Time Travel book recommendations

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around recommendations for books and resources related to time travel, exploring both popular and technical literature. Participants share various titles, articles, and papers, while also engaging in speculative discussions about the implications and paradoxes of time travel.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested
  • Meta-discussion

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants recommend "Black holes and time warps - Einstein's outrageous legacy" and various articles by Robert Forward and John Cramer as popular-level resources on time travel.
  • Others suggest Paul Nahin's book as a non-technical reference that is accessible to laypersons, highlighting its thorough review of scientific literature on time travel.
  • A participant mentions a "billiard ball" paper addressing a version of the Grandfather paradox, which involves a billiard ball obstructing its original self from entering a wormhole.
  • There are mentions of episodes from the Science Channel discussing time travel, including themes like parallel universes and the Grandfather paradox.
  • One participant expresses skepticism about the feasibility of time travel, suggesting that modern theoretical physics books reiterate the idea that it requires more energy than available in the universe.
  • Speculative discussions arise regarding the implications of time travel, including the potential to change historical events and the associated paradoxes, such as the Grandfather paradox.
  • Some participants propose limitations on time travel based on local vacuum measurements and the implications of general relativity, while others challenge the introduction of fictitious laws of physics.
  • There are references to the Novikov self-consistency principle and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics as frameworks for understanding time travel scenarios.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of views on the feasibility and implications of time travel, with no clear consensus reached. Some support the possibility of time travel under certain conditions, while others remain skeptical or propose conflicting theories regarding its implications and limitations.

Contextual Notes

Limitations in the discussion include unresolved assumptions about the nature of time travel, the definitions of terms like "local preferred frame," and the varying interpretations of general relativity and quantum mechanics in relation to time travel.

  • #31
MM PROES said:
I accept the constraints of this forum to theoretical ideas and sticking to ‘known laws of physics’...however ...’fictitious laws of physics ’ can also be a valid reference point...as most ideas and concepts are almost always fictitious initially
What's wrong with analyzing time travel in general relativity, which is one of those "known laws of physics"?
MM PROES said:
...as for concepts and views in time travel is not philosophically or logically paradoxical.
Why? What specifically about the GR solutions involving closed timelike curves makes them any more philosophically or logically problematic than other GR solutions?
MM PROES said:
Time travel was originally thought impossible. Now with quantum mechanics and particle physics, it is theorized.
No, theorizing at time travel isn't based on quantum mechanics and particle physics, it's based on general relativity, the theory of how mass and energy curves spacetime which results in the effects we call "gravity", because particles follow geodesic paths, which are the closest equivalent to "straight lines" in curved spacetime. If you're not familiar with these ideas you could check out the series of introductory pages http://www.aei.mpg.de/einsteinOnline/en/elementary/generalRT/index.html in such spacetimes shows that there's no reason this need lead to any logical paradoxes (as was discussed earlier in the thread). If we want to discuss time travel on this forum we should probably stick to discussing ideas like these, since GR seems to be the only existing theory of physics which allows for the possibility.
 
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