What is time? Is time travel possible?

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Soldato
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Originally posted by Pj·uK
Not quite...you're correct about the scissors flexing - but the wrong reason for them flexing!

Hmmm, interesting. They'll be so big anyway that they'll flex, and then ends cannot move at the speed of light. They'll just get heavier and eventually the energy required to accelerate them will break the scissors? Which bit's wrong?
 
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Originally posted by DOOM
It means they have travelled half a light year in half a second each,
186,000 miles per second is light speed,if youve only moved half a second then you have only moved half that distance,but both blades are doing both distances so they will touch at half the speed of light.

How can the tip of the blades, a light year apart move that distance in a matter of seconds? The problem is solved by assuming that they don't close in that time - the real problem lies in what happens and why?

Pj

[edit] growse: the "getting infintiely heavy bit" is incorrect!
 

iam

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The scissors one is a bad example imo.

Okay - imagine a steel rod from the Earth to the Sun, now, it takes eight minutes for light to reach us from the sun, so if I move the rod at one end, how long will it take for the other end to move accordingly?

Its a strange one, because if nothing can travel the speed of light, then there'd be a wierd delay in the movement of the rod.

I'd imagine it would look like a wave, i.e. you can see the movement travel up the rod.

All wierd stuff kids.

/any geniuses care to correct me, I'm sure I've made a mistake :confused:
 
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The scissor one is infact a good example because there is a particular caveat that poses another problem regarding the speed of the contact points at the very end when the scissors are actually shut - but that's another argument!

Pj
 
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Go to www.timetravelfund.com

offer them $10 to join the membership database,and they hold your details on record and use the money to pay a future time traveller,due to compound interest( it may be 500 years before there are time travellers),in which case if you are taken to the future youll be a billionaire as well as enough money and openly willing to be an experiment.

The more money the fund gets the more chances that the records and cash can be held for years and years.

Clever stuff,$10 is about £6 so if you can waste £6 on a billion to one chance its probably worth it.

I dont think they can legally pocket the money,i hope there using it the way its intended,they got into USA todays good books so they probably are.

Anyway ill let you decide.
 
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You're pretty much right in "seeing" the scissors flex - the issue lies in the theoretical limit that special relativity lays out regarding the rigidity of the material of the scissors i.e. no matter how rigid the material actually is, there is a limit - much like the speed of light!

What actually happens is that when you close the handles, information about closing the handles must travel (at the speed of light) transmitting the force along the blades - the section of the blade closest to you will close, hence you assume the entire blade has closed - but it will actually take several light years to close since the information must travel along the blades.

Pj
 

iam

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Originally posted by Pj·uK
You're pretty much right in "seeing" the scissors flex - the issue lies in the theoretical limit that special relativity lays out regarding the rigidity of the material of the scissors i.e. no matter how rigid the material actually is, there is a limit - much like the speed of light!

What actually happens is that when you close the handles, information about closing the handles must travel (at the speed of light) transmitting the force along the blades - the section of the blade closest to you will close, hence you assume the entire blade has closed - but it will actually take several light years to close since the information must travel along the blades.

Pj

Thats what I meant :p
 
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Be warned though that if you get pulled into the future,i doubt they will send you back home,if it really happened it might turn out to be a nightmare,then again you might be happy 500-1000 or whatever years into the future.

Reason they wouldnt send you back is due to info you get,the laws will be different.

From there perspective your just a willing participant who happens to have a lot of money that can only be drawn on by future time travel,in such a case they will pocket the money and leave you stranded in the future,youd be a risk to send back,perhaps they cant send you back.

Thats why im dubious,a lot of people said to me "thats a pessimistic paranoid way of looking at it"

yeah its also logical

if youre lucky youll just lose your $10,if youre unlucky youll lose everything,youll be 500 or more years in a place so strange it may as well be an alien planet,and from everyones perspective here an now you dissapeared without a trace leaving your loved ones worrying where you went till they die.

Sometimes the grass isnt always greener on the other side.
 
Soldato
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i dont think of it in as much detail as u obviously do but i will say this, i believe that time is a dimension above the 3rd, whether it be the 4th dimension i am not sure, but i do believe that it is a dimension above the 3rd. (probably the 4th!)
 
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Originally posted by |Show|
i dont think of it in as much detail as u obviously do but i will say this, i believe that time is a dimension above the 3rd, whether it be the 4th dimension i am not sure, but i do believe that it is a dimension above the 3rd. (probably the 4th!)

It is the fourth dimension. Easy to prove.

Take a line. How many bits of informations do I have to give you for you to know a place on that line? 1, "its x meters down the line". So its 1d
Take a surface like the Earths. You need 2 coordinates, latitude and longtitude to find a point on that. 2d
In a volume like a room you need 3 coordinates to find a point. 3D

In the universe at large. If I ask you "Give me the coordinates for The Battle of Hastings" you'd says "x,y,z (the spacial coordinates) and 1066" becuase you have to specify a time too. Modern day Hastings has the same x,y,z coordinates but a different temporal one. Therefore to specify any event that has/is/will happen in the universe you need 4 coordinates. Therefore the universe is 4D.
 
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The scissor thing. Ok, I think the scissors would shut as normal. The blade would travel faster than light, but so what? why would that effect the matter of the blades. Its just the photons of light reflecting from the steel blades that you wouldnt be able to see, or you'd see them closing delayed.

But, surely light has got nothing to do with the actual matter.

Say, if I ran faster than the speed of light, my matter wouldnt bend or anything strange, but someone watching me run would see all sorts of strange things.

Light is just light, its not the actual concrete object you are talking about.

When you put a straw in a glass of water, the straw looks like its bending because of refraction. The speed of light travels slightly slower through water and therefore you see the straw bending. but the bend doesnt actually exist.

If the scissors did have enough energy to close, they'd close? I dont see the problem. The light may be screwed up, but whats light got to do with the solid matter?
 
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Matter/photons/phonons/information etc... cannot move faster than the speed of light, therefore the scissors would bend physically...not just visually!

Pj
 
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Originally posted by DOOM
I thought up a theoretical device that shifts your current brain pattern into a previous or alternate state.

Then i realised perhaps we do it often,perhaps on a quantum scale our memory is not memory at all but time travel,hence the reason you cannot remember anything to full extent,you actually mentally travel backwards,not physically but you cant hold that thought for long,memory is not that effective.

Also:dreams,perhaps some(not all) dreams are images of what an alternate you is seeing in alternate timelines/universes.

Your not gonna remember much when waking up cos memory is like that as i stated already.

Our memory is not memory,its not coherent,i can think back willingly but its hard to see everything in any detail,your senses dont quiet shift but at the same time they do,memory is vague,it supposedly all seems to be there but is not if you get what i mean.

By rights if memory is only memory,you should not be able to remember what something tastes like without actually tasting it,but you can almost if you physically decide "hmmn let me think what that pizza tasted like" and you can almost taste it.

Truth is our memory is selectable,i can remember a few minutes ago in vague detail,and distant past in vague detail.

All this BS about long term,medium term memory is rubbish,its all the same,memory is memory unless you get brain damaged,and thats still to do with brain neurons.

You are technically both brain damaged and paralised when you are asleep,then you wake up and memory of the dreams is the same as in waking life memory:vague and selective.

Them two words are important:vague and selective

Memory,true memory might not work the way we think,it certainly dont seem to be a storehouse cos why cant i remember anything except what i might choose to remember,yet it all seems to be there.

Now we're getting somewhere. What about Astral Projection and Out Of Body Experiences. Oh and what about the "afterlife"? :)
 
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I wish time travel was possible, i would go back and remind myself not to read this thread:D

Only joking thanks for the intresting read guys espically this part

"Okay - imagine a steel rod from the Earth to the Sun, now, it takes eight minutes for light to reach us from the sun, so if I move the rod at one end, how long will it take for the other end to move accordingly?"
 
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anyone seen 'Cube 2: Hypercube'? that features the 4th dimension in a drawn form so that u can 'understand' it even with a 3d brain. of corse we'll never fully understand it due to the obvious limitations of our 3D understanding, unless of corse we forget everything we know about dimensions and learn it all again with a 4th dimension.
 
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Originally posted by TerraS
Now we're getting somewhere. What about Astral Projection and Out Of Body Experiences. Oh and what about the "afterlife"? :)

Damn i wish i could swear at you and threaten to strangle you,instead i could ramble some stuff you wont understand,in turn youll probably come out with another sarcastic reply like everyone will read it and think your funny and ill post some more ramblings.

But i wont.
 
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