Time Travel is Science Fiction

[billvon]

You say that as if it were an accomplished fact. As if the human perception of history were as real as a river or planetary path. You claim to be a scientist, yet you accept things on faith. Does not a 'time line' refer to past time? How can there be known future time lines?

From Wikipedia:
=============================
Many-worlds interpretation

The quantum-mechanical "Schrödinger's cat" paradox according to the many-worlds interpretation. In this interpretation, every event is a branch point; the cat is both alive and dead, even before the box is opened, but the "alive" and "dead" cats are in different branches of the universe, both of which are equally real, but which do not interact with each other.
The many-worlds interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that asserts the objective reality of the universal wavefunction and denies the actuality of wavefunction collapse. Many-worlds implies that all possible alternate histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe"). In lay terms, the hypothesis states there is a very large—perhaps infinite—number of universes, and everything that could possibly have happened in our past, but did not, has occurred in the past of some other universe or universes. The theory is also referred to as MWI, the relative state formulation, the Everett interpretation, the theory of the universal wavefunction, many-universes interpretation, or just many-worlds.

The original relative state formulation is due to Hugh Everett in 1957. Later, this formulation was popularized and renamed many-worlds by Bryce Seligman DeWitt in the 1960s and 1970s. The decoherence approaches to interpreting quantum theory have been further explored and developed, becoming quite popular. MWI is one of many multiverse hypotheses in physics and philosophy. It is currently considered a mainstream interpretation along with the other decoherence interpretations, collapse theories (including the historical Copenhagen interpretation) and hidden variable theories such as the Bohmian mechanics.

Before many-worlds, reality had always been viewed as a single unfolding history. Many-worlds, however, views reality as a many-branched tree, wherein every possible quantum outcome is realised. Many-worlds reconciles the observation of non-deterministic events, such as the random radioactive decay, with the fully deterministic equations of quantum physics.

In many-worlds, the subjective appearance of wavefunction collapse is explained by the mechanism of quantum decoherence, and this is supposed to resolve all of the correlation paradoxes of quantum theory, such as the EPR paradx and Schrödinger's cat, since every possible outcome of every event defines or exists in its own "history" or "world".

. . . .

Time travel
The many-worlds interpretation could be one possible way to resolve the paradoxes that one would expect to arise if time travel turns out to be permitted by physics (permitting closed timelike curves and thus violating causality). Entering the past would itself be a quantum event causing branching, and therefore the timeline accessed by the time traveller simply would be another timeline of many. In that sense, it would make the Novikov self-consistency principle unnecessary.

 

[paddoboy]

You say that as if it were an accomplished fact. As if the human perception of history were as real as a river or planetary path. You claim to be a scientist, yet you accept things on faith. Does not a 'time line' refer to past time? How can there be known future time lines? How can we reverse all that has ever happened and undo all that physical motion that has occurred and travel backward through time? It's nonsense, or at best science fiction-fantasy. (Shakes head)

Sure its science fiction at this time. But not being forbidden by the laws of physics and GR, it is still open for possibilities and is open according to theoretical concepts.
If someone could manage to travel back into the past, and did something to potentially change future events, he would create another time line.
All speculative stuff at this time, but none disallowed by the laws of physics and GR.

 

[Landau Roof]

cute.
it's like the little engine that could.

Um. Yeah. That made no sense...

 

[Beer w/Straw]

Yes. I see it often here. These "working scientists" claim all religious belief is fantasy, but you tell them Star Trek isn't real and they resort to name-calling and throw tantrums.

You mean Star Trek isn't real?

 

[Landau Roof]

You mean Star Trek isn't real?

Well, it's real stupid.

 

[billvon]

It couldn't. But remember we can freeze human embryos now. If there was a way to freeze (and successfully thaw) adults, then your "time machine" is a mere refrigerator. There can never be any "time machine" that magically disappears from your living room for 250 years before ding, making a magical reappearance.

Nor is there a magical box that can transport you from your living room across the ocean, making a "ding" before it makes a magical appearance in Paris. But we do have airliners which people can use to do something similar. That was once a fairy tale too.

All that stuff is just a fairy tale. A fantasy. Popscience woo for starry-eyed suckers.

You sound a lot like the people who knew that those airliners were just fairy tales; a fantasy.

=======================
Put these three indisputable facts together:
One: There is a low limit of weight, certainly not much beyond 50 pounds, beyond which it is impossible for an animal to fly. Nature has reached this limit, and with her utmost effort has failed to pass it.
Two: The animal machine is far more effective than any we can hope to make.; therefore the limit of the weight of a successful flying machine can not be more than fifty pounds.
Three: The weight of any machine constructed for flying, including fuel and engineer, cannot be less than three or four hundred pounds.
Is it not demonstrated that a true flying machine, self-raising, self-sustaining, self-propelling, is physically impossible?

-Joseph Le Conte, Professor of Natural History at the University of California, Popular Science Monthly, November 1888.
=======================
It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the "flying machine" problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere.

- Thomas Edison, quoted in New York World, 17 November 1895.
======================
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.


— Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1895.
======================
The energy necessary to propel a ship would be many times greater than that required to drive a train of cars at the same speed; hence as a means of rapid transit, flying could not begin to compete with the railroad.

— 'Popular Science' magazine, 1897.
======================
It is complete nonsense to believe flying machines will ever work.

— Sir Stanley Mosley, 1905.
======================
All attempts at artificial aviation are not only dangerous to human life, but foredoomed to failure from the engineering standpoint.

— Engineering Editor, The Times, 1906.
=====================
Their Lordships are of the opinion that they would not be of any practical use to the Naval Service.

— British Admiralty, in reply to the Wright's offer of patents for their airplane, 1907.
====================
No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris ... [because] no known motor can run at the requisite speed for four days without stopping.

— Orville Wright, c. 1908.
====================
In the opinion of competent experts it is idle to look for a commercial future for the flying machine. There is, and always will be, a limit to its carrying capacity.... Some will argue that because a machine will carry two people, another may be constructed that will carry a dozen, but those who make this contention do not understand the theory.

— W. J. Jackman and Thomas Russell, Flying Machines: Construction and Operation, 1910.
==================
We do not consider that aeroplanes will be of any possible use for war purposes.

— The British Secretary of State for War, 1910.
==================
The popular mind often pictures gigantic flying machines speeding across the Atlantic, carrying innumerable passengers. It seems safe to say that such ideas must be wholly visionary. Even if such a machine could get across with one or two passengers, it would be prohibitive to any but the capitalist who could own his own yacht.

— William Pickering, Harvard astronomer, 1910.
=================

 

[paddoboy]

It's all science fiction, there are no time travellers, and it is disallowed by the laws of physics and GR. The people who say it isn't don't understand GR and they don't understand closed timelike curves. They're quacks peddling woo, and probably a popscience book too.

Nope, as much as it stuffs up everything you have ever claimed against accepted mainstream science, time travel is not forbidden by the laws of physics and GR.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-m-wilde/time-travel-quantum-physics_b_4426900.html

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/time_travel.html

http://www.livescience.com/39159-time-travel-with-wormhole.html

http://plus.maths.org/content/time-travel-allowed


You are just going to have to learn that what you claim is not accepted by our far more reputable mainstream folk.

I don't bait people, I refer to Einstein whilst you peddle woo, the moderators on this forum are a lot less knowledgeable than me about physics, and you've lost the argument so now you're just trolling.

For some weird reason we get these people who know f*ck-all physics and who cling to popscience woo and try to trash every thread. You just can't have a sincere conversation with them.

Yes, yes we all know...The whole world pales into insignificance when compared with yourself. [ tic mode on of course]

It couldn't. But remember we can freeze human embryos now. If there was a way to freeze (and successfully thaw) adults, then your "time machine" is a mere refrigerator. There can never be any "time machine" that magically disappears from your living room for 250 years before ding, making a magical reappearance. All that stuff is just a fairy tale. A fantasy. Popscience woo for starry-eyed suckers.

Wrong again your eminence.
Time dilation can most certainly be used as a form of time travel....see my previous example of me travelling at 99.999% "c" and returning 12 months later. While I have literally aged just 12 months, and my clocks have shown 12 months to have flowed/passed/progressed, you will be long dead and buried in an Earth 230 odd years in my future.
That is time travel.

 

[paddoboy]

http://rt.com/news/167752-time-travel-quantum-light/

When you challenge conviction, people react with emotion. Even when they're scientists who think they're rational. Unless they've looked in the mirror.

You can challenge conviction and accepted science all you like, but you need to supply observable evidence and/or experimental evidence supporting your model, then through the appropriate channels get it peer reviewed.
If you cannot do that for whatever reason you have NOTHING but your usual tiresome rhetoric, driven by your own grossly inflated ego.

 

[paddoboy]

http://plus.maths.org/content/time-travel-allowed

The above excellent link features probably one of the world's foremost authority on gravity, time and BH's. Kip Thorne.

 

[Landau Roof]

Nor is there a magical box that can transport you from your living room across the ocean, making a "ding" before it makes a magical appearance in Paris. But we do have airliners which people can use to do something similar. That was once a fairy tale too.


You sound a lot like the people who knew that those airliners were just fairy tales; a fantasy.

=======================
Put these three indisputable facts together:
One: There is a low limit of weight, certainly not much beyond 50 pounds, beyond which it is impossible for an animal to fly. Nature has reached this limit, and with her utmost effort has failed to pass it.
Two: The animal machine is far more effective than any we can hope to make.; therefore the limit of the weight of a successful flying machine can not be more than fifty pounds.
Three: The weight of any machine constructed for flying, including fuel and engineer, cannot be less than three or four hundred pounds.
Is it not demonstrated that a true flying machine, self-raising, self-sustaining, self-propelling, is physically impossible?

-Joseph Le Conte, Professor of Natural History at the University of California, Popular Science Monthly, November 1888.
=======================
It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the "flying machine" problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere.

- Thomas Edison, quoted in New York World, 17 November 1895.
======================
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.


— Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1895.
======================
The energy necessary to propel a ship would be many times greater than that required to drive a train of cars at the same speed; hence as a means of rapid transit, flying could not begin to compete with the railroad.

— 'Popular Science' magazine, 1897.
======================
It is complete nonsense to believe flying machines will ever work.

— Sir Stanley Mosley, 1905.
======================
All attempts at artificial aviation are not only dangerous to human life, but foredoomed to failure from the engineering standpoint.

— Engineering Editor, The Times, 1906.
=====================
Their Lordships are of the opinion that they would not be of any practical use to the Naval Service.

— British Admiralty, in reply to the Wright's offer of patents for their airplane, 1907.
====================
No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris ... [because] no known motor can run at the requisite speed for four days without stopping.

— Orville Wright, c. 1908.
====================
In the opinion of competent experts it is idle to look for a commercial future for the flying machine. There is, and always will be, a limit to its carrying capacity.... Some will argue that because a machine will carry two people, another may be constructed that will carry a dozen, but those who make this contention do not understand the theory.

— W. J. Jackman and Thomas Russell, Flying Machines: Construction and Operation, 1910.
==================
We do not consider that aeroplanes will be of any possible use for war purposes.

— The British Secretary of State for War, 1910.
==================
The popular mind often pictures gigantic flying machines speeding across the Atlantic, carrying innumerable passengers. It seems safe to say that such ideas must be wholly visionary. Even if such a machine could get across with one or two passengers, it would be prohibitive to any but the capitalist who could own his own yacht.

— William Pickering, Harvard astronomer, 1910.
=================

Oh. Is it false analogy time already? I fail to see how quoting a bunch hundred-year old statements by people who could not see how new technology might apply has anything to do with making science fiction come true. The airplane, which you allude to several times was soon-to-be or recently accomplished. The quotes discuss the airplane's physical or financial feasibility. How can you equate what you are saying with 'the time machine', which has not been invented, will not be invented in just a few years and in all likelihood can never be invented? If you think otherwise please give us a clue as to how it would be possible. Don't just quote people born in the 19th century and lacked vision.

 

[Landau Roof]

Why does one boy keep saying time travel is not forbidden by general relativity? Is general or even special relativity The Law? Does it literally say in there somewhere: 'time travel is not forbidden'? or does Einstein just not mention it because it is such an unlikely possible use of his theory? Does he also specifically for bid or not mention hot dog eating contest or alligator wrestling in his general theory?

At the cineplex they have no regulation that you mustn't wrestle alligators in the theater aisles during a show. It is not forbidden! And yet will it ever occur? Just because a thing is not forbidden by scientific theories or even scientific knowledge does not mean it is bound to happen if we only want it badly enough.

This is where my analogy breaks down: if you did sneak a gator past the ticket office and the ushers, hid it until a show starts and wrestled it in the aisles, you would find that although it is certainly just barely possible - it is in fact forbidden to do so, even if those careless cineplex lawyers were too lazy to include it in the published regulations along with smoking and loud talk. Gator wrestling in a crowded theater breaks so many other laws and is such a preposterous thing to do in any case that forbidding it is nonsense.

 

[paddoboy]

Oh. Is it false analogy time already? I fail to see how quoting a bunch hundred-year old statements by people who could not see how new technology might apply has anything to do with making science fiction come true.

Obviously you need reminding of the truth. Yep, time travel is Sci/Fi at this stage of proceedings, just as flight and the other associated scenarios bvillon's quotes were referring to were at one stage.

Of course so was going to the Moon, and even now we still have some short-sighted individuals that still believe we will never get to Mars.
"The laws of physics and GR do not forbid time travel" FACT:
"A sufficiently advanced civilisation could one day achieve such a thing" FACT:

It won't be easy...In fact at this stage we have no idea how it can be achieved or even if it will be achieved. But it is certainly within the realms of possibilities.

 

[Beer w/Straw]

Maybe the time machine has been invented, but talk about physical or financial feasibility!

http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2011/03/hadron-collider-time-machine/

 

[paddoboy]

Lord Baden Powell the President of the aeronautic society of London, wrote to Lord Kelvin for support....Kelvin's reply was along the lines that he did not have one molecule of faith in manned, heavier then air flight. This was around 1897....Only a decade or so before the Wright Brothers.

 

[Landau Roof]

Maybe the time machine has been invented, but talk about physical or financial feasibility!http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2011/03/hadron-collider-time-machine/

Interesting popular science article. I know that you understand it's not seriously proposing that a person could travel back in time. It even says:

time travel is limited to these special particles, it is not possible for a man to travel back in time

I feel obliged to include this bit in light of my post just a few minutes ago:

“Our theory is a long shot,” admitted Weiler, who is a physics professor at Vanderbilt University, “but it doesn’t violate any laws of physics or experimental constraints.”

The underlined part is my view, and I emboldened the part so similar to a certain friend of ours favorite remark since he is so fond of bold type as proof that his opinions are facts.

However, the part I really like is this:

basic building blocks of our universe are permanently stuck to the brane

(Did they spell 'brain' wrong?)

 

[paddoboy]

http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/letters.html

To Major Baden Baden-Powell, in reply to a request to join the moribund Aeronautical Society:

Dec 8/96

[Letterhead: “THE UNIVERSITY, GLASGOW.”]

Dear Baden Powell

I am afraid I am not in the flight for “aerial navigation”. I was greatly interested in your work with kites; but I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the aëronautical Society.

Yours truly Kelvin

So in actual fact bollvon's quotes actually illustrated a very valid point, that even sometimes otherwise great man [Lord Kelvin] are prone to short-sightedness sometimes.

And while the laws of physics and GR do not forbid time travel, the possibility is always open to any sufficiently advanced civilisation.

 

[paddoboy]

The underlined part is my view, and I emboldened the part so similar to a certain friend of ours favorite remark since he is so fond of bold type as proof that his opinions are facts.

In regards to time travel and the laws of physics and GR, your friend is correct.

 

[billvon]

Oh. Is it false analogy time already? I fail to see how quoting a bunch hundred-year old statements by people who could not see how new technology might apply has anything to do with making science fiction come true.

Above were a bunch of hundred year old statements who did not believe that airliners were possible simply because they had never been done before - even though science allowed that the possibility existed, and even though early experiments showed promise. They simply could not believe that it was possible because, to them, it seemed unlikely.

The airplane, which you allude to several times was soon-to-be or recently accomplished. The quotes discuss the airplane's physical or financial feasibility. How can you equate what you are saying with 'the time machine', which has not been invented, will not be invented in just a few years and in all likelihood can never be invented?

The first two are true, the third is not - and is very similar to what people in the quotes above were saying. We now know of several ways of traveling forward through time, and indeed do that to a very small degree now (i.e. via the ISS.) Thus it is not only possible, it is being done. Moving backwards is far more difficult, and we are probably a century away from even being able to consider it. But we do know of two methods by which it is theoretically possible.

 

[Landau Roof]

Laws of physics and GR do not forbid
time travel - squawk!

 

[paddoboy]

At the cineplex they have no regulation that you mustn't wrestle alligators in the theater aisles during a show. It is not forbidden! And yet will it ever occur? Just because a thing is not forbidden by scientific theories or even scientific knowledge does not mean it is bound to happen if we only want it badly enough.

Missed the above with all the nonsense you have been posting.
Firstly as others will agree, that is not what I have said.
I said again for the umteenth time....
Time travel is not forbidden by GR and the laws of physics:
Then I said.....
Any sufficiently advanced civilisations could achieve it:
I have said nothing about it occurring with any 100% certainty, of the likes of what we see our alternative hypothesis friends claim, when they put their hypothesis for consideration.

You seem burdened somewhat with an agenda, which is made pretty obvious by the way you have misinterpreted and misunderstood rather simple statements.
Similarities in fact to the Galah you have imaged and posted.
You need to do better.