Is this the time travel breakthrough?

Originally posted by disownedsky
This is a pathetic, cringeworthy example of cargo cult physics abuse. The writer neither understand relativity or even basic physics. I'd waste no further time on it.

[edit on 7-3-2007 by disownedsky]

Just out of curiosity, how many peer reviewed publications do you have to your credit? I am not trying to be snide here, I am trying to discover if you are a genuine expert in physics or someone simply "popping off" at something he doesn't really understand.

Springer...

There is a problem with the time travel device. To get the light to move in a circle, you need to point the light directly at the mirror, getting in the way of another mirror's "view". So all you'll end up with is a complicated way to point a light on the back of the light emitting device.

SPOILERS: The mirrors don't bend time. What about conservation of energy? If this "machine" worked, it would be a free energy device. Even so, surely it can not be that simple to travel through time. Electromagnets are the way to go.

Worse...if you shove some structured matter into it and it disappears, does that violate the conservation of baryon number, or does that rule only apply to decay mechanisms?

edit: by that, I mean something "chunky" that has neutrons and protons in it

[edit on 7-3-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

Imagining that the device could somehow influence local space to spin in a vortex of sorts...what would happen to an object introduced into this space?
Wouldn't it also be subjected to the same torsional effect?

"Doctor....our test subject has been twisted up like a dishrag. What do we do?"

Well, yeah. What about tidal and straight gravitational effects, too? The Tipler thing, IIRC, has issues with severe tidal distortions. The Kerr metric hole would also except there are approaches to one that avoid it, not that you could hit it accurately enough.

Maybe inside the "light cylinder" the gravitational stresses null out, though, like the solution for a sphere.

Then there's the time rate shear. I would have to believe that the time rates inside this thing won't be uniform. A time rate gradient puts a lot of stress on things and is especially nasty for live things you want to keep that way.

[kidding mode ON] That's why you're supposed to avoid the "heat monkeys" under a running 'UFO' engine. What you're seeing is time rate gradients, it looks like index of refraction changes visually.

What would happen if the machine gets damaged while time traveling? Does the machine time travel with you, or do you simply travel to the machine in the future, but if the machine does not exist in the future, how would one get there? WTF am I saying lol. Confusing.

If this device worked, you would be pointing a laser at the back of the laser pointer. In order to get the laser to go in a circle, you need to start it off. In order to keep it going, you need to move faster than the speed of light so the laser doesn't disipate completely on the back of the laser pointer. The theory is also corrupted. Whatever happens in space is remembered in time.

First of all, how in the world is this loop of light supposed to work when the source of the light is in the trajectory and will break the loop? If it moves, the angle of the light will be wrong and never form a loop. If you have a box with mirrors on the inside walls, you have to provide a light from a source outside the box. If the laser is aiming to the inside of the box, the angle will deflect the light to the bottom of the box not to the sides to start forming a loop. This "theory"makes no sense.

heres a video about this very same guy...i saw a video that was WAY longer, but it seems to have disapeared from youtube...so this is the best that i can find...

www.youtube.com...

pretty interesting stuff, i must say...

Great find Urn!

Or at least it looked pretty cool....My speaker system has failed.

Question,

Let's forget about moving matter through time. Would it be possible to transfer information through time? What I mean is, could subatomic particles like photons be able to travel back through time using much less energy than it would take to transfer even a small amount of matter.

If this is the case, would it be possible to use this technology (perfected with "mirrors" that wouldn't alter the lights wavelength or remove energy from the beam itself) to create a type of computer that in effect could give you a result before the question is asked?

C:\> ping google.com

Pinging google.com [64.233.167.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=-35ms TTL=244
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=-36ms TTL=244
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=-33ms TTL=244
Reply from 64.233.167.99: bytes=32 time=-36ms TTL=244

Ping statistics for 64.233.167.99:
Packets: sent = 4, received = 4, lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = -36ms, maximum = -33ms, average = -35ms

C:\>

Feasible?

If nothing else that would be an excellent screenplay!

SLPEXE

Originally posted by jbondo
If nothing else that would be an excellent screenplay!

I knew you were going to say that.........

Originally posted by MrPenny

Originally posted by jbondo
If nothing else that would be an excellent screenplay!

I knew you were going to say that.........

I knew that you were going to say that you knew I was going to say that....or something else....eventually.

In regards to sending information back in time, if it's possible, then I think we should give it a try. Then again, Paycheck showed us that this could be a bad idea.

Something else,

I'm no physicist, but is there a way to reflect the light using something other than mirrors? Do photons have a charge that could be repelled by an opposing charge without the photon losing any energy?

So, why couldn't someone go back in time and kill Hitler? What would happen to history? Would all the books suddenly rewrite themselves? Would everyone's memory be instantly changed?

For those who say you can't go back further than the date the "time machine" was invented...why can't this "machine" be portable enough for you to carry, like a watch? It wouldn't matter that it wasn't in the time you travel back to as you'd have it on your wrist while you travel. But that's then assuming the machine itself can travel back in time with you. I suppose some boffin has a mile long mathematical formula to prove this isn't possible.

By travelling back in time, aren't you actually changing history by default? So, why can't you purposely go back and change history?

Please don't answer my questions with any expectation of me understanding your reply. I won't. Treat them all rhetorically. I'm just stating some more of the things that really confuse me and hurt what few brain cells I have left after reading this thread!

Grey

Grey,
Think about every choice that is made as a fork in the road, except when dealing with time, this road has infinite of forks in it one after the other. So immediately after choosing one path, you are forced to choose another, and another for eternity.

If I went back in time and killed Hitler, that would be one possible fork that we walked down. The other path is still there, the one where Hitler survived, but we aren't going that way, so we don't see it.

The theory goes that right now, existing all at once, is a series of infinite time lines that continue on without our knowledge.

Someone in another timeline could right now be saying "What if we had gone back in time and prevented Hitler from being killed? What would our world be like?" referring to what we are living now.

I did see the Butterfly Effect recently and thought it was interesting in that every time he would go back it would create a ripple thru time that would change everything. In essence he had to keep going back to fix the future or make it turn out th way he wanted. It only showed how it changed things associated with him but I imagine it had to have a far more reaching effect.

It was kind of a warning that if it were possible to go back in time you would always have an impact on events of the future.

Possibly a detrimental impact that would effect an entire country or even the entire planet.

That would suck for you, the time traveler, but we'd be okay here in our timeline.