No Time Travel, Sorry

MOBE2001 writes "The bad news is that time does not change. Spatial velocity is given as dx/dt. Velocity in time(dt/dt) is nonsensical. As simple as that. In other words, no time travel to the past or the future, no motion in space-time, no wormholes and no hanky-panky with your great, great grandmother. There is only the changing present, aka the NOW. The good news is that distance is an illusion and we'll be able to travel instantly from anywhere to anywhere."

Comments

Of course time travel is possible!

[SeanTobin]

How else could people post articles in The Mysterious Future?

Re:Of course time travel is possible!

[Elad Alon]

I didn't want to say I'll have told you so...

Re:Of course time travel is possible!

[ShieldW0lf]

Why is motion in spacetime impossible? It has to do with the definitions of space and time and the equation of velocity v = dx/dt. What the equation is saying is that, if an object moves over any distance d x, there is an elapsed time d t. Since time is defined in physics as a parameter for denoting change (evolution), the equation for velocity along the time axis must be given as v = dt/dt which is self-referential. The self-reference comes from having to divide dt by itself. dt/dt always equals 1 because the units cancel out. This is of course meaningless as far as velocity is concerned.

Does the impossibility of motion in spacetime invalidate Einstein's relativity? The answer depends on whether one takes spacetime to be physically existent (as relativists do) or as an abstract, non-existent, mathematical construct for the historical mapping of measured events. If one chooses the former, one is obviously a crackpot or a fraud, or both. If one chooses the latter, then general relativity is to be seen as a mere math trick: the physical mechanism of gravity is still out there and it is incumbent upon physicists to find it.

This guy seems like an idiot to me. If you make the step to say that this is a mathematical construct that best describes our limited understanding of reality, which I believe to be true, you'll never be able to describe OR refute a more complete understanding of reality using that construct. You often need to discard and rethink the original concept or adapt it for it to improve. None of our knowledge, scientific or otherwise, is fully and completely right. Not one bit, it's just the best abstract model we've got. Everything we know will eventually be demonstrated to be incomplete, inconsistent or wrong. Which means you can't use any existing models to refute a new one. You can use them as a guide, you can say that the old and the new are inconsistent, but to refute them you need to go to the real world.

I'm no physicist

[Anonymous Crowhead]

But in all my readings, I have learned one thing about physics. Nothing is "as simple as that".

The e-mail I sent to the editor was ignored.

[Cujo]

This guy is a pseudo-scientific moonbat. Please don't waste your time with the not-so-FA.

Re:The e-mail I sent to the editor was ignored.

[slavemowgli]

Note the URLs of the articles linked:

http://www.rebelscience.org/Crackpots/notorious.htm
http://www.rebelscience.org/Crackpots/nasty.htm#Spa ce

(emphasis mine.) That alone should make it pretty clear that this isn't meant to be taken seriously. Oh yeah, and the story got the "foot" icon, too, so even Taco got it. :)

Or, as Ford Prefect put it...

[Jim in Buffalo]

As Ford Prefect put it, "Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so."

I must complain

[elcheesmo]

That's it. I'm going to write a letter of complaint to Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd to express my disgust at being deceived for the past 20 years.

All you need for time travel is...

[WCMI92]

A Deloreon, a flux capacitor, 1.21 gigawatts of power, and enough road to get up to 88 miles per hour.

I desperately want to mod the story...

[precize]

-1, Nutjob

Actually, ...

[JoeShmoe950]

I'm from the year 3042. We have found that time travel is real, and would have discovered the time machine in 2048, but scientists were detered by this article.
Dan Church is Wicked Ill

Re:Drinking to much funny-juice

[lawpoop]

"That's weird because I could have sworn when I went to bed last night it was yesterday and now its today."

Not really. Now it's now, and that's all that is. You remember yesterday, but that is a memory occuring now. The past doesn't physically exist. Nor does the future. The only real (i.e. existing physically) part of our time perception is now.

Textbook strawman arguments.

[ivan256]

Spatial velocity is given as dx/dt. Velocity in time(dt/dt) is nonsensical.

That would be a lovely argument if changes in position were measured in velocity.

You describe spacial travel as the dx, not the dx/dt. It stands to reason that you would describe time travel with the dt, not as some rate of travel we haven't come up with yet.

Re:Drinking to much funny-juice

[lucabrasi999]

Not really. Now it's now, and that's all that is. You remember yesterday, but that is a memory occuring now. The past doesn't physically exist. Nor does the future. The only real (i.e. existing physically) part of our time perception is now.

Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?
Colonel Sandurz: Now. You're looking at now sir. Everything that happens now, is happening now.
Dark Helmet: What happened to then?
Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now. We're at now, now.
Dark Helmet: Go back to then!
Colonel Sandurz: When?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: Now?
Dark Helmet: Now!
Colonel Sandurz: I can't.
Dark Helmet: Why?
Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now.
Dark Helmet: When will then be now?
Colonel Sandurz: Soon.

Re:Method of Travel?

[smbarbour]

You forgot, "Slingshot the starship around the sun."

That works well when aliens try to talk to whales.

Idiotic

[Zeinfeld]

The guy who wrote the article simply does not understand the question that is being debated by the likes of Feynman et. al.

Everyone agrees that practical time travel is at the very least exceptionally unlikely. But whether our model of the universe excludes the posibility of time travel is another matter entirely.

Note that even if our model of the universe allows for time travel it does not mean that time travel is possible. Not least because we know that our model of the universe cannot possibly be completely right. Quantum physics provides an excelent model of the universe at a large scale, relativity provides a good model at the cosmological scale. The problem is that the two models are incompatible. At leas one of our models must be wrong. Most likely they are both approximations.

The other issue that the writer does not seem to grasp is that the ability for matter to travel through time and the ability of information to travel through time are very different issues. For meaningful time travel it has to be possible for information to move backwards in time and not just matter. Otherwise what would come out the other end would be a random soup of quantum particles, not the time traveller. This is the problem with black hole time travel, the most that can come out the other side is a random soup.

The 'proof' provided by the author only demonstrates that he does not have the slightest understanding of the subject he is pontificating on. dt/dt = 0??? No, all that shows is that the dimensions of the two quantities are the same. Besides x/x = 1 in most algebras.

Re:Idiotic

[lbrandy]

This reminds me of the great crackpot index.

This dude's score is off the charts. I highlighted some of the good ones:

        1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.

        2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.

        3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.

      10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

      10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".

      30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)

      30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.

      40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.

      40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)

Re:Let's play: spot the Loony

[Transcendent]

You are wrong.

Mach is the ratio of two speeds. Doing such produces a number in which the units cancel out. Speed/Speed = dimensionless. This also brings up another property of a dimensionless number, in that the value *does not change* in any unit of measurement. Mach 1.5 is the same in SI, FPS, or any other system.

Don't believe me? Here. "As it is defined as a ratio of two speeds, it is a dimensionless number." I'd hate to think you believe what you said... as others are taking you seriously.

Please don't respond back... I don't want to debate this further and you are most utterly wrong. I hope you don't work on... anything.

Re:Drinking to much funny-juice

[nelsonal]

I picked a hell of a discussion to stop taking acid.

Re:Drinking to much funny-juice

[DarkHelmet]

Stop quoting me, bastard!

When I want to go forward or backward in Time...

[msauve]

I just flip the page. Same with Newsweek.