Re: Cost will stop time travel

On 27 Sep, 21:29, "Jim Relsh" <jrel...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Sylvia Else" <syl...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> schreef in berichtnews:46fb32a8$0$18984$afc38c87@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22491524-5001028,...

"SCIENCE isn't the biggest barrier to time travel, it would just be way to
[sic] expensive to build the time machine, an Australian physicist says."

Bummer. The public never understand economic problems.

I'd be surprised if time travel in any shape or form (including sending
information to the past/future) would be possible. I've once heard some
idiotic theory that it would only be possible to travel to a point in time
after a time machine was invented. If you think about it that's totally
stupid since it merely depends on your frame of reference. Aliens may have
invented time travel before us still allowing the 'Grandfather paradox' to
take place.

I've argued many times that we won't be able to know for sure if time travel
(or FTL travel) will be possible until we have a complete understanding of
the laws of physics, which we don't at the moment.

If you travel bodily backwards in time (or FTL) there are innumerable
paradoxes which make it impossible. If you postulate information, that
is theoretically possible (just). What you have is a self consistency
criterion. Your FTL partlicles (or tachyons) traverse time in a self
consistent way.

A tachyon has got a very special Feynmann diagram which demands
consistency. If it cannot interact with ordinary matter, as a number
of people have postulated, that is one question solved.

If a tachyon which interacts with matter does exist it would
revolutionize our understanding of Physics. The tachyons would be in a
ground state and not really noticable. The Feynmann diagram of the
ground state could also help set the masses of the other particles.
Clearly a pretty mind blowing proposition.

I don't know whether they exist or not. If they do it would involve a
major shift in the paradymes of Physics. Are we prepared for this?


- Ian Parker

.

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