Preserved Topic: Time travel-based FTL travel, anyone? (Page 1 of 2)

Here's a thought that's been burbling around in my head for awhile. It requires a couple of standard Science Fiction assumptions:

1) Space travel is more developed than it is today.

2) Time travel is possible/safe for people to use.

With these two ideas in place, limited FTL space travel becomes possible via a technicality of time travel.

Movies and books always show someone traveling through time to the same location on Earth, but why would they wind up in the same (geographic) place? The Earth is traveling through space at a horrendous speed, not only via it's movement around the sun but the solar system's movement within the Milky Way, the MW's travel through its local cluster of galaxies, etc. etc. etc. That's a lot of movement.

It is my theory that any time traveler would end up in the same (absolute) location that he started from. Unfortunately, this would most likely result in the traveler's immediate death from exposure to space, as the Earth would either be heading toward or away from his current position. For example, if a traveler shifts one minute into the future, they would appear in space, with the Earth now one minute's worth of its velocity ahead of him or her. Conversely, a trip to the past would place the Earth behind the traveler in its cosmic path.

While this would mean that Einstein the dog would have ended up floating around in space in the DeLorean after the first test run (and Dr. Brown would then have been killed by the Libyans without Marty to warn him in 1955), it would also provide some interesting possibilities for space travel.

If you could trace the absolute path that the Earth is taking (has taken/will take) through space, you would likely find that other stars now lie along the same path. Using this same line of thought, it is reasonable to theorize that, going far enough into the past or the future, other solar systems/stars/planets have or will occupy the same absolute position that the Earth currently passes through.

By utilizing time travel to, in effect, bring those other celestial objects here, great strides in astronomy could be made. The possibilities of discovering and opening trade with intelligent life during the variably sized "windows" before the Earth's current position moves out of range of a particular object's path.

While I realize that temporal paradoxes would still be a problem, I found the concept of time travel as a substitute for true FTL travel fascinating. Thoughts?

*tightens your straps and thinks now would be a good time for sedatives* ~Vp~

hmm, interesting thought, I suppose it would depend on your 'method' of time travel. Of course you know there are several theories out there for traveling through time. For example, travel faster than the speed of light in a linear path (einstine right?). Or you could enter a worm hole (which would theoretically allow you to appear on the exit before you entered). Another one I heard has to do with being inside a baloon that expands and collapses at the speed of light, don't ask me how the hell that is supposed to work.

In any case, if you were on earth and had a 'time machine'. As you were traveling back in time, your position would also follow your previous trejectory, because you wouldn't actually be instantaniously put in another time period. You have to TRAVEL to that time period, which is much like playing everything in reverse (or fast forward). So you would indeed remain in the same place on earth (or wherever) as long as you don't get up and move while you are in transit.

However theory doesn't allow for the notion of 'time travel' without high speed movement (sorry 7 Days). So you are right about one thing, you would not end up where you started. Exploring space in this manner would be very difficult because you would not only have to have some method of traveling faster than the speed of light, but you would also have to control your trejectory (nearly unthinkable at that speed, with everything going in reverse). We would be safer traveling close to the speed of light and allowing time to continue moving forward as we moved.

Here's a thought, can you even get past the speed of light? Lets say you can get to the speed of light, where everything freezes, what's to prevent you from being stuck there?



-It never hurts to always be right-

ok, we deal with time and light every single day, but I still don't understand WHAT time REALLY is.

I read a book of steven hawkings, baby universes and black holes and I remember a few things:

- black holes can obsorb light because the cores of the black holes have infinite* density.
- time travel is not possible and never will be, because no history has recorded that human has been visited by dudes from the future.

well, it makes sense that time trable is impossible, because ..., I mean, how the hell can you go back to 20 years ago and rape your mom.

Actually since the breeching of the "c" barrier, Time itself is in question as being a fourth dimension.

"Time" exists as a measure of passge, based around the universal speed constant (light). Einstein theorized that travelling away from a clock at the speed of light would negate "time", as the light from the face of the clock changing would never reach the traveler.

Nice idea, but it didn't work, since by that concept alone, travelling at incrememtns of that speed, would, in turn, "slow" time. Enter the coming of relativity. Einstein amended the rules so to speak. He postulated that the speed of light was then ALWAYS relative to the viewer. Much like Heisenberg saying that the act of measuring affected measurement, Einstein said that no matter what speed you were travelling (like us, right now, going at an incredible pace around the sun) you would still view light travelling at the same speed (c). It conjoined with relativity, and formed the universal constant then.

Therefore time was also a constant, since it was based on "c".

Great theory...until tachyons tore it to shit.

"Tachyon particles" were hypothesized particles that exhibited a particle-wave behaviour (as all matter does) but were measured to exist in separate places at the same time. Now, due to Heisenberg (that Wacky Heisy) it couldn't be proven for quite a while, since the addition of quanta in the measurement process would screw up the measurements themselves. That is, until scientists accelerated protons past "c".

Last year sometime in Sweden, particle accelerators were used in conjunction with quantum acceleration to force protons to accelerate past c, and basically be measured at speeds in excess of the universal constant. That will mean a lot to IT in the next 20 years, as data is now encoded in light pulses (welcome fiber optics) so if they can be accelerated, the data transfer will, in essence become quite substantially faster..without a new limitation on the pipe.

Problem!!!!

If c is no longer constant..than what of time? Well, in a realm of four dimensions, we're now going to have to adapt to the idea of only 3 of them being viable. If it is possible to move away from the "clock" exceeding the speed of light, then time itself no longer has merit as a measure...it is only a factor of c....and since c is now and arbitrary speed....


You're getting the picture.

"Time travel" is still impossible..as the idea of exceeding the speed of light away from an object says no more about going "back in time" than a phone booth in Doctor Who does. However, as we're slowly rendering time as being irrelevant, it casts glimpses on the idea of folded space being closer to reality...and the ability to transcend a four dimensional plane as a possiblity.

In other words...strap in, kids....it';s gonna get bumpy on the quantum physics football field.

Geez... doesn't anyone go 'steerage' anymore?

nj

Bloody hell! Everytime I read one of DGs posts I feel "dumb as a stick". Anyway sorry if my post will seem like a childs in comparison, however:-

One thing that has always interested me about time travel is the question about having two (or more) of you in the same place at the *same* time.

*IF* it were possible to send me back to last week and I appear at work and look into my office window, will my previuos self still be there. How can that be? we are talking about time travel, not creating duplicate human beings.

Also what happens when I go back to the present? What happens if I arrive back in the present a mili second BEFORE I left. Will there then be two of me in the present separated by mere mili seconds? How do I fix that?Does one of us have to commit suicide? Who is the real me anyway?

Then, what if a future me decides to come back to almost the same point in time again, then there are three of us. Would we have each others thoughts and feelings since we are the same person? If I stub my toe when the future me arrives, will he automatically have the memory of it happening or is there some delay.

Unfortunately too many untidy ends to ever make it possible, but it makes for great mind games. Sci-Fi has always been one of my favourite reading subjects, when I was at school I tried to write a short story involving time-travel, but I found the whole thing so full of twists and turns that I just gave up in the end and it became some crap about artificial intellegance. *strays off the topic*

>>time travel is not possible and never will be, because no history has recorded that human has been visited by dudes from the future.

Intelligent alien lifeforms exist, since we've never been visited by one (from calvin and hobbes)

I'm not sure if this is the correct quote, does someone know it?

In honor of my 852nd post, I'll proceed to plug a very good book on the subject: The Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett

I now return you to your regularly scheduled posting.



[This message has been edited by silence (edited 06-28-2001).]

I never really liked that quote, that doesn't prove shit to me!
Whats to say the our more enlightened colleagues from 2000 years in the future, manage to get time travel working but have the sense to realise that you cannot let anyone in the past know about it else it will drastically alter their future when they return.
Perhaps they are here already but doing a good job of keeping it quite.

Anyway just a thought, I still don't think it will ever be possible



EDIT Damn silence, slipped on in before I had chance to reply to mahjas

[This message has been edited by TheTrixter (edited 06-28-2001).]

Trixter, I don't know what mental block you are having with two versions of you existing in the same time period. While there would be two versions of you existing in the same time period, one would be the older, time-traveling version. There would essentially be two separate entities that are you during that time period. Both are the real you, just different ages at different points in their lives. The fact that a person can at two different times in their life live on the same day isn't really an issue.

Think about it from the first-person experience and not the third-person point of view and it should make more sense.


It's your God, they're your rules, YOU go to Hell.

In response to Drakkor about actually going at the speed of light, there are more problems than "just getting stuck there".

Okay, assuming you can accelerate a vehicle to the speed of light. Space is not exactly an ideal vacuum since there are hydrogen molecules floating around. They will, in effect, be coming at you at the speed of light and since H atoms are mostly a single proton, what you have is alpha particle radiation that goes through matter like it wasn't there. Admittedly, the chance of one of them hitting an atomic nucleus and causing a mutation is low, they'll only need to do it once.

Actually Trix, you bring up a VERY valid point.

The universe is a closed system (in so much as it involves everything..no more, no less). The laws of thermodynamics say that Matter can neither be created, nor destroyed, only changed.

If we go with that law, and the law of matter conservation, the idea of a paradox (two of "you" in the same room) takes on a whole new problem.

Essentially you would have the same matter existing twice in the same place.

Factor in conservation, and that means that somewhere in the universe, precisely the same amount of matter ceased to exist.

So....who'd ya kill?..huh?..HUH??

Time Travel..nice idea...not practical....even if you cosider folded space to be mobius-like.

But... If Time is just another dimension of the Universe, then it has to be taken into consideration when you call the Universe a closed system. Since all times are part of the Universe, you're not really violating Conservation of Matter, because even if you moved all the Matter from one moment to another, it's all still within the Universe's dimensional parameters.

Damn, this is fun!

[This message has been edited by Wangenstein (edited 06-28-2001).]

Drakkor - I'm not sure that I understand your point about remaining in place on Earth during Time Travel. If you are in an absolute location of space (that just happens to place you standing upon the Earth) and you change just one thing about your location (your position in time), then why would you continue to travel with the Earth? Time wouldn't care if you were on the Earth or anywhere else. It would be as if the Earth had been teleported however-many seconds worth of motion away.

Maybe it's a perception-thing. I envision Time Travel as a 'teleportation through time' kind of motion, rather than a rewinding or fast-forwarding. However, if 'position' in time is the only thing being changed, you would still seem to see the Earth fly away from you as it 'rewinded' away from you.

As I've said, damn this is fun!

Okay, DG, you'd accept it if you only traveled to time periods outside your lifetime? Also, by time being a closed system, does that imply that time would follow the law of conservation? If so, then there would be a finite quantity of time which would imply a beginning and an end.

silence...not at all.

Your lifetime is immaterial (and Wangenstein, don't make me explain the superfluosity of time again ) Since matter cannot be created, nor destroyed, your matter existed before your life, and shall exist after it.

Ultimately the laws of thermodynamics give that the transferrence of matter over time with the same dimensionality is impossible. HOWEVER, since so many folks here want to play the time game...hehe....postulate this:

If we are a wave based existence, that (until recently) was defined by "c", then who's to say that our dimensionality isn't just a phase shift away from other wave realities? So, if wavelength and frequency are the defining aspects of dimensional reality, perhaps it's possible to transcend this reality through breaking the "c" "barrier".

Essentially existing outside of this set of dimensional rules for a time. It is possible in that instance that thransferrence could work, as your matter exists nowhere there.

~drops the gloves~

heh

*head explodes*

But doesn't matter exhibit both wave and particle behaviour? What would then be the same analogy in a particle system?

Time travel is possible, just not in human form. But what you'll all find out when you die (and what science is slowly realizing... read David Bohm's quantum theories) is that there are infinite dimensions of order in either direction. The 3-d world is merely a reflection of a greater order of things. Much like our 3d world can represent infinite 2-d slices.

Time is like the continuum that holds together all our 3-d moments. Your physical mind and body are a limited reflection of a deeper consciousness which religion calls your 'soul'. Old religions always say your soul is in your body, because that was what people were capable of understanding in the past. But the truth is that you are merely a 3-d slice of your soul. Once you die (or maybe if science figures out some ingenious physical method of actually pulling quantum data out of the next dimension), time-travel will be possible, but not the way it is oft-conceived.

I'm sure ya'll think I'm crazy, but seriously, just wait til you die

-jiblet

And there will be a small green man to guide you along.

You will call him gazoo...


and it will be good.


Okee, can we get back to the science of it now....personal opinion is lovely, but if the moonies get in here, I'll bitch until this thread gets stoned to death.

I agree that there is wave separation with more to establish...as I also agree that infinitum is the measure of dimensionality. However, I think "wait til you die" is about as intelligent a remark as "you'll see rabbit.....you'll see". Love the sentiments, but the setting of hypothesis as fact is just dangerous.

silence:
I was waiting for someone to hit that

I have my own personal theories on it, but I'll try to stick to the hard and fast science of it. Particle-Wave behaviour is exhibited by all matter, however energy only exhibits wave properties. This brings up a few problems, as to how can we assign separate behaviours if they are only separated by what one has, but not the other...not what neither exhibit of the other.

(grabs Jeni's head....settles it down again)

What that means, is that the particle properties of matter may just be side effects of their wave essentials.

Given that the constants of this universe are waves, it can be assumed that all waves encounter each other on this plane at some point (believe in infinitum? belly up to the bar) If we accept that, then there has to be a realization that if waves are of the same length and frequency, they will meet crest to crest, trough to trough. If you know wave theory, you'll realized that reflection and repulsion will take place. Aren't reflection and repulsion just more complex versions of "solid meets solid"?

(insert personal opinion) So it can be theorized that "matter" is merely a more stringent display of energy. Waves, all around us, just that the interaction of them gives us pause to consider them otherwise.

Extend this, and we see that the universal dimensionality is ultimately just a constant wave, bisected in each line by other waves within it. Shift the wave though...and....?

So we cut the "universe" into parallels (the aforementioned infinite slices) and introduce phase shift....waves existing in the same "space" (sic...trust me, it's wrong) but not cohabitating, due to differentials in phase and interaction.

Occasionally the waves may meet crest to crest (the appearance of tachyon particles) and then shift out of phase again (bye bye particles).

So..long adn short Particle-Wave theory of matter...slowly creeping into the wave theory of matter....particle falling to the wayside as a result...not a separate entity.

threep reads all the posts (particularly the DG ones) intently, contemplates, then exclaims:
"eureka! i've got it! i know exactly how to make a time machine!
....anyone got a blender, two rabbits, three rolls of duct tape and a steering wheel to spare?"
...and runs away before his head emulates jeni's.
~ B O O M ~

Fascinating stuff, keep it up please!

There is just one problem I have though... what the heck was that crap about the Tardis not *really* going back in time??? What kind of sacrilege is that? DG, I hereby brand you a geek heretic!!!

threep shouts jubilantly:
"ha ha ha! i think i did it! i'm about to try travel forward in time - i'll tell you if it works!"
he tries his best, and lo and behold, edits the post:
"I DID IT! IT WORKED! I CAN TRAVEL IN TIME!"

[This message has been edited by 3rdperson (edited 09-21-2041).]

Phew, sorry DG, but you lost me there, that last post was a doozie. . . .
Anyway just remembered about a sci-fi book I read a while back which involves a process similar to what we've been discussing.

The idea was that although it was physically impossible for us to send humans back in time, we could send messages back using a tachyon beam. The basic theory was that because Tachyons travel faster than light, you could aim a beam into a certain point out in space. This point in space being the position of the earth at a cetain point in the past. They aimed at 1963 (or something) because from our history books they knew that a coupe of scientist were doing some kind of experiment at that time (I forget what but it involved watching molecules of some material or another very closeley). Anyway the hope was that when these tachyons arrived back in time at the specified point in space, they would interfere with this experiment. By alternating the time of each burst of tachyons they were able to send a message in morse-code back to 1963, warning them of a future catastrophe and hopfully saving their asses before the needed to be saved.
I thought that was a nice idea when I read it, and it brought it back to mind reading this thread.
Carry on DG, this is fascinating. . . . .

Hey DG, didn't mean to scare ya there buddy.

"Love the sentiments, but the setting of hypothesis as fact is just dangerous."

I don't really think it's DANGEROUS. I mean, science would never move forward if people didn't have crazy hypotheses, and regarding ANYTHING as fact is dangerous insomuch as science is based on fundamental assumptions which are unproven at some level. The problem is that I'm not a physicist. All I'm saying is look into David Bohm's physics. If I were more well-versed in quantum theory I could explain what I've read about this clearly. All I can really say is that Bohm's hypotheses are based on the disparities between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. I found this on Google:
http://www.shavano.org/html/bohm.html

I think you will agree that it is at least interesting.

-jiblet

jib: No worries, no fears here. I'm actually a large proponent of Bohm and Hiley's work. As I mentioned the infinite strat idea of universal order is something I subscribe to....

But it's not hard science....yet

I love the hypotheses, and said that they're great...just that throwing faith into an idea isn't enough to "do the math" yet ...hehe.

When we (if we) talk about phase shift order, you and I will discuss the variant possibilities of "death" and "dreams" even...okee? You'll probably see that we agree on a great lot, and that I have my own theories that work off the bohm-hiley model in a way.

Great conversation guys...keep swinging.

if you can travel FORWARD, you can look at the stock market!!! and no one will EVER need to grow rice, wheat and other food products no more!!

it's just not making sense that time travel is possible. I Do believe in the exsitence of aliens, the reasons they are not visiting us maybe:
1. they are not advanced enough to come to Earth
2. they can come to earth, but earth has nothing they need, kiddish things like slavery of human will not interest them, if they can travel to earth, they can make robots that can produce them daily needs.
3. they are so damn advanced that even if they were driving UFOs right above some one, he/she wouldn't know.
4. they are not visible by human eyes or equiments made by human unless they want humans to see them.

we have to realize that the Earth has all the essentials of life such as H20 and air, so that a lifeform called human can be here. And we must realize, some other lifeforms will ADAPT to other environments, so don't expect aliens will need to drink water or breathe air. we need oxygen tanks and space suits to travel in space, they may need their kind of "oxygen tanks" and "suits" to travel to earth so that the Earth envronment don't hurt them.

back to time travel, before applying fancy ideas like "folding space", think about the fundamentals, what if on your exact 20'th birthday, you go back to 30 years ago, and kill your parents (for example), how to hell can you return to the future if you can't even exist anymore since your parents are already dead before you were born.

I mean, personally, I hope time travel was possible too, but it just doesnt make sense.

my knowledge of physics approaches zero but given that somehow the obstacles inherent in moving through wave patterns and particles in motion is solved...

the idea of moving into the past seems fraught with the danger of changing something vital.. the power accruing to those with the knowledge is phenomenal.. a parallel of gene therapy on what scale? local? global?

then there is the idea of moving into the future, .. the future is not yet fixed imo, but a collage of hopes, dreams, projections of what might be... yet to be fixed by specific actions in the present... an amorphous amalgam of possibilities...

and given that on a sub-atomic level we are all one. what part of us would be moving anyway? what holds together this image we call us? the particles or atoms (?) that make us up are in motion.. part of me then part of the computer in front of me and moving off towards the drapes and windows...

Well, galaxal, you've pressed upon a paradox of time travel and a theory called "causality". It's interesting stuff.

Well, if time travel IS physically possible there are two possible solutions. Either direct, sequential cause and effect is an illusion that exists due to the fact that we orient ourselves linearly (quite possible IMHO), or else traveling back in time really shifts you to another 'dimension' (ie timeline). That also solves the paradox quite nicely, and is kind of along the lines of what happened in Back to the Future. Although in the movie he uses pictures to tell how his changes to the timeline would play out, even though technically the pictures, having come from the original timeline, would remain unchaged.

Regardless, it seems that the most likely event would be that you would destroy your life as you know it, and never be able to make it back to that timeline.... unless of course you go back in time again to when you arrived in teh past and kill yourself immediately then return to the future before you can so much as squash a butterfly. Even then things might be different, but hopefully at least some of your friends would still know who you are.

-jiblet

I'm no theoretical physicist, but here's my $.02

I think DG may be on to something with parallel phase shifting as a possible "Time Travel". I think you could call it "Reality Travel" where you can go to one of the closely parallel possible universes. I'm pretty convinced that there are an infinite number of universes existing simultaneously. Every possible (especially quantum level) event happens. You ask yourself

"Should I go left or right?"

In fact, you might go both (especially if you were a quantum particle), but each of you exists in their own universe at that time. Since their existance is real, though out of phase (or something), it may be possible to connect to them.

And as for the definition of time... I don't think it is really a dimension. I believe it's just a reflection of thermodynamic happenings. The more chaos going on, the more time happens. What's odd about our current situation here on Earth is that while cosmically, time is slowing down (fewer available energy sources for reaction), intelligence has been born and thus is now speeding time up. Intelligence, in fact, is "imploding" at a hyperbolic rate, increasing in complexity to the point of (X) - who knows.

So, in the beginning, when in a gajillionth of a second, the univese evolved a new particle, it now takes a gajillion years. But, now our computers are doing in a gajillionth of a second what would have taken us a gajillion years to do!

The Law of Accelerating Returns.... how odd.

Yes, I think you are on the right track, I am also convinced of multiple parallel universes.

But I think connecting them is much too great a scientific feat even to be contemplated given the current state of science. The problem is the depth of these universes... there are an infinite amount branching off from each other since the beginning of time (although since time is a human illusion, the overall reality may not be quite so mind-boggling apart from the absence of time). I view time as our path through these dimensions. We can change where we go, but we can never go back and erase our path so long as we are time-oriented creatures.

When you speak of time being relative to thermodynamic events (or whatever u said exactly), that is very interesting, but I think it misses the point in that time is meaningless except to an observer that perceives time. How can we say time went slower or faster before there were conscious creatures? It's simply irrelevant because the geological processes happen, they do not perceive time and so what difference does it make if it went slow or fast? I suppose there could be something to what you're saying, but as humans we are very hard-pressed to make any objective statements about time since it is so fundamentally intertwined with our entire consciousness.

Science may be able to eventually resolve questions like these, but I don't think in our lifetimes...

-jiblet

Darkgarden: "(insert personal opinion) So it can be theorized that "matter" is merely a more stringent display of energy. Waves, all around us, just that the interaction of them gives us pause to consider them otherwise."

My thoughts exactly.
It's very logical to say that particles (the smallest, most basic ones) are little more than waveforms that spin in a spherical motion. The blades of a helicopter look like a disc, and a waveform particle looks like a tiny bead.

But waves themselves exist within a bigger substance, sound moves through air, ripples on the surface of a pond move through water. A wave can't be completely self-sustained...could it?


It is possible to visualize Time. You just have to eliminate 1 other dimension, and refill it with the dimension Time. You could do that with a combination of 2D-animation software, and a 3D program.

Dhromed: Actually energy waves are independent of the medium they are measured through. Though the medium may effect them (light refracting when passing from air to water is the slowing down of the frequency) they assuredly aren't existing because of the medium.

After all, light travels through a vacuum if uninterrupted.

I know what you're trying to say about the defining of time, but consider that time is only a viable "dimension" when measured against light. If one fails as being a constant, then the other is in jeopardy of the same sort.

The three dimensions that we accept, are done so because of tangibility. They exist as reality for us, because we can experience them through collision. Time is the anomaly as the fourth dimension. As long as our barrier of light speed was defined, then time was a viable dimension. We would all experience it at the same rate (the law of relativity guaranteed that no matter how we viewed it, we would all see light travel at 300,000,000 meters/second) and therefore time was a constant, independent of circumstance.
(nice little link here, has some great online resources...it's a bit aged now, but give it a good read. http://home.sunrise.ch/schatzer/space-time.html )

However, once the barrier is breeched, it is now evident that light cannot travel faster than itself, and still appear at "c" relative to the traveler (digest that..it was tough enough writing it..heh). Therefore measuring time as a constant.....is screwed.

if we accept that v (velocity)=d (distance)/t (time), and that t is only measurable through warp quantifiers (light measurement for time) then if v is greater than c (our light constant) t becomes immeasurable....which effectively negates d as well. It starts to make sense when you consider that all our present physics have been based on a speed constant, and that our available measures are all within the electromagnetic wave spectrum.

Yes, we can still measure the distance, and the light based time that has elapsed, giving us an idea of "speed"...but it's only going to be an idea..because now, light based time is irrelevant.

Just for a visual...think about this.

You finally gain the ability to break the c barrier as a human....you set your watch down to see how fast you can arrive at a preordained distance. You whiz away at plus warp speeds, and then use your telescope to read your watch (shut up, just go with me on this). Problem? Time can't have changed on your watch, as you've travelled away from it at a speed excedding the relativity clause. So the light from the watch can't have reached you. If you continue to travel away from it at that speed, it will NEVER reach you.

So has "time" not passed? Well what you consider time now, has. After all, you *are* experiencing the motion.

~weighs hands~

See the dilemma now?

Time isn't a valid quantifier in a warp exceeded universe.

And I still love this conversation..such great ideas.


Peter

Well...
Time is not a constant, in terms of speed. It can move slower, faster, or stop completely.

But the same applies to space. Although light travels at the same speed always, a metre isn't always a metre. Space, as well as time, can be distorted. So I'd say there really is no constant at all - with perhaps one philosophical exception (and I can't even be sure it's true): the universe is now, the way it is now.

A foton is said to travel freely through the vacuum of space, but what makes you think it's not filled with electromagnetic radiation as well? Compare it to the surfce of a liquid. When there are disruptions, you can see it, but in a smooth state, it's impossible to detect. You'd have to disrupt it to know it's there, but that would only prove the existence of the disruption, not the surface itself.

Translated to space, you can't say 'Mmkay, Bill, let's poke it and see if anything's there', because the very presence of matter or energy would be the disruption of the field. Any existence would 'prove' the exictense of the 'surface', and as such, it would prove nothing. You couldn't detect it passivley, nor actively.

This all is based on the fact that I don't know of any waveform that was able to exist without the presence of a 'superior substance', and from that, the premise that no waveform CAN. It seems to go right against the definition of a waveform. But then again, I may not be using the right definition.

threep laughs and asks DG:
"have you seen young einstein, darkgarden? not the most sophisticated movie around, i know, but it raises basically the exact same theory as you just stated - that if one were to move away from a clock at the speed of light, it would always read the same time, thus proving that time is relative.
take the fucking batteries out, and the clock reads the same time too.
something i found wierd is just thinking about theories like this, for instance:
you just go out and buy the latest car - it travels at 299,792,457 m/s in a vacuum - just under the speed of light.
--So, you start it up, and put the pedal to the metal. before long, you've reached top speed - and you decide to turn the headlights on. wierd huh? the light starts seeping out of the lights, at one metre per second.--
--you get your car hotted up a little, now it travels at a tidy 299,792,460 m/s - just faster than the speed of light. once again, you redline the baby, and before long, you look in the rearview mirror, and see a car just behind you - with a very attractive young driver! you wave to him, and he waves back shortly after...--
speaking of breaking the light barrier, what do you think would be the light version of the sonic boom?"

Dhromed:

You seem to be mixing up the idea of a wave, and a waveform...that seems to be the issue. A wave is existing energy, it isn't the reaction of that energy on the medium it passes through.

When you say that a wave in a pool is only the disruption of the water, that's quite incorrect. Your generator transfers kinetic energy from its motion (and in turn the slowing of its motion into the water. The "wave" itself is merely kinetic energy becoming visible within the water, and moving in rays. Did the energy not exist before it hit the water?

The "vacuum" of space is easily measurable in how it affects (or rather how it doesn't affect) energy or matter. The transfer of waves, or kinetics with particles, into "space" shows a constant measure. That means that the wave, or the matter neither slow, nor speed up. The frequency will not change, nor will the wavelength, no matter what medium it transfers from.

When you say space is filled with "radiation" You've got to understand that radiation is merely light, at a frequency undetectable to the naked human. If you're trying to say that light is dependent on its medium, and that light doesn't exist unless it travels through.......light? There's going to be a problem

As I said, I understand what you're getting at, and think the fact that you're trying to advance it is great...but you need to focus away from the idea of medium being the base, and focus on the energy itself.

threep: Yes, I saw it years ago

Einstein's theory of relativity answered your quandary about light travel in a car, and flipping the lights on. I was mentioning that earlier. He theorized that light travelled at the same speed independent of the viewer. So if you were travelling at 3 million m/s and flipped on a flashlight, it would travel to, and away from you at 3 million m/s as well.

Breaking c makes for new problems with the theory, BUT the problem comes more in understanding where the matter and energy exist when they bypass that speed, rather than how fast light will travel there. Relativity could very well still be valid....but the "light barrier" isn't.

threep pauses for contemplation, then asks:
"ok, the light still comes out at, c m/s. so what color is it?"
obviously, the troubled lad has been thinking about the doppler effect, and those theories concerning the color shifts resulting from celestial bodies zooming away from the viewer, thus changing their wavelengths.... he is in far too deep.