looking at atoms, but physicists are obvously very troubled that the universe seems to be built from two, entirely contradicary theories.

Unified field theory is is catch-all term for the holy grail of physics, the solution to this problem. The way to get gravity to work with the three other forces. There are several methods being used to find this.

One way is the "Superunification" you mentioned. A while ago, it was found that at very, very high energies, such as those found near the big bang, the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force became identical, the two forces were unified into a single force. This showed that in a way, the two forces were actually only multiple manifestations of a deeper, core proporty. Then, if I remember correctly (if I don't, don't hold it against me too hard, it's been a while) fairly recently the strong nuclear force was shown to be an identical force as well in very, very high energies. The three standard theory forces were united in Grand unification. Now, with Superunification there's an attempt to see if the same is true with gravity, and gravity is also the same as the other forces at very, very, very high energies. If it is, it could be the last piece of the puzzle, tell us that gravity really is the same as the other forces, and give us the key for fitting the theories together.

There are other directions for unification being persued as well. The most well-advertized at the moment is string theory, which has the distinction of being one of the first functional quantum theories that has the graviton integrated from the get-go, as opposed to just added on the top later. Unfortuanatly, as the revisions are so fine from quantum mechanics to string theory, there's been a lot of trouble getting testable predictions out of it, so it's not really very well proven yet. However, hopes are high that it could be the theory that unifies relativity and quantum mechnanics, primarily through revealing a key flaw in quanum mechanics, the assumption of the point-particle.

But anyway, this is all really off topic from time travel; unification, whether true or not, wouldn't tell us much of anything about the feasability of time travel.

[ 02-07-2002: Message edited by: Chalesm ]