Im always fasinacted by theoritical theories in Physics that may or may not be realistic.

Im especially interested in Science Fiction.

So it was with great interest that I heard about John Titor

From Wikipedia

Other links

http://johntitor.strategicbrains.com/

http://www.anomalies.net/time_travel/john.html

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/the_jo...or_project.html

Just wondering, I dont do physics but I was discussing with freinds the various theories used in movies, such as alternate timelines and chaos theory

This page contains pictures and theories behind his time machine.

Anyone that does physics care to explain some of this stuff? And promote the general time travel discussion

well Einstein was the first "not a kook" scientist to seriously propose that time travel was possible from a theoretical basis. The basic idea is that our universe is four dimensional (three dimensions of space and one dimension of time). With that description, time is like a line, and there is no reason why we can't move along it in both directions, or at diferent speeds, just as we can move across space in any direction we choose.

Mathematically, time is described in physics just as an increasing number, eg the equation for the motion of a pendulum looks something like this:

x = A cos(t)

There is no definition in that equation about how time should change, it only describes what the pendulum is going to be doing at a particular time - particluarly around a black hole, where the known laws of physics break down.

This is the dillema that physicists are presented with - there are no generally accepted rules for how time is allowed to change. Stephen Hawking and others have avoided this problem simply by stating that if time travel were possible, we would be inundated by "time tourists" from the future. They obviously haven't herad of John Titor.

do i have the solution for you guys

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=5563490518

Does that thing come with a guarantee?

Lol good link Steveo

Ok Id like to think Im pretty skeptical.

But (not that I know much about Phyics) this guy seems to know an ABNORMALLY large amount about Time Travel and what not.

Plus I know people will do anything for a few laughs now days, but going to THIS much trouble to pull a hoax?

Not that Im saying I believe it happened, its just one of those "creepy" things.

Thanks for the physics theor Dr Steve, Id like to hear more when you have time.

haha goldenpalace.com won the bid, why am I not surprised. Golden Palace is notorious for bidding on strange things auctioned on ebay (such as the virgin mary grilled cheese sandwich, and the 'ghost cane'), the theory is since they can't legally advertise in the U.S they use their marketing budget on getting attention by winning strange auctions, as well as other stunts such as advertising on streakers.

time is the only dimension that can't seem to go both forwards and backwards with current theories. Time travel is discussed in many books concerning quantum theory, where the 'parity' of particles are analyzed.

The spontaneous decay of sub-atomic particles can be explained using time travel, for example, an electron's anti-particle, the positron, can be interpreted as an electron going back in time. Photons, i think are the only particles not changed by their time arrow. The theory goes as far as saying that all the electrons in the universe could just be one, weaving back and forward through time as it travels through space.

^
times |
| /\ /\
| / \ / \
|==/===\===/===\=================now
| / \ / \
|/ \/ \ path of electron
|____________________________________________________> space

the present is that narrow slit of = signs, it moves up the time axis. Everytime the electrons intercepts teh present, we see it as an electron or positron depending on its direction.

Time travel also questions whether the future is pre-ordained or not. If this tito guy can back from the future, then that would mean that all our destinies are set in stone, otherwise, the act of him coming back would quite possibly mean that he would be doing what he was doing (insert desired time travel paradox). Anyone who has read about quantum mechanics and the double slit experiment would be familiar the problems there. One interpretation of QT suggests a deterministic universe or one in which the universe as a whole participates in the decisions we make, while another (eg many-world interpretation) suggests that it is spontaneous and that everytime u make a decision, the universe creates another of itself where the alternative occurs.

Sorry for all that spam, but i think is quite hard to discuss time travel when you are just talking about folklore and science fiction.

arrgh that diagram didnt turn out right, the path of the e- is supposed to be a zigzag crossing the present slit. For some reason the forum took out the spaces :blink:

lol, yams makes time travel a reality on the craccum forum :P

craccum forum wastes your time without u realising....same effect i guess

No thanks heaps for posting that stuff Yams, it was really interesting.

I didnt quite understand all of it but thats ok Im pretty dense sometimes.

Youre right Time Travel needs to be discussed in terms of physics.

Thanks and welcome aboard

here's some less classical ideas about time:

A definition of time itself is hard to pin down, but here is one approach:

We percieve time by its interaction with our universe, arther than percieving time itself. A weak analogy to this is that we don't percieve the wind itself, we percieve its interaction with the world. The effect that time has on the universe is to cause changes. If there were no changes in the universe, we could not conclude that time exists (not that we'd be around to conclude anything). Since a scientist can only measure a phenomena by some kind of effect, it is useful to define time by this change. Specifically it has been defined to be a stream of irreversible change running from the beginning of the universe, to infinity.
The problem here, for time travel is the word 'irreversible', but this word is used only because we haven't observed time to ever go backwards, rather than being based a solid mathematical/theoretical foundation: ie we think time can't go backwards, but we don't know why.
Indeed we have observed that the rate of time can change:

Time Dialation
This was first proposed by Einstein, and is based on his postulate that the speed of light in a vaccum is constant for all observers.
If there are two people holding clocks, one who is standing still, and one who is travelling near the speed of light, the clock belonging to the moving person will appear to be going slower to the person standing still. If the moving person travels at the speed of light, their clock will appear to stand still. Einstein also proposed that the moving person would get shorter in the direction that they were travelling (this is because time goes slower for them from the observer's point of view, but they must still cover the same amount of space in the same time, so they have to get shorter to do it).
There is physical evidence for this time dialation, although none has been found for the mass contraction.


and here's a less understood aspect of Einstein's theory with particular interest to John Titor:

In Einstein's general relativity, time and the motion of light are linked. Also in this theory, gravity is said to act immediately, and is carried directly across physical space. It is currently beliveved that gravity is a wave with a zero speed (if not zero at least less than the speed of light), which acts instantly.

**as an aside We do know that it is possible for particles to exchange information instantly through entanglement (look up Bell's Inequality), and some scientists are trying to 'teleport' photons using this idea. **

Gravity has been observed to affect the path of light in an effect known as gravitational lensing (google it). Basically light travelling very near a star is bent slightly towards the star as it passes by. We can see this if one star passes directly behind another - it appears as a ring around the closer star (see my crappy mspaint figure)


just imagine this image rotated in a cylinder about the axis joining the centers of all the objects to get the 3D picture. The two lines of light will form a cylinder from the point of view of "us"

If time and light are linked, and light is affected by gravity, then it follows that time could be affected by gravity as well. Einstein proposes the following equation describing the change in time due to a large mass (I'm not sure of the specifics of how he came up with this):



T is the new time interval, T0 is the un-dialated time interval, G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the large object, R is the distance you are away from the object, and c is the speed of light.

Obviously this equation starts getting into imaginary numbers if the fraction in the square root is larger than 1, and time will stand still if 2GM=Rcc. Also note that there is no way that you can make time go backwards with this equation.

John Titor's machine seems to work by creating two "micro singularities" which I think means that the machine is generating two large gravitational fields (similar to those created by a black hole). This would definately affect time around the machine, but it would have a larger effect on any mass that is sitting around it. It would be like sitting next to a black hole. For this to be safe, the machine would have to have a way of localising the gravitational field inside itself, but then it wouldn't be able to affect time on the outside... Also, the gravitational field would have to be huge, as the gravity from a star can only affect the path of light in the smallest amount, and this would take a lot of energy to create.

Can't you go fowards in time by circling the earth really really fast?

no matter how fast u go around, the Earth will still rotate in the same direction. no matter how fast u go around, as long as u are travelling below the speed of light, a certain amount of time still passes as u go around.

Even at the speed of light, its the same. However if u are travelling faster than the speed of light, u could be seen as travelling forwards in time. This is because information, therefore cause and effect travels at the speed of light. If at teh time u take off u are to emit a signal, an observer ahead of u would see u go past before he acknowledges the fact that u have started your trip already.

yes, I think I saw superman do that once

Ok let me get this straight.

In order to time travel you need to go faster than the speed of light (duh)

Which is as yet proven impossible.

And John Titor is a hoax cause his time machine would not have worked according to the very theory he used to describe how it works?

<Testing>

This thing has a bug

well you can travel forward in time in a sense by travelling very close to the speed of light eg in a spaceship or something. time for you would then run slower than back on earth, and when you returned after a journey of say a year, five years might have passed on earth, therefore you have arrived in the future, but this is really jsut atretching the definitions rather than actual time travel...


moving backwards is harder.

reversal of time also violates the law of entropy (thermodynamics). e.g. if time ran backwards, the particles produced in decay would have to start their journey from basically infinity and all impact at exactly the same spot at the same time. Particles released from stars in forward time would all converge at a point if time was reversed. In both cases, as time passes (albeit backwards) disorder decreases. The entropy law states that as time passes, disorder in the universe increases until it is uniform.

The second law basically states that as a closed system changes, its entropy must either increase or stay the same, so if you define time as a stream of change as I did in my monster post, then the second law is defined in terms of time, so if time flows backwards, the law is reversed...

Hang on, wouldnt you have to move faster than the speed of light to go forward....and there would be no way back, would there? Isn't the theory that if you travel at the speed of light, time stands still around you, and you won't age relative to the 'outside world'?

You cant travel back of forward in time!!!!!!!!!!!!! Time is abstract... IF you are moving at the speed of light.. then you are moving.. that means you are reaching another physical destination... Isnt that simpe and short?

And I wonder why people relate phtsical movement to time and come up with the most insensible of theories, which only geeks will believe cos of the excitement created in them by the complexity of the explanation.... :ph43r:

Ha. Good old Space Cruiser Yamato..Japanese Anime at it's finest:

"Time travels in waves...with this new engine we can jump across the waves, instead of having to travel all the way along it."

Japanese...what will they thing of next?

Trying to relate this to my limited understanding of such Physics...We live in a three-dimensional world, correct? {x,y,z}, which are all at 90 degrees to each other (orthogonal).

Time is regarded as the fourth dimension. Now, since lions don't pounce upon us from the fourth dimension, humanity has evolved to the point of naturally perceiving only three dimension i.e. we can't see into the fourth dimension.

To move in the three dimensions we live in, we apply a force parallel to the dimension we live in, and so the force is orthogonal to the other dimensions. Extrapolating from this, we must apply a force to ourselves parallel to time to move forward/backward, and this force must be orthogonal to {x,y,z}. We can't realise this, as it is beyond our 3D space.

For further reference, consult Hyperspace by Michio Kaku. Well worth a read, even if you're not a Physics buff like Dr_Steve, yams and I.

WHERE HAS THE OTHER TIMETRAVEL THREAD GONE?!

it when back to the future :o :o :o ...to be resurrected by another unsuspecting noob...another time.........

yea no kiddng, it wasnt hard to find the other time travel thread it was ON THE FRONT PAGE of intellectual thought, no need to create a new one.

I deleted it, thats where its gone. Its history. (hurrr)

Well... it's ok that you deleted it... but that is why i say this forum needs search engine... no one can bother looking for posts by going thru all topics in the forum....

Again, we're running a freebie version, = no search capabilities, additional factor of "cant be arsed getting a cracked pro version and moving everyone over to it"

pretty sure the Time Travel thread was still on teh front page of this Intellectual Though subforum so it shouldnt have been too hard to find.

Yay, someone else who's read hyperspace!

and I thought I was all alone in the universe...

dont discount anything. Go back 2000 years and get people to understand the internet, or photos, or the home alone movies.

Try and explain me how time travelling works...? people 2000 years into the future wont believe in time travelling... cos it wudnt have been made possible still

you means to say its possible.. BUT why?

Id like to think if Time Travel has been invented in the future, then we would be inundated with Time Travelling Tourists eager to tell us what horse to bet on in order to maximise their future benefits in some insider-family deal.

But yeah the John Titor thing had me going in the beginning.

one anonymous person, when asked abotu time travelling said

"ppl are just bored and have nothing better to do than just play around with science..."

well you haven't done anything to say that it isn't possible, other than state that you can't understand how it could work, and therefore it can't.

It is known (and observed) that the flow of time changes for objects travelling very fast. The informaton about possible time travel that we have is entirely theoretical, but there is nothing in the lasw of physics as we know them now that says that it isn't possible.

Thats not to say that time travel is going to be possible in the future, but don't discount something completely just because you can't understand it.

If in doubt, take 3rd year physics and get back to me ;)