Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

How to Build a Time Machine

Posted by michael on from the mad-scientist dept.

frank249 writes "The September issue of Scientific American has an article discussing the possibility of time travel. They say that it wouldn't be easy, but it might be possible. It could be a while until we can expand worm holes and tow them to a neutron star but didn't someone say that if it is possible it will happen. If it is impossible it will just take a little longer."

3 of 456 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot converts to .net by pigeon · · Score: 0, Troll

    It ain't easy, but not impossible. Heck, there are gazillion things that are not easy but not impossible, doesn't mean it'll happen anytime soon.

  2. Bah, theory by PhysicsGenius · · Score: -1, Troll
    As a physicist I have nothing but the utmost respect for mathematics...as a tool. Allowing ourselves to be mislead by some theoretical models is the height of foolishness, however. Making a prediction is fine, as long as it is followed up by a concrete experiment that demonstrates the math is sound. These guys are about 20 steps ahead of experiment, which makes them pretty much guaranteed wrong.

    Not to be too discouraging, though, we have been messing with some closed, time-like loops in our own lab. The results have been...interesting. We've had a few particles (nothing bigger than a carbon molecule) disappear without any net gain in energy (which would be a violation of the 2nd Law) that we've been unable to explain and even one guy who claimed that one of our lost particles showed up in his bubble chamber the previous week.

    Fortunately we are responsible scientists and won't breathe a word of this until we've rigorously tested it. And maybe not even then, because imagine the weapons possibilities of time travel.

  3. What Hogwash! Nothing Can Move in Time! by Louis+Savain · · Score: 2, Troll

    Time travel. Possible? Yes. It happens relativly speaking every day.

    Nonsense. Time dilation is not time travel. For whatever it's worth, nothing can move in time, forward or backward. The entire spacetime of relativity is frozen from the infinite past to the infinite future. I'll let the smart ones (i.e., the ones who were not irreparably brainwashed) figure that one out. In the meantime, those of you who are really interested in the truth can take a look at this following link for a complete debunking of time travel and other crackpottery from the physics community. Wild eyed Star-Trek fanatics need not bother.

    Voodoo Physics