Time Travel?

[wannabe]

Originally posted by speedracer95v6:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by wannabe:
It seems to me that what this guy is saying is highly unlikely. Without getting into the physics of the subject, look at his timeline. He claims to have come from 2034. He says that a civil war starts in 2005 and that in 2015 we all get nuked. Assuming that our scientists were able to work at their current pace, it's unlikely that we'd have the kind of abilities that he discusses within 30 years. Throw in civil and nuclear war, and it's damn near unthinkable. It's also VERY unlikely that a civil war would last very long in this country. Our military is simply too well-trained and well-equipped. Even a guerilla war in the mountains wouldn't take too terribly long.

Regarding the speed of light: Someone stated on page 1 that it's impossible to travel faster than the speed of light. That's not exactly true. Scientists (I belive at CERN, but I might be wrong) have managed to increase the speed of light by using some sort of cesium vapor (this was not widely reported, but I saw it in - I think - the Omaha World-Herald). It moves so fast that it almost arrives before it left its origin. Since light is made of particles (photons), and those particles are now moving faster than the speed of light, it is therefore illogical to say that faster-than-light travel is not possible. Remember, many prominent scientists thought that supersonic travel was impossible.

I think what they were doing at cern was work on entanglement, which is also very neat(no wait, they might have been playing with quantum tunneling). Either way, the speed of light in a vacuum is 300,000Km/hr, and it can vary depending on the medium in which it is traveling. And light does not go faster than light, but like I said, you have to consider the medium and in the case of quantum tunneling and entanglement, the speed is really the same but the distance changes.

What you were talking about is neat cause if I remember transmission speeds were like 3-5times what they should have been...this is particularly helpful in computing (FTL processing is still a little bit away, but it's coming).

And if you remember that photons have duality (they can act as both particles and waves), so they are not just a particle...they are rather interesting ...esp. when you think that at the speed of light time stops...which is really neat when you think about that to a photon moving away from the big bang(which has nothing to absorb it) crossed the expanse of billions of light years instantly according to the photon's clock. Pesky relativity..lol. </font>[/QUOTE]It's times like this I wish I did drugs. ;)

All I remember specifically about the article was that they had recorded transmission times of single photons that were significantly faster than the speed of light. I'm still trying to figure out how you arrive before you've left. I still say that counts as faster-than-light travel, even if the traveler is a particle of light.

[3.4 [deployed]]

this is why all the sci-fi pukes write about hyperspace; Why travel up to/faster than the speed of light when you can fold space & get to where your going fasterthan if you did travel at/faster than the speed of light.

The speed of light, it's just over rated.

[speedracer95v6]

I totally agree. We should be more interested in how to do the compression/expansion thing. No need for hyperspace, no need to violate relativity. Just need an assload of power.

[wannabe]

Originally posted by speedracer95v6:
no need to violate relativity.

Just reality, right? ;)

In all seriousness, it seems to me that this idea of folding space is more far-fetched than faster-than-light travel or time travel. On the other hand, I have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to physics. "Any man who says he understands quantum physics is a liar."

[speedracer95v6]

Nope, totally in line with reality. There are physicists that have done write ups on it, in fact I had one but I can't find it(I reformat a lot).

It's not a question of can it be done it's a question of how to generate enough energy. From the stuff I have read(and not pseudoscience mind you) it would take about the energy of a star going supernova to power such a device, and therein lies one of the major, obvious hurtles.

There are ways to do this that are beyond our current technology (zeropoint energy for example...and no, stargate/atlantis stole it from reality, they didn't make it up...the stuff on it has been around since at least the late 90s), so we just need to figure out how to build a device to actually run the drive system.

Why is folding space so hard to do? You do it everyday of your life. Mass bends spacetime. That isn't what I'm talking about for the drive system (which I should point out is not my idea) though. It's a little more complex.

For FTL travel (or a FTL capable drive system), neutrinos and accelerons are the key. Remember those two cause they will be increasingly more important.