Is this evidence that time travel is possible?

A mathematician by the name Godel proved 60 years ago that in a certain type of rotating universe he created a mathematical description of, time travel would not only be possible, but it would be possible to travel to any point in space and time simply by taking a journey through space. The only problem was that the universe WE live in doesn't seem to be rotating. Or at least, not fast enough so that anyone would notice it. And no one thought it was rotating at all, because that would imply that a certain direction was special - that is, light traveling in one direction would go in a straight line, but traveling perpendicular to that direction, would run in big circles and light traveling a bit in each would go in spirals, and so the distribution of galaxies seen in the distance would presumably look somehow different from one direction compared against another if the light by which we see them was twisted in this way, while it looks fairly uniform in every direction. But according to this page:

www.polarization.com...

which has some references:

1] Nodland, B., and J. P. Ralston, "Indication of anisotropy in electromagnetic propagation over cosmological distances" Physical Review Letters, 78:3043-3046, 1997
www.rochester.edu...

there is evidence that this universe IS rotating, with a period of rotation of 10 billion years. This would mean that flying a circle through space in the right direction, with a circumference on the order of 10 billion light-years (so flying out on a journey that takes you about 3 billion light-years distant and returning) may allow you to arrive back on Earth at a time before you left in the first place on returning.

Any thoughts on this?

reply to post by Sandor

The movie "The Planet of the Apes," which is based on Eintein's theory put the space travelers into the future upon returning. So you have two contemporaries Einstein and Godel who contradicted themselves on the issue of future and the past.

The only science that you can trust is applied science. If the results are consistent with the theory proposed, then the theorist was right. You may consider theoretical science as a number shuffling where unrelated coincidences appear aplenty and can be easily mistaken for cause and effect link.

The theorists use symbolic language to construe their theories for the reason that the arguments are almost impossible to verbalize. When the concept is verbalized to describe the idea, it's most often "lost in translation" for those who are not familiar with the concept explained in the symbolic language. That said, I can't elaborate further on Godel's idea and all what follows, coz I don't have the slightest idea what are you talking about.

reply to post by stander


"The movie "The Planet of the Apes," which is based on Eintein's theory put the space travelers into the future upon returning. So you have two contemporaries Einstein and Godel who contradicted themselves on the issue of future and the past."

Ummmm... no. Well, what can I expect from a forum on a website called "abovetopsecret". I suppose I should expect the next person to claim that Einstein prophesied that gray aliens with big eyes would come in the year 2012 and turn everyone inside out. Einstein didn't contradict himself, Godel didn't contradict himself, there is no "issue" about future and past, and Planet of the Apes was a movie written by people with as much knowledge of general relativity as you have, and probably a lot more knowledge of special relativity than you have. As for this mumbo jumbo you spewed about theory and practice, you evidently don't even know what a theory is. Theories aren't made to predict the way things are that come before supporting evidence, to later be supported by or contradicted by evidence as it comes in, which may never happen. That is called a HYPOTHESIS. THEORIES are used to EXPLAIN evidence. And there is nothing wrong with general relativity, it is a theory created to explain certain observations which actually happened - and the theory also suggested phenomena which no one had thought to look for, and these have all been VERIFIED. That makes it stronger because now we have more observations, and the theory explains ALL the observations. Examples: "There is a god". Hypothesis. "The apparent brightness of a star decreases in proportion to the inverse square of the distance to the star". Theory. "Aliens arrived on Earth 40 thousand years ago and bred with cavemen and the infusion of their superior genes began civilization". Hypothesis. "The stock market crashed in 1929". Observation (got you!) "Human civilization will be destroyed within the next 100 years." Hypothesis. "Ice near its melting point at atmospheric pressure can liquefy under increased pressure while most things tend to be solidified from their liquid forms under increased pressure because unlike with most substances, water as a liquid is denser than as a solid and therefore the liquid is a more stable state under increased pressure." Theory.

Godel's solution satisfies the conditions of general relativity, which is a set of equations. There is nothing wrong with it.

[edit on 27-3-2009 by Sandor]

Originally posted by Sandor
THEORIES are used to EXPLAIN evidence.

Most certainly not. How could a theory explain evidence? Theory is an explanation with the highest degree of confidence possible to a question regarding causes where direct evidence doesn't exist. It provides evidence in abstract form; it can't explain it, coz direct evidence is lacking. Or is the Big Bang theory based on someone observing a singularity through a telescope wondering what that thing was? The observation of galaxies moving away from each other is not evidence of singularity that the Big Bang theory explains; the theory proposes a singularity as the cause of the observed effect and goes a bit further to provide descriptive terms.

The film "The Planet of the Apes" is based on the phenomenon of time dilation -- a consequence of special relativity where Lorenz transformation is the best theory that describes it. Of course, the film would be the "material" evidence of some folks being right about stuff, if the story was based on a real account. That would be the point where theory turns to fact.

Here is the deal on time travel. Yes, it possible. But is is not practical and for the most part quit useless. If you travel to the future you stay in your time line. If you go back the very instance you arrive you have added an new element to to that time line which creates a new time line. If you then travel back to the future you will stay in that new time line you created and not back to the future that you left. In fact you will never be able to get back to the same future you left and each time you go back you will create a new time line meaning if you went back and forth a few times it would look like this. It shows 3 jumps creating 3 alternate time lines. In short you can never get back to where you started and can never go to the same place twice. SO, time travel is pretty much pointless and useless



[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/006566bde5b1.jpg[/atsimg]

Originally posted by fixer1967
Here is the deal on time travel. Yes, it possible. But is is not practical and for the most part quit useless. If you travel to the future you stay in your time line.

If you stay in your timeline, then you are not traveling to the future ahead of everyone else, unless your timeline is different from other elses timeline. So if you travel to the future to see what other folks you know will be doing, then you find nothing, coz you traveled to your future but not to someone elses future.

Disclaimer: I'm a theist but not of the Abrahamic faiths. I have minor biblical scholar and scriptural skills. Also I am not a scientific/legal or medical expert in any field. Beware of my Contagious Memes! & watch out that you don't get cut on my Occams razor.All of this is my personal conjecture and should not be considered the absolute or most definitive state of things as they really are. Use this information at your own risk! I accept no liability if your ideology comes crashing down around you with accompanying consequences!

Explanation: I find a rotating universe to be highly suspect for the following simple mathematical back of the envelope calculation. Note I am assuming a single rotation within a single 2D plane.

Radius of universe as measured from sol to the CMB radiation = 13.7+ billion light yrs [aprox]

Therefor the circumference of the universe is pi x [2 x radius] = 86 billion light years [aprox]

And with....

Alleged rotational speed of the universe = 1 / 10 billion yrs [From OP]

Therefor a point on the universes edge [i.e. 13.7+ billion light yrs distance from sol] would rotate [circumference/rotational speed] at 8.6 light yrs / 1 yr which is over 8.5 times faster than the speed of light. Such spacial dragging at such speeds would surely cause far more noticeable effects on the light [blue/red shifting etc] that we detect as coming from such extreme distances. Also with such vast amounts of 3D space moving at such great speeds at such extreme distances compared with not so vast amounts of 3D space moving no where near such speeds and very much closer, would not avulsion shearing occur and create physical event horizons within the 3D spacial universe?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/56d0fb259622.jpg[/atsimg]

Personal Disclosure: In an expanding universe this problem would just be exacerbated more and more! Rotating universe :shk:

Edited to fix error in picture. [RE: 86 billion light yrs NOT 86 light yrs! :shk:]

[edit on 28-3-2009 by OmegaLogos]

reply to post by OmegaLogos

Why to go into this? You can demonstrate that light can move "faster than light" by using a flashlight pointed in the beginning and then in the end of an curved mirror. There is an obvious fallacy in this: you measure the speed of the image of light rather than the speed of photons. The same goes for the "circular" speed of light in the edges of the universe.

Disclaimer: I'm a theist but not of the Abrahamic faiths. I have minor biblical scholar and scriptural skills. Also I am not a scientific/legal or medical expert in any field. Beware of my Contagious Memes! & watch out that you don't get cut on my Occams razor.All of this is my personal conjecture and should not be considered the absolute or most definitive state of things as they really are. Use this information at your own risk! I accept no liability if your ideology comes crashing down around you with accompanying consequences!

Explanation: I'm wise enough to admit I got some stuff TOTALLY WRONG.... For example I completely overlooked the intrinsic expansion of the universe due to inflation theory and so my numbers ARE wrong....From wiki "The estimated age of the Universe is 13.7 billion years. However, because the Universe has continued expanding since that time, the comoving distance from the Earth to edge of the observable universe is now at least 46.5 billion light years."... So I will recalculate as follows.

Radius= 46.5 billion light yrs

circumference= 292 billion light years [approx]

assumes rotational speed= 1 full 360 degree rotation/ 10 billion yrs

Therefor....

A 1 light yr cubed area set at a distance of 46.5 billion light years away from earth will appear to move a full 29 light yrs in the direction of the rotation in the course of 1 full year.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/101171a27963.jpg[/atsimg]

Therefor if we take a picture with say the Hubble at date 0.0.0 [d/m/y] along due universal east of a really far away galaxy at the edge of the observable universe, then we might get a picture like this [say it was a one second snap . unrealistic I know but please bear with me] Note this is a front on view!

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/aeec77144ba3.jpg[/atsimg]

Side on view of above picture.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6db2a4934e28.jpg[/atsimg]

Then we wait 1 full year and take a 2nd picture along the exact same universal east axis [time stamp 0.0.1]. Then I am completely sure we would see this picture. Note this is a front on view.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a5180bc961d9.jpg[/atsimg]

Side on view of above picture.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2eff0100e0d7.jpg[/atsimg]

Note that the distant galaxy is OFFSET by nearly 30 light years in the direction of the rotation. i.e. east to south or clockwise when compared with an immovable axis [in this case the east or forward direction]! Also it would appear nearly a full 1 light further away as galaxies at this distance are receding at near this speed due to universal expansion!

Finally it would be highly fortuitous and suspect to find the entire universes rotation to be centered directly around sol as this would mean we are also at the center of the entire universe and not just the center of the observable bit!

Personal Disclosure: Can anybody explain why the universe doesn't shear apart due to rotating at this speed???? Surely near impossible to cross physical event horizons would manifest themselves between areas of space traveling just less than the speed of light compared to the other side of such an event horizon where space would be traveling faster than the speed of light!

P.S. Please excuse my poor artistic abilities.

[edit on 28-3-2009 by OmegaLogos]

Originally posted by OmegaLogos

Personal Disclosure: Can anybody explain why the universe doesn't shear apart due to rotating at this speed????

That's because the speed is not happenning; it's only perceived to be happening.

reply to post by stander
Disclaimer: I'm a theist but not of the Abrahamic faiths. I have minor biblical scholar and scriptural skills. Also I am not a scientific/legal or medical expert in any field. Beware of my Contagious Memes! & watch out that you don't get cut on my Occams razor.All of this is my personal conjecture and should not be considered the absolute or most definitive state of things as they really are. Use this information at your own risk! I accept no liability if your ideology comes crashing down around you with accompanying consequences!

Explanation: Its obvious I need to go full 3D to explain this.....

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a5286e6902b4.jpg[/atsimg]

Are we perceiving this apparent dissimilar motion of the stars at these distances???

Personal Disclosure: Apparently so according to the links provided by the OP! But has it been investigated by others to confirm or deny its actual objective reality. I couldn't find anything that corrobarated or validated it as an accurately performed study.

P.S. What about centripetal forces. Wouldn't the universe have to compensate for this outward driving force under the influence of this rotation?

Ok, I hope it doesn't sound too presumptuous of me to say this, but I have to say that everyone who has posted here besides myself has made some very large mistakes of logic.

fixer - I am not interested in what you think you understand about time travel based on sci fi novels you have read by people who were incapable of getting bachelor of science degrees in science, math or engineering and so went into writing. All I will agree with is that the way it really works is probably stranger than you can imagine.

Omegalogos - you are by far the most intelligent poster so far so I will address what you said mostly. First of all, you have several mistaken ideas about the consequences of a rotating universe. MOST IMPORTANTLY it is NOT rotating about ANY SINGLE POINT. Just as in an expanding universe, it APPEARS that everything is receding directly away from you, wherever you are in the universe, and therefore you could naively conclude you were somehow at the center, in a rotating universe, the universe will rotate about you wherever you are in it. And that sounds strange perhaps, but that's the way it works. Secondly - it is not POSSIBLE to observe galaxies that are 13.7 billion light-years away if the universe rotates with a period of 10 billion years. LIGHT travels in great circles with CIRCUMFERENCE 10 billion light-years in such a universe - that is, if it is perpendicular to the axis of rotation. It travels in straight lines, but its polarization is rotated if it travels in the axis of rotation, and it of course, does a mix of the two, traveling in a helix if it is traveling neither perpendicular nor inline with the axis of rotation of the universe. THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN A ROTATING UNIVERSE: Suppose you were in a rotating universe with no other matter except for yourself and a single star. Suppose you were very near the star. The light from the star emitted perpendicular to the axis of rotation travels in great circles so it will actually RETURN to the star after one rotational time period. In this case, 10 billion years. The light emitted in any other direction will not return to the star. So you look out into the sky and what do you see? A very, very thin ring of light that appears to divide space up into two parts. The apparent thickness of the light from this ring is the apparent diameter of the star, as seen from 10 billion light-years away. Very, very thin, in other words. The orientation of the ring also shows you the direction of rotation. The ring is in line with the rotation.

You'd think that would be a dead giveaway - that we should see a telltale ring in the sky representing the light from the milky way galaxy returning back to the milky way after 10 billion years, if the universe was indeed rotating at that rate. But now suppose there's some other matter in this universe. Galaxies, other stars, black holes, who knows what. Now the light doesn't travel in perfect circles. Indeed just the tiniest perturbation all but guarantees it will not return to the milky way. And there's a lot of gravity out there.

OK, so the distribution of galaxies. SURELY, you say, that would be seriously different, right? Afraid not. Extremely distant galaxies would look the same in all directions - the catch is, that the ones that we see in the extreme distance in the direction of the axis of rotation really are far, far away, but the ones we see perpendicular to it are actually quite likely much more nearby galaxies - but how they looked many billions of years ago. The light simply got trapped, swirling around in this vicinity, for billions of years, maybe getting bent around and misdirected a bit by gravity, but preserved to a certain extent as well, just as an optical lens will preserve the integrity of an image even if it moves it around or enlarges it or reduces it. So we see galaxies spaced about the same in every direction because even though in that one special direction the galaxies really are that distant but not in (cont)...

(cont) the other two directions, the distribution of our nearby galaxies as they themselves were in the early universe isn't very much different from how it was for those galaxies that really were so distant.

Now, what would a rotating universe mean for something actually making a circular journey through space? If you had a large circular particle accelerator and you forced some particles around it to nearly the speed of light - close enough that for all intents and purposes they were actually traveling at the speed of light, what would happen in a rotating universe. Well, suppose the circumference of this circle was one million light-years and they were moving IN the direction of rotation, so the rotation of the universe speeds up their progress. What would happen is that an ARC would be cut out of their journey. They wouldn't have to travel 360 degrees around a circle, they would only have to travel 9999/10000 of the complete circle, or 359.964 degrees, because the universe itself would move the finish line closer to them by that .036 degree in the act of rotating. If they went around the track the other way, then they would have to travel 360.036 degrees, because now they're working against the universe. Not a very big effect, even with that big a circle. If it was a billion light-years in circumference, it would only have to travel 324 degrees around one way, and it would have to go 396 degrees the other way. In fact, it is worse than that - because the 36 extra degrees they have to travel, when they do go that distance, the universe has moved the finish line back by another 3.6 degrees, and when they make it there, it's another .36 degrees further back. This is of course a convergent series. But it stops being so when the circumference of the circle surpasses 10 billion light years. Once that happens, it will cut extra time off its journey going one way around - but going the other way, it will never make it at ALL. The universe will be rotating around opposite its progress faster than it can make its progress. Essentially what this means is that even though it's going forward at the speed of light, space itself is being dragged back even faster than that, so it would be going backwards. It would certainly be very hard to observe this particle going backwards even though it's going forwards at the speed of light, since remember light which would convey this information also is constrained to travel in great circles and so has limited range. Well, that's about all for now. I hope you understand now that such a universe isn't quite how you were imagining it, and the self-contradictions you thought you saw were mostly those generated by your own misconceptions of how a rotating universe should be.

Ohhh, one more thing I just saw in your post I had better address:

"P.S. What about centripetal forces. Wouldn't the universe have to compensate for this outward driving force under the influence of this rotation?"

You don't understand. There are no centripetal forces. This is a property of space itself rotating, EVERYTHING in the universe perceives itself to be at the center, remember, and to it, it looks like everything is rotating around it. It does not see some other center about which it is rotating. There IS no centripetal force because of this. It is the space itself that is rotating.

There is also no need for some external thing to incite this rotation. Again, it's a property of the space itself. It means that your concept of momentum does not apply as you understand it on a grand scale.

And the problems you bring up using your first few illustrations - there is no problem there because you would not be able to SEE galaxies 13.7 billion ly much less galaxies 46.5 ly away. The light from that far away can never make it to you because it has to travel in circles of circumference 10 billion ly, thus daimeter 3.2 billion ly. Indeed, all that stuff that goes beyond that distance cannot be easily observed, but it differs from an event horizon in that even though there is no simple geodesic - path for light to travel - that brings those distant points to us, it is still possible to travel that distance if you accelerate en route rather than trying to let your momentum carry you all the way from there to here. That is what allows time travel in a rotating universe, in fact, the fact that you can beat the speed of light while traveling out of observable view. The square would be moving 8.5 times faster than the speed of light, but that's ok - because there's no way to observe it doing so. It is permitted for it to do that, as long as you have no way to see it do it. Kind of like cosmic censorship or the Schrödinger's Cat experiment. Anything is allowed to happen, any rules are allowed to be broken, as long as you have no way to observe it.

And fixer, that's also why inventing the notion of alternate universes is not necessary to reconcile the grandfather paradox. You go back in time and you don't necessarily put yourself into an alternate universe, because once you're back, there is no way to make observations on the time you came from or any intervening time to confirm that the person you're killing is your grandfather. All you have is the stuff you took back with you, and you are simply fooling yourself if you think recalling your own memories and examining your own DNA is making observations on whether this person is your grandfather. With no way to directly observe that he is your grandfather, only superficial evidence, you are free to kill him. No paradox. The many worlds hypothesis was invented by people who were too simpleminded to realize this fact. Of course, that doesn't mean that there IS no such thing as alternate universes, but Akham's razor would suggest something unnecessary like that probably then doesn't exist, unless actual evidence for it appears, certainly some small-minded people inventing it to reconcile their limited logical capacity to comprehend the grandfather paradox is not enough to constitute evidence.


[edit on 29-3-2009 by Sandor]

reply to post by Sandor
Disclaimer: I'm a theist but not of the Abrahamic faiths. I have minor biblical scholar and scriptural skills. Also I am not a scientific/legal or medical expert in any field. Beware of my Contagious Memes! & watch out that you don't get cut on my Occams razor.All of this is my personal conjecture and should not be considered the absolute or most definitive state of things as they really are. Use this information at your own risk! I accept no liability if your ideology comes crashing down around you with accompanying consequences!

Explanation: Cheers! That is the best response I have ever had from any poster! YOU ROCK! You earn my posted APPLAUSE!!!

Personal Disclosure: I will take time and fully investigate more. Thanks for denying my ignorance!

Originally posted by Sandor
Ok, I hope it doesn't sound too presumptuous of me to say this, but I have to say that everyone who has posted here besides myself has made some very large mistakes of logic.

Mistakes of logic?
I believe the proper and logical wording is "mistakes in logic."

It is bad to make mistakes in logic, because you can get fooled and make mistakes. Here are a few Web pages explaining the various ways you can get fooled.

barelybad.com...

Omegalogos - you are by far the most intelligent poster so far so I will address what you said mostly. First of all, you have several mistaken ideas about the consequences of a rotating universe. MOST IMPORTANTLY it is NOT rotating about ANY SINGLE POINT. . And there's a lot of gravity out there.

As he said, Omegalogos is a minor biblical scholar and as such, the geocentric theory and Ptolemian views supported by an observation during laundry doing regarding centripetal forces proved to be a fertile ground for his speculation.

The go-and-kill your ancestor paradox deals with going to the past the way time travel is imagined given our experience with time via Rolex watch. But . . .

a) time is ticking 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, . . .
b) you are 5 and your ancestor is 1.

Now reverse the clock and go to the past to kill your ancestor who is responsible for you residing in the present:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Now you killed your ancestor and took his place:

1, 2, 3, 4, - , 4, 3, 2, 5.

You believe that you took an action in the past that affects the future, but that's not so, coz you ancestor couldn't be erased, as you see the number 1 in the beginning of the time series. That's because you traveled to the "reversed" future, not to the past.