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| 5/19 |
| 2007/10/1-5 [Science/GlobalWarming, Science/Physics] UID:48215 Activity:high |
10/1 "Time travel machine"
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/246/popup/index.php?cl=4277716
Is this real?
\_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Mallett
There was a piece on him on This American Life that was utterly
heartbreaking. An amazing person.
\_ I can't see the top link, but the wiki article makes it clear
that to this point he doesn't even having a working theory as
to how time travel might work.
\_ It's a hard problem when you're sane.
\_ I think that drawing this conclusion from a wikipedia article
really does justify the fears that people have about the
level of misunderstanding something like wikipedia can
engender. He appears to be both sane and knowledgeable enough
to be worth listening to.
\_ Wikipedia is shit. Citing wikipedia on a subject
generally signals 'I know nothing about the subject
area.'
\_ Uhm, what? This is *time travel*! There is no one on
the planet who truly understands *time travel*. Going
to wikipedia is better than reading this guy's papers
that no one is going to understand. Hey, did I mention
this was about *time travel*? *TIME TRAVEL*! Sheesh.
\_ No it's not. One of the reasons wikipedia is so
dangerous is it makes people think it's a better
source than the source, so to speak. Your first
impulse if you don't understand something is to try
to understand it, or ask someone who does understand,
not consult wikipedia. In this case, if you want
to know if the guy is a kook, talk to a physicist.
Wikipedia is the source of McDonaldization of
Wikipedia is a source of McDonaldization of
\_ This is an excellent
phrase. I hope you don't
mind if I adopt it.
\_ This is due to George
Ritzer. At any rate,
ideas belong to all
mankind. -- ilyas
knowledge. -- ilyas
\_ Lacking any physicists nearby who understand the
math and high energy physics involved in this
guy's work, I'll take the dime store version at
wp. Lacking the time and honesty, having a great
deal of apathy towards the entire time travel
silliness, I'll skip trying to decipher his
actual papers and be satisfied knowing that he's
having fun at some Uni tucked harmlessly out of
the way mumbling, "They mocked me at the Academy!
But I'll show them! I'll show them alllll!!!!!
Muahahahhahahaaa!!!!!" *TIME TRAVEL*!
\_ You are better off simply admitting ignorance
than assuming a contrarian is wrong simply
because he's a contrarian. Biased certainty
is not better than unbiased uncertainty.
If you are interested in rationally evaluating
things, that is. It's great fun to poke fun
at contrarians. -- ilyas
\_ tell us about the stars, ilyas
\_ Uhm, duh, it is *TIME TRAVEL*. How can I
not be ignorant of it? That is what I've
been saying since this topic went up. Please
do tell exactly who on this planet is not
ignorant of how *TIME TRAVEL* works. It is
great fun to poke fun at people who try to
seriously discus *TIME TRAVEL* as if it was
something we could rationally discuss as a
scientific concept and not a philosophical
one. And yes when I finish my *TIME TRAVEL*
machine I am so going back to whack your
grand dad just to put an end to this silly
nonsense. Nothing personal, I think you're
an ok guy.
\_ Time travel is a scientific concept.
You are operating using a very strange
distinction between science and
philosophy. -- ilyas
\_ Wikipedia is great for some things. One prof's
vaugly out there research is not one of those
things.
\_ The problem with wikipedia for 'some things' is
you never really know if the information is
accurate. So the only thing wikipedia is good for
is procrastinating.
\_ 1. Many times I do know if the information
is accurate, or it's not something I'm
worried about being exactly right.
2. If I do care about if information is right
using wikipedia as my only or primary source
is fucking stupid, yes, however it can be
a very useful starting point. Go to wikipedia
get the basics and then research those to
make sure they seem reasonable.
3. The problem with this prof isn't the accuracy
or lack thereof. The problem is it's a poorly
written article about something very few people
care about. What it told me was this dude is
someone who cares a lot about time travel and
has done research in the field that isn't
obviously batshit insane. If I want to know
more I can research other places and come to
my own conclusions.
\_ On a vaguely related note there is some good discussion on the
blogs about 'contrarian' vs 'conservative' strategies in science.
-- ilyas |
| 5/19 |
|
| cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/246/popup/index.php?cl=4277716 Video Quality Welcome. |
| en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Mallett frame-dragging which might be measured experimentally, saying: In Einstein's general theory of relativity, both matter and energy can create a gravitational field. This means that the energy of a light beam can produce a gravitational field. My current research considers both the weak and strong gravitational fields produced by a single continuously circulating unidirectional beam of light. In the weak gravitational field of a unidirectional ring laser, it is predicted that a spinning neutral particle, when placed in the ring, is dragged around by the resulting gravitational field. closed timelike curves, allowing time travel into the past: For the strong gravitational field of a circulating cylinder of light, I have found new exact solutions of the Einstein field equations for the exterior and interior gravitational fields of the light cylinder. The exterior gravitational field is shown to contain closed timelike lines. The presence of closed timelike lines indicates the possibility of time travel into the past. This creates the foundation for a time machine based on a circulating cylinder of light. He also wrote a book titled Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality, co-written with New York Times best-selling author Bruce Henderson, that was published on October 28th, 2006. singularity even when the power to the laser is off, and is not the spacetime that would be expected to arise naturally if the circulating laser were turned on in previously empty space. However, he does not provide any additional argument as to why we should expect to see closed timelike curves in a different spacetime where there is no line source, and where the light is caused to circulate due to passing through a physical substance like a photonic crystal rather than circulating in a vacuum due to the curved spacetime around the line source. Another objection by Olum and Everett is that even if Mallett's choice of spacetime were correct, the energy required to twist spacetime sufficiently would be huge, and that with lasers of the type in use today the ring would have to be much larger than the observable universe. speed of light in a vacuum) in the equations of general relativity, saying: One has to distinguish between the speed of light in empty space, which is a constant, and through a medium, which can be less. Light travels more slowly through water than through empty space but this does not mean that you age more slowly while scuba diving or that it is easier to twist space-time underwater. The experiments done so far don't lower the speed of light in empty space; they just lower the speed of light in a medium and should not make it easier to twist space-time. Later, Mallett abandoned the idea of using slowed light to reduce the energy, writing "For a time, I considered the possibility that slowing down light might increase the gravitational frame dragging effect of the ring laser ... Mallett's original solution involved a spacetime containing a line source of infinite length, so it did not violate this theorem despite the absence of exotic matter, but Olum and Everett point out that the theorem "would, however, rule out the creation of CTC's in any finite-sized approximation to this spacetime." |