(fwd) Where Do We Go From Here?

And I've read that ordinary protons decay, but all this only matters to philosophers, like some theoretical physicists.

Alan

You do have a misunderstanding. Mass is not compressed, the entire reference frame is. Objects IN the reference frame appear shorter because the paralell radial coordinate units of the moving frame are scaled by the Lorentz Contraction factor. It's a coordinate system translation, not a physical compression of mass. No object or mass is required to compute a Lorentz Contraction, only a relative velocity between the origins of two inertial coordinate systems. A good example is two pieces of graph paper; one with 1/4" squares and the other with

The Earth (reference frame) is moving relative to the spaceship. The location of the event/object in the other frame is irrelevant; it can be anywhere, ie, the corrections are continuous across the entire space of the observed frame. Foreshortening (Lorentz Contraction) IS "distance" when applied to a point and an origin and "length" when applied to both ends (points) of a measurable object. A moving mass is irrelevant and unnecessary; just pick any two coordinates along the axis of motion and you can compute the foreshortening exhibited between reference frames. Consider an interstellar railroad track between Earth and the halfway point. The track is the observed object. What would it look like to an observer moving at relativistic velocity on a path next to the track, or equally, to a stationary observer who sees the track coming at him at relativistic velocity?

Try:

Don't EVEN think about our view of a photon. :)

Proton decay is actually important. Some of the early string theories predicted proton decay half-lives that were measurable with current technologies.

That such decays weren't found required modification on some popular theories.

What's the big whoop? I can't really say, although I'd point out that in 1905, very few people (if anyone!) thought E=mc^2 would affect the average person.

Zooty

Why should it vanish? If it is stationary, its just traveling in time, not space. Let's assume time is a 4th dimension, orthogonal to all three space dimensions (Visualize that!).

My computer remains in front of me from moment to moment while traveling forward in time; a stationary object seems to "exist" along the time axis permanently. If it exists into the future, why not the past? It was there just a moment ago, after all.

Movement along the 4th axis does not imply any movent in space or any tendency to vanish. It implies only a change in the time characteristics of the object. We might just assume that the change in characteristics of a backwards time traveling particle is the phenomenon we call antimatter. Feynman space-time diagrams of particle-antiparticle interactions exhibit time symmetry and Feynman suggested (in 1949) that antiparticles are simply particles traveling backwards in time.

And, like most science fiction stories like to tell us, particles and anti-particles annihilate each other. Maybe I was wrong about my future self destroying me if it came back and touched me. ;) (Actually, if I did come back and stopped time traveling, I wouldn't be antimatter anymore. Just make sure you're good and stopped before you leave the phone booth.)

Now, on to relativistic antimatter time travel, or, "How to get back in half the time it took to get there."

Because its perception frame has been minimalized by agressive variables.

Like a train going over the horizon at Mach 5.

what would it LOOK like and what would it actually be.

Point is the distance between your start and end point is not changes. only measures WITHIN you moving frame of reference change.

IE the shuttle appears smaller. not the earth. Now the earth may appear smaller to the shuttle but it comes down to perception.

IE point is if a third observer were to look at a clock on earth and a clock on a near C vessel he would see TWO DIFFERENT progressions of time. the only on the near C vessel being slower.

if I were to str>

you say all that you say below as if you are correcting me somehow.

you are not.

you have only shown that you DO NOT define moving "backwards in time" as moving from 2003-2002-2001 in this case you are correct. their is no reason to assume the object would vanish.

BUT if you believe time travel is going from 2004-2003-2002 etc.. then the object must vanish for that definition to be correct.

The same for an object moving forward in time. if you define it as going from 2003-2004-2005 faster than we are now then it should again vanish.

Call it in and out of phase. unless it is moving withing my timeline at the same speed as I am I can not see it. its out of phase. I do not think time works like this. from what you wrote neither do you. so we are on the same page regarding that at least.

if that is the case then it should be clear to you that FTL can not create any casuality issues.

No. Measures WITHIN your reference frame (on the shuttle, say) are the same whether you are stationary or moving. The start and end points are in a different frame from the moving shuttle and they will measure differently.

No. The Earth will appear foreshortened from the shuttle as it approaches for the exact same reason the shuttle looks shorter from the Earth.

IF the observer were in a frame where the relative speed of the Earth were slower than that of the shuttle, he would see that, or he could see equal time progressions, or he could see the Earth clocks running slower if he were in a frame moving close to the velocity of the shuttle.

Exactly.

Well, it's been a nice diversion from politics and regulations, but I have homework to do and a couple of rockets to complete (I DQ'd twice in my first contest attempt).

Go after the physics degree. Most colleges offer an Arts as well as a Science degree in Physics. The Arts programs aren't as math intensive as the Science programs, if the math is your greatest concern. And grab a book on Special Relativity; most of the math is just algebra.

Absolutely not. I tend to state, rather than discuss. Its simply my writing style, that's all.

I'm not sure why you say things should vanish. What would cause that? Where would they go?

Well, I assume your timeline includes mine and the rest of reality. But we see relativistic effects like long particle lives in accelerators. The unstable particles remain in view to be measured even though they are traveling at .99c and are moving through time slower than we. They live longer than stationary particles, but they don't vanish.

I have no way of evaluating that assertion. Nothing about FTL is clear to me at all, let alone the implications of causality in a FTL possible reality. I assume you mean that FTL speeds do not imply time travel so that causality issues based upon that are simply moot.

I think the idea he's trying to get across is that - while we move forward in time, and *if* antimatter moves backwards through time, then it would start it's backwards motion immediately after it's created, thus disappearing from your forward-in-time vision.

The only problem with that is - if it moves backwards through time, why wasn't it seen in the place it was created... BEFORE it was created? :-)

Why do people wish to launch themselves into space ? What will you find up their Chris ?

Now on to this mountain I need to find the reason to climb.

art

Maybe it IS there in the past, now. ;)

The pun is half-serious. I don't understand all this stuff, I just like thinking about it.

Questions like this involve perception, cognition, and being human. Think about eyesight. At any given time, we can see only what is in "front" of us. Our vision, spatial perception, is spatially limited; we can't perceive a spherical view of all that is around us. Nor do we feel that to be a great hinderance, our minds are similarly constructed to deal with the sensory input we do get. If we could not move, we could not know what it looks like behind us. (No mirrors allowed :) )

WHAT IF time perception is the result of a similarly limited sensory construction, and we can't, in fact, "move" our time sense? All we can perceive is that which is (directly) in "front" of us timewise; the unfolding future (akin to the Time Arrow concept). Memory gives us a relative time order of perceptions, but we are not "aware" of the past, just as we are not "aware" of past visual perceptions. I think many of the scientific "paradoxes" we experience are simply Nature's way of telling us we have limited abilities and understanding.

Math and science give us a bunch of counter-intuitive results about reality along with an amazing ability to predict reality and modify it to our desired ends. SR is pretty strange to us, but always works. QM is, literally, mystical. But it also works for us, if we choose our solutions carefully. Its possible the strange results are fact and we just can't put them in context because of our limited intelligence.

Talking about time travel requires a paradigm shift of massive proportions; we may not be mentally equipped to deal with it, IMHO, hence the huge number of (apparent) paradoxes. Its like trying to visualize a 4-D space or describe a new color.

Time travel implies traversing an existing worldline into +t or -t on a lightcone; forward time travel implies traversing an existing path at a faster rate in the +t direction, backwards travel in the -t direction. IF that's true, then we don't normally move into the future (+t) on a growing worldline, we just uncover, or reveal, an already existing one; either an inflexible, deterministic future we cannot avoid, or one we "quantum choose" out of an infinite number of all possible futures (the multiverse option of QM interpretation) which we are "allowed" to be in. Same thing going backwards; we either follow an existing worldline in the opposite direction, or veer off into one of the infinite preceeding pasts which allows us to be there. Several paradoxes are avoided by time traveling into past realities that are not our original worldline. Universe hopping, if you will.

That's why we didn't see the particle before it was created. It went "somewhere else" in minus time to avoid quantum conflicts. ;)

Okay, I am so far over the edge I can't go on. I'm actually getting a headache trying to verbalize this stuff. I give.

Think I'll go finish installing the motor mount in my new "E" motor bird. It needs a name, too. "NewtonEan", maybe, because it won't need any relativistic ejection delay time corrections.

Errr that is where you confusion is.

it is NOT moving through time slower than we are (that would be going from

Time for "it" it simply progressing slower.

they really are not the same thing.

as for why would things vanish.

Lets look at it this way. I lock your head into fixed position as well as your eyes. so you can only look in ONE spot.

If I place something within that spot you can see if.

If I move it outside of that spot you can not see it. it "vanishes" or "moves" outside of your ability to percieve.

Same thing with Time Travel (as in moving along years)

Chris Taylor

All I meant was that the Universe doesn't have to work the way we think it should based upon our human perceptive abilities.

Perception is a human awareness of sensory input; even in relativity, all humans will perceive their time to pass at the same rate. No matter how fast YOU are going, YOUR wristwatch will keep good time and YOU will age according to YOUR wristwatch time.

SR is so confusing because the reference point is not a "place", is not a location. It is the measured value of c.

Think about a rocket ship speeding through the galaxy. How fast is it going? Is there a speedometer on the spacecraft? What does it measure? And where is your rocket? Usually, you use fixed reference points in space to determine your speed and position.

All of a sudden, the evil Zorkon Empire from another dimension steals the galaxy away, except for your rocket, and the "sky" is black everywhere. How fast are you going now? Where are you now?

Unsatisfied with the contents of our galaxy, the Zorkons give it back, centered upon your rocket and you are now stationary in the galaxy's (CG) reference frame.

Your "previous" position and velocity are meaningless now; you are at rest in the galaxy and all your dealings with it will start over with your velocity = 0. Nothing you can measure or test will indicate that you were ever "moving" in the previous galaxy.

(Don't flame me; substitute Universe for galaxy, if you wish, and assume an infinite extent of space-time.)

The essence of relativity is this lack of absolute reference points and the constancy of the measured value of c. Only relative distances and velocities have meaning.

So the path to light speed travel rests in an "Irvine Z Prize" for the person with the greatest relativistic age.

Jerry

Hmmm not sure if I agree with this sentiment.

you say their is no reference point. Maybe their is. how about the Speed of Light itself.

if it is fixed then it can also be a reference point. we do not have the ability to measure this kind of thing (I do not think we do) but if we did then IT could be the reference point.

Lets say the entire universe and you are moving ... LEFT. lets just pick a direction. but you say we can not and will not KNOW this.

well what if I traveled in all directions (this way to day that way tommorrow etc..)

when I eventually went into the same direction the universe was moving it would take more energy to go faster (since I would already be closer to C and we can not reach C etc..)

if we could measure this then we could determine WHICH direction the universe was moving and how fast WITHOUT a fixed spatial reference point. C itself would become the reference point ???

Ideas ?

Chris Taylor

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 13:54:58 GMT, snipped-for-privacy@NOSPAM.rogers.com (Len Lekx) is alleged to have written:

Maybe he didn't create it. Maybe he showed up at the right time and place to destroy it. It was created in the future, as a result of the anihilation of some matter in an explosion....

- Rick "Topsy Turvy" Dickinson

Well, that's what I was trying to say; c IS the reference point.

The Universe and us moving together? We have another misunderstanding here. ;)

The Universe can't be "moving".

To be moving, the Universe would have to be within a larger space. But, the Universe IS all known space. There is nothing to compare it's motion against.

I'm almost certain this common misconception comes from the typical Big Bang explanation; a super-dense plug of matter explodes, throwing galaxies and stars out into the cosmos. As if there were a cosmos, or somewhere for the matter to expand into, before the Big Bang.

The Big Bang was not simply an explosion of matter, it was an expansion of space-time itself, of our reality. There is, literally, nothing to describe beyond the "edge" of our Universe. "Nothing" to most people is a vacuum in deep space. "Nothing" in this case is no matter, energy, time, nor space itself. We exist within a space-time "bubble" filled with some energy and matter that we call the Universe. The Big Bang, if you believe the theory, created everything, even the 3-D "space" for the matter and energy to occupy.

I guess I disagree with that.

If nothing else it's CG ismoving.

Jerry