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Author Topic: 1.21 Gigawatts?! Futurama/Sci-Fi Theoretical Time Travel Thread  (Read 2047 times)
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JBERGES

Urban Legend
***
« on: 07-20-2006 07:34 »
« Last Edit on: 07-21-2006 00:00 »

This doesn’t quite fit in any forum; it’s not quite off topic, but not quite on.  I’ll put it here because in truth no one cares about GD anymore… prove me wrong mods… prove me wrong…

This is where the discussion has gone so far (It started during an aside about Soylent’s fic):

     
Quote
Originally posted by ClonedWizard:
The Earth is moving around the sun.  The sun is moving within a spiral arm of the Milky Way.  The Milky Way is travelling through space as well.  All of these things are moving pretty fast.  If you travel forward or backward through time even 1 second and return to the same spatial location, wouldn't the ground you were standing on have moved?  Unless the time travel device accounts for non-accelerated motion in some way.  Maybe it has something to do with the expansion of the universe... hmmm.  This issue is not commonly brought up in time travel plots, though it applies to many of them.  Please don't think I'm singling you out.  This is just my first post and the story is great and you have the astronomy minor.  I'd just like to "hear" your thoughts on this.

     
Quote
Originally posted by soylentOrange:
@Clonewizard:  You're absolutely right about the problem of the movement of objects in the universe over time.  I actually debated for a long time whether the time device should only allow movement along the time axis so that the traveller ended up in the same spacial coordinate from which he started.  Basically I decided that would be boring (though the physics student part of me will never quite forgive me). But anyway, I came to the conclusion that for the sake of the story the futurama universe does not have a totally linearly independent four dimensional spacetime vector space.  Somehow the time component is linearly dependent upon three dimensional space so that movement along the time axis results in movement in three dimensional space.

     
Quote
Originally posted by JBERGES:
Uh...  I could be wrong here, but general relativity?  To say that you must move 'back' to compensate for inter/intragalactic movement seems in direct violation of Einstein's theory.  Who’s to say what is moving and what isn’t, and why should it matter at all?

In most science fiction, in my stories, and in this story, traveling back in time is not merely popping out of existence then reappearing in the same ‘spot’ at an earlier time. This method simply doesn’t make sense, as the universe doesn’t allow for a static coordinate system.  Your fears are unfounded.  Furthermore, time travel can’t be represented as traveling back down your own world line, as you do not end up at time x exactly where you were the ‘last’ time you experienced time x. It is, as best as I can put it, forging a new world line in the negative t direction consistent with your current inertial reference frame.  Under those constraints (possibly the most plausible scientifically) all of Soylent’s work makes sense.  The realistic consequences and stipulations of such a truth are interesting, and I could go on for hours about the possibilities.  I won’t, and I’ll also add that I’m not saying I’m definitely right, It’s just my goofy interpretation.

Edit:  Additionally, the universe may be accelerating it's expansion... and that makes things even more confusing...

     
Quote
Originally posted by soylentOrange:
I'm not so sure anyone should be so quick to dismiss CW's point.  The kind of ime travel most everybody writes about assumes that we are not moving backward along our own world line.  If we were to do so we'd simply be experiencing reverse entropy; everything would happen backwards until we got to our target space-time.  We'd end up in the past with no recollection of time travel, because we'd have effectively erased the future and all of our memories of it.  Darned laws of thermodynamics        :)

[...]

But really CW is partially right.  If you leave the universe and re-enter it somewhen else you wouldnt expect the planet you left from to be nearby.  It would have moved, especiallu in 1000 years.        :)  You'd have to have some special technology that would let the device know where your destination was at the time you're trying to get to.
[/small]

I'll continue it and get even more nerdy:

SO:  Yeah, but you’re implying you can ‘leave’ the universe, which brings all sorts of other stuff into play.  If that’s the case, then yes, you’d need technology to get where you need to go (or stay where you need to stay, as the case may be).  Still, if you have the technology to pinpoint a spot in the fourth dimension upon reentry, what’s so hard about zeroing in on the other three?

My point had to do with time travel within this universe.  Within this universe, I think you wouldn’t need technology to stay where you are. 

Horrible metaphor time!  Think of your world line as a piece of debris slowly sinking in a pool (this is a stretch but bear with me) Depth is the flow of time, and movement perpendicular to depth is akin to travelling in the 3 spatial dimensions.  While the piece sinks at a constant rate (in this simplified model) it also drifts back/forth and left/right due to eddies and currents (analogous to curves in space-time or even gravity)  The world line is simply the piece’s total path through the water. 

Now, hook a loose fishing line to the piece, directly above it, and let the same scene play out.  It will be exactly the same.  Now, at some given time, quickly reel it in.  The debris halts movement, and then flies upward, cutting a straight path though the water.  This is a reverse world line, and this is time travel.  Note that during the reeling, the piece will tend not to move left/right or back/forth (or, spatially in my metaphor) assuming it is jerked fast enough.  So, perhaps, the ‘faster’ you travel back in time, the less spatial shift you incur?  Maybe…

Relativistically speaking, if the entire system (piece, water, and line) were moving at a constant rate down a river (inertial reference frame), the experiment would yield the same results; the debris would remain in the same chunk of water it started in, even though both it and the water are ‘moving’ through the river. I think the same would hold true in the time travel model.  No matter how you’re ‘moving’ in the universe, you’d still be where you started after a trip back through time.  Make sense?  Probably not… but I try…


------------------
Brevity is the soul of
Dai

Starship Captain
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« Reply #1 on: 07-20-2006 08:16 »

Yes, somthing with that many big words could easily describe the attributes of time travel, however I do believe it belongs in off-topic.  ;)
Professor Zoidy

Urban Legend
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« Reply #2 on: 07-20-2006 15:57 »

So, somebody finally created this topic? Wow, I get to learn..if I don't hurt my brain in the process of understanding and who gives a rat's ass about where it is? It's a thread I'll never figure out completely anyways.  :p
ClonedWizard

Crustacean
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« Reply #3 on: 07-20-2006 16:20 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by JBERGES:
Make sense?  Probably not… but I try…

I was following you 'til the last paragraph, but I'll keep thinking about it.

Going off on a tangent from that (but not a tangent from the thread topic), consider this scenario: someone, let's call her Amy so it is easier to visualize (as now you can imagine the character), travels back in time 5 minutes.  Note: I'll try not to bring causality into this.  Now imagine, that 5 minutes ago Fry was standing in that location (location as in place not spatial coordinates so as to avoid the other "issues" currently under discussion).  When Amy travels back, what happens to Fry?  Is he, for lack of a better word, "pushed" out of the way as she appears?  Matter cannot be created or destroyed, right?  But now we have this new Amy-matter to consider as well.  As the sum-total of all the matter in the universe has just increased, how does this effect, if at all, the physical "laws" of the universe?

I guess I'll leave you all with those questions.  I may be completely off-base here.  That's why I'm asking the questions, though.  To learn!  Have at it.
Xanfor

DOOP Secretary
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« Reply #4 on: 07-20-2006 20:46 »
« Last Edit on: 02-05-2011 18:06 »

The atoms of Amy will appear where Fry is. Two particles can not exist at the same point, however. So the particles will be forced 'out' of each other with a resultant release of energy that would make Hiroshima look like a wet firecracker. But if we bring in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, that would mean that we could easily pinpoint precisely where Amy's atoms will end up. Of course, we would then be unable to tell whether or not it was actually Amy. And as for the creation of matter. No matter has been created that didn't exist before. For example, you can have an empty bank account and still buy something for a million dollars with a check, so long as you place a million dollars in the bank before the check is cashed. After five minutes pass, Amy will be back where she started. No matter lost at all. In fact, the universe does this sort of thing all time, with virtual particles, which are responsible for Hawking radiation. The laws of conservation can be broken, as long as the violation very brief. Or, of course, I could argue that the universe is not a closed system, so none of these laws actually apply. It is possible.

@Cloned Wizard: I read what you wrote in my fanfic thread. I like you. My favorite kinds of stories also involve parallel universes and time travel. You and me are going to get along real nicely around here.  ;)
ClonedWizard

Crustacean
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« Reply #5 on: 07-20-2006 21:31 »

I'm almost the epitome of "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing".  Only the fact that I am aware of this saves me.  I enjoy learning about the universe (from quarks to quasars), but the only "authority" I have on the subjects are online threads like these, websites, multiple readings of Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe", and the watching of movies such as the "The Butterfly Effect".  I'm really looking forward to seeing how this thread progresses.

 
Quote
Originally posted by Xanfor:
I read what you wrote in my fanfic thread. I like you. My favorite kinds of stories also involve parallel universes and time travel. You and me are going to get along real nicely around here.  ;)

 :).  I'll try not to disappoint.
Professor Zoidy

Urban Legend
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« Reply #6 on: 07-20-2006 21:52 »

@ Xanfor: Well, you can do so much with time and mke such dramatic stories by screwing up a universe or two and having to fix them. You've found a never-ending story-clencher that I'd love to see a little more around here...*hint hint*
alias_007

Starship Captain
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« Reply #7 on: 07-21-2006 10:43 »

NERDS!!

*runs off giggling*
soylentOrange

Urban Legend
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« Reply #8 on: 07-24-2006 22:51 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by Xanfor:
The atoms of Amy will appear where Fry is. Two particles can not exist at the same point, however. So the particles will be forced 'out' of each other with a resultant release of energy that would make Hiroshima look like a wet firecracker. But if we bring in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, that would mean that we could easily pinpoint presisly where Amy's atoms will end up. Of course, we would then be unable to tell weither or not it was actually Amy.

There wouldn't neccesarily have to be an explosion.  When two particles get too close together electron degenerate pressure pushes them apart (or quark degeneracy if they're really really close).  This force is what keeps the cores of white dwarf stars from collapsing under their own weight. The forces generated are huge, but there's no energy released.  Without the intense gravitational field of a white dward star, the few atoms that appeared too close together would simply repel each other by the span of a few femptometers and all would be well, except that Fry and Amy would die instant gruesome deaths of course.  It'd be like that Star Trek TNG episode where they find that one ship fused halfway into an asteroid.  God I'm such a nerd.

@JBERGES:  Interesting analogy.  I dont know enough relativity or quantum mechanics to comment on it. 

Here's a question though.  How would you go back in time without leaving the universe and yet manage to not violate the second law of thermodynamics?  Entropy must always increase.  It's been drilled into my head so much that I can read it on the insides of my eyelids.  (Entropy is the tendency of the universe to become more chaotic over time.  A vase shatters when you drop it.  It wouldn't make sense for a bunch of pottery shards to jump off the floor and assemble themselves into a vase)  Now, if you want to get from some time B back to some other time A without leaving the universe you have to pass through all the points in time between B and A, causing all the vases that had the misfortune to fall off a window sill in that time period to reconstruct themselves.  Entropy runs backwards.  That wouldn't be a problem except that entropy for the time traveler has to continue to run forwards or his memory of everything that happened after time A will be erased.  Any ideas on how to get around that?
SpaceCase

Liquid Emperor
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« Reply #9 on: 07-24-2006 23:43 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by soylentOrange:
...  Any ideas on how to get around that?
Perhaps if no time passed for the time-traveller during their displacement in time.
No delta T, no entropy.
  :confused:
Chug a Bug

Bending Unit
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« Reply #10 on: 07-25-2006 19:40 »

I did see a documentary on TV about this once, apparently it's theoretically possible to travel back in time via a wormhole but you can't change anything. Hence putting any time travel paradox writers out of business. But you can only use the wormhole to travel back to the point where it was originally created, it's not possible to travel back from the far future to say, the present day because we don't yet have wormhole technology. I can't remember the science behind it unfortunately so feel free to be sceptical.
soylentOrange

Urban Legend
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« Reply #11 on: 07-25-2006 20:37 »

yeah theoretically time travel is possible if wormholes exist, but there's so many constraints on them that they aren't very useful for science fiction.  The idea is that if you keep one end of the wormhole stationary and start the other end spinning around at near the speed of light, relativity will cause time to travel slower near the spinning end.  If you put a stop watch at each mouth of the wormhole then the one near the stationary entrance will move much faster, so if you jump into the stationary end you'll pop out next to a stopwatch that says less time has passed.  Voila: time travel.  But likw you said, you can't go back in time to a point before the wormhole was created. 
Cardinal Gorkon

Crustacean
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« Reply #12 on: 07-26-2006 09:25 »

What if you didn't take the "classical" routes for implementing time travel. Faster than light travel, wormholes.  Why couldn't the traveler simply navigate to a parallel universe where the Big Bang occurs exactly as in our universe, but at a different point on the "universal" timeline, and at such a location which would place earth in the exact same position and orientation as it was in universe(A), pun intended, delta(t)?  This would solve the positioning debates within the other implementations, and the matter from one parallel dimension to another can simply be displaced the same way water is when a boat travels over water. 

No super-explosions, or messy "faster than light engines" implementation details necessary.  Of course you must assume an uncountably infinite number of parallel universes with at least all possible universes being accounted for.  After all since our universe is, by definition, within the set of “possible universes”, the position and timing of the big bang should be inconsequential as long as the constants within our universe remain the same.
soylentOrange

Urban Legend
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« Reply #13 on: 07-26-2006 09:48 »

well, technically the big bang didn't have a position (or even a time really since time started during the event).  You can't move the big bang because that implies that some kind of universe existed for the big bang to move around in.  The big bang created the universe, spacial dimensions and everything.  But yeah I guess you could just travel to another universe where absolutely everything was the same as ours except that the location you're headed to happened to form in a slightly different place... 
Xanfor

DOOP Secretary
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« Reply #14 on: 07-26-2006 12:36 »
« Last Edit on: 07-26-2006 12:36 »

The second law of thermodynamics only applies if the universe is a closed system. And even if it is, what matter are you creating out of nothingness, and what entropy are you subtracting from the present? If you travel back in time, the universe doesn't have anything it didn't have before. Well, actually, if you look at it time-frame by time-frame, it does, but then again, think of all that energy you just put into your 'time-machine'. Is it possible that time machine didn't send you back in time, but actually took the energy you gave it and converted it back into matter at the temporal coordinates it was given? Besides, once you return to the time which you left, you'll have made up for your 'absence', if you will. After all, due to the fact the time is travelling inexorably forward, the atoms which constite you will always return to the time at which they came from. Assuming, of course, you travelled to the past. In a related note, physicists are currently examining a new theory which states that entropy increases towards the future and towards the past, thus defining 'The Present' as the moment in the universe's world line with the least amount of entropy. Thus, entropy will increase no matter what direction you travel. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Cardinal Gorkon

Crustacean
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« Reply #15 on: 07-27-2006 09:12 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by soylentOrange:
well, technically the big bang didn't have a position (or even a time really since time started during the event).  You can't move the big bang because that implies that some kind of universe existed for the big bang to move around in.  The big bang created the universe, spacial dimensions and everything.  But yeah I guess you could just travel to another universe where absolutely everything was the same as ours except that the location you're headed to happened to form in a slightly different place... 

It only appears that way if you look at it from a time before the big bang, which as you already said is impossible, as time did not exist.  I'm saying, the point in our universe, as you roll back the clock, where all matter would seem to coalesce and converge at a single point, would be the called the “location” of the big bang, with respect to present day Earth.  And the time would be some number, near 14 billion, years ago again with respect to present day Earth, when all matter in the universe existed at a single point within it.

In this scenario, all you need to do to travel back in time would be to construct a device that would navigate your way through all possible universes to find one in which delta(x,y,z), and a matching orientation, of Earth is identical to our own Universe, but delta(t) is variable, dependant on some predetermined number of years/months/days the “pilot” would wish to travel back and forward in time.  In fact if you switch the variable delta parameter to the x,y,z coordinates instead of time, you have created a machine that can, effectively, travel anywhere in the universe instantaneously without having to deal with the speed of light as the universal speed limit.  Certainly cleaner than changing the speed of light, which would have any number of effects on a Universe.
soylentOrange

Urban Legend
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« Reply #16 on: 07-27-2006 09:50 »

Quote
I'm saying, the point in our universe, as you roll back the clock, where all matter would seem to coalesce and converge at a single point, would be the called the “location” of the big bang,[\quote]

ohh ok I gotcha.
JBERGES

Urban Legend
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« Reply #17 on: 07-27-2006 10:04 »
« Last Edit on: 07-27-2006 10:04 »

In that situation, (delta(x,y,z)= same, delta(t)= different) aren't you stipulating that in alternate universes, the big bang would result in galaxies moving away from the point of origin at greater or lesser speeds than that in which they are now?  That would imply the universe originally contained less or more energy then ours does, or that physical laws were diffent in that universe (Which may just be a byproduct of the first conclusion, but I don't remember).  Would you be able to / want to exist in such a universe?
 
Quote
In a related note, physicists are currently examining a new theory which states that entropy increases towards the future and towards the past, thus defining 'The Present' as the moment in the universe's world line with the least amount of entropy.
Link?
Xanfor

DOOP Secretary
*
« Reply #18 on: 07-27-2006 12:50 »

Sorry, it's been a while since I read it last. Apparently, it's not a new theory, but merely an idea derived from the current laws of physics. (I've really got to get back into this...)

 
Quote
Brian Greene, 'The Fabric of the Cosmos', Chaper Six, Page 161, Figure 6.2:
As it's usually described, the second law of thermodynamics implies that entropy increases toward the future of any given moment. Since the known laws of nature treat forward and backward in time identically, the second law actually implies that entropy increases both toward the future and toward the past from any given moment.

Excuse me while I go brush myself up and prepare to really enter the conversation...  ;)

soylentOrange

Urban Legend
***
« Reply #19 on: 07-27-2006 13:06 »

hmm... I'm going to have to read that book.  As far as I remember from my thermodynamics course, entropy decreases toward the past.  Maybe that explains why I only managed to get a B  :D
Cardinal Gorkon

Crustacean
*
« Reply #20 on: 07-27-2006 13:20 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by JBERGES:
In that situation, (delta(x,y,z)= same, delta(t)= different) aren't you stipulating that in alternate universes, the big bang would result in galaxies moving away from the point of origin at greater or lesser speeds than that in which they are now?

Actually delta(x,y,z) must be different if you wish to end up in the same position relative to Earth, as opposed to the same position relative to the singularity of the big bang.  But everything else being equal, that is, the same amount of mass and energy produced in the big bang, with every particle having the same vector and velocity as it did during our big bang (detectible only by using a Heisenberg Compensator  ;) though) 

And if you want to push the envelope, just find a specific universe where the "traveler’s location suddenly becomes void of matter at the very point, and time, they wish to enter the universe visa vie quantum mechanics.  With an uncountably infinite number of parallel universes (one of the assumptions made earlier), an unbelievably small ratio, but still an infinite subset, of them could have gaps form within matter as the matter's probability of existence drops to zero.  But I'll put that in the realm of works by Douglas Adams.
transgender nerd under canada

DOOP Ubersecretary
**
« Reply #21 on: 07-30-2006 20:16 »

To travel through time and end up in the same place that you started travelling from, you would need to create a wormhole that begins in your current location and also ends at your current location's location at the desired arrival time. You would need to be able to step through the wormhole (think of a Kingdom-of-Loathing style Temporal Rift, or a Stargate style hi-tech portal, it makes no difference).

To be able to, for example, open a door and step through it into a different time and place would be achievable, were this level of technology available to us.

I can't see any other way of doing it.

Xanfor: Entropy is the natural progression of all matter and energy towards the point where all are equally distributed over the entire area of the universe, zero point. This, over the current estimated area of the universe gives each cubic meter a temperature of zero kelvin, and less than one electron/proton/neutron of matter.

Entropy accelerates as the universe expands. The universe is not expanding backwards in time.

Therefore entropy increases with the passage of time. Which means that entropy would decrease if plotted against time in reverse.

The theory that you mention may be under scrutiny from physicists who have deemed it worthy of study. However, I would be tempted to scrutinise those physicists to see if they are on crack.
Xanfor

DOOP Secretary
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« Reply #22 on: 07-30-2006 21:18 »

Ok, TNUK, take look at this: You have a wormhole. Take one end of the wormhole and put it at point A. Take the other end of the wormhole and accelerate up to 99% light speed for a little while. The return to point A. Due to relativistic effects, the end that you took with you will now be at a point in the 'future' compared to the end that didn't move. Now, granted, this 'chronomobile' that we've created can't send us back any farther than the inital creation of the wormhole itself, but one end of it is still displaced in some manner in time.

I will now sit back and watch the know-it-all kick my acertained principles.


------------------

Shippy Shipful Xanfor


Xanfor. PEEL's first Intendant Commander.
Now with 2,000 Shinybucks. I  :love: Shinybucks!


soylentOrange

Urban Legend
***
« Reply #23 on: 07-30-2006 22:42 »

actually Xanfor, that's a very common theory.  The trouble is that it depends on one very unproven principle, namely that there are wormholes and that they can be moved.  Still, it's alot closer to being feasible than most of the other wacked out theories that are mentioned from time to time.

 
Quote
The theory that you mention may be under scrutiny from physicists who have deemed it worthy of study. However, I would be tempted to scrutinise those physicists to see if they are on crack.

that's what my admittedly limited study of physics tells me as well.  Also TNUK, that was the best one paragraph description of entropy I've ever read  :)

transgender nerd under canada

DOOP Ubersecretary
**
« Reply #24 on: 07-31-2006 14:39 »

Xanfor: You got it wrong. I know what you meant to say, but you said it wrong, and it doesn't disprove anything I said when you say it right.

You stole those stars from my signature.

If nothing else, I've ascertained that your spelling deserves a good kicking.

That is all for now, because I can't be bothered to type more than is strictly necessary.

Soylent, thanks. I copied it off of the back of a packet of breakfast cereal, and am now going to travel back in time in order to fight a copyright war with Kellogs Entropy Flakes.
JBERGES

Urban Legend
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« Reply #25 on: 07-31-2006 14:45 »

 
Quote
Kellogs Entropy Flakes.
Screw staying crunchy in milk, these things reach a flake/milk equilibrium-paste in 10 seconds flat.

Cardinal Gorkon:  I disagree with your first paragraph, but agree with the second.  With infinite universes, that could plausibly work.
Cardinal Gorkon

Crustacean
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« Reply #26 on: 08-01-2006 09:27 »

First off, lol entropy flakes, I work more in the area of Number Theory so entropy means something different to me heh.

 
Quote
Originally posted by JBERGES:
Cardinal Gorkon:  I disagree with your first paragraph, but agree with the second.  With infinite universes, that could plausibly work.

The changes in distance on the x,y,z coordinate system stem from the fact that as you travel back, or forward, in time, because of the big bang, the distance between that origin point and the earth's surface, at some point in time, either get's smaller or larger depending on whether you are going forward or backward in time.

Hence, if you stay the same distance away from the origin of the universe but roll back time by some number of units you would end up further away from the origin than Earth of the past.  Forgoing the tidal action within the coordinate system caused by an eliptical orbit within the solar system/galaxy/local group, of course.
Xanfor

DOOP Secretary
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« Reply #27 on: 08-01-2006 11:27 »

But that would possibly involve leaving the surface of the universe. Assuming, of course, that the universe is a four-dimensional sphere. That would allow for the universe to be expanding, and for there not to be an actual point from which everything is moving.

coldangel

DOOP Secretary
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« Reply #28 on: 11-04-2006 21:53 »
« Last Edit on: 11-04-2006 21:53 by coldangel_1 »

I shall now respond to things that were posted in a different thread that probably should have been here:

 
Quote
Originally posted by fryandlemon:
But what we don't remember does exist because it DID happen at one point in time, you can't exactly erase time.
If it existed in your own memory then it had to exist at one point and time.  It HAD to or you wouldn't be here.  That change in matter HAD to happen.  Just because no one else remembers doesn't mean it didn't exist.  Just like deja vu.  If you're there, it HAD to exist.
I can see what you're trying to say, but you seem to be missing some things in your logic...

But you are contradicting my time can't change theory, so I have to argue   :p 
Wait, unless you're saying that the original timeline was and always was, you're grandfather was walking down a street one day and a random person related to him just pops out of mid air and shoots him.  Which doesn't make sense in terms of physics does it? 

Memory is only in our minds. Memory itself is transient and unreliable. But who amongst us wants to believe that our grasp on reality is so provisional, so tenuous, that reality itself is unfathomable and indefinable, because it is only what we REMEMBER, and what we remember is rarely the literal truth? You can't place too much faith in memory - just because you remember something doesn't necessarily mean it ever existed.
The point I was making is that the future you remember only happened for YOU, the time traveller. If you want to draw a chronological line for the Time Traveller; his or her life began in 2043, lived through the 2040s and 2050s, stepped into time dialation field in 2062, slips back to 1987 where certain actions taken precipitate the collapse of the Soviet Union. The person's history is as described, but everything after 1987 was erased by his or her presence in that time. In terms of the primary timeline this person came into existance in 1987 - there is no birth and no previous history - the erased future is no longer relevant. He or she remembers a life and a world that never existed in the new timeline. This is not paradoxical or impossible, the idea that if you experienced something then that something must therefore be unshakably real is derived from a certain level of arrogance on the part of human nature that insists that the Universe is there for us and revolves around us. It does not.
A memory of something that happened yesterday is every bit as questionable as a memory of something that will never happen fifty years from now.
This does make sense in terms of modern physics.


 
Quote
Originally posted by totalnerduk:
Coldangel's quantum time-travel idea would fit the best known models at the moment, replacing the future with another set of possibilities that coalesce into a pattern which is slightly different, however, those vanished patterns would leave a resonance. There would be a tendancy for events in the second reality to try and get back to the situation that existed previously. Yes, the universe would diverge, but much like a record needle going around and around not wanting to skip tracks, it would try to settle into the familar groove that had been left before. Therefore if coldangel killed his grandpappy, another individual very much like the man who had died would become the grandpappy of a coldangel who only differed slightly from the one we know.

Because the universe has an underlying order, and nothing is truly random - even quatum events seem to follow a pattern which scientists have recently announced may have a structure to it that has been pre-programmed.

Proof of God having set events in motion towards a specific endpoint? Or not?

Ooooh, a fan of Donnie Darko?
I can't comment on remaining resonances of divergent realities except to say that such 'echoes' could well explain a lot of paranormal phenomenon.
transgender nerd under canada

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« Reply #29 on: 11-04-2006 22:19 »

 
Quote
Originally posted by coldangel_1:
Ooooh, a fan of Donnie Darko?

Nobody I know in the real world "got" that film first time through. They were all "WTF?", and then I explained, and they were still "WTF?" until they saw it again.

Great film.
coldangel

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« Reply #30 on: 11-04-2006 22:32 »

I thought it was pretty straightforward... I never understood why folk were confused by it. Same with the Matrix trilogy, which to me is even more straightforward, yet all these simpletons I know have trouble getting their heads around it.

This is why humans will never be able to defeat my species.
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