An interesting take on (the lack of) time travel ;)

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the concept of time travel, particularly focusing on a paper that describes Internet searches conducted to find evidence of time travelers. The scope includes theoretical implications of time travel and the practical challenges associated with verifying such claims.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant references a paper that outlines three methods of searching for time travelers through Internet activity, noting that no time travelers were discovered.
  • Another participant humorously suggests that time travelers could have read the paper and learned how to avoid detection.
  • Further humor is added with the idea that time travelers could have read the paper before it was written, thus already covering their tracks.
  • A participant questions the practical differences between a time traveler from the future and one from the past, arguing that both scenarios would be unverifiable.
  • There is a light-hearted acknowledgment of the effort put into the research paper, suggesting a mix of seriousness and humor in the discussion.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a mix of humor and skepticism regarding the feasibility of detecting time travelers, with no clear consensus on the implications of the paper or the nature of time travel itself.

Contextual Notes

The discussion highlights practical verifiability concerns and the assumptions underlying the methods proposed in the paper, which remain unresolved.

Borek
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http://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.7128v1.pdf

Time travel has captured the public imagination for much of the past century, but little has been done to actually search for time travelers. Here, three implementations of Internet searches for time travelers are described, all seeking a prescient mention of information not previously available. The first search covered prescient content placed on the Internet, highlighted by a comprehensive search for specific terms in tweets on Twitter. The second search examined prescient inquiries submitted to a search engine, highlighted by a comprehensive search for specific search terms submitted to a popular astronomy web site. The third search involved a request for a direct Internet communication, either by email or tweet, pre-dating to the time of the inquiry. Given practical verifiability concerns, only time travelers from the future were investigated. No time travelers were discovered. Although these negative results do not disprove time travel, given the great reach of the Internet, this search is perhaps the most comprehensive to date
 
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:smile:

But now, time travelers have read that paper, so they know how to cover their tracks! D'OH!
 
Worse - they read the paper before it was written and already have covered their tracks!
 
Vanadium 50 said:
Worse - they read the paper before it was written and already have covered their tracks!

Double D'OH!
 
Retract it!

Haha it actually looks like someone invested quite a bit of time in that paper.
 
Given practical verifiability concerns, only time travelers from the future were investigated.
So what's the diff biff?
Time traveller from the future returns to the past to invest in the stock market on emerging high tech since he already knows which ones will make him rich.
Time traveller from the past comes to the future to see which stocks will make him rich, and returns to the past to do so.
Neither would be verifiable.
 

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