Blitzen
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This is probably nonsense
Ok, first we need a suspension of disbelief. You need to believe that I have a time machine. I've researched it, and there is nothing in the theory of relativity that says time travel won't work.
Ok. Now, a side story. I'm playing pool. The white ball is surrounded by yellows, no clear route to a red ball. I'm red. I hit the cue ball against the cushion. The angle is perfect. The cue ball hits the red, into the pocket. Now remember, the angle was perfect.
One last point. There is nothing "beyond" the universe. allow the universe is expanding, it isn't expanding into anything else.
Ok, so using my time machine I throw something back in time, back to a point just after te big bang when the universe was, I don't know, the size of a football pitch or something. It was tiny.
If I judge the angle right, when the time machine ricochets back into the present, I can send it wherever I desire, much as I did with the white ball.
Instantaneous travel, anywhere in the universe. Take that, FTL warp drives.
Last point, there is nothing I can think of in any physics I know which makes this impossible (unlike ftl travel). What do you guys think?
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2/27/2008, 4:08 pm
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Reythia
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Re: This is probably nonsense
quote:
Ok, so using my time machine I throw something back in time, back to a point just after te big bang when the universe was, I don't know, the size of a football pitch or something. It was tiny.
If I judge the angle right, when the time machine ricochets back into the present, I can send it wherever I desire, much as I did with the white ball.
First off, I admit, my first thought was: would something from today's universe even be able to survive in a "hot" and "tiny" universe like you're describing. I'm not sure -- but I'm sure I wouldn't want to send myself to find out! After all, the density would have been enormous, and the temperature as well. Wouldn't that just crush (or melt) anything you sent back?
But let's ignore that for now. I'm sort of confused about what you mean when you say "if I judge the angle right". What angle? The angle between what and what? And in which universe (ours or the old, hot one) are you taking this angle in? Or is it some sort of angle between the two universes? Or are you just using the word "angle" to mean "computation of any sort" and I'm looking too deeply into it?
The way I would probably set this sort of travel up (in a very hand-wavey fashion) is to say that each point in the modern universe maps onto a single point in the hot universe, and vice versa. Then to go from A to B in our universe, this is what you would do. First, you send yourself back in time from point A (modern universe) to point A' (same relative location, but in the hot universe). Once there, you can move quickly from point A' to B', since they are only a tiny distance apart. (My original comment about the hotness and denseness of the old universe comes into play here!) Then you send yourself forward in time, thus going from B' to B. Huzzah! A to B in a brief amount of (experienced) time!
Blitzen, to be blunt, I don't see this as physically probable. HOWEVER, as long as you gave a hand-wavey explanation (as above, or better) and were consistant about your use of the technique, I would be perfectly fine with reading it in a scifi book! After all, if I'm already reading a book about a time machine, I can deal with a little fuzzy physics -- especially since, really, we don't have that good an idea of what was going on back then in the first place! So go for it! It actually sounds like a quite interesting concept to me!
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2/27/2008, 7:19 pm
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Blitzen
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Re: This is probably nonsense
Cool, great.
The idea is like the pool example. If you send it back in time and forward in time without it actually stopping, it wouldn't really matter how hot or dense the universe was, and (like in pool) if you sent it back correctly it could come forward somewhere else.
But as long as I can knock out the kinks in my explanation, it can work. Excellent.
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2/27/2008, 7:31 pm
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David Meadows
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Re: This is probably nonsense
Like this:
As the present day universe is so much bigger, every point in the young universe actually maps to a set of points in the present day universe, because there are a lot more points in our current universe. So point A and point B today can both map to a single point, C in the young universe. (There is a mathematical theory about subdividing a finite number line that may actually make the whole thing impossible, but it's very complex mathematics and I only dimly grasp it, so let's pretend it doesn't make it impossible.)
If you started at C and remained at the same point for 15 billion years, you might end up in either point A or point B, as C has "expanded into" both of those points (and every point in between).
If you can choose which of the world lines you will follow, CA or CB, you can choose whether you end up in A or B.
Travel from A to B via C logically follows from this.
It is the angle ABC you would need to control in order to choose your end point.
Last edited by David Meadows, 2/27/2008, 11:01 pm
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2/27/2008, 10:47 pm
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Blitzen
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Re: This is probably nonsense
That's exactly what I'm getting at. Thanks, David. Is that diagram yours, or has someone else had my idea before me.
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2/27/2008, 10:58 pm
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David Meadows
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Re: This is probably nonsense
I just knocked it up in Visio. That's why it looks so bad!
I have never heard the idea before, but it was easy to grasp from your explanation (which is usually the mark of a good idea).
Last edited by David Meadows, 2/27/2008, 11:05 pm
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2/27/2008, 11:02 pm
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Reythia
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Re: This is probably nonsense
quote:
David Meadows wrote:
As the present day universe is so much bigger, every point in the young universe actually maps to a set of points in the present day universe, because there are a lot more points in our current universe. So point A and point B today can both map to a single point, C in the young universe. (There is a mathematical theory about subdividing a finite number line that may actually make the whole thing impossible, but it's very complex mathematics and I only dimly grasp it, so let's pretend it doesn't make it impossible.)
Ah, I see now. Thanks for the image, Meadows.
But, hang on. If in fact "every point in the young universe actually maps to a set of points in the present day universe" then how will you know what point you're going to come out at? I mean, if point C in the old universe can go to points A, B, and Z in the modern universe, and since physics tells us that none of those modern points are any more "special" than any other point, then how can you tell you're going to go from C to B (where you want to go) instead of from C to Z (which could be anywhere) or even from C back to A?
This is the classic difficulty with not using one-to-one mapping: one point can lead to many, and there's really no way to pick between them.
Blitzen, if you use this tactic, you're going to have to think some about this. It's reasonable to see how you could get from A to C, since that's a many-to-one mapping. But how do you get from C to B, which is a one-to-many mapping? What is different about A and B, and how can you see that in the old universe, where A and B are really the same point?
Of course, such discussion is really only important if this sort of travel is going to be a major part of your story, not just a tactic to get from here to there quickly.
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2/28/2008, 5:09 pm
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Blitzen
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Re: This is probably nonsense
Ok, what I have so far. Time travel is possible, but impractical. The Law of Inherent Paradox states that any change you make in the past will alter the future to the point where you didn't travel back in time, so there is no actual point to time travel.
But it is possible to go back far enough and forward quick enough that you don't spend any time doing so. You just sort of teleport from one present day point to another.
Ok, I have two types of machines - to use a computer term I have WANS and LANS. A WAN machine can take you further back in time, and essentially into other galaxies.
A LAN machine is for instance useful in going to the moon, or Mars, or from Hong Kong to Glasgow.
Now, when you use the machine, it connects to another machine, and opens a path between them. Mathematics (very complicated) are used to ensure ABC is not eg ABZ.
You then send a signal through saying pretty much "who are you?" The other machine sends an answering signal. If you have opened the right pathh, great, get travelling.
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2/28/2008, 7:58 pm
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David Meadows
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Re: This is probably nonsense
So you can only travel between places that already have machines? So you still need slow old star ships to put your machine there in the first place.
Unless a lot of dispersed alien races have developed the same technology independently and at more-or-less the same time. But how would you know they had?
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2/28/2008, 8:09 pm
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Blitzen
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Re: This is probably nonsense
No, you do need old slow starships, or maybe cryogenetics.
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2/28/2008, 9:22 pm
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QS2
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Re: This is probably nonsense
I believe that technically seen a physics setup like this would also allow a computer which can do infinite computations, though it might not be really trivial to make, as in, near impossible. Still, as a side benefit it could be pretty useful for making considerably faster computers at the least. 
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3/1/2008, 9:50 pm
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Blitzen
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Re: This is probably nonsense
Sorry, Q, you lost me there? The travel is impossible, or the computers impossible?
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3/2/2008, 12:00 am
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QS2
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Re: This is probably nonsense
I seem to have lost you, yes. I'm not implying they are impossible. I'm saying that your travel setup seems to imply that hypothetically speaking an infinitely fast computer could be made. Though in practice making it might be next to impossible.
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3/2/2008, 11:27 am
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