randomness

[Subb]

So I found this story about the Large Hadron Collider and the theory that we will never find the Higgs Boson because "Nature will 'ripple backward through time' to stop the LHC ... like a time traveller who goes back in time to kill his grandfather" huh? Nature itself time travels? We live in a universe that has solid properties and laws, so isn's it better say time travel is not possible in the dementional space we reside in, instead of attaching this matter-based concept to "nature"?

Best part of the story is Professor Brian Cox, who kind of reminds me of my father-in-law, who says "Anyone who thinks the LHC will destroy the world is a twit" He's from England, so I think calling them twits is the equivallant to giving the finger, right?

Damn it's easy to be a theorist.

Well time travel IS possible, but we don't have the means to do it according to most physicists that is.

[Fuse]

Speaking in terms of traveling from present day to the past, I beleive there may be some form of limited particle time travel to be applicible for data transmission perhaps, but I'm pretty doubtful about solid matter. I'm also having a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of mother nature "time traveling" back to stop the discovery of something. The first word that came to my mind when I read that was fate - and I don't like the idea of predetermination.

How's that for a random post? =)

[Heironymus]

Speaking in terms of traveling from present day to the past, I beleive there may be some form of limited particle time travel to be applicible for data transmission perhaps, but I'm pretty doubtful about solid matter. I'm also having a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of mother nature "time traveling" back to stop the discovery of something. The first word that came to my mind when I read that was fate - and I don't like the idea of predetermination.

How's that for a random post? =)

You mean like in Deja Vu?

[Fuse]

Speaking in terms of traveling from present day to the past, I beleive there may be some form of limited particle time travel to be applicible for data transmission perhaps, but I'm pretty doubtful about solid matter. I'm also having a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of mother nature "time traveling" back to stop the discovery of something. The first word that came to my mind when I read that was fate - and I don't like the idea of predetermination.

How's that for a random post? =)

[Fuse]

bud-dum chish!

I consider DejaVu to be strictly a biological response in our brain associating current perceptions to recorded memory ones and perhaps some rare connection in the brain - I would fail to see how particles could have the properties to travel back in time and also be able to affect biological events - but I admit that is an interesting concept and in the future who knows what may be possible.

I was actually thinking more along the lines of being able to control the speed and/or production of a Tachyon-like particle at one time, and a detector sometime in the past. This would allow data transmission in a simple form (think morse-code). If Tachyons truely exist there would be challenges. First you would need to be able to detect them. Second, you would need to know exactly where to look. Third, a method to alter them would be needed. Four, once altered you would need to return them back to their old state (speed) and direct them to the correct spot. I'm sure there's a million other issues too, btu that's just what came off the top of my head in the last three minutes. This would explain why we have had no apparent visits or messages from the future - if we can't even detect the paper, how can we see what's written on it?

Side note: I say Tachyon-LIKE particles, because most of the theory of tachyons states the ability to do the things I mentioned (alteration, isolation, encoding) aren't even "not possible", they're "not imaginable". (Dumb wording. Their existance is only theory anyways. Which if they do exist, they will still be classed as "non-existant" particles)

See? It is easy to be a theorist

[Heironymus]

I meant the movie not that phenomenon.. where they could send small items back into the past..

[Manic Velocity]

I wrote a big long post about the possibility of time travel, trans-dimensional travel, quantum laws, and relativity theory... and then deleted it.

I love thinking about this stuff.  But talking about it makes me cringe.

[Fuse]

Oh.

Well I suppose they did a good job explaining that they don't have the power to send large things back. If you can send any particle with mass back in time, I supposed you can send massive amounts of mass back as long as you have enough energy. I'm pretty sure the only time travel involving mass I've seen involves using an anti-matter-like bubble through spacetime. But I'm no physicist. I can barely spell it.

Wow, I'm a nerd.

[Fuse]

H, you just made my blog. lol

[Heironymus]

lol.. I was trying to make a simple comparison of what we were discussing for the readers having a hard time keeping up..
As for time travel I prefer talking about what would happen if instead of how to. I dont have the technical skills to theorize about how to but I can use logic and theoretical thinking to come up with a "what if we did".
Like if we went back and changed the past would it splinter it and create an alternate universe (simple explanation newest Star Trek movie)
or would time fix itself so that it was always meant to be that way..
or would time unravel due to us tampering with it
I can go on and on about this topic though if it concentrates in that field of discussion..

[Tbone]

As cool as it would be, I still don't think time is a tangible variant like space. We can change the effect of time, but we can't change time itself. Time is simply a unit of measurement created by man.

In other words, we could change perception of time. That's about it (make time appear to slow down or speed up to individuals). I know a lot of smart people say otherwise, but it's all theoretical and probably based on a wrong assumption somewhere down the line.

[Lithium]

[Manic Velocity]

As cool as it would be, I still don't think time is a tangible variant like space. We can change the effect of time, but we can't change time itself. Time is simply a unit of measurement created by man.

In other words, we could change perception of time. That's about it (make time appear to slow down or speed up to individuals). I know a lot of smart people say otherwise, but it's all theoretical and probably based on a wrong assumption somewhere down the line.

You're right that "time" in a very general sense has been invented by man.  A "minute" is just a name we give for a determined length of time, just as "three" is just a name we give for the number of apples we might buy at the store.  But just because we invented a word for this amount of apples, doesn't mean that the apples don't exist.  And just because we invented a word to track this amount of time, doesn't mean that time doesn't exist.

To say that it's "probably based on a wrong assumption somewhere down the line", is to discredit the most profound and forward-thinking ideas in the history of our species.  I would love to know what circumstances brought you to hold this opinion.

Aspects of relativity have actually been measured, albeit on extremely small scales.  Atomic clocks placed at higher altitudes run faster than atomic clocks placed at sea level, due to a lower gravitational field.  This is known as "relativistic time dilation".  When the GPS unit in your car tells you to "turn left", it's actually accounting for the affects of RTD.  This is due to the fact that not only is the GPS satellite experiencing a much lower gravitational field than the car unit, but it's also moving much faster.  It's even been calculated that astronauts who spend months in space have aged slightly slower than their family members who remained on Earth.

Time is affected by gravity and velocity.  Walk from one corner of a room to another, and you effectively alter your experience of space-time.  If we could generate enough energy to move beyond the speed of light, and manage to control it, it's very probable that we could witness the effects of the bending of space-time on a large scale.  And keep in mind that by "large", I mean a few seconds, as opposed to the nanoseconds that RTD is measured in.  To witness RTD in terms of minutes or even hours, we would need to be moving at such a speed that would make the speed of light look quaint.  It would effectively be time-travel, but not in the manner in which Hollywood has depicted to us.


Fuck... this is why I don't like talking about this shit.  Makes me sound like a goddamn lunatic.  I'm going to go brown-bag a bottle of plum wine and hang out on a park bench while screaming at my invisible friend.

[Manic Velocity]

See, this right here is time travel.  Lithium has traveled back to June 2009, and he brought back an ancient internet artifact!

[Fuse]

Fuck... this is why I don't like talking about this shit.  Makes me sound like a goddamn lunatic.  I'm going to go brown-bag a bottle of plum wine and hang out on a park bench while screaming at my invisible friend.

At least you'd have company. That's pretty much the exact reply I was about to write.