My Theory on time travel ...

Mr. Thomas Malloy wrote:By creating a controlled sound barrier breach in a small confined area, and limiting the breach to a very small area...

Well you know the crack sound a whip makes is a tiny Sonic Boom as the tip does indeed break the sound barrier. It's the only human propelled object that can do it. Perhaps that's small enough?

Anyway, I am convinced that in order to do any breaching of space/time fabric that you do indeed need speed. I have explained this before, in the Star Trek movie thread... but recently found a video that explains it very well. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7vpw4AH8QQ

Unfortunately I don't think the speed of sound offers the same qualities, as a sonic boom is due to the compression of pressure waves, and is a purely physical reaction. Not an astrophysical one.

-Cub. =o)

When this baby hits eighty-eight miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious $#it!

Welcome back you crazy bastard!

-Fred

Cubase wrote:

Mr. Thomas Malloy wrote:By creating a controlled sound barrier breach in a small confined area, and limiting the breach to a very small area...

Well you know the crack sound a whip makes is a tiny Sonic Boom as the tip does indeed break the sound barrier. It's the only human propelled object that can do it. Perhaps that's small enough?

Anyway, I am convinced that in order to do any breaching of space/time fabric that you do indeed need speed. I have explained this before, in the Star Trek movie thread... but recently found a video that explains it very well. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7vpw4AH8QQ

Unfortunately I don't think the speed of sound offers the same qualities, as a sonic boom is due to the compression of pressure waves, and is a purely physical reaction. Not an astrophysical one.

-Cub. =o)

That may be true, but who knows what is unleashed or otherwise laid to bare when this reaction occurs. It is a very, very little studied thing, by science's own admission. The chances of something being there for us to find? Very little or maybe close to none. But the unknown brings with it such colorful possibilities, and is the entire basis behind science fiction

Thinking outside the realm of possibility and known laws may be contradictory to science and all it stands for, but I present to you that perhaps unconventional thinking might open up doors we never even knew were there ... speed right now would seem to be the only viable way of breaching the "light" barrier. But let me analogize to put my point across ... Let's say San Francisco, California is the final destination, and you're somewhere on the other side of the rocky mountains. Now the only way to California would be on one of a few roads that take you up and over these mountains (perhaps some take you through, I'm not sure ... ) You could also argue that you could go east and eventually end up in the west in a longer amount of time ... But what if there was another way? Of course our human minds are trained to accept that the ONLY possibility of navigation are the ones that we know of. What if their are other doors that we don't know how to open because we don't know they're there? I know it's very vague, and doesn't explain my thinking too well, as I have no counter idea to the navigation possibility, but perhaps a few beautifully minded people could brainstorm on a few possibilities entirely outside the box.


As far as a whip crack goes, that is a very good starting point, although isolating the exact area where the whip would crack, and being able to have it at a continuous enough cycle to study a rip in sound without interruption would be tough. I was thinking about much in the way they do the whole atom smashing business by going in a big circle that you could create something that traveled in a perfect circle that broke the sound barrier and have it be continuous so that the constant effect of the barrier being opened could be studied. Also the exact point when it is opened can be analyzed, as well as when the barrier is once again unbroken. Within this compression of pressure waves, what if there is a whole new set of physic laws, as we have changed the rules inside of this little space.

I know, what if, what if ...

Great Scott!

Well, theoretically they say that at the event horizon of a black hole, the laws of physics become invalid, and anything is possible. And lets call the event horizon of a black hole the light-based equivalent of a sonic boom to sound travel. There is one problem with that theory: it is impossible (in my opinion) for something to break the rules of physics whilst being physically constrained to its own set of rules. I.e. physics and time can be manipulated when the speed of light is surpassed becuase there is no rule greater than at of light-speed... but with a sonic boom, sure; you may be creating a phenomenon, but there are a plethora of other constants (such as the obvious vaporization that occurs) to which its effects are limited to.

Now, your distance travel theory, I find this interesting. What is the quickest way other than that which we know? Well perhaps it's all about perception. According to relativity, the perception of time is different for every person, so by that logic the perception of space is also different for every person. Which means that the only thing validating time and space the way it is is the universal consensus of every object in a particular space. Change the perception of everything though, and things get interesting.

You ever heard of the two slit test? They got a photon gun and fired particles through a piece of board which had two vertical slits in it... behind this board was a solid board. What they noticed was, if they were not in the room when the cannon was firing photons through this slit, the spread of the photons making it through to the other board was totally random, and spread out. But, the minute there was an observer (either human or mechanical, like a camera) the spread of the photons made a perfect impression of the two slits in the board behind, apparently very uniform. Which means that it is perception which validates the behavior of objects.

So, if the rules do not apply until there is an observer to validate its behavior, is it possible to break the rules if you can "convince" the matter around you that you are actually not there?

How's that for out of the box?

-Cub. =o)

Hey wait a minute. Just for the record, are you suggesting that if a tree falls, and no one is around to hear it fall, that it really DOESN'T make a sound?!?

Seriously though, that's really good theorizing.

As far as the physical laws still being applied to a sonic boom, I agree. On the outside of the boom ... what is going on in the unstudied inside of it? Perhaps the laws of physics must still be adhered to on the inside of the phenomenon as well ... but is there also not a slight chance that the absence of sound might open up another possibility in the spot where it used to be? If you make a sonic boom, and create a constant space where an object is faster than sound, what happens if you add sound from the front? Can you take a radio *inside* a sound barrier, and have the sound go faster than sound already travels because it's going faster than sound already? Is it possible to speed sound up? What occurs if you *are* able to speed sound up, and then you break the new barrier that you've created? Can you break a sound barrier within a barrier you've already broken? I mean if you're a pilot in an aircraft and you just broke the sound barrier and you whoop and holler, do you hear yourself, or does the sound you made get left behind?

Or am I just smoking way too much of what I shouldn't be?

When a plane breaks around 600 mph {I believe is the target speed of the Sound Barrier} also called Mach-1, it is then traveling faster than Sound... So wouldn't it be safe to say that whatever the Time Barrier is, if you break that speed, wouldn't you be going faster than time, putting you into the Future??? So is time traveling to the Past really possible???

And if you were able to travel into the Future, would there be anyone there??? Same for the past, if you were able to get to the Past, would there be anyone there???
Makes me think of Langoliers...

Kind of like the question Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg???

Bafitis wrote:
And if you were able to travel into the Future, would there be anyone there??? Same for the past, if you were able to get to the Past, would there be anyone there???
Makes me think of Langoliers...

Yes! One of my favorite films of all time... mainly because it explains the whole time vector theory very well: time is a constant moving vector of existence, and if you fall out of "time" into the past you essentially get left behind in a kind of abyss void of all active organic interaction, however if you were to travel forward in time, you would still be in the same abyss but the time vessel will catch up with you.

-Cub. =o)

Makes me think of Warren Ellis' cheap Transportation Unit that he theorized his way to at some point. He described it thusly:

"What if you could operate a machine that merely needed a mathematical input that inexplicably proved to the universe that you were, in fact, not where you stood, but instead located at whatever location you wanted to be, and just by activating said algorithm, you were teleported there instantly, as the universe was convinced it must be so. This device could even be run on just a few triple-a batteries..."

That's a quote from memory though, but the idea is still kick-ass.

-Fred

Well, theoretically they say that at the event horizon of a black hole, the laws of physics become invalid, and anything is possible.

You've captured the spirit of this pretty well, but the event horizon is not the boundary of validity for physics. The event horizon simply marks the point at which the escape velocity exceeds the speed of light. The point where the physical laws run into trouble is the singularity. This is the point of infinite density, and our laws of physics don't mean much there.

However, it turns out that a black hole is only half the solution of the field equations. In the 1930's Einstein and Rosen discovered that the complete solution connects to "another side" of the event horizon. Another universe or some other point in time and space in our universe. Later, in 1963, Roy Kerr published a solution for rotating black holes, showing that the two event horizons would be joined by a time-like singularity (instead of space-like.) This means that it would be possible to steer around the singularity and be ejected out the other event horizon and into a different universe.

Also, your description of the quantum double-slit experiment is mostly correct. But it is not simply a matter of being in the room that makes the difference in the outcome. If the experiment is such that we can measure or detect which slit each photon goes through, then the photons behave like particles and leave a bright spot behind each slit. But if we don't measure or detect which slit the photons go through, then they behave like waves and leave an interference pattern. This is a manifestation of the so-called wave-particle duality of quantum systems.

The real problem with this is that the quantum world behaves in a way that is outside of our macroscopic experience. Our notions of 'particle' and 'wave' are abstractions which are taken from our life experience. We use these terms in an attempt to describe features in the quantum world. But quantum particles are not waves and they are not particles. They are something else. They are something that doesn't exist in the macroscopic world. When we use terms like particle and wave to describe different aspects of quantum behavior, these descriptions are only approximations. We know how a particle should behave and we know how a wave should behave, but quantum objects have features of both, and often lead to apparent contradictions. But those contradictions are actually a manifestation of our inadequate description.

I am really glad to know you guys, seriously.

There was a time that all of this stuff would have made me go for a dictionary, but I think hanging around you people, although maybe not really bumping my actual IQ or anything, has generally made me a better conversationalist in real life. I really did miss you guys. And yeah, my theories are to Einsteins theories, as a children's Golden Book is to Ulysses, but hey comon, how can you not be interested in physics? This is some really cool stuff here.

So, what you're saying is that theoretically, you could come out of a black hole entirally in another universe or time altogether? On the other side of this black hole, isn't it like ... another black hole though? So if you did end up on the other side, wouldn't the gravitational power be so much that you would just get sucked back into it? Or would it kind of be like a slingshotting effect that would rip you out of what "light cannot escape?".

I'm full of questions!

...Sort of like an hourglass with the sand running into that tight spot in the middle from both ends?

-Fred

So, what you're saying is that theoretically, you could come out of a black hole entirally in another universe or time altogether? On the other side of this black hole, isn't it like ... another black hole though? So if you did end up on the other side, wouldn't the gravitational power be so much that you would just get sucked back into it? Or would it kind of be like a slingshotting effect that would rip you out of what "light cannot escape?".

Well, the way the theory goes (I have not worked out the equations myself, but this is my understanding...) is that 'the other side of the black hole is not another black hole but a alightly different object best described as a white hole.

Material flows into a black hole on one side. Some of the material may manage to miss or go around the singularity. That material which misses the singularity will be ejected out of a white hole on the other side into another universe or other time and space in our universe.

So you are correct in saying that material does not escape from a black hole. But in this case, it emerges from a white hole at very high velocity. Very weird. This is the concept on which the idea of 'wormholes' is based.

...Sort of like an hourglass with the sand running into that tight spot in the middle from both ends?

I like that analogy. I'm not an expert, but I think it's a pretty good picture.

Compared to me Doc, you are an expert! I've never gotten the math behind quantum mechanics, but I do sort of like the philosophy and trains of thought that accompany it.

-Fred

Damn straight... when the Doc is in session I like to sit back and absorb. Oh and thanks for correcting some of my bits and pieces doc. It has been a while since I read up on this stuff and its good to have it snapped back into place.

-Cub. =o)