TIME TRAVEL: Fact of Fiction

[bona]

tunashindwa kutravel in time simply because bado hatujaweza kugundua device ambayo inaweza ikasafiri more than the speed of light but when that happen time travel will be possible... kutokana na principle ya time dilation ambayo imekua proved kua ni true kwamba kama kitu kinasafiri kwa kasi zidi ya mwanga kinakua kina slow time basi time travel will be a reality..... watu watasema haiwezekan lakini hata kusafiri zaidi ya speed of sound ilichukuliwa haiwezekan mpaka miaka ya 50 ilipowezekana.... kwa iyo kama tukiweza kutravel kwa speed zaidi ya speed ya light hata lawa za physics zitakua nyingine sio hizi classic newtoniac laws

 

[itara]

That is the point...what is time and its fundamental...

 

[Kiranga]

Gaijin
Time is actualy a pure scalar quantity with neither magnitude nor direction. So, what else?

Time has direction, that is why we have the past and the future.

Professor Stephen Hawkings explores "the arrow of time" extensively in his seminal work "A Brief History of Time".

 

[Kiranga]

Gaijin
Time is actualy a pure scalar quantity with neither magnitude nor direction. So, what else?

Time has direction, that is why we have the past and the future.

Professor Stephen Hawkings explores "the arrow of time" extensively in his seminal work "A Brief History of Time".

There is an esoteric concept that time is purely imaginary and does not exist, but in context here the observation is more like time can be made to cease, not that it does not exist.

 

[Nyani Ngabu]

Is time abstract or a physical reality?

 

[MAHENDEKA]

We all travel in time, into the future, one second per second.

Time travel into the past, for any material object, so far, per Einstein's relativity (not Newton's as mzeewaloliondo posited) and the Standard Model of Particle Physics, is impossible.

I wrote this on my Geocities website in 1999 (middle finger to Yahoo! for taking Geocities down).It remains so.

The reason being, to travel back in time, essentially, is to travel faster than the speed of light. Time is just the fourth dimension of the space-time continuum.

The speed of light is the known speed barrier for material object in the universe.

By Einstein's Relativity, the reigning theory on the subject, for any material object, however small, the more you approach the speed of light, the more two things happen.

Time is dilated, space is distorted. The object becomes bigger and bigger, and heavier and heavier. Time, from the perspective of the object, starts to move slower and slower.

In essence, if a material object were to reach the speed of light, it would turn into a singularity, with infinite mass.

How are you going to move an infinite mass even at the slowest speed, let alone at the speed of light?

Therefore, by our currently known technology, time travel by a material object into the past is not possible.

Of course you have science fiction authors anticipating the tachyon, which could only move at a speed greater than that of light, essentially isolated in another universe.

Or the occasional Einstein-busters, like the Italian experiment that prematurely reported a faster than light particle velocity, which was later debunked. But that's all, science fiction and premature ejaculations.

Luckily we have our minds to reminisce, and can travel into the future one second per second from the observers perspective.

Daah aisee we jamaa upo juu kama mbalamwezi na nyota

una ubongo mpana mithili ya mto ruvuma

 

[Gaijin]

Gaijin
Time is actualy a pure scalar quantity with neither magnitude nor direction. So, what else?

Time has a direction

For an instance, under the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy increases with time in a closed system

For Arrows of Time, start with the works of Sir Arthur Eddington

*And no, time doesn't flow since to flow is to change with time

 

[Makanyaga]

Time has direction, that is why we have the past and the future.

Professor Stephen Hawkings explores "the arrow of time" extensively in his seminal work "A Brief History of Time".

There is an esoteric concept that time is purely imaginary and does not exist, but in context here the observation is more like time can be made to cease, not that it does not exist.

Gaijin and Kiranga;
With respect to a given observer let's observer X, yes time has direction though the ambiguity still arises if someone poses the question of "where" (i.e where is the direction of the future/past, back or forward?) but, in the absence of an observer, it does not have direction. More over, if an observer X has the property of omnipresence, then there must neither be past nor future for that observer. Anyway these are pure opinions from my own understanding and without any reference trom any already available materials/research work

 

[Makanyaga]

Time has a direction

For an instance, under the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy increases with time in a closed system

For Arrows of Time, start with the works of Sir Arthur Eddington

*And no, time doesn't flow since to flow is to change with time

We know time is not a physical quantity i.e. it is one of the fundamental quantities but not a physical one. Can you name some other (quantities) which fall on this similar category?

 

[Kiranga]

Gaijin and Kiranga;
With respect to a given observer let's observer X, yes time has direction though the ambiguity still arises if someone poses the question of "where" (i.e where is the direction of the future/past, back or forward?) but, in the absence of an observer, it does not have direction. More over, if an observer X has the property of omnipresence, then there must neither be past nor future for that observer. Anyway these are pure opinions from my own understanding and without any reference trom any already available materials/research work

This is part of the esoteric concept I mentioned before.

The direction of time, at least in it's manifestation in our universe, is the future. Asking where is the direction of the future is like asking when is the spatial direction of the front.First of all where is not the correct question as it depicts a spatial conception instead of a temporal one. So when is more appropriate. And even if you want to treat time as a fourth dimension of the space-time continuum, and "where" as a general question to do with the position in the timeline, the answer is the future.

Where is the direction of the future/ past? If I interpret this question to be centred into asking for the evidence of the direction of time, then the answer is buried in the second law of thermodynamics.In entropy and it's incremental relationship with the passage of time with relations to closed systems.

What makes you think that time, in the absence of the observer, does not have direction? How would you know so, if indeed this phenomenon was limited to the realm of the observer less experiment?

What is omnipresence if not an illusion? A religious one at that. If spacetime itself is expanding, creating space where none existed hitherto, what does omnipresence entail?

 

[Kiranga]

Is time abstract or a physical reality?

Time's existence is dependent on the existence of other things and their movements.

Remove these other things - and inherently their movements- you will have removed time.

In our universe, time exists as a dimension of the space-time continuum.

Remove space and you will have removed time.

Just as you cannot have depth without space, you cannot have time without space.

In essence, if one was able to stop every particle in the universe, one would have essentially stopped time.

Conversely, for any material body that would attain the speed of light, time would essentially stop.

 

[Makanyaga]

This is part of the esoteric concept I mentioned before.

The direction of time, at least in it's manifestation in our universe, is the future. Asking where is the direction of the future is like asking when is the spatial direction of the front.First of all where is not the correct question as it depicts a spatial conception instead of a temporal one. So when is more appropriate. And even if you want to treat time as a fourth dimension of the space-time continuum, and "where" as a general question to do with the position in the timeline, the answer is the future.

Where is the direction of the future past? It is buried in the second law of thermodynamics.In entropy.

What makes you think that time, in the absence of the observer, does not have direction? How would you know so, if indeed this phenomenon was limited to the realm of the observer less experiment?

What is omnipresence if not an illusion? A religious one at that. If spacetime itself is expanding, creating space where none existed hitherto, what does omnipresence entail?

I will need to revise the second law of thermodynamic, looks like I'm at the moment lacking some important concepts about it.
The presence of an observer X, just as I said before, should necessitate the availability of "direction of time", without whom such a direction was to be non existent. It's a little bit, analogous to a relationship between two goods in economics which are said to be complementary (e.g. gasoline or a similar product to it, and a car). Gasoline can exist in the absence of cars because its existence is independent of the presence/absence of the car. However, the presence of the car should necessitate the presence of gasoline or a similar product in as much as the presence of an observer necessitates the presence of direction of time.

Moreover, I view omnipresence as the opposite of both absence and presence, and hence my argument in the previous post.

 

[pmwasyoke]

Hii thread wengine inatuumza vichwa bora tuwaachie wenyewe!

 

[Kiranga]

I will need to revise the second law of thermodynamic, looks like I'm at the moment lacking some important concepts about it.
The presence of an observer X, just as I said before, should necessitate the availability of "direction of time", without whom such a direction was to be non existent. It's a little bit, analogous to a relationship between two goods in economics which are said to be complementary (e.g. gasoline or a similar product to it, and a car). Gasoline can exist in the absence of cars because its existence is independent of the presence/absence of the car. However, the presence of the car should necessitate the presence of gasoline or a similar product in as much as the presence of an observer necessitates the presence of direction of time.

Moreover, I view omnipresence as the opposite of both absence and presence, and hence my argument in the previous post.

Time's direction is independent of the presence of the observer per your assertion.

This is why ice, exposed to heat, over time, melts, whether observed or not.

If the direction of time was dependent on the observer, then time would stop when the ice was unobserved, and it would not melt commensurately.

The only way your assertion would make sense, is if you assign every particle the role of "an observer".

Then you would simply say, in the absence of any particle, time would cease to exist.

Because, essentially, time is rooted in relativistic terms.And if you remove the frames of reference, you remove time.

 

[Nyani Ngabu]

Time's existence is dependent on the existence of other things and their movements.

Remove these other things - and inherently their movements- you will have removed time.

In our universe, time exists as a dimension of the space-time continuum.

Remove space and you will have removed time.

Just as you cannot have depth without space, you cannot have time without space.

In essence, if one was able to stop every particle in the universe, one would have essentially stopped time.

Conversely, for any material body that would attain the speed of light, time would essentially stop.

...which renders time an abstract concept, correct?

 

[multmandalin]

It is a legitimate question. Even if time travel is impossible, it is important to explore why is it impossible as I have pointed out above. There is no stupid question, as long as it is genuine. Since all genuine questions are rooted in the desire to alleviate stupidity. And that, in it's totality cannot be stupid. Kuna mtu aliuliza kwa nini rangi ya bluu inaonekana ya bluu na nyekundu inaonekana nyekundu, na utajuaje kwamba unayoona bluu wewe si nyekundu kwa mwenzako na mwenzako anayoona bluu si nyekundu kwako? It turns out the root of the issue, at least for the first question, lies in quantum physics. Maswali mengine yanayoonekana rahisi ama ya ajabu yanaibua majibu yenye insight tofauti. Kama vile Newton supposedly alivyojiuliza kwa nini vitu vinaanguka chini na sio juu, which lead to the discovery of gravity. Au Einstein alivyojiuliza itakuwaje kama mtu atapanda kwenye muonzi wa mwanga na kusafiri nao, which led to the discovery of relativity.

Tatizo bana wanasayansi wa bongo nyie hamtofautishi uchawi na nature!
Huyo mleta maada mwenyewe sijuwi analenga nini, manake na Kinjeketile humohumo!
Tunguli zinatumika sana vitani, ya majimaji ni kweli!

 

[Makanyaga]

Time's direction is independent of the presence of the observer per your assertion.

This is why ice, exposed to heat, over time, melts, whether observed or not.

If the direction of time was dependent on the observer, then time would stop when the ice was unobserved, and it would not melt commensurately.

The only way your assertion would make sense, is if you assign every particle the role of "an observer".

Then you would simply say, in the absence of any particle, time would cease to exist.

Because, essentially, time is rooted in relativistic terms.And if you remove the frames of reference, you remove time.

Kiranga;
OK simply treat it like this: In the absence of an entity X, other than itself, time has got no direction. Let's replace an observer with an entity, which might just be anything other than time itself.

 

[Kiranga]

...which renders time an abstract concept, correct?

Correct.

In the sense that..

Even if one were to say that time is real and not abstract, in that it can be measured, it turns out the measurement is hardly absolute per classical Newtonian physics, but an illusion of our frame of reference per relativistic Einsteinian physics.

Speed slows down the passage (mind you, the actual passage, not mere measurement, a big distinction) of time, so does gravity. This is why if you were able to attain the speed of light, all time would stop for you while not stopping for the rest of the world.

To electromagnetic waves, which move at the speed of electromagnetic waves/ light, the universe is timeless.

And if a particle would move faster than light, then the direction of time would be reversed, time would move from the future to the past, which poses a lot of problems for causality, one reason why time travel is not possible.

If you have twins born today, and one was sent on a trip to a Alpha Centauri, the closest star system, at relativistic speeds, while the other was to remain on earth, the twin who embarked on this audacious trip could take just over 8 years roundtrip, coming back as about an 8 year old, while the twin who remained on earth could easily have aged to 100 years.

The reason being that the relativistic speeds on the spaceship slowed down the passage of time and therefore aging, while the twin on earth did not experience this time dilation.

This time dilation happens everytime you move, albeit at a very negligible scale.

 

[Kiranga]

Kiranga;
OK simply treat it like this: In the absence of an entity X, other than itself, time has got no direction. Let's replace an observer with an entity, which might just be anything other than time itself.

But this is already addressed.

If you leave your home, does the clock stop ticking because you are not observing it?

Does dust stop collecting?

 

[Kiranga]

Tatizo bana wanasayansi wa bongo nyie hamtofautishi uchawi na nature!
Huyo mleta maada mwenyewe sijuwi analenga nini, manake na Kinjeketile humohumo!
Tunguli zinatumika sana vitani, ya majimaji ni kweli!

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C. Clarke.