Wormhole 'No Use' For Time Travel

[zavvy]

<b>Wormhole 'No Use' For Time Travel</b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />For budding time travellers, the future (or should that be the past?) is starting to look bleak. <br /><br />Hypothetical tunnels called wormholes once looked like the best bet for constructing a real time machine. <br /><br />These cosmic shortcuts, which link one point in the Universe to another, are favoured by science fiction writers as a means both of explaining time travel and of circumventing the limitations imposed by the speed of light. <br /><br />The concept of wormholes will be familiar to anyone who has watched the TV programmes Farscape, Stargate SG1 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. <br /><br />The opening sequence of the BBC's new Doctor Who series shows the Tardis hurtling through a "vortex" that suspiciously resembles a wormhole - although the Doctor's preferred method of travel is not known. <br /><br />But the idea of building these so-called traversable wormholes is looking increasingly shaky, according to two new scientific analyses. <br /><br />Remote connection <br /><br />A common analogy used to visualise these phenomena involves marking two holes at opposite ends of a sheet of paper, to represent distant points in the Universe. One can then bend the paper over so that the two remote points are positioned on top of each other. <br /><br />If it were possible to contort space-time in this way, a person might step through a wormhole and emerge at a remote time or distant location. <br /><br />The person would pass through a region of the wormhole called the throat, which flares out on either side. <br /><br />According to one idea, a wormhole could be kept open by filling its throat with an ingredient called exotic matter. <br /><br />This is strange stuff indeed, and explaining it requires scientists to look beyond the laws of classical physics to the world of quantum mechanics. <br /><br />Exotic matter is repelled, rather

 

[alokmohan]

Kip Thornesbook on black hole has a nice chapter on worm holes.It is interesting reading .Its convincing also.I recommed it in case you have not read.

 

[spayss]

Kip Thorn's writings on the existence wormholes are far from convincing. They are all built on 'if' this, then that, and 'if this...etc. They are all based on theory with no physical evidence for any underlying physical properties.<br /><br /> He himself would only claim it's all speculation and anything but convincing. His theory is only logical in it's own context and based on unknown properties of matter and energy.

 

[spacefire]

this 'scientific' debate sounds like a bunch of geeks arguing about the magic properties of Middel Earth.<br /><br /><br />going on a tangent here:<br />if a wormhole were to throw you in the past and really far way from where you were, there's no way you could alter your timeline, considering that the speed of light is a finite value. So, assuming that any travel in the past puts you far enough to not be able to alter any events up to the point in time you left from, seems that the time paradox can be avoided.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[thechemist]

Next major announcements : <img src="/images/icons/shocked.gif" /><br /><br />"Dilithium Crystals "No Use" for Attaining Warp Speed"<br /><br />"Transporter Technology 'No Use' for Human Teleportation"<br /><br />"Cligon device 'No Use' for Cloaking Spaceships" <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>I feel better than James Brown.</em> </div>

 

[yevaud]

It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. A change in a timeline is still interference with causality, no matter the time-span, or physical distance. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[spacefire]

yeah but if the change is felt -after your time- because of the limited speed of light, no paradoxes are created. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

I don't believe that a velocity can be stated for time. And besides, an acausal event is an acausal event, not matter where or how it happens.<br /><br />Remember, it would make no difference that you were in the past. You still be part of a worldline. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[spacefire]

ok let me add one line:<br /><br />This type of travel will be unidirectional in space. probably radiationg outward from some point in the universe, its center. Otherwise, you could travel back to your origin using the same method and going back in time.<br /><br /><br />I don't understand how your concept of causality applies here. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Well, look. You must have a sort of "Quantum Signature" that determines the "who, what, and when" you are, if you see what you mean. To my understanding, no matter what permutations you encounter (CTC's, etc.), you're still part of the same line of time that's unique to you. Wherever, whenever you are. Picture playing out a fishing line behind you, at all times.<br /><br />So. You've figured out how to travel into the past. Good. But that line is still playing out behind you. It still links you to your timeline. You can't just "detach" from it.<br /><br />So anything you do in the past is acausal. You are not from that time. Your fundamental Quantum Signature must, by definition, include the "when" you're from. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[spacefire]

of course, your own timeline is imutable, but you can still be in the past.<br /><br /><br />this theory only works if the speed of light cannot be exceeded by other means.<br />Basically, in 'normal' space you can travel back and forth and up and down and left and right in space(3 dimensions), and only forward in time (4th dimesnion).<br />Why not travel back and forth through time and only forward, for instance, in one of the spatial dimensions? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Were it only so. But it's precluded by causality, and the fact that to travel back in time (as current theory states) would either require 1) infinite energy; 2) absolutely bizarre conditions; 3) exceeding the speed of light. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[chew_on_this]

So, if you vibrated something faster than the speed of light, if even imperceptively, one could go back in time?

 

[yevaud]

Well, it's really a matter of the amount of energy theoretically required to travel "back in time." So, yes, but of course it's impossible. It would require infinite energy to exceed the SOL, so... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Hmm. Look at it this way. If there is an immutable flow of time, then there must be some sort of unique characteristic fundamental to "you" that it defines. Otherwise, how does the continuum "know" where and when you are? Remember, we're only just now touching on how fundamental forces "know" what's going on around them.<br /><br />And yes, velocity has a bearing on time, in the sense that time slows down as you approach light speed. But since your mass is growing huge, it requires more and more energy for you to get closer and closer to the SOL. Ultimately, if you look at the math, it requires an infinite amount of energy to achieve light speed if you have any mass.<br /><br />Theoretically, if you could achieve faster than light, you can reverse time. But it's not possible. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

S'ok. I actually enjoy being mentally messed with...especially since I can give as good as I get.<br /><br />Ok...this kind of thing, I find, is always the hardest to explain. <br /><br />Ok, I'll certainly buy the point that "we don't know," although part and parcel of what you're saying is that the principle of commonality - that physics here is the same as physics anywhere else - is wrong. Certainly we'd see some sort of effects from it. Like stars evolving way too fast, if the "rate" of time was different somewhere else. In fact, if that principle didn't exist, it'd be hard to see how anything ever formed.<br /><br />And don't forget that we treat time interchangeably with the three spatial dimensions (which is why it's called "Space/Time"). What the precise nature of time is, who knows? Some "vibration" down at the Planck level, against which everything "times" itself? But it does exist.<br /><br />Force carrying particles should be amply familiar to you. I know there's been multiple threads on the elusive "Higgs" boson, for example (the force mediating particle for gravity).<br /><br />See, it's easy to say that, "why must I rely on the space/time continuum?" But you're part of it. Hell, you're made up of stuff from within it. Conciousness notwithstanding, every iota of what we're all made of is subject to the rules by which this continuum operates on.<br /><br /><b>...meaning our perception of time is relative and characteristic of our position in space!</b><br /><br />Well, yeah, close. We're all in our own little frames of reference, so to speak. But it's not our position in space or our perception of time. It's a complex relationship between mass, velocity, available energy, and limiting factors inherent in the plenum.<br /><br />Which leads to one of those odd "Einsteinian" thought experiments. If you could "be" a photon, would you experience time-dilation? You have no mass, so why should you?<br /><br />Anyways, interesting points. Gotta think some more <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Sorry Man. Didn't mean to make your head hurt. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br />I think I see what you're getting at (well, the philosophical end of it). We were taught in school the "Strong" anthropic principle (which at core is a sort of ID), and the "Weak" anthropic principle, which broadly states that the argument is hitching the cart in front of the horse.<br /><br />E.g., we exist in a universe in which things seem to be designed for us. But we're created, born, live, die here. It's not surprise that the universe seems designed for us, because we're part of that universe. No ID required. Hmm. I hope that made sense.<br /><br />I do understand that what you're proposing is counter-commonality (for lack of a better descriptive). But that's a real problem, as it really is hard to see how the universe could even form, if the physical laws just arbitrarily changed with location.<br /><br />And most of those physical laws are so fine-tuned for this universe, that any major difference would be huge trouble. Imagine if the force of gravity diminished as the cube of the distance, not the square...suns couldn't even form. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Stellar Physics. Just because they never considered it before, doesn't mean it couldn't happen.<br /><br />Case in point: the Bumblebee. For generations, the saying was there that a "Bumblebee can't fly," because they didn't quite understand how. Now they know how. But clearly you could witness the bee flying. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

Hmm. I seem to recollect that the concept of an anti-particle being considered moving backwards in time has been largely discounted.<br /><br />Sure, acausality has been seen, but remember that's on a Quantum level, where everything is wildly probabilistic, so no wonder. I'm certain though, that the observed acausal events weren't something that could effect a timeline, in the way Hicup and I were discussing.<br /><br />I just got back from a bunch of chores out, so I'll think on all of these, and return a little later. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[alokmohan]

How nice it would be to have a wormhole .If it is not physiacally possible ,it is emotional necessary.