Talk:Time travel/Archive 5

WikiProject Time assessment rating comment
Needs a lot of cleanup, but basically a B.

Can someone Incorporate the LHC at Cern
Cern is the largest Physics project in history and employs the guys who have Ph.D's from MIT and the like. Like 2000 of the smartest guys in the world are employed over there and work full time using the fastest computers, strongest magnets, and brightest intellectual capital in our galaxy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider This is going to be finished within 6 months and has spent billions of dollars and over 13 years of construction. They plan to create new novelties, including technology that is related to time travel, such as manageable black holes. I do not know how to bring this section into the article, as this topic might be adminned by people who aren't famaliar with high level physics and think its vandalism, but if someone can begin to incorporate a paragraph about the LHC, I will smoothe it out and make the links work. Sentriclecub (talk) 08:21, 8 March 2008 (UTC) Can someone who is in charge of this page or moderates it, please reply below.


 * Begin here, thanks!

Want to help write or improve articles about Time? Join WikiProject Time or visit the Time Portal for a list of articles that need improving. -- Yamara 15:56, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

if time travel were true i would have met myself by now —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.163.75.184 (talk) 03:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Time Machine
I personally believe that any form of Time Machine cannot currently exist due to the lack of visitors from the future or past. I believe that if a time machine ever did exist it's location would not be on this Earth but in outer space, because all theories and principles of the Speed-of-Light are developed from the properties of light in a vacuum. I do however believe that it is possible for a time machine to be built on earth and implemented on earth using a Casimir Vacuum and a man made Black Hole formed in a Gigantic Particle accelerator(Gigantic so that a self sustaining Black Hole could be formed, or at least one that would not collapse in less than one second). I also believe that time travel is possible through the use of a space craft and an Alcubierre Warp Drive(although there is no method for creating one, Yet!)--Mjeden2006 20:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * there is work currently being done useing an aray of lasers to accelerate a particle and send it back in time... John Doe or Jane Doe 14:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, if it's ever built, it will only be able to send information back to the point in time this device is built, not before... —Preceding unsign ed comment added by 72.67.35.112 (talk) 05:10, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Unless of course we are wrong about those laws of physics. 86.151.228.86 (talk) 22:15, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

---vinamra mattoo-- well I think that there is an another method of making a time machine. we know that the speed of electrons is much higher than light .if we increase the kinetic energy of the atom to such an extend that its electronic shell becomes large then there can be an opening of a portal .the more the kinetic energy .more back we go.and if we change the charge of the electron {by converting it into positron }then we can go to the future

Guys, I'm sorry to enter this discussion with nothing to add, but I just have to put my two cents in on the above statement.

"we know that the speed of electrons is much higher than light"
 * It is impossible for electrons to travel faster than light.

"if we increase the kinetic energy of the atom to such an extend that its electronic shell becomes large then there can be an opening of a portal"
 * 1) The kinetic energy of an atom has nothing to do with electron energy. Kinetic energy is simply a measurement of how fast an atom is moving. You would measure this with a thermometer ; ).
 * 2) Increasing the energy of electrons would not increase the size of the "shell". It would simply move it into a higher quantum energy state.

Also, I don't think it's possible to convert an electron into a positron. However, antimatter is not my area of (relative) expertise.

Good thinking, but sadly time travel seems to be only a thing of science fiction. Perhaps you should look at some of the articles on positrons or quantum energy states for more information. Nice theory though! -- X Wild Irishman x (talk) 02:49, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Time travel
We can theorize only about time travel in the past, because travelling in the future cannot be possible due to the future timeplace (spacetime) still not exists, so there isn't no place where to travel (Presentism). If we assume that future timeplace exists, then we also must assume that we are living in the past, what would sound incredible. But speaking about travelling in the past, the problem is where the past spacetime information is stored. Because to see something in the past, there must exist adequate timeplace. But it's completely unimaginable how and where the all past states of all events and all materia can be stored, inclusive those not only on the Earth, but also in the Space. We also must not mix up travelling in time and travelling through Wormholes (one over Bermuda Triangle), what isn't travelling in time, but travelling between different Universes. Roberts7 13:28, 29 February 2008 (UTC)


 * You might want to look into the relativity of simultaneity, which makes a pretty good argument against presentism. And note that the alternative to presentism, eternalism, does not say we are "living in the past", it says there is no absolute truth about whether a given time is "past" or "present" or "future", these terms are understood as purely relative to the speaker like "here" and "there" or "left" and "right". See also A-series and B-series. Hypnosifl (talk) 17:57, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


 * In a very real sense, we are living in someone's past, and living in someone's future. When I was a kid, the year 2000 was "the future", now it's the past. It used to be the present.--RLent (talk) 20:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

High gravity as a substitute for high speed relatistic time dilation effect
From the article:

Using time dilation under the Theory of General Relativity, for instance: Residing inside of a hollow, high-mass object;

Are you sure this is accurate? I was under the impression that according to the shell theorem, the net gravity inside a hollow, symmetrical sphere was zero. If the hollow object isn't symmetrical, there could be some gravity inside, but in that case it would be no different from (and probably less efficient than) standing on the outside of a high-mass object. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.117.209.190 (talk) 09:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Apparently the observer inside would not feel any gravitational force (the spacetime inside the shell would be flat), but the time dilation (measured relative to an observer far away from the shell) would be the same on the inside as it is right on the outside of the spherical shell--see the post by pervect at the end of this thread, or this paper on arxiv.org. Hypnosifl (talk) 18:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

My Thoughts
It would be so cool if time travel was possible because if you embarassed yourself you could go back and change it.

so cool —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.105.158.7 (talk) 14:08, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * A little reminder of Talk page guidelines: The purpose of a Wikipedia talk page is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views. Thanks for reading. :) --Bisqwit (talk) 15:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Vote on paragraph
An editor has been removing the following cited paragraph, or parts thereof, over the past couple days:

Time travel, or space-time travel? An objection that is sometimes raised against the concept of time machines in science fiction is that they ignore the motion of the Earth between the date the time machine departs and the date it returns. The idea that a traveler can go into a machine that sends him or her to 1865 and step out into the exact same spot on Earth might be said to ignore the issue that Earth is moving through space around the Sun, which is moving in the galaxy, and so on, so that advocates of this argument imagine that "realistically" the time machine should actually reappear in space far away from the Earth's position at that date. However, according to the theory of special relativity, this argument is based on a false premise. Special relativity rejects the idea of absolute time and space; there can be no universal truth about the spatial distance between events which occurred at different times (such as an event on Earth today and an event on Earth in 1865), and thus no objective truth about which point in space at one time is at the "same position" that the Earth was at another time, because the distance depends on the observer's frame of reference. [ref]

I see no reason for it to be summarily removed, especially the cited section. Some arguments for or against are cited above, which may be helpful in making a consensus on whether it should remain. -Yamara ✉  00:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep - It's a common criticism of time travel in fiction, beginning with H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, and a discussion is clearly merited in the article. Special relativity's challenge is plainly part of this criticism. -Yamara ✉  00:50, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, you don't read what I have written.

I said the first acceleration is angular acceleration.

Until you can read, nothing else is important. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shawncorey (talk • contribs) 23:53, 27 May 2008 (UTC)


 * As pointed out here, special relativity can handle acceleration just fine as long as gravity isn't involved. And in any case, the current version of the text covers both special and general relativity. Do you disagree that both theories reject the notion of absolute space, and hence they reject the notion that there is any unique definition of the "same place" at different times? Hypnosifl (talk) 01:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, you are Absolutely Right. Nothing I can say will change your minds. I was foolish to think so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shawncorey (talk • contribs) 01:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

"The only sense in which special relativity is an approximation when there are accelerating bodies is that gravitational effects such as generation of gravitational waves are being ignored. But of course there are larger gravitational effects being neglected even when massive bodies are not accelerating and they are small for many applications so this is not strictly relevant.  Special relativity gives a completely self-consistent description of the mechanics of accelerating bodies neglecting gravitation, just as Newtonian mechanics did."

Now why do I object to that because it involves gravity, and not angular acceleration?

That's because I'm not stupid!

I'm tried of blaming me for your lack of imagination.

Grow up!

Mr. Shawn H. Corey (talk) 02:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I get your meaning here--when you say "because it involves gravity, and not angular acceleration", what is the "it" that you're referring to ? Do you mean the paragraph is talking about gravity? Yes, the paragraph is saying that you only need to use general relativity if gravity is involved, and that as long as you ignore the gravitational waves produced by acceleration, which in most ordinary circumstances would be extremely tiny, then special relativity is perfectly capable of dealing with acceleration. Just look at the opening paragraph of that same page:


 * "It is a common misconception that Special Relativity cannot handle accelerating objects or accelerating reference frames. It is claimed that general relativity is required because special relativity only applies to inertial frames.  This is not true.  Special relativity treats accelerating frames differently from inertial frames but can still deal with them.  Accelerating objects can be dealt with without even calling upon accelerating frames."


 * So clearly they are saying that special relativity can handle accelerations, including angular acceleration--do you disagree that this is what they're saying? Hypnosifl (talk) 03:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Accelerating objects can be dealt with by special relativity but only if the frame of reference is NOT tied to them. The frame of reference MUST be linear.  Otherwise there are pseudo-forces to reckon with.


 * But, if you care to read the original page, the frame of reference is tied to the surface of the earth. Therefore it an accelerated frame.  Therefore specially relativity does not apply.  EVER.


 * Gravity is not "insignificant". If you "time travel" back for 6 months, the earth is on the other side of the sun; over 200 million kilometres away. This is the last time I expect to read that a displacement of over 16 light-minutes is insignificant!

--Mr. Shawn H. Corey (talk) 02:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You're still missing the point. There was never any assumption in that paragraph of the wikipedia article that we were using the Earth's rest frame (I should know, because I wrote the section on relativity); the point is just that if you take two events which happen on the Earth at different moments, it is possible to find a coordinate system where they both happen at the same position, and another coordinate system where they happen at different positions. This is true regardless of whether we're using inertial frames in a flat SR spacetime or arbitrary coordinate systems in a curved GR spacetime.


 * "You're still missing the point. There was never any assumption in that paragraph of the wikipedia article that we were using the Earth's rest frame" Yes, there was.  Forgive me for calling you a liar when you are. --Mr. Shawn H. Corey (talk) 22:03, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No, there wasn't. The paragraph only says that you can find a frame where a pair of events at different times on Earth (such as an event now and an event in 1865) happened at the same position in that frame; there was nothing about this being the rest frame of the Earth, it could certainly be the rest frame of an inertial projectile that crosses the orbit of the Earth at those two times, as I discussed in my last comment. Read it again, and tell me where you think it says anything about the Earth's rest frame:


 * However, according to the theory of relativity, this argument is based on a false premise. Relativity rejects the idea of absolute time and space; there can be no universal truth about the spatial distance between events which occurred at different times[46] (such as an event on Earth today and an event on Earth in 1865), and thus no objective truth about which point in space at one time is at the "same position" that the Earth was at another time. Hypnosifl (talk) 23:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * When I talked about treating gravity as "insignificant", I was only talking about treating the curvature of spacetime caused by mass as insignificant (as you may know, GR allows spacetime to be curved by mass and energy, while SR assumes a 'flat' spacetime with Minkowski geometry). If we replace the Earth with a hollow sphere of negligible mass which is still rotating about its axis and still moving in an elliptical orbit around some central point (perhaps because we're swinging it around this point on a tether rather than because of the spacetime curvature created by the Sun), then we have a situation where the movement of the sphere is similar to the movement of the Earth but where the spacetime curvature caused by gravity is negligible so spacetime is close to "flat" and we can treat the situation using SR alone. In this case it may be true that if you take an event A on the sphere 6 months ago and an event B on the sphere today, events A and B would be 200 million kilometers apart in the inertial rest frame of the central point the sphere is orbiting around (the position of the 'Sun'). The point is, you can easily find a different inertial frame where events A and B happen at the same spatial coordinates! This new inertial frame would not be the rest frame of the sphere, since the sphere is not moving inertially. Rather, it would be the rest frame of an inertial projectile which was fired at the position and time of event A, and which moved in a straight line at just the right speed and direction to intersect the sphere's orbit again at exactly the position and time of event B.


 * Do you disagree that if we have an object moving on a non-inertial path in flat spacetime, and we have two events A and B on the object, it will always be possible to fire an inertial projectile at the right speed and direction so that it is right next to both A and B as they happen? Do you disagree that this means that in the inertial rest frame of the projectile, A and B both had the same space-coordinates? Do you disagree that in SR all inertial frames are equally valid, so if different inertial coordinate systems disagree about whether A and B happened at the "same position" or "different positions" (for instance, perhaps in one inertial frame the two events happened 0 km apart while in another inertial frame they happened 200 million km apart), there is no basis for saying one frame's answer has more physical validity than the other's? Hypnosifl (talk) 16:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * "GR allows spacetime to be curved by mass and energy" You are wrong. GR is not about mass and gravity; it's about acceleration.  It's about the acceleration of gravity is equal to the acceleration of moment.  It states you CANNOT DISTINGUISH THE TWO!  "Spacetime" is curved by mass, energy, and acceleration.


 * Gravity cannot be locally distinguished from acceleration, according to the equivalence principle--but the equivalence principle only applies to very small "local" regions (technically, a 'local' region must actually be infinitesimally small), on larger scales there is certainly an objective difference between curved spacetime and accelerations in flat (minkowski) spacetime. In curved spacetime, if you look at any non-infinitesimal region of that spacetime, you will see tidal forces which are not seen by an accelerating observer in flat spacetime, for example. See the last section of this article, where tidal forces (and the need to restrict the equivalence principle to infinitesimally small regions) are discussed.


 * Even in flat spacetime, you can treat the pseudo-forces induced by acceleration as being a sort of "gravitational" force in an accelerating reference frame; whether or not this requires you to use "GR" or is still part of "SR" is a matter of definition. See this page on the 'GR explanation' for the twin paradox, which notes that modern physicists usually define the difference between GR and SR in terms of curved vs. flat spacetime:


 * ''This feature looms so large in the final formulation of GR, that most physicists reserve the term "gravitational field" for the fields produced by matter. The phrases "flat portion of spacetime", and "spacetime without gravitational fields" are synonymous in modern parlance.  "SR" and "flat spacetime" are also synonymous, or nearly so; one can quibble over whether flat spacetime with a non-trivial topology (for example, cylindrical spacetime) counts as "SR".  Incidentally, the "modern" usage appeared quite early.  Eddington's book The Mathematical Theory of Relativity (1922) defines Special Relativity as the theory of flat spacetime.


 * So modern usage demotes the uniform "gravitational" field back to its old status as a pseudo-field, with all the pejorative connotations of the prefix "pseudo". And the hallmark of a truly GR problem (i.e., not SR) is that spacetime is not flat.  By contrast, the free choice of charts --- the modern form of the General Principle of Relativity --- doesn't pack much of a punch.  You can use curvilinear coordinates in flat spacetime.  (If you use polar coordinates in plane geometry, have you suddenly departed the kingdom of Euclid?)


 * In any case, even if we do take into account the fact that spacetime is curved by the mass of the Sun and the Earth, and that therefore we must use GR to address the question of whether the Earth is in the "same position" now that it was in 1865, the answer is the same: it depends which of various equally valid coordinate systems you use. In GR all coordinate systems are on equal footing thanks to the principle of diffeomorphism invariance, not just inertial coordinates, so in GR we can say that a coordinate system in which the Earth stays at rest the whole time is no different than any other coordinate. If you haven't heard of diffeomorphism invariance, please read this article which I linked to in the updated version of that paragraph in the time travel article, and which includes the following:


 * Closely related to background independence is another basic ingredient of general relativity, known by the imposing name diffeomorphism invariance. It concerns the coordinates physicists use to describe space and time. The principle of diffeomorphism invariance implies that, unlike in theories prior to general relativity, there are no additional structures in physics that allow us to distinguish preferred coordinate systems. As far as the laws of physics are concerned, no coordinate system is better than another, and one is free to choose.


 * So, do you deny that diffeomorphism invariance in GR means that a coordinate system where the Earth remains at rest throughout its orbit is physically no better or worse than any other coordinate system? Hypnosifl (talk) 23:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * BTW, I'm saying there is no initial rest frame; all frames undergo acceleration; and therefore, have pseudo-forces that must be accounted for.


 * --Mr. Shawn H. Corey (talk) 22:03, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Did you mean to say "inertial" rather than "initial"? In curved spacetime it is true that you can't have inertial frames, but in flat spacetime you can, this is the foundation of special relativity. In any case, as I said above, in GR all coordinate systems are on equal footing because of diffeomorphism invariance. Hypnosifl (talk) 23:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

"An objection that is sometimes raised against the concept of time machines in science fiction is that they ignore the motion of the Earth between the date the time machine departs and the date it returns. The idea that a traveler can go into a machine that sends him or her to 1865 and step out into the exact same spot on Earth might be said to ignore the issue that Earth is moving through space around the Sun, which is moving in the galaxy, and so on, so that advocates of this argument imagine that "realistically" the time machine should actually reappear in space far away from the Earth's position at that date."

Wow, totally dis me! I said from the start it's not about displacement, it's about acceleration! I am getting really tired of the little worms who dis me. --Mr. Shawn H. Corey (talk) 22:22, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Do you always take intellectual disagreements so personally? I'm not trying to "dis" you, I'm just saying I don't think your argument makes sense. The point is that if someone claims the time traveler "should" reappear at a certain location far from the Earth, that would only make sense if you think there's some absolute truth about which location today is at the "same position" as the Earth was in 1865, but both special relativity and general relativity say you can choose between different coordinate systems which are all on equal footing (inertial frames in flat SR spacetime, or arbitrary coordinate systems in curved spacetime) and which disagree about whether the Earth today is at the same coordinate position that it was in 1865.


 * Do you agree that in both SR and GR, there is no absolute truth about whether the Earth today is at the "same position" it was in 1865, and that there won't be an absolute truth about this regardless of whether the Earth is accelerating or not? Please answer this question yes or no...if you do agree with me on this point, then I don't see why you think "it's not about displacement, it's about acceleration" (and if you disagree with me on this point, you're just wrong). Hypnosifl (talk) 23:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No, the earth is NOT in the same position as it was in 1865.


 * Again, you haven't read what I wrote. I'm saying that you cannot ignore acceleration; whether it's because of gravity or rotation.  To answer you, NO, you are absolutely wrong; you cannot ignore acceleration.  The earth is not is the "same position" because it has undergone accelerations between then and now.


 * The earth is accelerating! And everything on its surface is accelerating!  Get used to it.  This is a fact.  Now explain yourself using general relativity.


 * --Mr. Shawn H. Corey (talk) 00:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * You don't seem to understand that since we are free to use any coordinate system in GR--not just inertial ones as are normally used in SR--then it is perfectly possible to find a coordinate system in which any given object is at rest in those coordinates (i.e. its coordinate position does not change with coordinate time), even if the object is accelerating in other coordinate systems, or even if it is accelerating in the physical sense of experiencing G-forces (in the coordinate system where it's at rest, the G-forces would be explained in terms of a pseudo-gravitational field acting on the object--see The Twin Paradox: The "General Relativity" Explanation). You can certainly choose a coordinate system in which the Earth is at rest at all times, and according to the principle of diffeomorphism invariance, this coordinate system is no better or worse than any other in GR.


 * If we ignore curved spacetime and just imagine the Earth as a massless object accelerating in flat spacetime, then we don't need to choose a coordinate system where the Earth is at rest at all times; we just need a coordinate system where its position today is the same as its position in 1865, even if it moved to other positions in between. It would be easy to find an inertial coordinate system where this is true--again, just imagine an inertial projectile fired from the position of the Earth in 1865, with just the right direction and speed so that it crosses the Earth's path again in 2008. In the inertial rest frame of this projectile, the projectile's position doesn't change over time, agreed? So if the projectile's position is the same as the Earth's in 1865, and the projectile's position is again the same as the Earth's in 2008, that means in the projectile's inertial rest frame, the Earth's position in 1865 is the same as its position in 2008, even though it moved to other positions in between.


 * Either way, the end conclusion is the same: there can be no basis in either GR or SR for saying that the Earth's position today is objectively different from its position in 1865, since you can find a coordinate system in which the positions are the same, and the coordinate system is just as valid as any other according to relativity (whether it's an inertial coordinate system in SR or an arbitrary coordinate system in GR). Hypnosifl (talk) 00:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I wonder how much of this borders on original research. I thought Yamara was asking whether we should dismiss the paragraph or keep it. It seems that it is a well-written paragraph backed with a source- a book written by a professor at the Dept. of Physics at the University of Chicago. Seems like a decently reputable source, enough at least to provide citation for this article. Doesn't matter if we agree or disagree with Professor Geroch. Thus my vote is...
 * Strong Keep unless I missed something that would invalidate our use of this cited academic perspective. WDavis1911 (talk) 03:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)