Well, if waves and stuff (i.e. colour, gamma waves, etc) travel at the speed of light and the theory goes that faster than the speed of light makes time travel then can you not speed up these waves?
I dunno.
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Well, if waves and stuff (i.e. colour, gamma waves, etc) travel at the speed of light and the theory goes that faster than the speed of light makes time travel then can you not speed up these waves?
I dunno.
Yes, but there's also that whole requirement of infinite energy... :(
No offense intended, but you don't really seem to understand the concepts of light and relativity.Quote:
Originally posted by Techboy
Well, if waves and stuff (i.e. colour, gamma waves, etc) travel at the speed of light and the theory goes that faster than the speed of light makes time travel then can you not speed up these waves?
First off, colour and light are the same thing. Green, for example is just a light wave oscillating at a certain frequency. Similarily, a gamma ray is just a light wave oscillating at a certain frequency (much higher than green light).
Secondly, nothing can go faster than light. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. The theory is: When something approaches the speed of light it experiences time dilation which is a form of \"time travel\" in a sense. In reality, whenever you are not stationary you are experiencing time travel relative to everything that is stationary. This effect has been proven through extensive experimental evidence. For example, a clock on board a Concorde jet flying at Mach speed ticks slower than a clock that is fixed on the ground.
If something is travelling at the speed of light, it does not experience time at all (relative to us, time passes regularily for that object of course). As for what you said about \"speeding up the waves\", I'm not really sure what you mean.
That's true if you're trying to to accelerate something with mass, photons however are massless particles.Quote:
Originally posted by Joseph_Stalin
Yes, but there's also that whole requirement of infinite energy...
In theory we seem to understand the god's of this universe, and the energies that protest them. Although until these boundaries are reached, we are spectators. I still relish the moment people laughed at the idea of a microwave.
Ooooo, somebody's gettin a bit philosophical in the extended discussion forum.
How about at the quatum level? At the quantum size, almost anything is possible, right? So maybe something could be travelling at the speed of light.Quote:
Originally posted by bradybaker+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bradybaker)</div>Quote:
<!--QuoteBegin-Techboy
No offense intended, but you don't really seem to understand the concepts of light and relativity.Quote:
Well, if waves and stuff (i.e. colour, gamma waves, etc) travel at the speed of light and the theory goes that faster than the speed of light makes time travel then can you not speed up these waves?
First off, colour and light are the same thing. Green, for example is just a light wave oscillating at a certain frequency. Similarily, a gamma ray is just a light wave oscillating at a certain frequency (much higher than green light).
Secondly, nothing can go faster than light. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. The theory is: When something approaches the speed of light it experiences time dilation which is a form of \"time travel\" in a sense. In reality, whenever you are not stationary you are experiencing time travel relative to everything that is stationary. This effect has been proven through extensive experimental evidence. For example, a clock on board a Concorde jet flying at Mach speed ticks slower than a clock that is fixed on the ground.
If something is travelling at the speed of light, it does not experience time at all (relative to us, time passes regularily for that object of course). As for what you said about \"speeding up the waves\", I'm not really sure what you mean.
That's true if you're trying to to accelerate something with mass, photons however are massless particles.[/b]Quote:
Originally posted by Joseph_Stalin
Yes, but there's also that whole requirement of infinite energy...
Correct me if I'm wrong ;)
~Haz
Yea, I knew all that. I'm saying, if you could accelerate the speed of something that travels AT the speed of light, then, well, it would be going faster than the speed of light. Get what I mean?Quote:
Originally posted by bradybaker+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(bradybaker)</div>Quote:
<!--QuoteBegin-Techboy
No offense intended, but you don't really seem to understand the concepts of light and relativity.Quote:
Well, if waves and stuff (i.e. colour, gamma waves, etc) travel at the speed of light and the theory goes that faster than the speed of light makes time travel then can you not speed up these waves?
First off, colour and light are the same thing. Green, for example is just a light wave oscillating at a certain frequency. Similarily, a gamma ray is just a light wave oscillating at a certain frequency (much higher than green light).
Secondly, nothing can go faster than light. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. The theory is: When something approaches the speed of light it experiences time dilation which is a form of \"time travel\" in a sense. In reality, whenever you are not stationary you are experiencing time travel relative to everything that is stationary. This effect has been proven through extensive experimental evidence. For example, a clock on board a Concorde jet flying at Mach speed ticks slower than a clock that is fixed on the ground.
If something is travelling at the speed of light, it does not experience time at all (relative to us, time passes regularily for that object of course). As for what you said about \"speeding up the waves\", I'm not really sure what you mean.[/b]
Oh ok, I see what you're saying. Still impossible though. Speed is measured in km/h (or mph for all you backward Americans), as I already stated, when something is travelling at the speed of light, time for it stands still relative too all other objects. So it's physically impossible for an hour to pass. Therefore, there is no speed faster than the speed of light, it's a mathematical impossibility.Quote:
Originally posted by Techboy
Yea, I knew all that. I'm saying, if you could accelerate the speed of something that travels AT the speed of light, then, well, it would be going faster than the speed of light. Get what I mean?
However there is one exception (although its not really an exception at all). In the time when the universe was 10^-36 (0.(35 zeros)1) seconds old it was experiencing a massive inflationary period (from the size of a marble to a size trillions and trillions of km's wide) where matter in the universe was expanding faster than the speed of light. However, since the fabric of space itself was also expanding extremely fast, the particle were just kind dragged along, never going faster than the speed of light relative to space itself.
I hope I explained that clearly enough...I'm really sick and may not be thinking straight.
Yes, but there is another factor, which is perception. For example, say I am accelerated to the speed of light, and I stop accelerating 200 years later. Although to everyone else I have traveled 200 years, for me, it has been almost instantaneous.
Then there's also the theory that we do not in fact move as whole, but seperately as particles of extremely small size. Theoretically I should not be inbound by the laws of physics, but this is not so. This theory would also mean that everything is connected at some level, and we are virtually the same whole entity. By this, there is no "speed". Perception is applicable to everything that can perceive this is all relative.
When the clock was mentioned, I remind you that the concord does not travel at the speed of light, and thus we still attain fuction, and the clock functions normally. The clock exists on a plane of speed that is untouched by normal perception, and so we cannot view it as a device to display time, and moreso a timer of sorts.
Doesn't need to travel at the speed of light to experience time dilation.Quote:
Originally posted by Joseph_Stalin
When the clock was mentioned, I remind you that the concord does not travel at the speed of light, and thus we still attain fuction, and the clock functions normally. The clock exists on a plane of speed that is untouched by normal perception, and so we cannot view it as a device to display time, and moreso a timer of sorts.
I second what Stalker said, you are experiencing time dilation when you walk down the street relative to a street lamp and the street itself.Quote:
Originally posted by Joseph_Stalin+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Joseph_Stalin)</div>Ummmmm......unless you are massless, which I highly doubt. You can't be accelerated to the speed of light. So that argument is completely deviod of any connection to reality.Quote:
For example, say I am accelerated to the speed of light[/b]
You know that extremely small particles obey the laws of physics too right? Besides, the particles that you are made up of (Protons, Neutrons, Electrons) still have mass.Quote:
Originally posted by Joseph_Stalin+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Joseph_Stalin)</div>If you travel for 200 years at the speed of light, then you would percieve it to have taken 200 years. However, many, many, many more years would have passed on Earth if you ever decide to return.Quote:
and I stop accelerating 200 years later. Although to everyone else I have traveled 200 years, for me, it has been almost instantaneous.[/b]
<!--QuoteBegin-Joseph_Stalin@
Theoretically I should not be inbound by the laws of physics
<!--QuoteBegin-Joseph_Stalin
When the clock was mentioned, I remind you that the concord does not travel at the speed of light
BradyBaker and Stalker have this one right. (As they always do...kudos to you two!) Anyway, experimenting on the quantum level doesn't change the fact that you can't go faster than light.
That's not true. On the quantum level, we don't know all the laws yet, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any laws.Quote:
How about at the quatum level? At the quantum size, almost anything is possible, right? So maybe something could be travelling at the speed of light. [/b]
Well, like BradyBaker said, particles have mass too, and it takes energy to accelerate anything with mass. As that mass approaches lightspeed, it takes more and more to accelerate it.Quote:
Well, if waves and stuff (i.e. colour, gamma waves, etc) travel at the speed of light and the theory goes that faster than the speed of light makes time travel then can you not speed up these waves? [/b]
Also, before somebody brings this up trying to prove Einstein wrong:
If you are traveling near the speed of light, and you look at a beam of light going past you in the other direction, it WON'T be going faster than the speed of light, despite the theory of relativity and any other rule that might seem to apply, including logic. In some odd quirk of nature, no matter how fast your moving and in what direction, if you measure the speed of a light beam traveling in any direction relative to you, it will result to be the speed of light. It's never faster, and never slower.
lol, one of the kids in my neighborhood tried to prove that you could go faster than the speed of light, in a very odd manner.
According to him:
If you have a rocket with another rocket on the tip, and so on, if you launch the first rocket and when it reaches it's top speed it launches the second and so forth, eventually you'll reach lightspeed.
I almost tried to explain to him Newton's laws, but I figured that if he was stupid enough to think up that plot he probably wouldn't understand.
That you cannot travel faster than the speed of light is just a scientific theory. Its is not "hard fact". Just because we currently do not know or understand how it could be done, does not mean it cannot be done. There is a reason it is called a "theory." Yes we accept it as "truth" but only in the sense that there is no compelling evidence otherwise.
At one time there was a theory that the world was flat. That is the obvious example, but throughout history old scientific theories have been replaced or amended by newer ones in light of expanded knowledge and understanding. So just because we don't understand how something could work, doesn't mean it can't.
We are still far from understanding how the universe works. A simple example is gravity. Yeah we know (or think we know) about gravity, but we don't really understand it. Many of the "natural forces" we know about (or think we do), but don't really understand that much about them.
Not to mention the countless theories of the universe. So, IMO, to say "we cannot go faster than light, period" or "we can go faster than light" are both incorrect. Quite simply, we don't really know or understand.
Do you think in 150 years time -- or heck 100 years time or 50 years time, physics will still be as we know it? highly doubtful but possible.
Yes, it's just a theory. But it's a theory that is widely supported by evidence gathered over time. It's the best we've got for now, and it works for all purposes that we need it to. Maybe we'll find out that we're wrong, and I'd never say that we won't be proven wrong ever, but I don't think that it'll be anytime soon. If we can go faster than light, good for us, but I don't think that it'll happen (provided it CAN happen) any time in the next 100 years AT LEAST.
You have no idea how compelling the evidence actually is or how much experimental evidence we have in support of Einstein's theories.Quote:
Originally posted by dream-scape
That you cannot travel faster than the speed of light is just a scientific theory. Its is not \"hard fact\". Just because we currently do not know or understand how it could be done, does not mean it cannot be done. There is a reason it is called a \"theory.\" Yes we accept it as \"truth\" but only in the sense that there is no compelling evidence otherwise.
No, one of those is definitely the right answer. There are only two options, either we can or we can't.Quote:
Originally posted by dream-scape
So, IMO, to say \"we cannot go faster than light, period\" or \"we can go faster than light\" are both incorrect.
You completely misunderstood what I was saying. I'll get somebody to translate it to Canadian for you ;)Quote:
Originally posted by bradybaker
No, one of those is definitely the right answer. There are only two options, either we can or we can't.
When light enters a black hole, will it speed up at any extent? As a black hole DOES warp space and time with it's gravitational force. Doesn't it?
~Haz
My post...taken apart and raped...ahh tis the fate of one in such forums. Anyway, since I don't like quoting a bunch of stuff, I'm just going to reply to this normally. First, I highly doubt I would perceive 200 years at the speed of light. You never really explained why, but I would just reason for my argument, that because my particles are moving seperately, I could not realize what would happen, and would only full attain a "conscious" state once I stopped moving. But, alas, I only hypothesize.
Without any offense (though I highly doubt you will not take offense to what I am about to say), I believe that you are not really presenting a good argument. All of what I say is speculation, but I do attempt to reason out what I am trying to tell you. What you say is "fact", but you give no reason to question what you have been taught or what you have learned. That is why we have "theories" on much physics, aside from gravity and such. I mean no disrespect to you as a person, but I just felt I should say this. While your statements do make sense in general terms and knowledge, I always question the given.
On time dilation, I suggest you reread what I said, as I believe we are in the midst of a subtle confusion of sorts. I was using the speed of light as complement to my argument of time dilation, not a definitive requirement to acheive time dilation.
Do some research. Everybody. Most people in this thread need it. Dreamscape, I can see your perspective, and I understand where you're coming from. Do some research, and you'll understand why it doesn't work. Haz, you too. I'm sure you'll understand once you've read a little into the subject.
200 years in what system? Your moving system or the one you accellerated from (Earth i assume)?Quote:
Originally posted by Joseph_Stalin
First, I highly doubt I would perceive 200 years at the speed of light. You never really explained why, but I would just reason for my argument, that because my particles are moving seperately, I could not realize what would happen, and would only full attain a \"conscious\" state once I stopped moving. But, alas, I only hypothesize.
No I knew what you meant, I thougt it might have been a bit misleading to some people though. It was really just more of a smart-ass reply than anything. Sorry \"aboot\" the confusion \"eh\".Quote:
Originally posted by dream-scape
You completely misunderstood what I was saying. I'll get somebody to translate it to Canadian for you
In your frame of reference, time always passes at the same rate for you. I'm not exactly sure where this whole \"my particles move seperately\" thing is coming from. But really, you can't travel at the speed of light anyways, making it a moot point and almost a completely pointless question to ask. Kind of equivalent to asking \"What if red was green?\"Quote:
Originally posted by Haz+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Haz)</div>No, light doesn't speed up. Yes a black hole does warp time and space. My knowledge of the quirks of black holes is kind of rusty. I suggest you do some research (read some Stephen Hawking).Quote:
When light enters a black hole, will it speed up at any extent? As a black hole DOES warp space and time with it's gravitational force. Doesn't it?[/b]
<!--QuoteBegin-Joseph_Stalin
First, I highly doubt I would perceive 200 years at the speed of light. You never really explained why, but I would just reason for my argument, that because my particles are moving seperately, I could not realize what would happen, and would only full attain a \"conscious\" state once I stopped moving.
In this forum alone, I've been called a hypocrite, ignorant, close-minded, condescending, "Bitch No. 1" and probably many other things that I can't remember at this point in time. Did any of those things offend me? No. I don't get offended very easily. I could go on for hours about how easily others get offended...but that's a topic for another thread.Quote:
Originally posted by Jospeh_Stalin
Without any offense (though I highly doubt you will not take offense to what I am about to say), I believe that you are not really presenting a good argument. All of what I say is speculation, but I do attempt to reason out what I am trying to tell you. What you say is \"fact\", but you give no reason to question what you have been taught or what you have learned. That is why we have \"theories\" on much physics, aside from gravity and such. I mean no disrespect to you as a person, but I just felt I should say this. While your statements do make sense in general terms and knowledge, I always question the given.
But anyways, it's perfectly logical for you to have much doubt in what I'm trying to say, it's some pretty counter-intuitive stuff to contemplate. But I assure you that there is huge amount of experimental evidence that supports the theories of relativity, I'll try to present some of that now:
Bending of light by gravity (ie. gravity warps space itself): This effect was conclusively observed during the solar eclipse of 1919, when the Sun was silhouetted against the Hyades star cluster, for which the positions were well known.
Peculiar orbit of Mercury: Since almost two centuries earlier astronomers had been aware of a small flaw in Mercury's orbit around the Sun, as predicted by Newton's laws. As the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury orbits a region in the solar system where spacetime is disturbed by t he Sun's mass. Mercury's elliptical path around the Sun shifts slightly with each orbit such that its closest point to the Sun (or "perihelion") shifts forward with each pass. Newton's theory had predicted an advance only half as large as the one actually observed. Einstein's predictions exactly matched the observation.
Red-shift: According to General Relativity, the wavelength of light (or any other form of electromagnetic radiation) passing through a gravitational field will be shifted towards redder regions of the spectrum. To understand this gravitational redshift, think of a baseball hit high into the air, slowing as it climbs. Einstein's theory says that as a photon fights its way out of a gravitational field, it loses energy and its color reddens. Gravitational redshifts have been observed in diverse settings.
There are dozens upon dozens of other observations and experiments that support relativity, if you're going to challenge it you better know you're stuff.
He recently came out and has said in light of more research or something that some of his previous theories about black holes were incorrect. I don't recall exactly which theories were incorrect though. I didn't read or hear that much about it.Quote:
Originally posted by bradybaker
No, light doesn't speed up. Yes a black hole does warp time and space. My knowledge of the quirks of black holes is kind of rusty. I suggest you do some research (read some Stephen Hawking).
It was about whether or not black holes "evaporate" over time (ie. if energy, usually in the form of radiation, dissipate out of a black hole). He thought not, he was incorrect.Quote:
Originally posted by dream-scape
He recently came out and has said in light of more research or something that some of his previous theories about black holes were incorrect. I don't recall exactly which theories were incorrect though. I didn't read or hear that much about it.
I still don't get what you mean by "particles moving seperately". I mean, there's no difference in moving mach 18 and walking at a couple of km/h and traveling near/at lightspeed (hypothetically). So your particles are "moving seperately" when you walk down the street as well. So why would that imply something different at high speeds? (Near lightspeed?)
Ok, quick modern physics lesson.
Bradybaker pretty much has it, but there's a subtlety that's being missed. Einstein's theory of general relativity states that nothing with mass/inertia can be accelerated to the speed of light. It says nothing about particles that might or might not already be moving faster than the speed of light. There is no experimental evidence of these hypothetical FTL particles that I know of, but they go by the name of "tachyons" and are not forbidden by general relativity.
The definition of a black hole is any region of spacetime from within which the escape velocity exceeds that of the speed of light. Light doesn't speed up when it enters a blackhole. Light travels at 2.998E8 m/s in a vacuum. Period. It travels slower than this through various media, but it never travels faster. In fact, Einstein developed general relativity from a thought experiment he performed wherein he determined that regardless of the relative speed of an observer, s/he must always measure the speed of light in a vacuum as 2.998E8 m/s.
The world at quantum scales is not a realm where all physical laws break down and cease to exist. We have laws to describe the behavior of particles at such scales and those are the laws of quantum mechanics. Are they strange and occasionally counterintuitive? Yes. Are they incomplete? Yes. We still lack a quantum theory of gravity. Does this incompleteness make them dismissible? No. The theoretical predictions of quantum mechanics have been experimentally tested and confirmed for over 80 years. No previous physical theory has been so ubiquitously successful. Just because something is incomplete does not make it incorrect. Newton's laws of motion, for example, are not "wrong," they are simply the low-speed approximations of Einstein's laws.
i have some thing to state on the fact of speed of light and stuff ok here goes
according to some law and physics if i am standing in the bed of a pickup truck and it is going 50 miles or kilometers per hour and i throw a ball in the direction that we are going in the truck at 50 mph or kph then to some one standing on the side of the road would see the ball going 100 mph or kph right
and if i am standing in the same truck going the same speed and i throw the ball in the oposite direction at 50 mph or kph then to the bystander the ball would just sit there or fall (i cant remember what one it was)
so you may ask your selfs what dose this have to do with the speed of light and this is what it has to do with it.
ok i am back in the truck and it is dark out side and im on a highway going about 70 mph or kph and i turn on my head lights !!! how fast are the light wave going according to the info above the light beam should be going at the speed of light plus 70 mph or kph or does it????
so is it posible to go faster than the speed of light
There is something fundamentally wrong with this, but I just can't think what. It's 3 in the morning...Quote:
Originally posted by docthory
i have some thing to state on the fact of speed of light and stuff ok here goes
according to some law and physics if i am standing in the bed of a pickup truck and it is going 50 miles or kilometers per hour and i throw a ball in the direction that we are going in the truck at 50 mph or kph then to some one standing on the side of the road would see the ball going 100 mph or kph right
and if i am standing in the same truck going the same speed and i throw the ball in the oposite direction at 50 mph or kph then to the bystander the ball would just sit there or fall (i cant remember what one it was)
so you may ask your selfs what dose this have to do with the speed of light and this is what it has to do with it.
ok i am back in the truck and it is dark out side and im on a highway going about 70 mph or kph and i turn on my head lights !!! how fast are the light wave going according to the info above the light beam should be going at the speed of light plus 70 mph or kph or does it????
so is it posible to go faster than the speed of light
No, the light wouldn't be going faster. That's one of the puzzling effects of the laws of physics. There was an experiment (I'm a little tired right now too, so I can't remember who did it) to test this: The tested the speed of light both going the same direction as Earth's orbit, and going the opposite direction. Since Earth is spinning relatively fast, it should be clear to see a change that large in light speed, but when the experiment was performed, both measurements came out to be the same number. No matter how fast you move, light always moves at light speed relative to you.
Nope. What you just described is essentially the thought experiment that lead Einstein to develop his general theory of relativity. The fact that an observer on the ground would not measure light going faster than 2.998E8 m/s is what leads to the interesting (aka weird) relativistic effects such as time dilation and length contraction (This gives a visual of some of those thought experiments). General relativity states that there is no prefered inertial referene frame-- all are just as good and the laws of physics must therefore be the same in each. This includes the measured speed of light. As long as two observers in relative motion are in inertial reference frames, neither observer can say whether s/he is moving and the other person is still or the other person is moving and s/he is still. In fact, such distinctions cease to make sense in relativity. Although the earth is a non-inertial reference frame (due to the presense of gravity), the analogous situation using your truck example would be to say that the driver of the truck has just as much right to say that he is sitting still in his truck while the earth spins beneath him as the observer on the side of the road has to say that he is standing still and the truck is zooming past. (Of course, this isn't true because of what I just explained about earth being a non-inertial reference fram, but it helpls you get the idea).Quote:
Originally posted by docthory
i have some thing to state on the fact of speed of light and stuff ok here goes
according to some law and physics if i am standing in the bed of a pickup truck and it is going 50 miles or kilometers per hour and i throw a ball in the direction that we are going in the truck at 50 mph or kph then to some one standing on the side of the road would see the ball going 100 mph or kph right
and if i am standing in the same truck going the same speed and i throw the ball in the oposite direction at 50 mph or kph then to the bystander the ball would just sit there or fall (i cant remember what one it was)
so you may ask your selfs what dose this have to do with the speed of light and this is what it has to do with it.
ok i am back in the truck and it is dark out side and im on a highway going about 70 mph or kph and i turn on my head lights !!! how fast are the light wave going according to the info above the light beam should be going at the speed of light plus 70 mph or kph or does it????
so is it posible to go faster than the speed of light
I think the experiment that Tsen is talking about is the Michelson-Morley experiment. Here is a flash version of the experiment. Check it out.
Yeah! I thought it was the Michealson-Morley experiment...but somewhere in the back of my mind somebody was telling me that the Michealson-Morley experiment was something to do with bacteria. Ptsh...stupid mind.
O_o ...I should probably get some sleep now. I've had 5 hours in 3 days...
to do something like traveling through time you would need energy on the scale of that released in the big bang. if you want to know more about this pick up a copy of hyperspace by micheal kaku
Actually you just need to move.
Depending on what you mean by traveling through time you don't have to do anything at all, just wait.
time travel cant be done
You cant rewind reality
you cant speed up reality
but if it is possible then it would be more likely to be able to go back the forward.
Incorrect.Quote:
Originally posted by eyeofgames
time travel cant be done
Its quite simple actually, all you need is a Flux Capacitor. Of course you will also need to generate 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, but you could easily do that will a plutonium powered nuclear reactor or lightning (since plutonium is hard to come by). Get up to 88 mph in a sweet-ass car and you'll be time traveling in 'no time'.
its never been done then. If it was wed see people form the future all the time .
Well, travelling back in time is much trickier than travelling forward.Quote:
Originally posted by eyeofgames
its never been done then. If it was wed see people form the future all the time .
ps. Back to the Future is the best movie ever.
I'm so freakin' tired of hearing that term! Do you even have the foggiest to what it means?Quote:
Its quite simple actually, all you need is a Flux Capacitor.[/b]
Dipwads.
Now, 1.2 G-Watts really isn't impossible. It's a lot, but a large nuclear reactor could probably handle it. If it was quite that simple to have time travel on a large scale, it would be done already.
On the other hand, movement is traveling in time. Not a percievable amount, but it is traveling in time nonetheless. If you were to move at a few thousand miles per hour for several years, the difference could be measured in seconds, perhaps less. Really, it only affects things moving near the speed of light to a significant degree (as far as we know)
Everyone knows that the flux capacitor is what makes time travel possible by temporarily storing the flow of time. No one said generating 1.21 gigawatts is impossible, in fact I'd bet by 2015 with the use of fusion we could generate it with garbage!Quote:
Originally posted by Tsen
I'm so freakin' tired of hearing that term! Do you even have the foggiest to what it means?
Dipwads.
Now, 1.2 G-Watts really isn't impossible. It's a lot, but a large nuclear reactor could probably handle it. If it was quite that simple to have time travel on a large scale, it would be done already.
Going back in time would create an endless loop
1800-----------1900--------------2000
| <--------------------=------------- { }
| |---------------------------------> { ETC }
| <--------------------=------------- { }
|-------------------------------------------->
A person would go to 1850 say, then time would go back to 2000 eventually. Where they'd go right back to 1850. And it continues.
Travelling BACKWARDS in time is something to be speculated about. It's not a proven theory. Personally, I'm highly skeptic here. And for heaven's sake, DROP THE FRIGGIN' FLUX CAPACITOR JUNK BEFORE I HURT THINGS! "Temporarily store time" my ASS! And what do you suppose we'll catch it with? A mason jar? ARGH! Now if you can logically explain how to create such a device, I might actually listen. But I can tell ya', it isn't lookin' like a smart option to be betting anything on. There's no specific theory available for stowing time a way in a box or anything, so you'll be working from scratch, and provided you succeed, you'll be the only one in a field where MANY people much smarter than yourself have failed miserably. Hell, I'd nominate you for the Nobel prize myself if you manage to get a quarter of the way to the solution.
And 10 years from now is a pretty damn optimistic outlook for the availability of cold fusion.
Dude, you're nuts. Watch Back To The Future.
This is a very good point that needs to be addressed, I think. What needs to be taken into consideration is that space contracts as well as time. When you move at high speeds with respect to your surroundings, the surroundings will look flattened in the direction you are travelling. So if you were speeding towards a sphere it would look as if you were coming down on top of a pancake.Quote:
Originally posted by Joseph_Stalin
Yes, but there is another factor, which is perception. For example, say I am accelerated to the speed of light, and I stop accelerating 200 years later. Although to everyone else I have traveled 200 years, for me, it has been almost instantaneous.
At a high enough speed, if you are seen by others as traveling for 200 years then you will only experience 2 years while you travel. But you will see the universe moving at the same speed as they see you moving. The reason your trip seems quicker to you is that while the outsider sees the overall distance travelled as being say, 100 light years, you will see the distance as being only one light year. Note that relativity works the same for the person that is "moving" and the person that it "still"; its just a matter of perspective (The outsider will see your spaceship as flattened, but that does not matter here ;))
Also, time travel is possible. A time machine was designed by Michio Kaku, but it would take the energy of six suns to make it work (just like Leonardo DaVinci designed a helicopter but couldn't get an engine strong enough to power it). There have been other designs for time machines, too, but they all take up way too much energy.
The reason that people have not come in from the future is that a time machine can only take you back to a time after the time machine was created. The only way they could get to our planet in this time is if they found an older, natural time machine created by the big bang or a blackhole or something crazy like that (maybe a cosmic string :?:). But there apparently (thankfully? hopefully?) isn't anything like that in our remote neighborhood.
Anyway, time travel may not be practical anyway because the human brain may not be able to comprehend this kind of stuff. Maybe the way it uses thermodynamics to work with information would be disrupted :undecided:, and then our brains would just react as if the time-travelled stimulus had not occured :disconcerted:, and then we would just basically go insane and die :damnit: ...
But maybe it wouldn't be that bad; I really have no idea :mrgreen:!
Ok, when and if it was possible you travel at the speed of light your are not necessarily going back in time, time just moves slower because you are accelerating through space-time so rapidly that time cannot catch up. You need to read more and try to understand more, no offense.
Yes, you would be, in effect, going back in time. You would be travelling to an area before it could influence you, in essence travelling back in time.
Basically, an event happening NOW, twenty light years away, will not influence me in the slightest for AT LEAST twenty years. So, even though that event happened now, for all points and purposes it won't happen for another twenty years, because I'd have no way of knowing it happened, feeling the influence of it happening (barring Einstein's 'Spooky Action at a Distance'), or have any other way of inferring that something happened. Simply put: The event twenty light years away doesn't happen HERE for another twenty years. If you could travel beyond lightspeed and reach that area twenty light years away in only five years, you would, in essence, be travelling fifteen years back in time and discovering something that otherwise wouldn't have happened for fifteen more years.
I suppose it isn't time travel as most people imagine it (Getting in some fancy box and zapping themselves twenty years back instantaneously without ever travelling in the more common three dimensions), but it IS, literally, travelling back in time.
Right, and if you came back to your original position going the same speed, you would be in the same place as where you started, only in the past.Quote:
Originally posted by Tsen
Basically, an event happening NOW, twenty light years away, will not influence me in the slightest for AT LEAST twenty years. So, even though that event happened now, for all points and purposes it won't happen for another twenty years, because I'd have no way of knowing it happened, feeling the influence of it happening (barring Einstein's 'Spooky Action at a Distance'), or have any other way of inferring that something happened. Simply put: The event twenty light years away doesn't happen HERE for another twenty years. If you could travel beyond lightspeed and reach that area twenty light years away in only five years, you would, in essence, be travelling fifteen years back in time and discovering something that otherwise wouldn't have happened for fifteen more years.
The speed of light is the cosmic limit. NOTHING goes faster than the speed of light.
You can NOT reach the speed of light. The time travel would be caused if you were to go 99.99% the speed of light. If you were on the ship and began to run across, you would break the speed of light, correct?
Wrong, you can't run fast enough as it slows down time to prevent you from breaking the limit.
Stephen Hawking on the Science Channel FTW.
Isn't the reason for not being able to reach the speed limit that no matter how fast you go, light travels at the same speed relative to you?
I thought it was more to do with the fact that it is constant, rather than an actual limit.
But... I really don't actually know.
Well yes, but I don't know if that's why it's the cosmic limit.
Time travel back is impossible. First, we would have to enlarge a wormhole to the past, which can be done.
But wormholes are not very far back in time at all. If you were to enlarge a wormhole, as there are wormholes all around us, it would go back maybe a minute tops. It would get to the point where you enlarged the wormhole and the feedback would become infinitely great, destroying it.
If you were to travel back an hour, you would add more mass than was previously there, and mass cannot be created or destroyed. Well, it can be created through travelling back, but then in an hour you would travel back again, and this makes the universe instantly have infinite matter, destroying it.
Forward, on the other hand.. If you were to be traveling near the speed of light, on say, a super train. After accelerating fast enough (would take about six years at full throttle of a rocket ship/rocket train to reach 99.99% light speed.) time would slow so that if you were to run up the train you couldn't break it, as you couldn't run fast enough. We have no idea what happens then, but time protects that from happening. Maybe for a reason, maybe not, but either way it does. Going this exact speed, one week on the train for you, and once you leave you would be 100 years into the future. Therefore, it is time travel, in a basic sense. People outside would see you on the train for 100 years, but you only for a week.
Impressive necro.
No, that's a misconception. Nothing can accelerate past the speed of light, there are some theories about how some particles are always existing above the speed of light.Quote:
Originally Posted by jarrhead
Slash is right, the constancy of the speed of light is what makes it a limit; special relativity can be derived from this single fact.
I'm not sure about the above post. Certainly I've never heard of any massive particles travelling at light speed, or any massless particles travelling above light speed.
Well I understand light affects everything, so wouldn't it be in relative motion for everything?
I can't make sense of that.
There's no doubt that the speed of light is constant regardless of your velocity, if that's what you're talking about.
Well yeah. I'm saying if there's no light to observe, well you're in the dark.
But if there is light to observe, it must be hitting you, meaning any object hit by light (everything, except for black holes. Even distant star light will hit you from any point in space) is interacting with light, so it must be in relative motion with it.
I was thinking tachyons.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Sheesh, quantum physics is crazy. It seems physics isn't in an advanced enough state yet to work out if tachyons are possible or not, though there's no experimental evidence for them.
Well, kind of, I guess. Though I don't think you really need the light to 'hit you' to be sure that it's moving relative to you. There can't be any light anywhere in the universe, regardless of its trajectory, which is not moving with relative velocity to you.Quote:
Well yeah. I'm saying if there's no light to observe, well you're in the dark.
But if there is light to observe, it must be hitting you, meaning any object hit by light (everything, except for black holes. Even distant star light will hit you from any point in space) is interacting with light, so it must be in relative motion with it.
Yeah. What you're saying goes perfectly with what i'm saying. haha.
Light is emitted in all directions. If it weren't, you wouldn't see it.
It's kind of a misconception that light is what Einstein's theory is about. Really, it's about any kind of electromagnetic wave (radiowaves, microwaves, UV, infrared, colours...), not just the light we can see. Electromagnetic waves are the fundamental kind of wave in our universe.