A physicist has developed a theoretical model of a time machine that could enable future generations to travel into the past. In his paper published in the July issue of Physical Review, noted time-travel theorist Professor Amos Ori provides practical solutions to a number of criteria long seen by other experts as obstacles to the realization of time travel.
Ori’s theory is actually a set of mathematical equations describing hypothetical conditions that, if established, could lead to the formation of a time machine, technically known as “closed time-like curves.”
“The machine is space time itself,” he explains. “If we were to create an area with a warp like this in space that would enable time lines to close on themselves, it might enable future generations to return to visit our time. We, however, could not return to previous ages because our predecessors did not create this infrastructure for us.”
Phew.
Trizzle trazzle trezzle trome, time for this one to come home.
I guess I don’t really get why you couldn’t go past now. I get why you couldn’t go forward from previous to now but why wouldn’t a one trip be possible?
I’m sure there is some intriguing physics and mathematics involved, but I am, needless to say, very skeptical. As Stephen Hawkin once asked, if time travel were possible, why haven’t we met people from the future traveling back to our time?
Maybe Britney Spears — who claimed on a video that time travellers were among us — was right all along!!
Wait a minute. Our time hasn’t “created the infastructure” either with the exception of this paper. Is he saying that because no one thought about it before now that t won’t work then?
“”The machine is space time itself,” he explains. “If we were to create an area with a warp like this in space that would enable time lines to close on themselves, it might enable future generations to return to visit our time. We, however, could not return to previous ages because our predecessors did not create this infrastructure for us.””
I know this guy is proposing a theory, but what’s the point? The energy required to accomplish such an “infrastructure”, and then maintain it, would be immense – well beyond anything we could conceive of in our wildest imaginations. A scientist friend calculated for me just what it would take to move my 200lb body at the speed of light for a second or two – a relatively simple exercise compared to this – and the energy requirements were something like 100X greater than all the power humanity currently generates in a year.
Another issue I have with this theory of time travel is that it’s all based on Quantum Mechanics, which – while a successful theory in many ways – still doesn’t seem to describe spacetime as well as Einstein’s Relativity. Various experiments have validated Relativity’s predictions about the nature of spacetime & gravity, whereas QM predicts various particles that ‘must’ make up both that have never been observed.
Why I think this is important is that Relativity’s spacetime is – as the name implies – one single thing. You don’t travel through time without traveling through space too. And this is, as Shakespeare so aptly said, the rub.
Imagine you wanted to travel back 24 hours in time, so that you wound up sitting in the exact same place you are now. You would not only have to account for the time that has passed, but you would also have to calculate the distance the Earth has revolved on it’s axis in that 24 hrs … and factor that into a calculation of the distance the Earth has orbited the Sun in that 24 hrs … and then factor both of those results into a calculation of the distance our solar system has moved within the Milky Way galaxy in that 24 hrs … and then factor THAT total into a calculation of the distance the galaxy has moved within our universe …
Assuming you had a computer powerful enough to do the first 3 calculations, the 4th (movement of the galaxy) would be very difficult to even ascertain (let alone calculate) simply because we have no point of reference to go from. We can know distance with the Earth revolving on it’s axis because we can draw a centerline down the Earth as a reference. We can know the distance Earth moves around the Sun b/c we can use the Sun as a reference. The movement of the Solar System can be measured b/c the center of the Milky Way can be referenced. However, we only know that the galaxies are moving away from each other; we have no idea ‘where’ we are though, b/c ‘the center’ of the universe has never been determined. And if the universe is moving too (which some theories say is a distinct possibility) … well, good luck trying to figure that one out.
You see, the problem? If you don’t figure out the precise location coordinates, moving in time is pretty pointless, and probably deadly. If I move back 24 hrs in time and screw up the calculations by just a few decimal points, I’ll wind up hundreds of thousands of miles away (at least) from Earth. And in space … no one can hear you scream.
This is why I think time travel will remain a practical impossibility until we evolve into one of those V’Ger things from StarTrek the Motion Picture.
EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!!!!
*air guitar*
If it’s not a De Lorean with a flux capacitor… it sure as hell won’t work.
I would rather use a TARDIS.
I think I heard of this a year or two ago on a Discovery documentary and according to them the theory was pretty advanced, I’m not sure it was the same though.
What does one “assume” in order to apply mathematics to it to arrive at a “proof?” When the mathematics is correct, then only the assumptions need to be met??
As so many say – – – – my head hurts.
@Odyssey67
that has always been my biggest issue with time travel in movies, dont know why this isnt brought up more often. of course then all they need to do is invent the time travel equivalent of a heisenberg compensator and problem solved.
Hallowed are the Ori.
How about going to the 60s where LSD & pot were okay, there were no aids and orgies were a common thing?
12,
chicken?
chicken chicken!
Chicken chicken chicken, Chicken??
Chicken.
The flux capacitor!!
Picture this:
You enter the time machine thing and travel back in time 1 full minute. Arriving just in time to enter the same voyage, which, of course will deposit two of you one minute earlier. And you do that several times.
How do you break that? Stop the trip? But then you couldn’t be there in the first time to enter the machine the second time. And what happens to all of yous you created going back several times?
My gues: You can’t escape your fate. You keep doing that until the mass of all of the yous create a black hole and ultimately collapse the universe.
#13 – How about going to the 60s where LSD & pot were okay…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDc3XjxiUvs
Yea this sound really great. So much for Energy or Matter can be neither created or destroyed.
Can’t imagine the effect this is going to have on Second Law of Thermodynamics: In any cyclic process the entropy will either increase or remain the same … Entropy:, a measure of the disorder of a system.
I guess the entropy increases in the destination space time frame but decreases in the originating space time frame. That doesn’t seem right.
So, let say I am tired of hot summers. I then decide I will transport a winter frozen, huge lake sized ice ball to summer past, (or future). So when I transport this huge ice ball from one space time frame to the next do the originating space time frame loss all this energy and matter. Do the destination space time frame gain all this energy and matter.
This seem one way to combat global warming or at least even out the temperature swings over the seasons. Maybe there is some clever way to transport all our pollution out of our current space time frame.
All these interesting, if not impossible things to do with time travel. Can’t imagine what this does for all those pesky closed system conventions.
#2
I think what he’s saying is that a space-time “infrastructure” has to be established in all times that a traveler wishes to visit. It’s a transit system of sorts. Obviously you can’t travel on a light rail train to portions of a city that contain no tracks. Similarly, you can’t travel to a point in time that doesn’t have the space-time “tracks” for your space ship to ride on.
Ever see the movie Primer? I bet it’s similar to that except that instead of a box it’s a big donut made out of space-time. And you don’t have to set a silly timer. Just fly around the donut an appropriate number of times and exit.
#18
I think the key with not violating thermodynamics is that this piece of warped space time essentially connects multiple previously closed systems together to form one big system. And as I’m sure you know, the second law of thermodynamics only applies to closed systems. Your big snow ball would simply be shifting position from one part of the system to another, just like removing an ice cube from the refrigerator. No violation.
You see, space travel is exactly like a big refrigerator…only different. 😉
Must… obey… the… Prime… Directive….
oh teh nooooooeeeeessss!!!!
#18 noname
I can see it now.. as soon as the machine is done about a million tons of pollution and radioactive waste come shooting out from the future.
Had drinks the other night in a pub with Dr. Who (He bought) and he said the whole thing was a franchise deal with the Time Lords. Apparently the Lords have evolved away from sex, but still crave pornography, especially the really good stuff from the 20th and 21st centuries. Although declared an illegal stimulus by the Rulers, there is a thriving porno smuggling industry. All you need is a funky little phone booth with a false bottom, the right phone numbers (kind of like the Matrix, but different) and a groove that binds the gulipers on the way through Customs and your in. One or two good runs and your set, then it’s off through all eternity, and the women of all ages.
I do have to mention 1 thing…
Even under Einstein, You could go back….
But NEVER return…
There are to many alternatives, and his explanation, is a FOCUS on the past. EVEn with a focus, you CAN be lost, in an alternative.
I suggest someone, find a way to MAP, the CURRENT location and multitude of Alternatives, and find a way to select, WHICH IS WHICH…
Lets play a game….FROM AN ANTS VIEW.
You are at the end of a Branch on a tree… and you wish to get DOWN to the bottom… pretty easy, but you need a focus WHERE IS DOWN.
FROM an ANTS VIEW…
TRY to find where you were, BEFORE…. which Branch, which location, and where is HOME….
ECA, I really dont understand why you capitalize some of the words in your posts – the words you pick arent the ones that should be emphasized – are you doing it just to be different or do you have an itchy little-finger (for the shitt-key)?
itchy but accurate… he never misses words…
If all it takes is a capitalized word, or a misspelled word to derail your reading of something…
doesnt that show how easy it is to interrupt your chain of thought, on a subject?
How easy it would be to have something mis-worded to pass in congress, that should never have been voted on. If you follow the bills in congress. Or even a letter to the editor, that is mis-typed, that makes you angry but dont get the point of the message?