Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Proof of Time Travel

Monumental moment in time.
  (+11, -2)(+11, -2)
(+11, -2)
  [vote for,
against]

It’s only a matter of time before one of the members of the 1/2 B invents a time machine and puts it to use. Due to the use of Higg’s Bosons, anti-gravitons, and hyper-dimensional strange quarks, and the high cost of availing these exotic particles for use, the time machine will be having had been used (pedants: check your Hitchhiker’s guide for future past-future present perfect tense grammar on that one) sparingly. This fact leads to the conclusion that only the most interesting times in history are candidates for visits from time travelers.

My suggestion is to erect some sort of giant monument commemorating the event of the first recorded visit by future human beings. During the unveiling of the event, the aforementioned 1/2Baking time traveler will appear atop this monument with a message of hope and inspiration from and for the future.

The monument will, of course, have to be most spectacular and ridiculously extravagant. My first thought was to build a giant tower reminiscent of Big Ben, only large enough that the time may be discernable from the surface of the moon. Soon, however, I realized that such an undertaking might be futile if the monument isn’t to the 1/2Bakers liking. So I’ve settled on the following idea: We simply ask what the future 1/2Baker will be having had like to see. Accordingly, we should be getting a message yesterday.

OneThousandMonkeys, Jan 16 2003

Custard-Filled Speed Bumps http://www.halfbake...led_20Speed_20Bumps
[madradish, Oct 04 2004]

Laser launch http://www.lightcra.../gallery_video.html
You need media player to see this. [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Oct 04 2004]

A time machine in need of repair. http://www.seismo.u...ie/photos/clock.jpg
[bristolz, Oct 04 2004]

How to warp the passage of time http://www.halfbake...ditorial/about.html
[egbert, Oct 04 2004]

Above story is from a supermarket tabloid http://www.snopes.c.../iftrue/insider.htm
[krelnik, Oct 04 2004]

Party like it's 2099 http://web.mit.edu/adorai/timetraveler/
Amazed nobody has linked to this yet. [moomintroll, Jan 19 2006]

Time traveler (perhaps) caught in Charlie Chaplin movie http://www.youtube....watch?v=Gj3qesTjOE8
[theircompetitor, Oct 30 2010]

Free Physics text book download http://www.motionmountain.net/
Time doesn't exist, only motion does [neelandan, Nov 01 2010]


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       you erect whatever you fancy, petal, never mind us. you can please some 1/2 bakers some of the time and you can please all 1/2 bakers part of the time etc etc.   

       be bold, 1/2bakers like bold (and drunk but not GM) welcome to you.
po, Jan 16 2003
  

       GM = Grand Marnier, my preferred drink? How did you know?
snarfyguy, Jan 16 2003
  

       amazing eh?
po, Jan 16 2003
  

       Thanks for the welcome [po], although I feel as if I've been a 1/2 baker for ages. This is only the second time I've posted, but I think I've read about 50% of the ideas. In the last two weeks I've developed a dangerous 1/2 baked croissant addiction. Not completely unlike my addictions to heroin, airplane glue, pornography, and talk radio. ( I'm kidding about the airplane glue; it's more of a casual habit)
OneThousandMonkeys, Jan 16 2003
  

       run away - monkeys - run away. we got caught in the net, quick run :) send for help
po, Jan 16 2003
  

       po....you know better than that. It's too late already.
Marassa, Jan 16 2003
  

       I've always wondered about time-travellers: why haven't we already met them? My thoughts: 1. They're delibrately hiding so as not to create unsightly paradoxes and such. 2. Time travel isn't possible. 3. Travel is only possible forwards. 4. Time travel is theoretically possible, but the world has been destroyed before it had been accomplished. 5. Requires too much energy input. 6. We're simply much too boring as a subject.
RayfordSteele, Jan 16 2003
  

       OK, just back from the dark ages here... I'm... woozy... must - lie - down...
thumbwax, Jan 16 2003
  

       I wonder what would happen if Rael joined the halfbakery...   

       half-cloned babies?
Crazy Bastard, Jan 16 2003
  

       thumbwax has the plague! Kill him quickly before we all catch it!
snarfyguy, Jan 16 2003
  

       [OneThousandMonkeys], when you finish building it, I will show up just as you suspect I will/have/am.   

       //During the unveiling//
Before the unveiling, someone from the future will swipe it when you're not looking. It would be worth a fortune on eBay of the future.
If it's funded, planned and contracted, but nobody ever sees the finished product, remember I told ya so. It was thieving time-travellers.
Amos Kito, Jan 17 2003
  

       I'm just waiting for myself to send me back plans for this time machine from the future.
hippo, Jan 17 2003
  

       Make it a giant bowl of custard for the hapless 'baker to fall into (custard has wonderful cushioning properties).
madradish, Jan 17 2003
  

       A giant FA Cup-like trophy.
With a name plaque.
Filled with custard.
Jinbish, Jan 17 2003
  

       "If they come, you will build it ?"   

       I suggest a huge Scrödinger Cat Box. The box may or may not contain a time traveller. Opening the box collapses the wave function, fixing the traveller in time and space. He may or may not be dead (airholes are, as always, optional).
8th of 7, Jan 17 2003
  

       "Build it, and they will come."
Jinbish, Jan 17 2003
  

       [Rayford]: Some of the more likely possible candidates for time-travel (particularly wormholes) require that there is a time machine to travel back to; one possible explaination for why we never encounter time travellers would be that, since the time machine hasn't been built yet (if ever), they can't get back this far.   

       My personal theory is that there's nothing of interest to come back and see in this mangy corner of space-time...
yamahito, Jan 17 2003
  

       If bidirectional time travel could ever be possible, it would be instantaneously possible over all times. Over the course of the infinite histories that time travel would make possible, it would become common knowledge.   

       The fact that we don't know about it now proves it can never and will never exist.
waugsqueke, Jan 17 2003
  

       //The fact that we don't know about it now proves it can never and will never exist.//

  

       Hummm, this makes me wonder about waugsqueke, as the above is the suggested wording straight out of chapter two, which is entitled “Interacting with the Denizens of History”.

  

       Oh, the book is “The Time Traveler’s Creed”. Not yet published. Perhaps never published.

(I have an advance copy...)
pluterday, Jan 17 2003
  

       You found it? I wondered where that had gotten to.   

       I think some of you are throwing humor at a serious subject because you fear it. Where have all the time travelers gone? Why do they not come see us? Do they already know our dreadful fate? I'm willing to bet that they don't visit us to prove their existence, and hence prove that it is possible, because they come from such an advanced civilization that everything is sterile and there are no need of drugs because illnesses are no more, that if they came here they would die almost instantly. It would be gawd awful, time travelers dropping like flies and no way to introduce drugs for fear it would kill them quicker. Why don't you think aliens take-up residence? We are dirty dirty animals and need to be cleaned before we make contact with time travelers and aliens and such.
barnzenen, Jan 17 2003
  

       Put him in a Wicker Man, sez I !
8th of 7, Jan 17 2003
  

       New theory: waugsqueke is the only 'non-timetraveller.' He never actually annihilates himself; the rest of us are simply caught in a sinusoidal time bubble and repeatedly see his original birth.
RayfordSteele, Jan 17 2003
  

       I actually had an interesting theory about this: we haven't seen time travellers yet, because the present and past are fixed until they are modified, and the future is still undefined. Once someone invents time travel in the 'present', and goes to the past, our memories will be erased and we will experience all this again. This may or may not be complete nonsensical gibberish (depending on whether you look in the box or not.)
Evil_Baron_Moustachio, Jan 17 2003
  

       I went back in time a couple of thousand years once and built this bloody great lighthouse at Pharos, just like the one at Beachy Head, just to prove that I'd been there. Some bastard knocked it over.
DrBob, Jan 17 2003
  

       its quite obvious who time travellers are, they are in fact the rich and powerful. they obviously were given the job of time travelling and used it to there own means.
nitram, Jan 17 2003
  

       // We are dirty dirty animals and need to be cleaned before we make contact with time travelers and aliens and such. //   

       Alternatively, barnz, the future people are a bunch of tender wussies, and the first time anyone travels into the future, they will cause mass death and destruction.
waugsqueke, Jan 17 2003
  

       //If bidirectional time travel could ever be possible, it would be instantaneously possible over all times//   

       Without wishing to disagree with you waugs, you're wrong.
yamahito, Jan 17 2003
  

       Okay. How am I wrong? (Not meaning to disagree with you either, but if you say I'm wrong it would be nice to know where I erred.)
waugsqueke, Jan 17 2003
  

       well, leaving my issues with "instantaneously" behind, the most feasible candidate for time travel (I'm thinking wormholes, here), requires that the time machine be present both at the departure and destination points in spacetime. It is one possible explaination of why we don't see time travellers - yet.   

       There are other time machine theories which do not require this - faster than light travel is one possible candidate, although that'll only work if the universe obeys what my lecturer called the Strong Equivalence Principle (which I don't really wish to recall in too much detail) - for which your argument may hold true. But to say that all possible (bi-directional) time machines can allow travel to all times is too much of a generalisation. Have you really thought out the reasoning behind such an assumption?
yamahito, Jan 17 2003
  

       // the most feasible candidate for time travel... requires that the time machine be present both at the departure and destination points in spacetime. //   

       Ah, I see. I'm not up on the latest developments in this technology, obviously.   

       I wasn't getting into the hows or wheres or whys (nor do I think they have anything to do with my point). It's not too much of a generali(s)zation, either, to presume you could travel either forwards or backwards to any time with such a machine. I think that's more or less the common vision of such a machine, isn't it?   

       It sounds like you are not disagreeing with my point about such bidirectional time travel being impossible (or we'd know about it already), but that you're saying that I have the logistics of bidirectional time travel all wrong. If that is the case, then whatever - my statement was based on my presumption of that method of time travel.   

       I haven't thought much about it beyond this point, no, because I don't believe there's much to it.
waugsqueke, Jan 17 2003
  

       //It sounds like you are not disagreeing with my point about such bidirectional time travel being impossible (or we'd know about it already), but that you're saying that I have the logistics of bidirectional time travel all wrong//   

       Well, yes and no.. the one rather relies on the other, doesn't it? Also, the fact that we havn't seen something doesn't mean it hasn't happened, right? It's a motivation rather than a proof.   

       For the record, you're in good company in disbelieving in the possibility of (backwards) time travel - Stephen Hawking for one is a strong opposer of the idea. Most physicists try to find good candidates for time machines not to prove them, but to find possible holes in their theories. And this is to say nothing about the mess it makes of causality.
yamahito, Jan 17 2003
  

       gah.. coming down with physics again.. <wanders off to find his blue pills>
yamahito, Jan 17 2003
  

       I think the three most likely reasons we haven't seen time travlelers are, in order:   

       1) Time travel isn't possible.   

       2) The human race will either extinguish itself or fall back into another dark age before time travel technology is perfected.   

       3) Time travel requires machines at both points, so the technology can't get back this far.
landruc, Jan 18 2003
  

       Or we have and are not aware of it.
bristolz, Jan 18 2003
  

       Time travel... What a can of worms...   

       So let's assume there exists a machine that can send you freely back and forth in time.   

       If you go back and kill the baby you in the cradle, what happens? In your own past, you have been a baby, grown up, and used a time machine.   

       Therefore, it IS important to know the mechanism of time travel before spouting crazy garbage.   

       If you travel back into the past and retain your memory, then whatever it is you were doing in the past which impacted you would either instantly be changed in your memory(you would instantly annihilate when you killed the baby), or you would be unharmed.   

       If the latter is the case, then apparently you have entered another dimension, rather than travelled through time within your own dimension. In that case, you can do whatever you want when you travel time, but when you travel back to the "present" of that dimension, you might meet a duplicate of yourself, given it's still alive after your tinkering.   

       If the prior is the case, then your existence is irrelevant to the universe past the point where the baby died. Therefore, you would have never used the time machine, and therefore would not have any detectable impact on the universe. Yet, I wonder whether that's even possible. With every moment you exist in the past, you would modify your memory. For example, if the baby is looking at you as you come towards it with a knife, your whole timeline will be more preoccupied with guys with knives than with time machines. Therefore, perhaps at some point when you've got the knive an inch from the kid's throat, your brain won't be able to handle the confusion and you will not know where/when you are, nor will you know what it is you're doing with the knife. Maybe you'll go and wander for the rest of your deranged life. Or maybe the human mind is entirely intolerant to intra-dimensional time travel and the moment a disparity occurs due to impact on the past of your timeline, you are annihilated.
Crazy Bastard, Jan 18 2003
  

       Oh yeah, a similar problem should occur if you time travel within your own body. Only you couldn't travel to a time before your birth. Therefore, any time travel to the past will cause schizophrenia-like symptoms.   

       I conclude with an email that I got from someone who think's he's somehow done this.   

       "Hello,   

       If you are a reliable supplier of the below equipment I am going to need the following:   

       1. A mind warper generation 4 Dimensional Warp Generator # 52 4350a series wrist watch with memory adapter.   

       2. The special 23200 series time transducing capacitor with built in temporal displacement.   

       While these time pieces normally go between $5,000-$7,000 a piece, I am having a hard time finding a reliable supplier.   

       Teleport to me within the next 48 earth hours and I will pay $40,000 2002 US cash. Please only reply if you are reliable. Send a (SEPARATE) email to me at: Tomnwrr@aol.com"
Crazy Bastard, Jan 18 2003
  

       Oh yeah, if you travel back in time, into "your" body, in a different dimension, THEN you can change things for "yourself". Yet, then you might suffer from horrible health ailments, because your mind would not be adjusted to the younger body. Ditto for what I said earlier about intra-dimensional, same body time travel.
Crazy Bastard, Jan 18 2003
  

       [Crazy Bastard] Just for the hell of it, I searched the net for the address your time traveler gave you to contact him at, and while it wasn't a personal Email, the sight was very interesting. Check out the link, he may just be on the level. he he   

       Now I'm no rocket scientist, physicist, or anything close really... but as a man with an active imagination....   

       It seems to me that you're all assuming that time travel has be associated with matter - which by its very nature - creates a paradox. But what if time travel is available only to energy patterns (i.e., human conciousness). What if it was more like the well-publicized "out-of-body-experiences" - keep in mind that an energy-only traveler would not be constrained to the SOL or the nasty side effects that come with enering the event horizon of a black hole. Thoughts?
preacher, Jan 21 2003
  

       Human consciousness isn't an energy pattern, nor is it matter-free. If there were some sort of "energy-only" consciousness, it still couldn't escape a black hole or be free from other problems of time travel -- unless it's mystical energy, in which case you're doing magic and you don't need to worry about physics anyway.
Monkfish, Jan 21 2003
  

       //your own ghost from the future travels back in time to haunt you//
Haven't seen that, but I saw an episode of one of those Twilight Zone knockoff shows on cable that involved a super rich narcissist who had a sex change operation and then used a time machine...
krelnik, Jan 21 2003
  

       Barrington Bayley, "The Fall of Chronopolis". Same scenario but without the sex change.
DrBob, Jan 22 2003
  

       12 Monkeys, ravenswood. For other good time travel fiction, I would recommend Fritz Leiber's "The Big TIme", Paul Anderson's "Tau Ceti", the Barrington Bayley story mentioned above and, of course, the Back to the Future films which hang together pretty well.

Sorry if I seem to be displaying my genre knowledge a bit too much but once you get onto time travel your straying into a topic that fiction writers have explored pretty thoroughly.

Travelling forward in time seems to me to be more feasible than travelling backwards. After all, it's really just a case of getting up some speed (Ha!), allowing time dilation effects to do the rest and then navigating your way to the spacial location that your aiming at using currently available technology. It may well not be possible but at least we can come up with a mechanic based on known factors in order to achieve it. Going backwards in time seems to me to be a different kettle of cookies. The past occurred in a different place as well as a different time. So far, astronomers don't seem to have spotted past versions of our galaxy floating around in our universe so it seems that we'd need to be able to cross some sort of trans-dimensional barrier in order to visit our own history - assuming that you go with the theory that the past still exists somewhere.

For the record, I still haven't made up my mind whether the prospect of being visited in the night by the ghost of blissmiss is a good or a bad thing, but I suspect that I should be afraid.
DrBob, Jan 22 2003
  

       Cookies? Someone say cookies?   

       So, if I eat an Oreo Double Stuff cookie one day, then travel back to just before eating the cookie and have that same cookie again, then travel back again and eat that same cookie again, over and over, etc... do I still get fat?
XSarenkaX, Jan 22 2003
  

       Yeah. In no time flat.   

       So, am I fat from the get-go, before eating the first cookie, because I am already destined to create a time loop in which I eat way too many cookies? And if so, do I GET fat, or am I already fat from birth, because of my decision to time-travel-binge on an Oreo (that sounds funny) being predetermined?   

       ~OR~   

       Do start out as my normal semi-thin self, but progressively gain weight after eating a significant amount of cookies, even though, technically, the timeline I'm using is only about a minute long, despite my own apparent timeline of however long I take to keep looping and eating? If this is the case, how does everyone around me see me - fat or thin?
XSarenkaX, Jan 23 2003
  

       You would not get fat. You only ever eat one cookie, at progressively earlier times.   

       You would never actually eat the cookie the first time, because the second time you came back, you ate it before your first self had a chance. Likewise your third instance got back and ate the cookie before your second instance got to it, preventing both your second and first selves from eating it. Ad infinitum. Once you stop the binge, your last traveled self would finally get to eat the cookie, and at last it would stay eaten.
waugsqueke, Jan 23 2003
  

       /The past occurred in a different place as well as a different time//   

       I think DrBob has spotted why we never see any time travellers. They go back in time and the planet hasn't yet reached where they are. You can imagine the pioneers just doing a little test trial (only a few seconds) and finding themselves appearing in a whale-like manner just outside the upper atmosphere with this dirty great planet bearing down on them at high speed.   

       Logical extension: Bliss, your ghost is trying to tell you not to participate in pioneer time travel!
egbert, Jan 23 2003
  

       Thanks for pointing that out [egbert]. It seems to get left out of these discussions.
snarfyguy, Jan 23 2003
  

       FORK - you shove a FORK into the "stuff" (not a knife, blissy) and drown it in milk until all the bubbles stop escaping. Then you enjoy a nice, moist, but still intact, Double Stuff Oreo. Mmmm - me wanty...
XSarenkaX, Jan 23 2003
  

       /It seems to get left out of these discussions//   

       Yes, it took us ages to work out how to compensate accurately for...whoops.   

       RE twelve monkeys, I've never managed to see the whole thing - I mean I have seen the whole thing, but not all at once - so it still retains an air of disconnectedness which entirely suits it. It also seems suitably ironic to me that it's being repeated so often on British cable.
egbert, Jan 23 2003
  

       <continuing off topic> Ooh, that's a bit harsh ravenswood. Time Bandits, Brazil, the Python films, even Baron Munchausen has it's moments - although let's forget that Eric the Viking exists shall we? The man's got a pretty good record.
DrBob, Jan 23 2003
  

       Speaking of being whale-like in the atmosphere(egbert). The other day I found myself trying to fly of a curb unfortunately I failed to miss the ground.
xnihilo, Jan 23 2003
  

       Depends, yama. Assuming that you don't move in space but only in time then if you go backward you'll be hanging in space waiting for the planet to smash into you and if you go forward you'll be hanging in space watching the planet recede into the distance.
DrBob, Jan 24 2003
  

       Don't forget the solar system is moving too. Etcetera.   

       Could we have stumbled on an alternative to rockets for getting stuff into orbit? "You just" send it back in time by a certain interval and Voila!
egbert, Jan 24 2003
  

       [egbert] Move in space relative to what, exactly? I would presume that you would continue with your linear motion, but with no planetary, solar, or galactic angular motion. (Assuming that you missed the intervening interval, so that there was no time for gravity to act on you.) You would be off in space somewhere, and doomed without a spaceship. But that brings in yet another conundrum. You show up in a different position, with different gravitational potential energy. It seems to me that you could then create a perpetual motion machine, thus violating at least two laws of the bakery.

Another problem, cultural/economic this time, is the mining of past eras, transporting valuable matter wholesale to the future, for sale. With enough of that chrono-mining going on, the present could be whittled away to nothing, with the greedy future becoming so massive that it suddenly collapses into a singularity.
pluterday, Jan 24 2003
  

       Perhaps the time machine pumps energy into the object, or takes it away, in the process?   

       Or rather, converts future kinetic energy into potential energy?   

       Whatever. I've never seen a time machine, and I defy anyone to prove that they have.
Crazy Bastard, Jan 26 2003
  

       I've seen them and frequently. (link of photographic proof provided above)
bristolz, Jan 26 2003
  

       Bris, silly, that's a time guage, not a time machine. An odometer doesn't allow you to travel a certain distance, it merely records that you have done so. No, we're talking about a machine that allows you to travel to a different time almost instantaneously. After exhaustive research I think I've found a device that warps the passage of time, compressing it so that you are not aware of how swiftly it's passing. See link.
egbert, Jan 26 2003
  

       Semantics.
bristolz, Jan 26 2003
  

       Pluterday, relative to the origin, of course. I'm assuming that one travels backwards along the time line but arrives at the same point in three dimensional space. Momentum may or may not be conserved (my guess is it would be) but the change in gravitational potential energy is an interesting one. My guess is that , as it's dependant on the proximity of the attractive object, it would simultaneously change, but with all the other stuff going on, a sudden feeling of lightness will probably go unnoticed.   

       On the other hand, if this is not the case, one can envisage a scenario where the spatial displacement has been taken into account, and the same heavy object is sent back several times to the same point in space-time in an experiment to create a large gravitational field generator. Eventually this creates a huge gravitational field with very little corresponding size, but with temporal field traces leading forward to the original points in time where the object would be coming from, leading less advanced civilisations to speculate abut the possible connection between black holes, wormholes and time travel.
egbert, Jan 26 2003
  

       // //It sounds like you are not disagreeing with my point about such bidirectional time travel being impossible (or we'd know about it already), but that you're saying that I have the logistics of bidirectional time travel all wrong// //   

       // Well, yes and no.. the one rather relies on the other, doesn't it? //   

       Okay, somebody here has been spending too much time drinking Heisenburg Beer with Schrodinger's cat. Yes and no, I disagree but I don't... Have I shifted into a parallel dimension?
RayfordSteele, Jan 26 2003
  

       Ooooh, I think I have the answer. <waving arm and jumping up> Even to my own question about gravitational potential energy... Throw out all that poppycock about instantaneous travel, wormholes and whatnot. Time travel works like the original Wells idea, i.e., you are still grounded in the same spot on the earth, interacting mechanically, electrically and gravitationally with the outside local present. This has certain consequences.

First, take travel to the future. If effect, you are slowing down relative to the outside world. Relative to you, however, the outside world goes faster and faster, with photons getting blue shifted. You are limited to how fast you can go, because if you move into the future too fast, you will be fried, either thermally or by ionizing radiation. (Also, you will experience an apparent weight that is proportional to your speed relative to the present.)

With travel to the past, the opposite situation arises. Photons impinging upon your machine and upon you have negative energy (effectively), so that the machine gets colder and colder. (Like in “Back to the Future”). To travel any distance back is a real problem, unless you carry along a fusion heater to keep warm.

As the forward travel thermal problems are more difficult to solve than the backward travel freezing problems, traveling great distances into the past may prove a one way trip. Also, the speed of travel, being effectively finite, insures that time travelers will not be showing up in a past era that is substantially distant from the point of the invention of time travel.

<at this point pluterday’s arm falls off, and everyone realizes that she is nearly frozen solid>

[One problem keeps nagging, though, how do you keep from bunching up into yourself when you travel back this way? Maybe only foward travel is possible.]

There is also the stupid mode of time travel, where you get speeded up relative to the outside local present, so that you age more rapidly than the present. Step into the machine on Monday, step out again on Friday, and you've aged ten years. This mode has been little studied in SF lit, but it is advantageous from the aspect of getting a lot of work done in a short time. Both the forward and stupid modes of time travel seem possible, as no paradoxes are created.
pluterday, Jan 26 2003
  

       And we still haven't even talked about how, even if you synchronize your time machine to the spot on earth you want to be at, you accidentally wind up inside a glacier or a block of granite or some such...
snarfyguy, Jan 26 2003
  

       //gravitational potential energy... // Is a lie told to schoolchildren. No such thing. Problem solved yet?
yamahito, Jan 27 2003
  

       [yama], go jump off a cliff. If the centrifugal force doesn't keep you up, the gravitational p.e. will get you ;-).
egbert, Jan 28 2003
  

       naw, that's K.E.
yamahito, Jan 28 2003
  

       That's only true if time travel will always need a receiver unit, no matter how far advanced the technology becomes. If it _ever_ advances to the point where someone discovers how to travel without a receiver, then it becomes ubiquitous instantaneously.
waugsqueke, Jan 28 2003
  

       That Carlssin story originated in the "Weekly World News", a supermarket tabloid that often has aliens and bat-boys on its cover. See link.
krelnik, Apr 09 2003
  

       True time travel thing that happened to this writer   

       I remember being tied to a chair in an apartment in capitol hill seattle (tall building near the corner of bellevue(way), bellevue(place), bellevue(ave) streets, top floor. Josh Yockey n Adam Almog lived there during y2k. I was told many things about my future which I have lived in the years after that time. Little of it has been useful. I was warned to avoid going out on valentines day, "not this one [thats too soon] the next one"   

       A variant of the English language based on puns n syllables n silent letters was partly described to me.   

       Slang is S Lang   

       Valentines is V;Al in Tines   

       No is used as Know [No Know] big thing   

       A first, second, third world were described to the writer. Prior to My time travel or rather being Q ifyid to the third world. I was told I was in the second world. The Q process moves a human between second n third worlds. Josh mentioned they were trying to find the first.   

       The alphabet was described.   

       Z are persons who are without knowledge of the third world. What I used to think of as "life"   

       I type n say things with Zlanguage.   

       Z is a reflection of S Geometric themes are ubiquitous third world things; W M ; H I;   

       A Persons who are less winning than B persons   

       B Ordinary persons   

       C Like the use of See with card games; challenge   

       D I was told this was one of my types; negative aspect   

       E kind of like a neptune trident. Power. the prongs have ZGood, Zbad or Zmiddle aspect   

       F strong power; top prongs   

       G The Zstory I get on this is The system originator.   

       H there is a word "home" that might go   

       H, circle, M, E Which until I make it right might be saying " H circles, Am Power"   

       I Zenglish I   

       J The fall n Bounce letter; persons who are J might be becoming something with more talent than most humans   

       K Amplification; humans who are being K are sort of like metaphoric stencils that what they do is like the chaos butterfly wings. If a K eats cheese, non K humans become more erotically active. If a K does schoolwork so do other humans   

       L This is a puzzle. It may mean land of angles; if you angle two things > the space pointed at between the two rays is like a beam of function   

       M Zlanguage "non effective loserish" or maybe "being nurturant" ; W is forceful; Josh tells it as "[more things pointing up]"   

       N Zeverybody Zanything like math n   

       O The third world is way big on circles. Surrounding, encirclement, quadrants are a perception (+) Left side is sinister/mean Right side is Positive energy. Third world has a thing about preferring to skip the upper right hand; second world people know plus usually prefer or want to be upper right hand   

       P "Cheerleaders" Like B humans with favor; status   

       Q A geometric letter; the line breaking the circle has to do with the Q ability to move human awareness between Second n third world versions of matter awareness; Intelligent status human   

       R Royalty. Useless. The R humans I have met might have metaphoric "control panel" privleges   

       S Geometric letter; nondesired things bounce off the lower curve the top curve chomps or beguiles as the S "human" prefers. Left or right ability; left reputation.   

       T Strength, perhaps with "ripe" risks, upper visions   

       U Ugh. A letter that was glued to the writer; a human that "bridges" second n third worlds; nonstable future; like K with massive ignorance. The fool on the hill.   

       V Strong Power geometric opposite is A; t. pynchon book has something to say about V   

       W Being effective   

       X Geometrically diagonals are negatory; diagonals in four quadrants might mean either noneffective or fully tesselated in a sort of MC escher way   

       Y or Th Relative of G is a version, kind of like "What if V on a pedestal knew what was right" Useless royalty form.   

       Z If what I have written is new to the viewer then the viewer might be a Z. The Z lives in a world where the mental forms are human sized. Third world mental forms are frequently larger than human size, It is a waste that Z ideas n feelings do not much rule the third world.   

       Z land is perhaps known as Cube A There is also Cube B I made an effort to try to build an additional structure of a different geometry.   

       Well then, back to time travel. "Some of the more likely possible candidates for time-travel (particularly wormholes) require that there is a time machine to travel back to; one possible explaination for why we never encounter time travellers would be that, since the time machine hasn't been built yet "   

       That is why I mentioned the coordinates of the seattle apartment, August plus three mo. Y2K   

       Is there a viewer who can name a female U human in the chronopast? There are a lot of humans who may benefit if I can ID a female U   

       Margaret Thatcher   

       Eleanor of Aquatain   

       iffy Alanis morrisette   

       Also if a viewer has the strength, describe "home" what do "humans" beingify there?   

       Treon Verdery
treo5, Nov 18 2003
  

       <cue the guy with the big net>
krelnik, Nov 18 2003
  

       You want time travel, then wait one second. Voila you have traveled one second into the future. But really, you are all asuming that time is but one dimension. What would you say if I were to say that it is probably two or three dimensions large. Space is three, why can't time be three as well? I hate it when we don't have the propper equipment to measure our universe. For all we know, Matter could also have three dimensions, and we would have no idea what the third is (first is normal, second is anti, third is ??).
Midon, Nov 27 2003
  

       Anti isn't a dimension. It's just about having opposite charge.   

       As for the custard, (so sorry for only bringing this up now, I'll rectify that mistake once the time machine is comercially available) it only has cushioning properties if you are moving at less than a certain speed. Or at least thats what I thought the speed bumps were about. So the custard will be very unatractive to any halfbaker without the custard anti-dilatant ray I willon an-halfbake at some point. Jutta mayan mfden on-when the idea, just so long as the baker in question has time to realise my genius and bake the CADR.
RobertKidney, Nov 27 2003
  

       Time travel is easy, its just a jump to the left, then a step to the right, put your hands on your hips, then tuck your knees in tight, then do the pelvic thrust and shout aye yay aye yay. Simple as that.
magic_ki, Feb 06 2004
  

       I like Douglas Adams' idea of paradox resolution. The paradox of killing your own father goes: you travel back in time and kill your father, only to find out later that your mother's first husband died and she slept with someone out of grief (who, obviously, is your real father). Or somesuch. (Alternatively, you're somehow prevented from carrying out this action, by circumstances that were always a part of the past.)   

       Perfect Jerry Springer material.
Detly, Feb 06 2004
  

       Infinite possibilities, infinite realities.
You can go back and kill your father you just can't ever get back to your reality once you have caused your timeline to branch.
  

       The idea is that there is no branching or modification of the past - whatever you do somehow fits in.
Detly, Feb 06 2004
  

       It does fit in. You are as unacquainted with the infinite versions of yourself as they are from you.   

       We're all one step away from the Quantum Cafe and the existence of God. Nice view.
k_sra, Feb 06 2004
  

       On the subject of whether you move when you travel in time... I think if you look at Einstein's assumptions for the special theory of relativity, this is ruled out. One of those assumptions is that there is no absolute frame of reference for the universe. In other words, the idea of being moving or stationary is defined purely in relation to other objects. This idea of moving back in time while staying still assumes an absolute frame of reference to define "staying still", and so is not allowed.   

       I think [Pluterday] has the right idea, of a time traveller being all the time subject to normal forces. And the implications she suggests for the thermal effects of time travel are intriguing.
spacemoggy, May 04 2004
  

       //I think [Pluterday] has the right idea, of a time traveller being all the time subject to normal forces. And the implications she suggests for the thermal effects of time travel are intriguing//   

       <correction> How about sending a capsule forward, let it cool then bring it back (so chilling it), then use it to go forwards, when it can absorb the external heat (let us assume we go forward witht he surrounding air, so the local heat 'travels' with us.   

       As an aside, we will know when we get close to the day when technology is available, as travellers woudl return to place known dead-certs on the gee gees (as per BTTFP2), build Google and auction it (and a cover for the computing power) to collect enough money (just) to build the thing, which in itself would be ironic.
timbeau, May 04 2004
  

       I just finished reading all of the annos, yet still have no idea how to get all of that time back.
Worldgineer, May 04 2004
  

       I sugest magic.
RobertKidney, May 05 2004
  

       Time travel only sort-of works.   

       From every n-dimensional point in spacetime, time flow actually diverges, in a probablistic way, in an infinite number of "directions." This assumes time has two, rather than the popularly believed one diemension. The possible directions are defined and constrained by the extra dimensions hinted at by string or 'brane theory. We exist on the timeline that connects the points of maximum probability for our universe.   

       Also, remember the universe is not static. If you travel in time, without traveling through space (more properly around space, as time travel is extra-dimensional by definition) you will likely end up sucking vacuum. Within a few years, one may calculate the "where" reasonably well. However for greater time - distance, uncertainty is a real problem and one should get as close to one's target as practicable but be prepared for a short spacial jaunt to get to the exact location.   

       In simpler terms, imagine our (normal) timeline as an ordinary drawn pencil line. To travel foward in time is natural and does not violate relativity nor thermodynamic (entropy) theory.   

       To travel backward ALONG THE SAME LINE would require infinite energy, as would exceeding light speed in normal space. However, you CAN travel backward at an angle to our timeline. Unfortunately, the smaller the angle, the greater the energy peak you must surmount. But, the smaller the temporal angle, the more similar the destination timeline is to our own.   

       We cannot ever travel to our own true past, but with enough energy (we're talking stellar detonation) one might approach our timeline within a few picoseconds of arc - for say, 20 years time-distance. This is enough to visit your deceased grandfather - or an indistinguishable avatar of him, at least.   

       Given an understanding of temporal displacement angle, you can see your monument will have a higher probability of also existing in our (normal) timeline if the angle is quite small (on the order of micro-secods of arc - temporal) for a time distance - number of years - within the expected life of your megalith.   

       And because of the temporal displacement angle, and the probabilistic nature of all time lines, going back for the winning lottery numbers, trying to change your own life or our world's history simply won't work.   

       Further, I suspect that instead of building an indubitable monument, time travelers are apt to follow rules something akin to Star Trek's "Prime Directive." That is, don't interfere with other cultures. Responsible time travelers don't leave "footprints" in anybody elses timeline, however close or distant it is to their own.   

       A comment before the halfbakery crash suggested time travel is, after all, speculative. Of course. My reply to that comment noted the above was based on the description in a (yet) unpublished SF story, but developed in consultation with physics profs.
TD3, Sep 03 2004
  

       One little experiment is to stroll down to your local, pull up a stool, grab a beer and say to yourself, "If I ever get my hands on a time machine, I'll come right on back to this very bar right... NOW!". Turn around, check the door, and 9 times out of ten, you're not there.
anaeleus, May 31 2005
  

       //a giant tower reminiscent of Big Ben// <pedant> A tower shaped like a bell? </pedant> I think you probably mean St Stephens Tower
AbsintheWithoutLeave, May 31 2005
  

       [anaeleus] it's that one time in ten that scares the heebejeebes out of me, welcome to the bakery!   

       This seems to be a recurring theme at the bakery (build x to attract time travellers in order to prove they exist) - Has anyone tried the building an enormous bomb that will blow up the earth (denyng any future time travellers the opportunity of existance) and proclaiming loudly that if no time-travellers turn up at 6pm on the 1st August 2005, you'll press the big red button?
zen_tom, Aug 01 2005
  

       I think that the best of this quandary has come from [yama] who should be able to navigate the terrain better than most.
Iain.M.Banks suggest that a 'future-proofing' idea might be to step forward through multiple dimensions as if stepping onto the next step of an escalator. He also suggest the idea of 'Subliming' such that the elder population reach a level whereby they simply disappear to another (nebulous) plane or dimension and frankly don't care about anyone anymore (higher thoughts!).
Both nice ideas in SciFi, but are still both SciFi.
gnomethang, Aug 01 2005
  

       Thanks, timbeau, for being so astute as to agree with me. Yes, thermal effects are one of the major, unsolved problems. One not-so-elegant solution is to make the trip to the future in short hops. Cool off, go again. A bigger problem is weight. If you travel into the future at .5 second (of machine time) per second (of world time), you’ll be twice as heavy (one way to think about it: you’re intercepting twice as many gravitons each second of machine time). If you skeedattle at one second per hour, you’ll be squashed into a pancake. (Unless you do it in free fall.) And going into the past is even worse, because to get to negative seconds per second, you have to go through zero. Don’t make that mistake! Do that and no machine time passes while infinite time goes by outside. You won’t have time to press the off button before you’ve reached the Big Crunch. SHIT!
pluterday, Aug 01 2005
  

       That assumes that we will travel through time at a definable rate. I believe that if time travel is in fact possible, we would simply go from time a to time b, with no apparent passage of time within the machine.
hubby2debbie, Jan 19 2006
  

       If they won't come to a party, why should they come to the opening of a monument? (linky)
moomintroll, Jan 19 2006
  

       see link of YouTube video with potential cell phone talking time traveler in Charlie Chaplin movie scene. Or perhaps it's an alien that was studying Charlie :)
theircompetitor, Oct 30 2010
  

       [Ian Tindale], it could be a type of cell phone that is about to be released Real Soon Now. This phone doesn't have to have cell towers; all it needs is nearby users of similar cell phones. The phones themselves automatically contsruct a network. So, any two phones could work, basically like walkie-talkies.   

       [OneThousandMonkeys], Heinlein pointed out long before Adams that the most logical tense for time travelers to use is the PRESENT tense. That's because if a time machine can take you to to visit Napoleon while he was in exile, as easily as you could visit a neighbor across the street, then you can legitimately say that Napoleon is currently doing something-or-other while in exile, just as you can say that your neighbor is currently doing something-or-other in his house. As far as you-the-time-traveller is concerned (and I quote Heinlein), "All 'nows' are equal."
Vernon, Nov 01 2010
  

       //"All 'nows' are equal."//   

       Wasn't it Gertrude Stein (sister of Epp and Ein) who said "There is no then then." ?
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 01 2010
  

       There is a physics text book that is free to download, <link>.   

       It takes the position that time does not exist.   

       Since time does not exist, it is impossible to travel in time. What we call "time" is actually the effect of motion.   

       Definition: "Time is what we read from a clock"
neelandan, Nov 01 2010
  

       Time is what stops everything happening at once.
hippo, Nov 01 2010
  

       It doesn't seem to work for me.
MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 01 2010
  

       From the book:   

       "Time cannot be reversed, only motion can be."
neelandan, Nov 01 2010
  

       [MB]//Wasn't it Gertrude Stein ... who said "There is no then then."// Only in LA. In Blighty, with its richer sense of history, I'm sure there's a then, then.
mouseposture, Nov 01 2010
  

       Hang on - this idea appears to have been posted in 2003 and it's now 2010! I've travelled through time!
hippo, Nov 01 2010
  

       Does this thread record, as it appears to, the first appearance of [Treon]/[beanangel]?
BunsenHoneydew, Nov 02 2010
  

       And what an appearance at that!
Custardguts, Nov 02 2010
  

       Don't you suppose people will want to go back and look at dinosaurs? Actually, they probably already have. Or will. Or will have done. Why would anyone want to look at a monument when you could look at dinosaurs? Anyway, I recommend you don't carve any dates on your monument.
Jim Bob of Merriam Park, Nov 04 2010
  

       p.s. I think that was Gertrude Stein in the video.
Jim Bob of Merriam Park, Nov 04 2010
  

       so basically it's planting a red flag in history and yelling 'time travellers come here!' . I Love it!
simonj, Nov 04 2010
  


 

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