Presidential Lunacy : Clark's 'Faith' Based On Time-Travel
Here's the Link to the story at the 'Time Travel Institute'. I shall defer the honor of calling Mr. Clark an ASSHAT to others. Any takers?
Just a bit of the story:
Clark claims he has argued with physicists about the probability of time travel, but that despite opposition, he just has to "believe it," adding, "It's my only faith-based initiative," Wired reports.
Gary Melnick, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told the newssite Clark's faith in the possibility of faster-than-light, or FTL, travel was "probably based more on his imagination than on physics."
Evidence suggests FTL travel is impossible, Melnick said.
"Even if Clark becomes president, I doubt it would be within his powers to repeal the powers of physics," Melnick told Wired.
darnit, misspelled 'Presidential'....could somebody fix that? Thanks!
Just a bit of the story:
Clark claims he has argued with physicists about the probability of time travel, but that despite opposition, he just has to "believe it," adding, "It's my only faith-based initiative," Wired reports.
Gary Melnick, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told the newssite Clark's faith in the possibility of faster-than-light, or FTL, travel was "probably based more on his imagination than on physics."
Evidence suggests FTL travel is impossible, Melnick said.
"Even if Clark becomes president, I doubt it would be within his powers to repeal the powers of physics," Melnick told Wired.
darnit, misspelled 'Presidential'....could somebody fix that? Thanks!
Comments
Who cares really? The average american probably believes time travel is possible.
Originally posted by drewprops
Here's the Link to the story at the 'Time Travel Institute'. I shall defer the honor of calling Mr. Clark an ASSHAT to others. Any takers?
Really . . . so what . . the current president believes in a version of God that talks to him, guiding his presidential actions
a version that I can only describe as being tantemount to a bigger-than-life humanoid enhabiting a city with streets of Gold and who had a son simply so that he could kill the son so that he could then say . . . "see all the evil, which I also created, will no longer do you harm . . . right after it does you all that harm
Oh yeah . . . and you better love me or else I will punish you in burning rivers of molten lead for ever and ever . . "
Now which is more ridiculous really?!
Originally posted by pfflam
Really . . . so what . . the current president believes in a version of God that talks to him, guiding his presidential actions
a version that I can only describe as being tantemount to a bigger-than-life humanoid enhabiting a city with streets of Gold and who had a son simply so that he could kill the son so that he could then say . . . "see all the evil, which I also created, will no longer do you harm . . . right after it does you all that harm
Oh yeah . . . and you better love me or else I will punish you in burning rivers of molten lead for ever and ever . . "
Now which is more ridiculous really?!
time travel
Faith is weird.
Originally posted by drewprops
Here's the Link to the story at the 'Time Travel Institute'. I shall defer the honor of calling Mr. Clark an ASSHAT to others. Any takers?
If you're not too busy being full of shit, you might want to take a moment of your time to go here for some contrite comments by the author of the original Wired article, along with a four-minute audio clip of Clark's comments taken in full context. Clark said nothing unreasonable whatsoever, and his comments were very well received by the audience.
So calm down dude. Before a mod looks at the posting guidelines and notes that as a personal attack.
Please do keep the posting guidelines in mind.
Thanks
Fellows
Originally posted by SpcMs
Mayb i'm out of the loop here, but since when has travelling faster than light been ruled out as a possibility?
Wouldn't our molecular structure break apart? I think I read that somewhere.
Originally posted by SpcMs
Mayb i'm out of the loop here, but since when has travelling faster than light been ruled out as a possibility?
Since Einstein.
It's that special moment you have when you're getting to know somebody and they say that special something, whatever it is, and all of sudden they drop a few points in your respect meter (but they climb just as many points in your "hey, this person is as kooky as me and my friends" scale).
That's what General Wesley "Crusher" Clark just did.
And THAT is what I wish this thread was called now.....General Wesley "Crusher" Clark. Man I love Star Trek.
Originally posted by addabox
Since Einstein.
I'm sure you're correct, but this Science articel from 1996 says differently:
The curved space and time of Einstein's theory of general relativity permits both time travel and travel at speeds faster than that of light. In his Perspective, Parsons describes recent theoretical studies that show how, in principle, a spacecraft in a bubble of warped space-time could travel faster than light. One consequence of this result is that such a spacecraft could also travel back in time.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten...date=2/29/2004
General Wesley "Crusher" Clark has been upstaged by a British police chief who says that he'd like for his men to carry a disabling "phaser gun" of the sort used in television show "Star Trek".
I'm really not trying to make fun of these guys from the outside...I'm doing it from the inside...from the sci-fi dork side of the fence. It's just, they're coming across as sci-fi dorks by being quoted out of context. And for that they are asshats. As are the lazy journos who'd rather go for the weird soundbite, always looking to be the one who tagged somebody with a great weirdo peccadillo. So, it's an asshat party in that respect.
Beam 'em up Scotty.
Originally posted by SpcMs
I'm sure you're correct, but this Science articel from 1996 says differently:
The curved space and time of Einstein's theory of general relativity permits both time travel and travel at speeds faster than that of light. In his Perspective, Parsons describes recent theoretical studies that show how, in principle, a spacecraft in a bubble of warped space-time could travel faster than light. One consequence of this result is that such a spacecraft could also travel back in time.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten...date=2/29/2004
The very fact that traveling faster than light means traveling backward in time (at least in some frames of reference) tends to make scientists believe that traveling faster than light is impossible, simply because it's hard to imagine a coherent universe where "shoot your own grandpa" paradoxes are possible.
On the other hand, there already are known faster-than-light interactions in quantum mechanics. You can act on one particle which is "entangled" with another particle, and instantaneously* affect the other particle, even over great distances.
The irony of this faster-than-light interaction is that it can't be used to transmit information -- you can only confirm the instantaneous connection of such particles by light-speed or slower means. It works sort of like this...
Imagine two scientists, one light hour (the distance traveled by light in one hour) apart, flipping "entangled" coins. They flip the coins and record the results, getting a random stream of heads and tails, HHTTHHHTHTTH..., etc. Let's say at first the entangled coins always land the same way. They can't send a message this way... there's nothing that can be done to force one coin to land a particular way, or even bias the coin towards landing one way. The only thing you can do is adjust the correlation of the entanglement, from full correlation (H/H, T/T) through no correlation (H/?, T/?), to full anti-correlation (H/T, T/H).
Since the stream of measurements is random data at either end, however, a change in correlation between the two coins can only be determined by comparing records of coin flips after-the-fact, using some light-speed or slower communication system.
Suppose the scientists decide to flip their coins at the top of every minute for one hour (they've synchronized their clocks, and, although far apart, are at rest relative to each other). During this hour, Scientist A is going to modify his coin somehow to change it from full correlation to full anti-correlation. Their results end up like this:
Scientist A: THHTHHTHHHHHTTTH...
Scientist B: THHTHHTTTTTTHHHT...
Scientist A decided to modify his coin just after the seventh flip. At the end of the experiment, each scientist radios his partner with his results -- messages which take an hour to arrive. They both can see that the modification of A's coin had a instantaneous effect across the light hour of distance between them -- but nothing in the data stands out that would have allowed either scientist to see the instantaneous effect until later, after an old-fashioned light-speed delay.
*I've read this use of the words "instantaneous" and "instantaneously" more than once, but something troubles me. Relativity tells us that time is relative to one's frame of reference, so the idea of two things happening "at the same time" is also relative. I have not yet heard it explained, when a quantum interaction is said to be "instantaneous", in which frame of reference the interaction is instantaneous.
Originally posted by drewprops
Here's the Link to the story at the 'Time Travel Institute'. I shall defer the honor of calling Mr. Clark an ASSHAT to others. Any takers?
Just a bit of the story:
Clark claims he has argued with physicists about the probability of time travel, but that despite opposition, he just has to "believe it," adding, "It's my only faith-based initiative," Wired reports.
Gary Melnick, a senior astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told the newssite Clark's faith in the possibility of faster-than-light, or FTL, travel was "probably based more on his imagination than on physics."
Evidence suggests FTL travel is impossible, Melnick said.
"Even if Clark becomes president, I doubt it would be within his powers to repeal the powers of physics," Melnick told Wired.
darnit, misspelled 'Presidential'....could somebody fix that? Thanks!
Actually I was just reading the other day that scientists are now begining to entertain the possibility of FTL and even time travel in light of some of our more recent discoveries. Like new theories about wormholes or slowing light down ( which has always considered to be impossible but they've actually done it ) or watching particles reverse cause and effect ( coming back together, uncolliding, and going from point B to point A ). Also like in Shetline's time dilation example this theory has been measured already by fast moving aircraft and spacecraft. Since they weren't traveling at anywhere near the speed of light the effects weren't as apparent. but they did have sychronized clocks which did show a difference.
As for a time related paradox the most recent theories suggest that many different timelines exist. So if you go back and kill your grandfather when you go forward you find you never were born and yet there you are from another time line ( ala back to the future ). So no spacetime shattering paradox. Both timelines exist plus an infinite variety of other choices. We probably will not ever reach the speed of light but there may be a way around it.
As far our ability to actually do it I'm afraid the energy required and the gaps in our knowlege in this area put it's reality a long way off. Of course history has sometimes made accidental discoveries which speed things up. But if we are talking about a ship that could travel at these speeds a lot of other things need to be developed like material that could withstand the stress of this kind of travel etc. So it's probably a ways off. I'm sure there will always be a conservative scientist who will say this means nothing but progress is never made by the conservative elements is it?
By the way don't worry about spelling. There are a lot of poor typists and spellers here. Mine's always been bad and have to keep Word open to suppliment. A weakness of mine.
Originally posted by shetline
The very fact that traveling faster than light means traveling backward in time (at least in some frames of reference) tends to make scientists believe that traveling faster than light is impossible, simply because it's hard to imagine a coherent universe where "shoot your own grandpa" paradoxes are possible.
On the other hand, there already are known faster-than-light interactions in quantum mechanics. You can act on one particle which is "entangled" with another particle, and instantaneously* affect the other particle, even over great distances.
The irony of this faster-than-light interaction is that it can't be used to transmit information -- you can only confirm the instantaneous connection of such particles by light-speed or slower means. It works sort of like this...
Imagine two scientists, one light hour (the distance traveled by light in one hour) apart, flipping "entangled" coins. They flip the coins and record the results, getting a random stream of heads and tails, HHTTHHHTHTTH..., etc. Let's say at first the entangled coins always land the same way. They can't send a message this way... there's nothing that can be done to force one coin to land a particular way, or even bias the coin towards landing one way. The only thing you can do is adjust the correlation of the entanglement, from full correlation (H/H, T/T) through no correlation (H/?, T/?), to full anti-correlation (H/T, T/H).
Since the stream of measurements is random data at either end, however, a change in correlation between the two coins can only be determined by comparing records of coin flips after-the-fact, using some light-speed or slower communication system.
Suppose the scientists decide to flip their coins at the top of every minute for one hour (they've synchronized their clocks, and, although far apart, are at rest relative to each other). During this hour, Scientist A is going to modify his coin somehow to change it from full correlation to full anti-correlation. Their results end up like this:
Scientist A: THHTHHTHHHHHTTTH...
Scientist B: THHTHHTTTTTTHHHT...
Scientist A decided to modify his coin just after the seventh flip. At the end of the experiment, each scientist radios his partner with his results -- messages which take an hour to arrive. They both can see that the modification of A's coin had a instantaneous effect across the light hour of distance between them -- but nothing in the data stands out that would have allowed either scientist to see the instantaneous effect until later, after an old-fashioned light-speed delay.
*I've read this use of the words "instantaneous" and "instantaneously" more than once, but something troubles me. Relativity tells us that time is relative to one's frame of reference, so the idea of two things happening "at the same time" is also relative. I have not yet heard it explained, when a quantum interaction is said to be "instantaneous", in which frame of reference the interaction is instantaneous.
Well, if they are at rest relative to each other, they occupy they same local inertial frame and simultaneity exists. Ie. one could imagine a third person in middle of the two scientists at rest relative to them. He would recieve both scientist's signals' of the interactions simultaneously.
BTW, I believe fater than light travel is possible (not for humans). We know Einstien is wrong because of quantum mechanics, ie. we have lack a grand unified theory. An example is the GZK paradox where is it thought that Einstien-lorentz invariance breaks.