What are the implications of time travel in popular culture?

[phoenixthoth]

what's your definition of time travel?

ever heard of time-dilation in special relativity? perhaps you have but that doesn't fit your definition of time travel.

to me, "proving" a feat is impossible based solely on a finite amount of past experience is risky. in other words, arguments like feat X has never happened in the t years I've been observing the universe implies that feat X will NEVER happen. i'd be much more inclined to think it may be very unlikely but not neccessarily impossible.

does "event A is impossible" mean that P(A)=0?

if P(A)=0, A is still possible. for example, consider flipping a coin infinitely many times. consider the event that all results are heads: A={heads, heads, heads, ...}={a_n} where a_n=heads for all n. P(A)=0 but it is still possible that it will always be heads. actually, any outcome has probability 0. {heads,tails,heads,tails,...} also has probability 0 but it could still happen.

i'm guess that by impossible, you mean that literally.

 

[THE[>U<]DUDE]

... mmm.

My references were strictly restricted to the macro-universe side of the time travel fence.

Time is relative - so in a sense everyone and everything is time-travelling in it's own subjectivity.

I didn't literally mean that because I (or we) had not personally witnessed a time traveller in our years of observation that that was my 'proof' discaliming time travel.

What I meant was, that if you think of time as a two-way street then someone ought to have traveled back in time to our era by now and proved it's eventual invention (or discovery) in some far future.

It's common sense, as I see it.

Surely, if time travel was a reality in the future then surely some unscrupulous individuals would steal the technology and use it for their own ill-gotten means. This is the nature of Man. Since our history so far has not recorded any such events (that we recognize as such) then it is fairly likely to say that no-one has traveled back in time to any period prior to our present - or else we'd have evidence to some degree or another.

?

 

[phoenixthoth]

this is an argument stephen hawking mentions as well.

i'm not sure how old mankind is. in other words, I'm not sure how long homo sapiens have been around. and how long we've been using language, tools, etc...

but let's say that homo sapiens has been around since year x. i would guess that (2003 - x)>15000 but I'm not sure.

let's pretend, for a moment, that time travel, back and forward, is possible and it gets invented in the year 2003+y, y years from now. the set of times for which mankind will have existed by then is
[x, 2003+y] which is the same as [x,2003]&cup;[2003,2003+y]. the age of mankind by then will be 2003 - x + y. just for the sake of making a calculation, let's say that the probability of a time traveler coming from a year in [2003+y,&infin;) to any specific year in [x, 2003+y] is equally likely. to say it will be more likely to come in [1900,2003+y], for example, is to guess what time travelers would be more interested. although by that argument, it's also a guess that any time travelers would be interested in the interval
[x,2003+y] and not something before that. so let's for the moment pretend all years in [x,2003+y] are equally likely to receive visits from a time traveller in [2003+y,&infin;). then the probability that a time traveler will visit any particular year, decade, and century are given, respectively, by
P1=1/(2003 - x + y),
P10=10/(2003 - x + y),
P100=100/(2003 - x + y).

i think it's pretty safe to assume that 2003 - x > 15000 and y > 5. this gives upper bounds on P1, P10, and P100:
P1<1/15005&asymp;0.0000666445
P10<10/15005&asymp;0.000666445
P100<100/15005&asymp;0.00666445.

for example, the probability that a time traveler visits the 21st century is less than 0.007. and this was assuming y > 5, time travel is invented only 5 years from now. it could be that y>10000 which would lower the upper bounds.

however, this is only the probability that one time travler visits a time in the interval [x, 2003+y]. there could be, of course, a googleplex of time travelers coming from the interval [2003+y,&infin;) which would raise the odds of there being at least one visitor to a random year.

the probability of there being at least one is equivalent to there being 1 or 2 or 3 or ... time travelers. then the probability of there being at least one time traveler to any given century would be approximated by some infinite series:
P100(n&ge;1)=SUM[ (100/(2003 - x + y))ⁿ : n&ge;1]. this geometric series has sum 100/(1903 - x + y) if i did all the math right. this isn't hugely bigger than 100/(2003 - x + y) since the odds of n time travelers visiting a particular century get lower when n gets larger. assuming 1903 - x > 14900 and y > 5, the probability that at least one time traveler comes in any particular century is at most 0.00670916. at most. now if y is much bigger than 5, in other words if time travel is invented more than 5 years from now, the upper bound lowers. if y>1000 then the new upper bound for the probability of at least one time traveler coming to any particular century is 0.00628931, about one-sixth as likely as getting blackjack in one game of 21.

therefore, the argument "why haven't they come yet" is not something that i put much stock in.

 

[revesz]

I guess the best answer is to just sit back and wait.

I decided to write down his predictions, if they come true then i'll start to think about it.

 

[one_raven]

Nonsense!

I haven't read this entire thread yet, so please forgive me if I am saying something that has been said already.

There is one simple reason to not believe that this is true.
He claims that the multiple worlds theory is true.

If the mulitple worlds theory is true, wouldn't time travel (especially with the intention of "warning" us about the future to come) be completely pointless?

If the multiple worlds theory is true, then there are in infinite number of worldlines existing simultaneously, and an infinite number constantly being created.
If he traveled back in time, what would bring him to this particular worldline?
Why?

If every possible outcome WILL happen what is so special and significant about THIS worldline?

If he is a soldier, the military would only send him back if he had a specific purpose (such as to prevent this nuclear war), but.

Regardless of whether or not he stops this event in X worldline it will still happen in another. What is the point of creating a new worldline in which it doesn't?

Whatever he does, whoever he convinces, there will be no effect to his traveling back in time, so there would be no point.

In the many worlds scenario, you can't go back and change the past, you can just go back and create new worldlines.
It is similar to going to the beach and dropping a pinch of salt in the ocean.

The event would still happen.
He would just create a new worldline in which it doesn't.

 

[bloodnok]

Multiple worlds - what are the chances

one_raven: I don't agree with the "what are the chances" argument, because it's like denying the possibility of winning the lottery based on probability when you're standing there with the cheque for $1m :)

I stumbled on the whole John Titor thing a couple of weeks ago and it was a very interesting read. I tend to think (and Occam may agree), that it's most likely to be a physics grad with lots of spare time having a bit of fun with the Art Bell crowd... however if you treat him as a social observer/commentator then he raises some very valid points. Our society so needs what he described.

I'm only an armchair physicist, so I can't really comment on the whole time-travel mechanism he mentions. All I can say is that he doesn't stoop to "movie-like" time travel - brilliant spinning vortices of light, star-trek warp drives, Delorians and flux-capacitors - which indicates that (assuming he's a crank) he's put a bit of thought into his story.

 

[wasteofo2]

Originally posted by one_raven
I haven't read this entire thread yet, so please forgive me if I am saying something that has been said already.

There is one simple reason to not believe that this is true.
He claims that the multiple worlds theory is true.

If the mulitple worlds theory is true, wouldn't time travel (especially with the intention of "warning" us about the future to come) be completely pointless?

If the multiple worlds theory is true, then there are in infinite number of worldlines existing simultaneously, and an infinite number constantly being created.
If he traveled back in time, what would bring him to this particular worldline?
Why?

If every possible outcome WILL happen what is so special and significant about THIS worldline?

If he is a soldier, the military would only send him back if he had a specific purpose (such as to prevent this nuclear war), but.

Regardless of whether or not he stops this event in X worldline it will still happen in another. What is the point of creating a new worldline in which it doesn't?

Whatever he does, whoever he convinces, there will be no effect to his traveling back in time, so there would be no point.

In the many worlds scenario, you can't go back and change the past, you can just go back and create new worldlines.
It is similar to going to the beach and dropping a pinch of salt in the ocean.

The event would still happen.
He would just create a new worldline in which it doesn't.

Titors stated reason for "travelling back in time" was that he needed some computer thing, not to stop the war or whatever he claimed would happen by his time.

 

[JazzyJAC]

This has to be false, use common sense. Our current generation, "The Hip Generation", won't talk like this idiot did. His post would be more, like fo shizzle, ya'll be some wacked fools to believe all dis hype, you know wat I'm sayin:). Note the shortening of words and the continuing trend for language to change, his language was much too 2000ish!

 

[THE[>U<]DUDE]

Interesting.

There is also the amazingly obvious point of why on Earth any time traveller would expose himself so publicly.

Any half moron would try to avoid being discovered - not go out of his way to broadcast his existence!

I'm afraid old John was yet another false prophet - fitting for his timely arrival at the turn of the Millennium.

 

[9 monkeez]

John Titor is a mind control technique used by the original Illuminatti to start a civil war.
Be aware.

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Originally posted by 9 monkeez
John Titor is a mind control technique used by the original Illuminatti to start a civil war.
Be aware.

yep, that's what I mean by debunking

 

[9 monkeez]

Debunk?
Time travel is not world line jumping.
Hmm...k, bye.

 

[member 5645]

haha, man, this guy is a utopian nut who is trying to scare people into changing their ways...

I loved the last line of this...
(33) We live in a world recovering from years of war, poison, destruction and hate. All of it, courtesy of the thinking and actions of people that live right now in the same world you do, worrying about which stocks to buy or whether or not a stranger is lying to them on the Internet.


Now someone, explain to me why this is his answer...
Are some areas of the United States safer than others?
(42) Take a close look at the county-by-county voting map from the last elections.

 

[member 5645]

What type of money do you use in 2036?

Its not very different than it is now. Yes, we have money and credit cards.
However, like everything else, the monetary system is decentralized. Banking
is based mostly around the community structure. There are no multinational
banking or computerized economic systems. There are also no income taxes.


Is there an IRS?


Yes, we pay taxes. Sounds like you don't enjoy keeping track of your
personal income taxes. I don't think anyone does.


There we go :)

 

[9 monkeez]

Even the earliest American settlers payed property taxes...
What a thrill that would have been to be able to steak a claim.
Cheers!

 

[Evo]

Nothing he says makes any sense and he appears to be contradicting himself. For example, here he is explaining his "mission".

On my worldline, it is known that the 5100 series is capable of reading all the IBM code written before the widespread use of APL and Basic. Unfortunately, there are none left that anyone can find on my world line.

Ok, NO 5100's exist in 2036.

You said you are confused by the 5100 story. I will explain further. In 2036, it was discovered (or at least known after testing) that the 5100 computer was capable of reading and changing all of the legacy code written by IBM before the release of that system and still be able to create new code in APL and basic

but they were able to do testing with them

That is the reason we need it in 2036. However, IBM never published that information because it would have probably destroyed a large part of their business infrastructure in the early 70s. In fact, I would bet the engineers were probably told to keep their mouth's shut.

even though no one knew about it.

But wait! In the first paragraph he said "on my worldline, it is KNOWN that the 5100 series is capable of reading all the IBM code...

Am I missing something here?

 

[9 monkeez]

Ah...quotes:

"Yes, I think the New World Order idea tried to establish itself. I would consider them the combination of the old U.S. federal system, Europe, Canada and Australia."

Good observation.
Yeah, John Titor said a lot of kookie stuff.
I would be more interested in where he eventually got the computer from, and who tested it for use prior to it being "tweaked" by his Grandfather.
Did we send any of these computers overseas?




"A boss dj aint nothin but a man."
bradley- SUBLIME

 

[Evo]

Another problem I have with his story is that he had to go back to 1975 and have his grandfather "specially tweak" the 5100 in order for the people in 2036 to fix a Unix problem.

The first "leg" of my trip was from 2036 to 1975. After two VGL checks, the divergence was estimated at about 2.5% (from my 2036). I was "sent" to get an IBM computer system called the 5100. It was one the first portable computers made and it has the ability to read the older IBM programming languages in addition to APL and Basic. We need they system to "debug" various legacy computer programs in 2036. UNIX has a problem in 2038.
As you are probably aware, UNIX will have a timeout error in 2038 and many of the mainframe systems that ran a large part of the infrastructure were based on very old IBM computer code. The 5100 has the ability to easily translate between the old IBM code, APL, BASIC and (with a few tweaks in 1975) UNIX. I do believe that "your" UNIX will also have a problem in 2038. I don't think that's a secret but maybe someone should put a 5100 aside for thirty years or so.

It is a common misconception that UNIX is IBM.

Ok, my memory could be failing me here, but since I worked for that company whose labs invented Unix back in 1969 (it was NOT IBM). I am wondering how his grandfather would have had access to UNIX source code back then.

But maybe I am misunderstanding?

 

[The_Professional]

They could've also tried tracing his IP address, on the forums he visited. Research and a bit of Social engineering may have gotten some quality proof of his identity.

 

[Evo]

Originally posted by The_Professional
They could've also tried tracing his IP address, on the forums he visited. Research and a bit of social engineering may have gotten some quality proof of his identity.

Yes, I doubt he was spoofing his address, a very good point.

 

[crystalbreeze32]

Michael Pennington another John Titor?

I wonder if this fascinating story has influenced a certain Michael Pennington who makes some very far fetched claims about his life after his death and he uses the internet in the same way. He got a big following on the forum he was posting and its one of the largest threads I have ever seen but things got ****ty with people arguing and it died out. I typed in 'michael pennington ghost forum' in Google and there is loads of stuff about him on a lot of forums.

The orginal one is at www.birminghamuk.com/forum but there's many others. The story seems to follow the same pattern as John Titors and he answered questions and used a computer to communicate with people and other spirits.

There even appears to be his own page but its far from finished as we read much more of the story on the forums.

http://www.geocities.com/michaelpennington1971/

 

[chief]

I don't have time to read this whole thread right now. I skimmed through it and didn't see anything about this, but if it is a repost, I apologize.

I stumbled across this while researching the Titor story. It is a fantasy role playing game (written before Titor's posts) with a remarkably similar story line to Titor's predictions. I found it interesting. I think this confirms that this was all a hoax. An elaborate and well thought out hoax, but still a hoax. Thoughts?

http://www.spearweasel.com/rpg/twheel/darkfutr.htm

 

[PFanalog57]

The classical theories can't be quite right with regards to absolute determinism, as evidenced by the presence of Heisenberg uncertainty. Matter-energy in the universe, is subject to fluctuations, and a particle's position/momentum cannot be predicted precisely. Hence, quantum theory enters the picture in order to "quantify" the uncertainty. There is yet to be a full quantum theory of gravity, but string theory appears to be making progress towards that goal.

According to Stephen Hawking, all of the events on a worldline have a timelike connection to each other. A worldline is defined as a continuous stream of events occurring to a physical object. Basically, the worldine of an object is a timelike curve/path in space-time.

Wormholes: Theoretically speaking, by going through a wormhole, an object can return to an event a second time. A wormhole is a nontrivial connection through curved space-time. A shortcut that allows interstellar travel, and even "time" travel.

All sorts of time paradoxes can be envisioned via time travel scenarios. Now if reverse time travel becomes possible in our future, why aren't we flooded with tourists and historians FROM the future?

Back to the topic, if everything is information, processed by a gigantic multiverse computer simulation, then by traveling backwards in time, just the presence of our atoms starts a chain of cause and effect that drastically alters the future events, creating a new timeline.

This "John Titor" tale/delusion is a strange one. He mentioned something about "microsingularities"? ...The term "microsingularity" appears to be pure Star Trek jargon.

Stephen Hawking did write about miniature black holes though!

And here is a link explaining how miniature black holes could be created in a particle accelerator:

Scientists Expect To "See" Miniature Black Holes


http://www.spacedaily.com/news/blackhole-01b.html

"If certain theories of nature are correct, then black holes would be produced in high-energy collisions of particles in particle accelerators," said Giddings. These theories go by the generic name of "TeV-scale gravity."

 

[IooqXpooI]

Titor was a fake...I'll find my reasons sometime soon, but you can look at timetravelforum.tk for me...;)

 

[oog]

This "John Titor" tale/delusion is a strange one. He mentioned something about "microsingularities"? ...The term "microsingularity" appears to be pure Star Trek jargon.

Star trek, since it's inception has always been based on science fact, not fiction. By fact obviously I mean theory.

There is theory in place for everything ever discussed on star trek, and presumably mentioned by Titor. It has been shown time and time again by various methods and theories that time travel is possible, albeit unpractical at present.. To say with absolute certainty that he is fraud is, IMO a bad choice.

I am not suggesting that it could be said with any certainty that he is NOT a fraud, but to absolutely rule out either would be wrong. In the computer field researchers discover/learn as much each year as the previous ten. Taking this factoid and applying it to quantum mechanics and time travel theory would then show that clearly at present we simply do not have enough information to make a definate choice whether Titor is legit or not.

It is human nature to disbelieve, however, just look at the histories of all great theorists: Galileo, Newton, Einstein, Tesla, etc.. at one point they were all thought to be crazy/delusional. ;)

Also, not being able to find information on "microsingularities" is not surprising, since he clearly stated that they would be discovered during 'high energy experiments' at CERN.. likely referring to their new particle accellerator, which isn't slated to be operational until 2007.

 

[oog]

Incidentally...

I know there were at one point a number of people wondering what this mystical problem with unix is. This Page explains what the problem is and a sufficient patch..

Essentially it's similar to the Y2K bug, since the unix time-code will expire Jan 19th 2038... the only thing that seems strange about this aspect of the story is then:

Why, since there would be at least a little over a year left, are they unable to correct the problem without the use of the IBM 5100? That obviously raises other questions...

 

[Math Is Hard]

Star trek, since it's inception has always been based on science fact, not fiction. By fact obviously I mean theory.

You're absolutely correct on that. From what I have heard, Roddenberry consulted extensively with physicists. He was no slacker on his research, even though occasionally the laws of science were bent to fit a good plot.


Here's some enjoyable reading on that for anyone who is interested:
http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/education/just_for_fun/startrek.html

I have to say I enjoyed the John Titor tales, but I am the gullible sort

 

[russ_watters]

Star trek, since it's inception has always been based on science fact, not fiction. By fact obviously I mean theory.

There is theory in place for everything ever discussed on star trek, and presumably mentioned by Titor. It has been shown time and time again by various methods and theories that time travel is possible, albeit unpractical at present.. To say with absolute certainty that he is fraud is, IMO a bad choice.

Not quite. I'm a proud owner of the Star Trek TNG Technical Manual and though it makes fascinating reading, it is not based on real science. As a matter of fact, it even includes a disclaimer in the preface meant for the writers: don't see this manual as a limit to your creativity.

It also discusses the concept of "technobabble." When the writers don't know what technobabble to insert into a specific situation, they just write the word "tech" and someone fills in the babble later. Yes, it really is true: the vast majority of what they say is utterly meaningless.

As for time travel itself - no, it isn't even theoretically possible. It is specifically prohibited by the laws of physics.

 

[Evo]

Incidentally...

I know there were at one point a number of people wondering what this mystical problem with unix is. This Page explains what the problem is and a sufficient patch..

Essentially it's similar to the Y2K bug, since the unix time-code will expire Jan 19th 2038... the only thing that seems strange about this aspect of the story is then:

Why, since there would be at least a little over a year left, are they unable to correct the problem without the use of the IBM 5100? That obviously raises other questions...

It's not actually a bug but a limitation that was always known would have to be dealt with and is not really a large concern.

"This is only limited to UNIX systems that use a 32-bit signed
time_t . As such its not applicable to all UNIX systems, and
not limited only to UNIX systems.
Other systems using a 32-bit signed time_t have similar problems,
the exact problem date being determined when their time epoch
starts."

http://www.opengroup.org/platform/ballots/p2000.1-recirc

"the 2038 problem does NOT need massive changes to APIs;
in fact, it can be dealt with without ANY changes to APIs, though with
a few minor changes to implementations, and many changes to programs
that don't use the APIs. Just specify time_t to be at least 40 bits;
it is an opaque integer type, so all conforming programs will
continue to work, won't they? :-)"

http://www.opengroup.org/platform/single_unix_specification/show_mail.tpl?source=L&listname=austin-group-l&id=2158

Most systems using 32 bit have already been replaced with 64 bit.

Titor's story is plagued with nonsense and inconsistencies. It only takes a tiny bit of commonsense to see it for what it is, a story.

Russ, great post. I'm a Star Trek Next Generation Fan, and also was a fan of the original show (yes, I watched it when it was originally on). What I wouldn't give for a replicator! or a holodeck! A friend of mine likes to point out all of the serious flaws with the "physics", he ruined it for me.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

As for time travel itself - no, it isn't even theoretically possible. It is specifically prohibited by the laws of physics.

I agree with everything else that you said but the latest that I have read says that there may be ways to get around this limitation. You might check in with Kaku for starters. My understanding is that we don't know if time travel will ever be possible; at least in principle. We used to think not but now we're not sure. If it is possible it may never be practical due to the energy requirements.

Did you mean this as an opinion?