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Real (?) Time Machine

H3LL

Illuminator
H3LL
Joined
Jul 21, 2004
Messages
4,963
I caught part of a TV program that was looking at a 'real' time machine being possible.

As I don't know the program, channel, designer or name of the machine, it's a little hard to google for it, so maybe someone here can point me in the right direction.

The designer was a a black guy, a bit like James Earl Jones (but only a bit).

His design hasn't been built, but would consist of very powerful lasers arranged in a cylindical matrix causing photons to spiral through it, thus warping time (I'm a bit vague on this. See below).

He believed that messages could be sent backwards in time, but only back to the point where the machine was switched on, so you cannot pop back to the Jurrasic.

I was busy doing something else so missed huge chuncks of the program, and the above is just about all I caught.

I have no idea whether the program was woo or serious.

Questions:

Is this for real?
Who is the designer?
What program was it?
Was it a serious program?
What is his machine called?
Is his hypothesis sound?

Thanks.
 
I remember my "Cosmos" teacher in college told us how a time machine might work. Basically you first create a stable worm-hole (one you could crawl through) with one end in your living room and the other end in a space ship. Next you have your buddy fly the space ship out into space at an incredible speed, so fast in fact that when he returns to earth a year later (his time) a hundred years have passed here on earth.

Now at this point you have been hanging out in your living room watching your buddy through the worm hole for a year. When he lands back on earth, you could crawl through the worm hole and join your buddy on earth a hundred years into the future.

Then at this point you and your buddy could leave the space ship, go back to your living room (which is probably in ruins) and go through the worm hole again. This would take you another 100 years into the future.

This time machine would only work going forward and back from the time you created the worm hole.

Of course, creating a stable wormhole is the big challenge.
 
I do not believe it is possible. And I think the biggest problem is that we do not understand what time is.
 
H3LL said:

Is this for real?
Who is the designer?
What program was it?
Was it a serious program?
What is his machine called?
Is his hypothesis sound?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Why isn't time travel possible?

1) Grandfather paradox
2) Throughout history, we've never seen time travelers

How to overcome this?

Infinite parallel time/space paths (hypothetical, of course)

But then are you travelling back in time or simply traversing alternate universes? Well, you obviously aren't going back in time because we don't see No. 1 and No. 2 above.

So again, is time travel possible?

No.

But without it all Star Trek shows would grind to a halt.
 
Sounds very similar to the rotating laser thingy that made walls transparent hoax. This isn't the guy who made the bear suit again, is it?

Anyway, there already is a spiral wave photon group that is used in physics. First imagine a laser, cohesive beam of light, etc. Then, make the phase a function of rotation angle. As you add up the peaks and the troughs, the new composite waveform makes a neato spiral.
 
So nobody has seen the program then?

I'll just have to wait and hope it is repeated. I can then check its details.

He wasn't talking about people travelling in time, just messages. I assume encoded in a light wave some way.

Like thatguywhojuggles mentioned, it would only recieve messages from the future once it is turned on. It hasn't been yet.

The little I caught sounded very plausible, but I cannot check more as I have no answers for my original questions.

As this stage I'm very sceptical.
 
rustypouch said:
Man, if I could just go back to 1982...
Click to expand...

You know, I bet I could throw this football clear over them mountains.

Sorry for hijacking. And now back to your thread, already in progress.
 
H3LL said:
His design hasn't been built, but would consist of very powerful lasers arranged in a cylindical matrix causing photons to spiral through it, thus warping time (I'm a bit vague on this. See below).
Click to expand...

Complete and utter codswallop. To begin with, you can't get photons in empty space to curve unless you've got amazing mass and/or energy density there. I suppose if you stuffed enough photons in there, that might do the trick. How many is enough? More than the entire output of human energy production over our entire history so far, that's for damned sure.

Now I am aware of an idea from general relativity in which an infinitely long cylindrical mass that is rotating can lead to time travel. But that's a, shall we say, "exotic" situation, one we're not likely to encounter in the universe, or reproduce with spinning photons either.
 
H3LL said:
He wasn't talking about people travelling in time, just messages. I assume encoded in a light wave some way.

Like thatguywhojuggles mentioned, it would only recieve messages from the future once it is turned on. It hasn't been yet.
Click to expand...
So from day one of the implementation of this technology until who-knows-when anyone connected to the network can send messages to not only anywhere, but anytime, including the first machine on the first day. This thing is going to need one hell of a spam filter.
 
H3LL said:
He believed that messages could be sent backwards in time, but only back to the point where the machine was switched on, so you cannot pop back to the Jurrasic.
Click to expand...

Or to any time before the time machine is working. A VERY important caveat to add to his experiment, for an interesting reason.

If he were to claim anything else, I could prove that it doesn't work. All I would have to do is to tell him to send me a message to arrive at 10:00 am this morning. Since it is currently 10:15 am, and I didn't receive a message, I know he will never do it.

This is the best and hardest part of a time machine. You can't change the past.

For example, suppose I tell my children that my only wish is that if a time machine is invented in their lifetime, that they send me a prescribed message at a prescribed time. If a time machine is not invented in their lifetime, they must pass those instructions onto their children or other appropriate descendent, and that must continue until the request is carried out.

I show up at the prescribed time and there is no message. Conclusion: time travel will never be discovered. Anyone trying to invent time travel is wasting their time.

So this guy creates an out: we can't travel outside of the time that the time machine as existed. Thus, my message could never reach me. Very convenient.
 
Psi Baba said:
So from day one of the implementation of this technology until who-knows-when anyone connected to the network can send messages to not only anywhere, but anytime, including the first machine on the first day. This thing is going to need one hell of a spam filter.
Click to expand...

That SPAM problem was an accidental side effect of instantaneous communication in James Blish's "The Quincunx of Time." How the world accomodated itself to that problem was the frame story. The main story concerned the two people who semi-independantly discovered the basic principles involved.
 
Re: Re: Real (?) Time Machine

DangerousBeliefs said:
Why isn't time travel possible?

1) Grandfather paradox
Click to expand...

...only applies to people who would kill their grandfathers...

2) Throughout history, we've never seen time travelers
Click to expand...

...well we have, but we tend to place them in asylums. :D
 
The grandfather paradox still applies in a sense, even if you can only send messages.

Say the machine works, and Joe receives a message from future Joe to kill himself for the good of mankind, how horrible the world will be because of something Joe will do, whatever.

Since present Joe is a pretty nice guy, he kills himself.
But then, he couldn't have sent a message in the future(you know...since he's dead.) But, if he couldn't send a message, then he never would have killed himself...
 
For myself I think time-travel is as likely as me flying to the Moon on a pencil, for the above reasons and others.

I still want to track this program and look at it in detail. Very odd that I'm the only one that saw it. Maybe it's my vague description?
 
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