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Post by Bigboy on Jan 18, 2006 7:19:30 GMT -5
You mean that conscious beings only exist in the "now", so traveling back in time we'd see just the landscape of that era?
It's quite a nice way of separating "choice" (and those that are able to make them) from a persistent solidly causal universe - quite philosophical! ;D
The idea that the further you get from "now" the more reality deteriorates is interesting - have you ever read the short story "The Langoliers" by Steven King (or the b-movie based on it) ? It's based on similar ideas - with the addition of these cosmic creatures (the Langoliers) that consume the recently abandoned past, as the present (the now that conscious beings exist in) moves into the future.
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Post by greedy on Jan 18, 2006 21:26:05 GMT -5
i watched the movie when i was younger and after posting that last night i was thinking about it and a lot of the post was based of the ideas presented it's funny what gets tucked into the subconscious
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Post by greedy on Jan 18, 2006 22:17:54 GMT -5
i was toying with a black whole theory till i encouterd the 8 ball paradox have u heard it before
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Post by Bigboy on Jan 19, 2006 13:53:14 GMT -5
The billiard ball paradox is the same as the grandfather paradox, but without free-will being involved. It does involve wormholes, but in a very specific set up. The paradox won't necessarily manifest itself. Though considering how the tiniest change can have massive effects (chaos/butterfly effect), in a practical sense any form of backward time travel is more likely than not to cause some kind of paradox.
What was your black hole idea?
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Post by ProvidencePortal on Jan 19, 2006 14:26:23 GMT -5
Can you recap the paradox, BB?
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Post by Bigboy on Jan 19, 2006 16:51:08 GMT -5
Imagine a wormhole, with one end facing the other. Traversing the wormhole sends you back a few seconds in time. If you launch a billiard ball into one end at the appropriate velocity and trajectory, it will traverse the wormhole and emerge at the other end a few seconds earlier. The trajectory of the ball going into the wormhole can be such that the emerging ball collides with it, preventing itself from traversing the wormhole and making the collision - this is the paradox. It is essentially the same as the grandfather paradox (an action that prevents itself from happening), but because it is entirely mechanical in nature, free will is eliminated from the equation.
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Post by ProvidencePortal on Jan 19, 2006 17:03:22 GMT -5
Thanks -- interesting twist on the "I killed my dad before I was born" bit. Now, with causality boiled down to mechanics, it's interesting in this example the role a point of view with its own subjective, constant flow of time plays. Seems that's what decides there's a paradox.
Because to me, the billiard ball bowler, I will simply perceive some weird, perfectly timed nasty intervention every time I try to get the ball rolling ...
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Post by Bigboy on Jan 19, 2006 18:23:32 GMT -5
That or the universe will implode... ;D
There's a variation to the thought experiment, where the ball knocks it's younger self into the wormhole to begin with (very similar to the Donnie creates MD Frank saves Donnie cycle). Unfortunately it falls down - to conserve momentum, the ball must experience no friction and have a coefficient of restitution of 1 (no energy lost in collision) - both of which are impossible in the real world, so after a few cycles it will have lost the momentum sufficient to knock it's younger self in.
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Post by greedy on Jan 21, 2006 18:15:00 GMT -5
as usuall bigboywraps up my words in a neat little package ;D perhaps one day i can stump you
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tmmdi
New Member
They Made Me Do It!?
Posts: 4
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Post by tmmdi on Jan 29, 2006 16:00:58 GMT -5
When an object moves at the Speed of Light it becomes Energy. Like mentioned: Infinite mass/ Infinite Speed is required to travel at the Speed of Light, thus making it impossible. There are ways around trying to build upon a Time Machine requiring to go as fast as the Speed of Light, like the Blackhole/Whitehole Theory. <-- Correct me if I'm wrong.
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Post by Bigboy on Jan 29, 2006 20:26:22 GMT -5
You're right - although your terminology is a little squiffy. I think this is how it is: An object with mass distorts space-time as it travels, depending on it's velocity. This extra curvature of local space-time effectively increases the object's mass. As the object approaches LS it's effective mass increases to the point that more energy than exists in the universe would be required to accelerate it further (effectively an infinite mass requiring infinite energy to accelerate). The Black->White hole idea is another way of describing a "wormhole" with an Einstein-Rosen bridge. Each end can occupy a different point in space-time, possibly facilitating time travel. You wouldn't need to travel at LS to go through (though you would probably be mushed into your component particles!). Prof Monnitof gets this wrong in the movie, stating that a wormhole and FTL speeds are required.
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Post by fenixtale on Apr 12, 2006 22:00:39 GMT -5
AH i sorta get it now.. my heads going to explode *shakes head* though ive only read a couple of posts... well kudos... ( ?? )
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Post by Bigboy on Apr 14, 2006 19:24:30 GMT -5
Ha, thanks. Pretty sure it's not entriely accurate (for instance I think "An object with mass distorts space-time as it travels" should be "An object distorts space-time as it travels"). Anywho, for more info on mass and reletivistic mass this is fairly easy to follow: math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/mass.html
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Post by cellardoor on Jun 2, 2006 5:02:18 GMT -5
tmmdi is correct in my opinion. When you think about it, the only thing known to be able to travel at the speed of light is in fact light it self. Well that also includes other forms of electromagnetic waves. Any way the point here is that these "things" are energy. They have no mass. This is why I believe it is impossible to be able to travel at the speed of light. I'm a little confused about the whole E=mc^2 bit, becuase I thought that m was "delta" m, or change in mass. Which is nuclear physics is the mass defect, which is converted to kinetic of the particles that have been newly formed. Back to the point, i think it is impossible ffor anything with mass to be able to travel at the speed of light. Thats why if it is possible we will have to somehow gain a greater understanding of wormholes, and leanr how to take advantage of them... although I don't really see time travel as an advantage, kind of just a novelty. I think it will also allow us to explore alot deeper into space, by postponing aging....
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Post by percieve on Jul 6, 2007 2:39:44 GMT -5
Have you guys seen the movie contact
its the same thing if im reading correctly
when the girl gets into the machine she falls directly into the water
when she is in the ball she travels for a couple of hours according to her clock inside the ball
for the people on the outside, she fell directly through into the water not stopping
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