its_just_me Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 From: http://everythingforever.com/hawking.htm In a lecture paper Hawking writes: Quantum theory introduces a new idea, that of imaginary time. Imaginary time may sound like science fiction, and it has been brought into Doctor Who [an English Star Trek]. But never the less, it is a genuine scientific concept. One can picture it in the following way. One can think of ordinary, real, time as a horizontal line. On the left, one has the past, and on the right, the future. But there's another kind of time in the vertical direction. This is called imaginary time, because it is not the kind of time we normally experience. But in a sense, it is just as real, as what we call real time. The implications of the reality of this are almost unimaginable. For one thing, the existance of imaginary time would require it to defy the laws of physics....I'll leave you to imagine all the other implications. Totally interesting stuff! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted June 17, 2006 Share Posted June 17, 2006 Quantum Theory is the freakiest, mind boggling science. Trying to even understand it take a lot of mental excercise. One of the things I wonder is that if the future exists, in the same way the past exists, and we simply pass over it, do we have free will? or are we just doing what has already been determined? If so, how did the future get determined in the first place? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
its_just_me Posted June 20, 2006 Author Share Posted June 20, 2006 Quantum Theory is the freakiest, mind boggling science. Trying to even understand it take a lot of mental excercise. One of the things I wonder is that if the future exists, in the same way the past exists, and we simply pass over it, do we have free will? or are we just doing what has already been determined? If so, how did the future get determined in the first place? lol....I know, it really is mind boggling.....it almost hurts to think about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted June 21, 2006 Share Posted June 21, 2006 Definitely interesting. So would that make time travel possible then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted June 21, 2006 Share Posted June 21, 2006 Shit like this is why I love subjects like Quantum Theory. Nothing like working that brain around some bizarro stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 21, 2006 Share Posted June 21, 2006 They have succeeded in making a beam of light travel backwards in time. Coming out of the end of the tube, just before it enters. Theoretically, there's an negative beam inside the tube (or something, whatever, beats me ) that counter balance the even. (ouch, now my head hurts.) Anyway, Hawkins said something like time travel could be possible in some sense, but there's the problem that there has to be a negative effect when you travel. I guess, it means something like mass, energy and entropy or whatnot have to travel forward in time to level out your traveling backwards. (I think) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scitsofreaky Posted June 21, 2006 Share Posted June 21, 2006 Wait, I thought light didn't "experience" time. This stuff is way over my head. I don't get how a verticle timeline would affect us since we live on the horizontal scale. But whatever, I'm not going to bother with time like this, it makes my head hurt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chefranden Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 ..The evidence for the Big Bang event is conclusive, possibly irrefutable... The evidence is neither conclusive or irrefutable. As Hawking is one of the leading Big Bang Theologians I would take his pronouncements with a grain of salt or two. The Big Bang Never Happened. An open letter to the scientific community. Big Bang: You're Dead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golden Meadows Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 Wait, I thought light didn't "experience" time.This stuff is way over my head. Me to! I don't get how a verticle timeline would affect us since we live on the horizontal scale. This seems to correspond to the xtian concept of the eternal NOW where there is no change, no before or after. But whatever, I'm not going to bother with time like this, it makes my head hurt. If anyone can help me with what is probably a dumb quesion: If some scientists say that time travel is indeed possible what do they say about sending, say, a rock back in time. How can the particles that make up the rock be in two places simultaneously? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 In the experiment when they sent the light beam forward in time, you have (if I understand it kind of correctly, it's kind of weird, and it was a couple of weeks ago that I read it), but the light beam exists really in three places. The beam entering the tube, the beam exiting the tube and a negative beam in the tube going backwards. So the third one will cancel out the first one when it finally enters the tube, and in the end, only one exists, the third one. (I might be completely off with this, but that's how I understood the explanation) I guess sending something backwards in time have to work in a similar way. If the light beam exists parallel with itself, then a third negating light beam have to exist to cancel it out. (Now I'm really confused). Hawkings, and other scientists, idea is that everything is in balance, but not necessarily everything is in status quo. You do have quarks popping out from nowhere all the time, but they disappear again. The sum of the equation that is the universe and time is constant, but the numbers inside can be in flux. Like -1 + 1 = 0 and -2 + 2 = 0 and -200 + 200 = 0 ... You can change the numbers, but it always have to balance out to zero. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taphophilia Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 We know the past exists, so if someone time traveled to the past would they be able to return to their own time or would they be stuck in the past? Would the future exist anymore for someone who went back in time? If they could come back than that means all future exists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 Eeeh. Sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golden Meadows Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 "You can change the numbers, but it always have to balance out to zero" Light, for me anyway, is a difficult one in the first place since when I last read about it there was still lots of questions relating to particle/wave duality that were open - I don't know if its changed any in recent times. Maybe if I try to be more explicit in my question. Imagine the statue of Isis I have on my table could be transported back in time to yesterday. Now yesterday I had that same statue on my desk and it was made up of the same particles as it is today. That being the case what particles are making up the statue sent back that stands next to yesterdays statue of Isis? Does anyone know if there are any theories that do support time travel for material objects and if so how is my possible objection answered.? We know the past exists, so if someone time traveled to the past would they be able to return to their own time or would they be stuck in the past? Would the future exist anymore for someone who went back in time? If they could come back than that means all future exists.If somebody or something travelled back in time then it was inevitable that this should be so in order to create the present time - there would be no free-will as such. But this is not my objection to time travel - see point above Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 "You can change the numbers, but it always have to balance out to zero" Light, for me anyway, is a difficult one in the first place since when I last read about it there was still lots of questions relating to particle/wave duality that were open - I don't know if its changed any in recent times. Maybe if I try to be more explicit in my question. Imagine the statue of Isis I have on my table could be transported back in time to yesterday. Now yesterday I had that same statue on my desk and it was made up of the same particles as it is today. That being the case what particles are making up the statue sent back that stands next to yesterdays statue of Isis? Does anyone know if there are any theories that do support time travel for material objects and if so how is my possible objection answered.? Light is nothing but pure energy, and matter is made out of energy too. So if light can be made to travel forward in time, we could send matter forward in time. But to send it backwards in time, I suspect you have to prepare for it in current time, by sending something forward at the same time. That's I think is the problem. You can't send extra matter or energy forward or backwards unless an oposite energy is going the other way. To send something backwards in time, something has to come back to you at the same time, to balance the equation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golden Meadows Posted June 25, 2006 Share Posted June 25, 2006 We know the past exists, so if someone time traveled to the past would they be able to return to their own time or would they be stuck in the past? Would the future exist anymore for someone who went back in time? If they could come back than that means all future exists. To me, any talk of time travel gets into the "many worlds" theory. With parallel universes and all that shit. I'm not sure that one could actually travel back in time to their ACTUAL true past. I mean where does THAT "you" go? Does it switch places with you somehow? Wouldn't you just be going to a parallel past, believing yourself to be in your true past. How would you know the difference? Belief in the pasta God seems to require less of a leap in faith. To me it seems time is more perception than anything, if all times exist at once, truly and not as some type of mental masturabation, then you're getting into parallel dimensions. If my past exists NOW (as some scientists have posited) the same as my present self exists now...then where the fuck is it? It's not on THIS plane of existence that's for sure. Xtian theologians pondered this many centuries ago. Aquinas likened God living in the eternal NOW to a being overlooking a valley which represents time. All the actions of mankind throughout time are spread out along the valley and God see things which are sequential in time simultaneously in timeless eternity. In example given at the beginning the Y axis represents eternity/or the pasta god. Also...something that irks me just a tiny bit...(and this is going totally off on a tangent so please forgive it.) People who say things like: "where does heaven exist? we go to outer space and it's not there? where is it? It clearly doesn't exist." Now I personally don't believe in "heaven" and am not saying we shoudl all believe in heaven...but isn't it talking out of both sides of your mouth when you say: "there could be parallel dimensions etc, but i can't SEE heaven anywhere so it can't be real. Can you SEE parallel dimensions? or all the "imaginary time." Maybe scientists should also study metaphysics as part of their education and avoid rediscovering the wheel. The only difference IMO between all these theories and someone saying they believe in something like heaven is one has a lot of math and shit behind it. Exactly. I remember years ago reading about something called a singularity with respect to the birth of the Universe and the big bang. It seemed to me a name was put onto something where there was in fact nothing that could be open to the senses, nothing that could ever be measured. Instead of saying "we don't know because its not something science can actually explore" it was hid behind the "singularity" name. The hebrews used to think that naming something gave an appearance of power over it. Perhaps old ideas never really die out. But it's all conjecture on some very deep level. How can one truly QUANTIFY this shit? If you subscribe to the big bang theory then there is a limit to what can be explored and quantified. To go beyond the big bang is enter the domain of metaphysics. In a way that is more than just scientific philosophizing? It just seems to me, the more it goes on, the more spirituality and science are bumping shoulders, and both seem to be conveniently ignoring the presence of the other. Good point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golden Meadows Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Hansolo:"They have succeeded in making a beam of light travel backwards in time. Coming out of the end of the tube, just before it enters." For some reason I kept coming back to this problem and then a light - I remembered the symbolism evoked by the image of the light and tube with one end chasing the other so to speak. One of the ancient symbols for eternity and/or the wheel of time is the snake devouring itself - the Ouroboros. It began in ancient Egypt but was passed down through Greece and into xtian symbolism. Plato described it as the first perfect living thing in its symbolism of constant renewaI. If you map this to the universe as whole it might suggest self renewal being written into the very nature of creation. This web site gives some fascinating information - certainly to me at a personal level - on the Ouroboros. http://www.crystalinks.com/ouroboros.html also "The Ouroboros often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles that begin anew as soon as they end." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros But I am in the science forum so I better leave it at that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 26, 2006 Share Posted June 26, 2006 Sorry, I saw that I said "they have succeeded in making a beam light travel backwards in time", which isn't true, they made it travel forwards in time. And the idea and thoughts about Ouroboros have been on my mind for quite some time. And I don't think your off with those thoughts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
its_just_me Posted June 28, 2006 Author Share Posted June 28, 2006 Some really interesting comments, guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scitsofreaky Posted June 29, 2006 Share Posted June 29, 2006 We know the past existsI disagree. The past existed, but it doesn't exist. The only time that exists is the present, which consists of a mere few seconds (or so, it's hard to put my fingure on it), everything else is just an experience within the present. Because of that, it seems impossible to travel into the past or the future, but merely traveling into the present. Oh, and Han, that experiement sounds insane. Reminds me of when I heard of a certain particle (or whatever it was) existing in two places at once. WTF, it doesn't make any sense. This quantum shit is makes me something something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted June 29, 2006 Share Posted June 29, 2006 http://www.physorg.com/news66582110.html They talk about "backwards light", but this is what is really amazing: It's weird stuff," says Boyd. "We sent a pulse through an optical fiber, and before its peak even entered the fiber, it was exiting the other end. Through experiments we were able to see that the pulse inside the fiber was actually moving backward, linking the input and output pulses." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scitsofreaky Posted June 29, 2006 Share Posted June 29, 2006 Well, I don't feel so bad since they think it is weird too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Friendly Misanthrope Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 I think one of the most interesting questions in physics right now is that of the true nature of spacetime. One of the big questions to those working on a GUT (Grand Unifying Theory) is whether spacetime is continuous, or quantized (as is energy). Continuity implies there is not smallest division of spacetime that beyond which it is physically meaningless. If it is quantized, however, spacetime is traversed in discrete quantum leaps. Personally, I think spacetime is quantized, but I am only going by intuition. I would have to study both relativity and quantum physics for years and years to even possibly come up with any informed decision on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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