Ron Mallet and time travel, what do you think?

[Grok]

<br />I was watching the science channel, and they had a story about this professor in Conneticut who they say in all likelyhood has the blueprint for the first time machine. Now, I'm not claiming anything here, so please don't call me a nut (even though I am one). I want to get your take on the science behind this. Apparently, according to this show, he has many people in the physics world convinced that he's onto something. Here's an article I found on him: <br /><br />http://www.zamandayolculuk.com/cetinbal/mallettimemachine.htm

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

Your a nut <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />And your reply in a Maxwell Smart nasally type voice should be "I told ya not to tell me that" <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------- </p><p>Wanna see this site looking like the old SDC uplink?</p><p>Go here to see how: <strong>SDC Eye saver </strong>  </p> </div>

 

[Grok]

So did you read the article or did you just want to tell me what I already know, that I'm nuts? It's a very interesting idea he has.

 

[tmccort]

I think there is actually something to this. With humans I don't think so, but it may be possible to put this idea to the test with a proton or something else really small. What the result would be I'm not sure but it would probably be interesting.

 

[earth_bound_misfit]

I read it, yes there could be something in it I suppose.<br />But hey, I was just pullin your leg. Can't let a good oppotunity go by <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p>----------------------------------------------------------------- </p><p>Wanna see this site looking like the old SDC uplink?</p><p>Go here to see how: <strong>SDC Eye saver </strong>  </p> </div>

 

[Grok]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><br />Can't let a good oppotunity go by <br /><p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Well, I knew that. The chance to slam His Holy Grokness without retaliation does not come along too often. Watch it or I'll smite you. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />The main thing here is that he is not suggesting we could drop back to 1900, but that once this machine is in place it would allow time travel to the past at the proton level from this point forward. The proton can only travel back to the machine's inception. Imagine though that he gets this to work, and at some point we do this on a grander scale where we're able to send messages back in time. He could fix problems with his project almost instantaneously, and build on them. You know, send a note to himself "Forget about the ----- idea dumbass it won't work". <img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /> <br /><br />...and of course, we already know that if you go really fast you can travel forward in time. Travel forward in time doesn't seem nearly as useful as the ability to travel back though.

 

[alkalin]

Time is not a variable in a fourth dimension that can be pushed forward or backward. The only way we might change time is for a future time when we can plan and create the future so accurately we actually are able to create every aspect of it. This would take considerably more understanding of physics than we currently have.<br /><br />Time is virtual in terms of past or future: we recreate the past in our minds and thoughts through the non-forgotten experiences and records of it, and we are able to create mentally the future and plan for it. Time does not pass as Newton thought. Time is a process that is more complex, and depends on the mind’s ability to formalize virtual time in the experience of motion of all things--time is the process of motion.<br /><br />To have light going around in circles is motion, a time process. It has nothing to do with creating future or past in the literal sense.<br /><br />Sci-fi depends on such silly notions, and at times they can be rather entertaining, but that is all they are, unless someone can get some kind of insight about reality from this kind of free thinking.<br /><br />And for those in the business of relativity science in regards the time dilation issues, I do not buy any of it yet. It’s so elementary, because if two references are traveling with respect to each other, then they both appear to dilate with respect to each other. So this non-logic should tell you something, unless someone can actually show me differently.<br />

 

[mooware]

I caught the tail end of that show last night (Sunday). <br /><br />It would be interesting if he turns the machine on and finds a message from himself. I don't know about the whole time manipulation scenario, but if it were possible, it does seem that time would only go as far back as to when you turned the machine on. <br /><br />You could give yourself all sorts of tips.<br /><br /><br />

 

[emperor_of_localgroup]

It is interesting, I have read many times, many high level theoretical physics do not exclude possibility of time travel, whether forward or backward. <br /><br />If someday we find there is no 'time' or flow of time, as we know it, will these theories be discarded as 'wrong'? I doubt it, because some of these theories are embedded into other high level physics theories.<br /><br />Note, inability to make a time machine from these theories do not prove the theories are wrong. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="2" color="#ff0000"><strong>Earth is Boring</strong></font> </div>

 

[chew_on_this]

Revolutionizing? *snicker* Maybe revolutionary.

 

[nacnud]

There is one fundamental partical interaction that QM describes that is not time reverasble, I can't remember which it is, back soon off to google.

 

[tom_hobbes]

I wrote a short story once, part of which was that people in the future sent back batches of virus to infect human populations in various epochs in the past which then encoded sensory experience information as junk DNA in the human genome which could be read by these chaps at some time in the future to produce a VR version of the past. It tied in with the 1918 Flu pandemic in the story. This was the best they could manage because a it was all the mass they shift into the past. Just a small part of the story which was really about something else entirely, but I might not have been too far off. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[nova_explored]

yeah not going to happen. <br /><br />Hawking said it best, 'if time travel were possible, where are all our selves leaving us little notes about the future...' <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

In theory nothing wrong.

 

[le3119]

Interesting that Mallot admits time travel to a past before the time machine was invented would be impossible. We know gravity twists spacetime due to frame-dragging around a spinning pulsar. But I don't know what he means by a light beam twisting spacetime. <br /><br />Here's a question: if his proposal is valid, then light entering a spinning black hole would increase the black hole's angular momentum, which I can't remember if this is considered possible. The neutron's spin would cause frame-dragging of spacetime around it, but I don't think quantum theory allows gravity to work at that scale. Just some thoughts. That is an interesting thought experiment!

 

[h9c2]

I am not a phycisist but I would think that, in order to measure a framedragging effect of light, (If at all possible, and even if it only measures a difference in decayrate or spin) you'd need one hell of a laser. <br />Is there any mention anywhere of the amount of energy Mr. Mallet thinks he needs for this ?

 

[Grok]

nova,<br /><br />You missed the point of the article completely then. This machine does not allow you to travel back to a time before the machine is turned on. It only allows time travel of protons back to the point when the machine is turned on.