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Say for example I travel very close to the speed of light, quite simply put, I would travel forward in your time. You would live and die while I age a few minutes. Essentially, I travel forward in time Traveling back in time is a bit trickier, though.

Heres a research paper on "A Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser". http://xxx.lanl.gov/pdf/quant-ph/9903047 It gets pretty detailed, but you can get a good idea of whats going on. There are also other good papers referenced from that one. You can find TONS of information on the classic electron double slit experiment by searching google.com for electron double slit experiment.

What are dyson spheres? I assume they're some sort of biodome..

If anything comes closest to complete wierdness in physics, it would have to be modifications of this classic experiment. I'll give a little backround on the experiment before I continue. In the early 1800's, the debate was raging on whether light was a particle or a wave. An English physicist named Thomas Young devised a plan to test these theories. Today we call it the "Double Slit Experiment". Thomas young thought that if light was a particle, it would travel in a straight line from the source, through the two slits, and form two stripes on a photosensitive screen behind the slits. However, if light was a wave, it would travel through the slits and create an interference pattern typical of waves on the screen. Young performed the experiment, and found that light created an interference pattern, typical of a wave. This seem to put to rest the debate over the wave or particle properties of light for the time being. Double slit experiments with electrons Fast foward a hundred years or so and we find electrons have been discovered and can easily be isolated. Physicists decide to run the double slit experiment, except this time using electrons. The setup is essentially the same, except the decide to fire they electrons through the slits one-by-one. Firing them one by one would not allow for them to interact with each other like waves. To physicists astonishment, the electrons still left an interference pattern, even though they couldn't interfere with each other because they were each fired individually! No matter how long the duration between electron shots, an interference pattern still was recorded. Thats only the tip of the iceburg. Now physicists added electron detectors in each slit to determine which slit each electron travelled through. They ran the experiment again and recorded the results. Suprisingly, this time there was no interference pattern, only two stripes left on the photosheet!! Physicists thought perhaps the electron detectors altered the experiment or motion of the electrons. So they ran various combinations of the experiment to determine the problem. Turn off the electron detectors at the slits: The scientists left the electron detectors at the slits, but turned them off. The results? They found an interference pattern. This meant that electron detectors on the slits do not alter the electrons paths. Leave the electron detectors on, but don't gather the information: This time, they will leave the electron detectors ON, but not look at or record the results of the electron detectors in any way. They will not obtain results from the fully functioning electron detectors. The results? They found an interference pattern. This meant that fully functioning electron detectors that are turned on do not effect the results so long as the results are not observed. Record the measurements at the slits, but then erase it before analyzing the results at the back wall: Everything is the same as the above, except the results from the electron detectors at the slits were analyzed and erase the recorded data. Remember, that the experiment has already been carried out by the time they choose to keep or erase the data before checking the photoplate for an interference pattern, or a dual slit pattern. When they erase the data, they find an interference pattern! This seemingly changes the results of a completed experiment. If you are not bowled over by this fact, you have either heard of this experiment, or you need to re-read it (or I need to be clearer ) Physicists found that it wasn't the electron detectors that changed the experiment; it was the fact that they had observed the data. Deciding to observe the data after the experiment had been performed--electrons had already left their mark on the plate--changed the pattern of the electrons! source: "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene. Am I the only one who finds this extremely wierd?

So if we visted, we could look, but not touch? -- Paul Davies presented a view I'm not too familiar with in scientific american. I always envisioned us flowing through time in a specified direction. He says this is due to unidirectional sequence, for example dropping an egg will smash it to pieces, but you'll never seen a broken egg fix itself. Roughly, this is the second law of the thermodynamics. He goes on to say "Because nature abounds with irreversible processs, the second law of thermodynamics plays a key role in imprinting on the world a conspicuous asymmetry between past and future directions along the time axis. By convention, the arrow of time points toward the future. This does not imply, however, that the arrow is moving toward the future, anymore than a compass needle pointing north indicates that the compass is traveling north. Both arrows symbolize an asymmetry, not a movement. The arrow of time denotes an asymmetry of the world in time, not an asymmetry or flux of time. The labels "past" and "future" may legitimately be applied to temporal directions, but talk of the past or the futre is as meaningless as referring to the up or the down."

This is also a paraphrased version of some paragraphs in the latest scientific american special edition on time. Do space and time exist independently of stars, galaxies and their other contents(substantivalism) or are they merely an artificial device to describe how physical objects are related(relationism)? As John D. Norton of the University of Pittsburgh said "Are they like a canvas onto which and artist paints; they exist whether or not the artist paints on them? Or are they akin to parenthood; there is no parenthood until there are parents and children". This brings up a long-neglected thought experiment of Einstein's. Consider an empty patch of spacetime. Outside this hole the distribution of matter fixes the geometry of spacetime, per the equations of relativity. Inside, however, general covariance lets spacetime take on any of a variety of shapes. In a sense, spacetime behavios like a canvas tent. The tent poles, which represent mater, force the canvas to assume a certain shape. But if you leave out a pole, creating the equivalent of a pole, part of the tent can sag, or bow out, or ripple unpredictably in the wind. The thought experiment poses a dilemme. If the continuum is a thing in its own right (as substantivalism holds), general relativity must be indeterministic--that is, its description of the world must contain an element of randomness. For the theory to be deterministic, spacetime must be a mere fiction(as relationism holds). At first glance, it looks like a victory for relationism. It helps that other theories, such as electromagnetism, are based on symmetries that resemble relationism. But relationism has its own troubles. It is the ultimate source of the problem of forzen time: space may more over time, but if its many shapes are all equivalent(general covariance: which holds that the laws of physics are the same for all observers. Two observers will perceive spacetime to have two different shapes, corresponding to their views of who is moving and what forces are acting. Each shape is a smoothly warped version of the other.), it never truly changes. Moreover, relationism clashes with the substantivalist underpinnings of quantum mechanics. If spacetime has no fixed meaning, how can you make observations as specific places and moments, as quantum mechanics seems to require.

I think we should start terraforming mars. Although I probably wouldn't be the first volunteer to start a new life there Eventually it will become necessary for life to survive. Of course, in the distant future, mars will also suffer the same fate as the earth. Perhaps then we will have the technology to build and surivive on an artifical planet.

Assuming time travel was feasable, the production of a time machine could open a whole box of casual paradoxes. For example, the girl who traveled back in time to kill her mother. If the mother dies while she was a young girl, her daughter would never travel back in time to kill her. How do we make sense of this? Or consider the time traveler who leaps ahead and learns of a new mathematical theorem in a leading journal. Suppose he returns to his own time and publishes the article in a journal. The article is the same one he read in the future. Where did the information come from? The information seemingly came into existence from nowhere. Are there laws of physics that will prevent these kinds of paradoxes from occuring? Stephen Hawking proposed a "chronology protection conjecture" which would outlaw casual loops. Because the theory of relativity is known to permit causal loops, chrnology protection would require some other factor to intercede to prevent travel into the past. What might this factor be?

This is kind of paraphrased from the current issue of scientific american. Quantum indeterminsm implies that for a particular quantum state there are many alternative futures or potential realities. Quantum mechanics supplies the relative probabilities for each observable outcome, although it won't say which potential future is destined for reality. Take for example an electron hitting an atom and bouncing off. The electron will bounce in one direction of many possiblities, and it is impossible to predict in advance what outcome in any given case will be. But when a human observer makes a measurement, one and only one result is obtained; for example, the electron will be found moving in a certain direction. In the act of measurement, a single, specific reality gets projected out from a vast array of possibilities. Within the observer's mind, the possible makes a transition to the actual, the open future to the fixed past. There is no agreement among physicists on how this transition from many potential realities in to single actuality takes place. -- Does consciousness play a key role in our universe?

:haha:

I guess I'll add some more avatars as well, any you guys want me to look for to add?

I'll add some tomorrow morning when I'm not soo tiireed :zzz: :zzz: :zzz:

Doesn't accutane have links to depression?

Is Our Universe Too Perfect to be Random? August 14, 2002 08:30 CDT from cosmiverse It's a question as big as the Cosmos itself: could the prevailing theoretical view of the universe be flawed? In order for the cosmos -- as we currently understand it -- to exist, it would have required outside help. In other words, it would have required a miracle to create our view of the universe, or outside intervention from "God". If the universe is ever-more-rapidly expanding as we believe it to be, then it is destined to eventually repeat itself. According to a recent report in the journal Nature, that's the view of Leonard Susskind and his team from Stanford University, California. What are the chances that such an event would produce worlds like ours? Extremely small, they say, somewhere between the proverbial "slim to none". Therefore, one of two things must be true: either space is not accelerating for the reasons we believe it is, or some yet-undiscovered principle of physics is at work, say the researchers. This principle would have to be able to pick out those few initial states that lead to the creation of a Universe such as ours, and then guide cosmic evolution so that it doesn't happen that way. Susskind's team, with all its collective scientific research and thinking skills, agrees that it almost seems as if something else is influencing what happened at the creation of our Universe. An "unknown agent", if you will, that intervened in the creation of our Universe for reasons yet unknown. Before all you Creationists start jumping for joy, sit back down a minute. There's a flaw in your theory. The problem stems from the observation in 1998 that the Universe's expansion seems to be speeding up. The most popular explanation for that happening is that there's a cosmological constant-a repulsive force that opposes gravity. If what we believe now holds true, other galaxies will eventually disappear as they zoom away from us faster than the speed of light. Once that happens, nothing that occurs in those parts of the galaxy can affect our world. The planets will become separate entities, each isolated behind a boundary called a de Sitter horizon. That means that the Universe will fragment into a virtual foam of bubbles, each separated by a de Sitter horizon, in effect creating a de Sitter space. Each of the bubbles, isolated from the others, would eventually settle into what the researchers call "a bland, lifeless uniformity". Once that happens, our history effectively ends. We think. Thermodynamics would argue otherwise, say Susskind and his colleagues. If you wait long enough, everything that can happen-will happen. With infinite patience, they say, a drop of ink dispersed into a glass of water will eventually gather its molecules back into a single drop. Okay, you'd have to wait an absurdly long time, but theoretically it could happen. Left image: In 1995, the majestic spiral galaxy NGC 4414 was imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of the HST Key Project on the Extragalactic Distance Scale. Based on their discovery and careful brightness measurements of variable stars in NGC 4414, astronomers were able to make an accurate determination of the distance to the galaxy, which is 19.1 megaparsecs or about 60 million light-years from Earth. Click image to enlarge. It's equally possible that a Universe that is driven to become a de Sitter space by a cosmological constant will, after an absurdly long time, return to something resembling its original condition. At that point, a new cosmic history would be born and begin to unfold-including the appearance of life and everything we believe came after that. What are the chances that a cosmic recurrence such as the one we've described here will actually happen? They're beyond "extremely slim". Cosmologists have a response to that. It's called the anthropic principle. That says that regardless of how unlikely the Universe seems, the very fact that we are here to wonder about its origins and ask such questions resolves the paradox. If things were otherwise, they argue, then life wouldn't exist and the questions could never be raised. The research done by Susskind's team shows that the anthropic principle won't help here, because a vast number of Universes would allow life that might look very different from the one in which we now live. All of the habitable Universes would result from "miraculous statistical events. Even if "something" did set the peculiar conditions of our universe, those conditions would only apply to that one occurrence. Future occurrences would produce a very different result. If that is true, then the only conclusion we could reach would be that we are in the first unfolding of this carefully crafted Universe. This seems too much like "special pleading", according to the researchers, who spoke with Nature. So, in the end, is there no cosmological constant after all? Or could we be missing something fundamental? Source: Nature; Stanford University; NASA

I know what you'retalking about. Thanks, I'll fix it shortly :0

Wow this fell off fast, bump!

Actually DOs make the same on average as MDs, however, some DOs settle for less in small towns. In big cities, however, the hospitals and hmos recognize no difference between an MD and a DO; they are both paid by the same standard. But you bring up a good point, I don't understand people who go into medicine for money. I've always been taught that you do what you love.

I was going to make a post on this; regarding biological clocks. About once a week I'll wake up literally 2 or 3 seconds before my alarm clock goes off. I'm being honest here. Its getting to the point where I start reaching for the clock as soon as I wake up. Is this explainable? Or just one of those things..

Do the DO! I forgot to mention, DOs can practice in large cities, and often times they do. BUT, most DO schools like to put doctors into needy areas as far as healthcare.

I love you aman! Osteopaths (DO) are geared toward rural practice.

I used to on my old machine, whats the URL to download the software again?

I agree with kenel, but as my dad always says about patients "Everyone wants a quick fix; a bandaid. No one wants to get at the root of the problem anymore." Anyhow...everytime someone tells me they are on a diet, I ask why? If they say to lose weight, I say, "Great, I assume you're going to be using the treadmill too right?" I'm telling you, if you want to lose weight, don't look for some pill. Eat healthy and EXCERCISE!!!! Its the only way to LOSE weight and KEEP it off. </rant>

Don't even get me started on ritalin and the whole ADD mess being made in America.

:haha:

lol aman