time travel and wormholes

[Obviously]

Time travel is impossible, end of story. If it was possible to jump or manipulate time, then reality would be "unreal." If black holes give you the possiblility to jump something, it would be distance, not time. That's my opinion.

[someguy]

the rate at which you cover distance pretty much is time. that's the twisted part. but you can't "uncover" distance. time only moves forward. you can manipulate time. reversing time is another story.

[BenTheMan]

Time travel is impossible, end of story. If it was possible to jump or manipulate time, then reality would be "unreal." If black holes give you the possiblility to jump something, it would be distance, not time. That's my opinion.

 

Do you have any better arguments? Or just a bunch of hand waving?

[Farsight]

I have a better argument for why time travel is impossible. It's an essay called TIME EXPLAINED. But whatever better argument one might come up with, pseudoscientist quacks like Ben will always dismiss it as "arm waving" without actually engaging in the rationale and logic. They do anything they can to prevent open debate, such as starting arguments, and they PM moderators to lock a thread or move it into some trashcan. Then they come out with lies such as I showed you how your theory fails. It's what they do to rubbish the competition so they can push garbage like String Theory. The latter is not background independent, isn't about strings any more, and since it doesn't predict anything it doesn't actually qualify as a theory. (I have a model, not a theory) String Theory comes with bookums and snarks such as time travel and the Higgs Boson for which there is absolutely no scientific evidence. Then we get garbage such as "mass is not understood", when it is. Lee Smolin, the author of The Trouble with Physics says what mass is on page 105. However Lee Smolin is also a contributor to Loop Quantum Gravity, which Ben sees as a competitor and has been trying to rubbish on this forum.

 

Just to get back on topic: I think time travels and wormholes are abstractions for which there is no evidence, and a considered rationale can readily explain why these abstractions can not possibly exist in the real world.

[BenTheMan]

Perhaps you should have a look at this article:

 

http://www.fau.edu/divdept/schmidt/theatre/gamble/among_the_inept.htm

[Reaper]

Perhaps you should have a look at this article:

 

http://www.fau.edu/divdept/schmidt/theatre/gamble/among_the_inept.htm

 

 

Talk about a punch in the gut .

[Farsight]

Time travel and wormholes anybody? Can I reiterate: they are abstractions that are not supported by evidence or experiment. Thus IMHO they belong in the realm of pseudoscience.

[BenTheMan]

Can I reiterate: they are abstractions that are not supported by evidence or experiment.

 

You're wrong Farsight---we've been over this. Can I reiterate? There are fully consistent solutions to Einstein's equations which involve wormholes and closed time-like curves.

[Farsight]

Sigh. And they're still not supported by evidence or experiment.

[BenTheMan]

The evidence is that they are fully consistent solutions to fully consistent equations. What about this is hard to understand?

[Phi for All]

Let's avoid the ad hominem arguments, please. Calling people quacks and inept in order to conclude that their ideas are wrong is extremely weak. Let's do better.

[Farsight]

Thanks Phil.

 

Ben, re fully consistent solution: If a solution to an equation suggests a contradiction such as that posed by a time travel paradox, then we need to look again at the equation or our interpretation of it. The equation might be correct, but there may be something that we've assumed or omitted that would allow us to rule out a non-real solution.

 

A trivial example is a negative carpet. I might need sixteen square metres of carpet to furnish a square room. There are two solutions to √16. One solution is 4, the other is -4. But I can find no actual evidence to support the latter solution. I cannot literally buy a carpet measuring -4 metres by -4 metres. The "existence" of this non-real solution does not count as evidence. The problem I overlooked in this trivial example is that you can't have a negative length.

 

IMHO there's a similar issue when it comes to treating time as a direction in Minkowski's mathematical spacetime. It is not a real direction. You cannot actually travel in such a direction. There is no actual evidence for it. Any travel in this "direction" is notional only. You might claim that we travel forward in time by one second per second, but you have no evidence for this axiomatic concept. I assert that time travel is not possible, along with wormholes that permit time travel.

[swansont]

A trivial example is a negative carpet. I might need sixteen square metres of carpet to furnish a square room. There are two solutions to ?16. One solution is 4, the other is -4. But I can find no actual evidence to support the latter solution. I cannot literally buy a carpet measuring -4 metres by -4 metres. The "existence" of this non-real solution does not count as evidence. The problem I overlooked in this trivial example is that you can't have a negative length.

 

Depends on how you set up your coordinate system. You can put it at the upper right and measure -4 and -4, it's just that nobody seems to do it that way.

 

Physics has examples of things that had not been observed were predicted by equations. That's what told the scientists where to look, and then they went off and found them. (the neutrino pops immediately to mind)

 

"I assert that time travel is not possible, along with wormholes that permit time travel." is something that lacks science, because there is no scientific framework you have set up to support it.

[someguy]

Amen.

 

also, time travel most certainly IS possible. but going back in time i don't think is. the rate at which time passes is variable. technically, you don't need evidence to prove that we move forward in time "second by second". these things are true by the way they have been defined. but if you really want evidence then the mere fact that we can move and speak and think and type in this forum is evidence enough that time passes.

[Farsight]

Depends on how you set up your coordinate system. You can put it at the upper right and measure -4 and -4, it's just that nobody seems to do it that way

No problem with that in our trivial negative carpet example. But what it says is there's only one solution, not two. The problem comes when people insist that there are two distinct solutions.

 

Physics has examples of things that had not been observed were predicted by equations. That's what told the scientists where to look, and then they went off and found them. (the neutrino pops immediately to mind)

Agreed. not an issue.

 

"I assert that time travel is not possible, along with wormholes that permit time travel" is something that lacks science, because there is no scientific framework you have set up to support it.

But when I give a detailed rationale to explain why time travel is not possible, people like you say that lacks science too, and are quick to dismiss it. I can't employ mathematics to prove that √16 has only one real solution in our carpetting example. I have to use logic. Mere words. So it gets kicked into the pseudoscience bin, when what's actually pseudoscience is time travel. Meanwhile people like someguy above says time travel most certainly IS possible when it is not. The notion that we travel forward in time at one second per second is a concept that has no actual foundation in fact. Any evidence or proof is merely a disguised restatement of that false concept, as is "truth by definition".

[BenTheMan]

But when I give a detailed rationale to explain why time travel is not possible, people like you say that lacks science too, and are quick to dismiss it. I can't employ mathematics to prove that √16 has only one real solution in our carpetting example.

 

Then maybe you should study math more carefully, because it is something that CAN be proved unequivocally. This is all that I have ever told you, at least, about your ideas. They are wrong because you haven't studied the problem enough. It doesn't mean that you can't understand, it just means that you haven't worked hard enough.

 

I have to use logic.

 

But your logic is flawed

 

Meanwhile people like someguy above says time travel most certainly IS possible when it is not. The notion that we travel forward in time at one second per second is a concept that has no actual foundation in fact.

 

If you'll read someguy's post, this isn't quite what he's said. And besides, time travel is possible in the quantum world... t--> -t is a symmetry of the metric, and anyone who's read the third chapter of Peskin (and understood it) can tell you that a good quantum field theory must be invariant under the discrete symmetry CPT, which includes, among other things, t -->-t.

 

Any evidence or proof is merely a disguised restatement of that false concept, as is "truth by definition".

 

Then take information loss. What is wrong---GR or QFT as formulated on a curved space-time?

[Farsight]

Then maybe you should study math more carefully, because it is something that CAN be proved unequivocally...

 

Then prove it mathematically. At some point you will effectively say that a negative length is not real because a length is defined as never being negative, which I will agree with. This assertion is akin to my assertion that a length of time is not real, which you disagree with. There is no evidence for time travel, and you can only assert that my logic is flawed by employing an axiomatic error that my logic demolishes. And don't claim that you've "proved" me wrong via some "law" of physics such as Lorentz Invariance where I've already offered a deeper truth of why we observe this.

 

If you'll read someguy's post, this isn't quite what he's said. And besides, time travel is possible in the quantum world... t--> -t is a symmetry of the metric, and anyone who's read the third chapter of Peskin (and understood it) can tell you that a good quantum field theory must be invariant under the discrete symmetry CPT, which includes, among other things, t -->-t.

 

OK, it isn't quite what he said, perhaps I presumed too much and he can clear up whether I presumed correctly. But you are again employing an axiomatic error regarding charge/parity/time that ends up with QED positrons portrayed as electrons travelling backwards in time when they quite simply are not. It's "possible in the quantum world" is simply not a proof.

 

Then take information loss. What is wrong---GR or QFT as formulated on a curved space-time?

The curved spacetime is wrong. We've discussed this before. This is a modern interpretation that is not present in the original Foundation of General Relativity. I seem to recall that you brushed this off by saying Einstein was useless.

[BenTheMan]

Then prove it mathematically.

 

You'll have to find a better example. I would say the area is positive definite. Whether you call the length +4 feet or -4 feet is convention.

 

And don't claim that you've "proved" me wrong via some "law" of physics such as Lorentz Invariance where I've already offered a deeper truth of why we observe this.

 

Your ideas violate Lorentz Invariance, and you've shown no way to reconcile your ideas with the precision experiments. I also showed that you were wrong above, when you couldn't answer my charges about the standard model. One doesn't have to dig long before they find contradictions.

 

But you are again employing an axiomatic error regarding charge/parity/time that ends up with QED positrons portrayed as electrons travelling backwards in time when they quite simply are not.

 

The QED lagrangian is written down in terms of operators which are renormalizable and Lorentz invariant. The theory is tested to 13 decimal places, more accurately than any theory man has ever conceived. Pleae show where the theory is wrong.

 

It's "possible in the quantum world" is simply not a proof.

 

It wasn't a proof, just a statement.

 

The curved spacetime is wrong. We've discussed this before. This is a modern interpretation that is not present in the original Foundation of General Relativity. I seem to recall that you brushed this off by saying Einstein was useless.

 

Please to be quoting me in context sir.

 

I said that Einstein was more or less useless after General Relativity. He didn't contribute much to science, and if you would read his new biography, you would learn this.

 

So your beef is with Quantum Field Theory?

[someguy]

No problem with that in our trivial negative carpet example. But what it says is there's only one solution, not two. The problem comes when people insist that there are two distinct solutions.

 

Agreed. not an issue.

 

But when I give a detailed rationale to explain why time travel is not possible, people like you say that lacks science too, and are quick to dismiss it. I can't employ mathematics to prove that √16 has only one real solution in our carpetting example. I have to use logic. Mere words. So it gets kicked into the pseudoscience bin, when what's actually pseudoscience is time travel. Meanwhile people like someguy above says time travel most certainly IS possible when it is not. The notion that we travel forward in time at one second per second is a concept that has no actual foundation in fact. Any evidence or proof is merely a disguised restatement of that false concept, as is "truth by definition".

 

 

Time travel must be possible if time exists because that's what time is. if nothing traveled through time there wouldn't be time at all. time must move forward in order for motion to exist. or rather motion makes time move forward whichever way you wanna look at it. the mere fact we can speak type move and think are evidence that time ticks by. how do you suppose you could do these things without time? in a 3 dimensional world nothing moves. in a 4 dimensional world. things can move. the faster they move the faster they are carried through time. traveling through time backwards is a whole other story. i will never ask you for math or anything more than simple words. but i guarantee you won't find the words to convince me time doesn't exist. but if you did what a great day that would be because i'd be blown away.

[foodchain]

Time travel must be possible if time exists because that's what time is. if nothing traveled through time there wouldn't be time at all. time must move forward in order for motion to exist. or rather motion makes time move forward whichever way you wanna look at it. the mere fact we can speak type move and think are evidence that time ticks by. how do you suppose you could do these things without time? in a 3 dimensional world nothing moves. in a 4 dimensional world. things can move. the faster they move the faster they are carried through time. traveling through time backwards is a whole other story. i will never ask you for math or anything more than simple words. but i guarantee you won't find the words to convince me time doesn't exist. but if you did what a great day that would be because i'd be blown away.

 

I am still stuck on at what point does time become physical. I mean I can understand time in the sense of a framework for understanding, much like the need for an operating system in computers, but as far as outside of human perception or what not alone, where is time actually a physical entity like an electron. I try as I may to digest such from GR, but it does not always work out for me. As in I can fire a round through the air and get some effects, cold air or hot air having an impact, or fire it into some gel and get different effects, so basically I am at a lose as to where time is physical and no necessarily just something that comes to exist so we can make sense of something like reality/nature. I mean stuff that exists in the material world, aka reality has a physical presence, I mean we are even finding this for stuff like dark matter and dark energy right?

 

To me to travel back in time, well then all of the mass or energy in the universe would have to do such also right?

[BenTheMan]

where is time actually a physical entity like an electron.

 

It's an abstract thing, indeed, but time is a dimension---a direction in space-time.

 

To me to travel back in time, well then all of the mass or energy in the universe would have to do such also right?

 

No, not really. If that were true, then you would never even know you went back in time, because your memory would also be travelling back in time.

[Farsight]

Ben said my ideas violate Lorentz Invariance. They don't, and to show this I'll have to explain what I said earlier about a deeper truth. In very simple terms Lorentz Invariance can be stated as "The laws of physics are always the same for all observers regardless of their motion". We can take one aspect of this to be "you always measure the speed of light to be the same". This is what got Einstein started on Special Relativity. The deep reason that this postulate is true is that our atoms are governed by electromagnetic phenomena. Boil it right down to the golden nugget, and what you end up with is we're made out of light, along with all our electrons, atoms, brains, spaceships, rulers, and clocks. Imagine you've got a clock that works by sending a beam of light back and forth between two mirrors. Using this clock, you will always measure the speed of light to be the same. Hence you observe Lorentz Invariance. The thing is this: when there's time dilation, it is simply because the speed of light is different, but you couldn't see that it was different, because you measured it using a clock, or a body clock, that was running slower because the speed of light was reduced.

 

Time travel must be possible if time exists because that's what time is. if nothing traveled through time there wouldn't be time at all. time must move forward in order for motion to exist. or rather motion makes time move forward whichever way you wanna look at it.

 

The latter. You don't need time to have motion. You need motion to have time. The motion is in space. It's there, happening, now. You can see things travelling through space, you can see motion. You can't see any travelling through time.

 

the mere fact we can speak type move and think are evidence that time ticks by. how do you suppose you could do these things without time? in a 3 dimensional world nothing moves. in a 4 dimensional world. things can move. the faster they move the faster they are carried through time. traveling through time backwards is a whole other story. i will never ask you for math or anything more than simple words. but i guarantee you won't find the words to convince me time doesn't exist. but if you did what a great day that would be because i'd be blown away.

 

Time does exist, someguy. It exists like heat exists. It's an emergent property, a derived effect of motion. But you can't literally climb to a higher temperature. You can run through a fire, but you can't travel through heat. And likewise you can't travel through time. It's a 3+1 dimensional world, not a 4-dimensional world, and the difference is enormous. Sadly this stuff is so groundbreaking I'm not allowed to elaborate fully. It's not in accord with the current consensus, so it's classed as "speculation". That's how it is in physics. It's self-censoring. That's why it took thirteen years for General Relativity to become accepted as mainstream.

 

I am still stuck on at what point does time become physical. I mean I can understand time in the sense of a framework for understanding, much like the need for an operating system in computers, but as far as outside of human perception or what not alone, where is time actually a physical entity like an electron. I try as I may to digest such from GR, but it does not always work out for me. As in I can fire a round through the air and get some effects, cold air or hot air having an impact, or fire it into some gel and get different effects, so basically I am at a lose as to where time is physical and no necessarily just something that comes to exist so we can make sense of something like reality/nature. I mean stuff that exists in the material world, aka reality has a physical presence, I mean we are even finding this for stuff like dark matter and dark energy right? To me to travel back in time, well then all of the mass or energy in the universe would have to do such also right?

 

It just isn't physical. It's just a relative measure of motion. In essence you count the motions of something to compare against the motions of something else. The arrow of time has as much reality as the direction of your counting. Try travelling to 42, and you should get a handle on why time travel is garbage. To "travel back in time" makes as much sense as paying a visit to minus 42. Alternatively, since I said time is a relative measure of motion, you need to be able to do some negative motion. And motion is motion. Negative motion doesn't make sense.

[BenTheMan]

Ben said my ideas violate Lorentz Invariance. They don't, and to show this I'll have to explain what I said earlier about a deeper truth.

 

Here we go again...

 

In very simple terms Lorentz Invariance can be stated as "The laws of physics are always the same for all observers regardless of their motion".

 

In this, you are right. This is the simplest way to understand Lorentz Invariance.

 

We can take one aspect of this to be "you always measure the speed of light to be the same".

 

Again, no complaints. You've obviously done your homework on Wikipedia.

 

This is what got Einstein started on Special Relativity. The deep reason that this postulate is true is that our atoms are governed by electromagnetic phenomena.

 

And here we have it. This is wrong, depending on the scale. What about the weak force? What about the strong force? The interactions of atoms are goverened by electromagnetic phenomena, outside the neucleus. Inside the neuclus, things are different.

 

If what you said were true, we'd HAVE no neuclei, except for (possibly) hydrogen. The reason is simple---how do a bunch of positive protons and neutral neutrons stick together via electromagnetic interactions? This is something a slightly above average student in American high school knows.

 

Boil it right down to the golden nugget, and what you end up with is we're made out of light, along with all our electrons, atoms, brains, spaceships, rulers, and clocks.

 

Again, this cannot be correct. I could point out so many problems with this, it's not even funny. But here's a few for giggles:

 

=>Standard Model decay modes. See my earlier post. Neutral pions decay into two, three, or four photons.

=>Spins. How can two spin 1 particles (photons) combine to form a spin 1/2 particle?

=>Mass. Photons are massless. Electrons are not.

=>Charge. Photons are not charged under any force (strong, weak, or em), but electrons and quarks are.

=>Electroweak physics. The electromagnetic force doesn't even exist in our universe for a finite time. This means photons don't exist. But quarks do. So how can quarks in the early universe be made of something that doesn't exist yet?

 

Imagine you've got a clock that works by sending a beam of light back and forth between two mirrors. Using this clock, you will always measure the speed of light to be the same. Hence you observe Lorentz Invariance.

 

This statement is seriously flawed. You don't ``observe Lorentz Invariance''. You test locally the speed of light and find it to be the same always.

 

The thing is this: when there's time dilation, it is simply because the speed of light is different, but you couldn't see that it was different, because you measured it using a clock, or a body clock, that was running slower because the speed of light was reduced.

 

This tells me that you don't understand special relativity. Time dialation happens when you are comparing things between two frames, not within the same frame. So if you are doing the experiment in the lab, there is no time dialation. It's only if you observe the experiment from outside the lab, with a velocity different from the lab's.

 

Farsight---you will brush off these accusations, no doubt. Or you will address them in a half-assed manner---I will hold out hope though. Physics is very intricate, and if you change one little thing by just a bit, then the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

 

The idea that we are made of photons is just not right. Experiments prove it wrong. Mathematical consistency proves it wrong. But most of all, what insight have you added? What do you know that Einstein didn't know, when he was trying (and failing) to do the same thing at Princeton? What great intellect you must have to succeed where he has failed! Einstein failed for a very good reason, he was completely wrong, and for some of the reasons I showed you above.

[swansont]

Sadly this stuff is so groundbreaking I'm not allowed to elaborate fully. It's not in accord with the current consensus, so it's classed as "speculation". That's how it is in physics. It's self-censoring. That's why it took thirteen years for General Relativity to become accepted as mainstream.

 

GR took time to be accepted because it took time to refine the theory, and for people to test it. It made predictions (it used math!), which is one of the things that makes it a theory rather than speculation.

 

I've asked you before to discuss the implications of your theses, i.e. to make predictions. "Everything is made of light" is wrong, as Ben has demonstrated here. I've addressed a few other points before. To the very limited extent that you have presented a theory, it has been falsified. All the rest is metaphysics. (this is the point where you misquote me, if history serves as a guide)

 

To compare your thesis and situtation to GR is laughable.

[insane_alien]

farsight, when you stop posting bumfluff then you will actually be taken seriously. we're not out to get you or any other person with new ideas. science just works on a principal of "substantiate or GTFO".