Wesley Clark Support Warp Drive, Time Travel

TKalbfus wrote:

But this is making a rather special connection between ligh cones and time,
which need not really be the case. Unlike space, time clearly has a prefered
direction.

Perhaps we only see that portion that is consistent with our own existance,
this is a version of the anthopomophic principle. The Universe allows for the
existance of life, because otherwise we could not observe it.

Time Travel is impossible from our perspective for similar reasons. We cannot
go back and change our own history. If we create another timeline we cannot go
back and prove we have done so since the Universe will have changed. The
skeptics left behind in the original universe will therefore remain skeptical
as no time traveller back into history has ever appeared in the history books.

Tom

But if they're present at the use of the device, they *will* observe
the traveller simply disappear from *this* timeline/universe. And if
it's doing what its supposed to do, then any attempt to detect fraud
should fail. (Okay, it may not precisely prove time travel, but it'll be
clear that the guy went *somewhere*)

Are you guys seriously trashing Clark because he is not sufficiently
good at being a politician? Please, if you want good politicians,
that's what you will get.

But if they're present at the use of the device, they *will* observe
the traveller simply disappear from *this* timeline/universe. And if
it's doing what its supposed to do, then any attempt to detect fraud
should fail. (Okay, it may not precisely prove time travel, but it'll be
clear that the guy went *somewhere*)


Yeah and if someone falls into a black hole they disappear too. If a time
traveler suddenly appeared in out universe, that may be something else, he may
know a few things about the present and the immediate future to be convincing.
History is in part decided by the historical actors, they have plans and
agendas that they will continue to pursue whether a time traveler from the
future appears or not, but I think history according to the time traveller will
quickly go off track as random occurances and changes in the weather alter
plans. People will die when they are not supposed to and go on living past when
they should have died.

Tom

Lets review:

There are three types of FTL speeds

Superluminal, Infinite, and ultraluminal. each velocity is relative to a
specific subluminal velocity such as the velocity of the Earth.

If you take the velocity of Earth and express it as a fraction of the velocity
of light, the multiplicative reciprical of that fraction is an infinite
relative to Earth. To another observer the Earth could have a velocity of 1
km/sec. The speed of light is 300,000 km/sec so as a fraction the Earth's
velocity is 1/300,000 c. An infinite velocity for Earth, according to the
observer would then be 300,000c or 300,000 times the speed of light, this is
not infinite to the observer, but it is to people standing on Earth. If an
object is going slower than 300,000 c in relation to the observer, it will
travel forward in time in relation to Earth (this is superluminal).
If it is traveling at 300,000c, no time will elapse on Earth (this is infinite
for Earth). If the object is traveling faster than 300,000 c according to the
observer, that object will be traveling into Earth's past if it ends up there.
(this is ultraluminal). The observer will see a version of Earth's history
where the time traveler meddles, but he will never see the future where he came
from. You can only see the time traveller arrive or depart, but never both.

Tom

Scott Lowther wrote in message ...
Geoffrey A. Landis wrote:
Bill Clinton had the somewhat unusual policy of being socially liberal
and fiscally conservative.

Fiscally conservative?

Correct. A seemingly odd combination, socially liberal and fiscally
extremely conservative.

As a candidate, he was the only Democrat in favor of North American
Free Trade. He went into office promising to shrink the government,
cut government spending, reduce the deficit. His 96 state of the
union address declared the end of the era of big government. He
deregulated energy and telecommunications. Quoting documents from the
time:

The federal budget proposal released by the Clinton administration
February 1 is a thoroughly business-oriented document that reserves
virtually all new spending for the military, as well as reducing the
federal debt and bolstering the Social Security and Medicare Trust
funds, with little or nothing to meet a myriad of urgent social needs.

In terms of financial policy, he was extremely conservative.

His HillaryCare would have taken over something like seven percent of GDP
for Da Gubmint.

That's the part where I said "socially liberal".

Only the fact of the "Republican Revolution" in '94, when the Repubs finally
had the balls and the numbers to stand up to the Dems,

And *increase* government spending. Ignore the ideology: look at the
numbers.

prevented the Clintons from totally trashing the economy through even *more*
massive tax increases.

Sorry, unsubstantiated.

The budget surplus was a result of the Repubs stopping the Clinton
tax-and-spend spree.

Instead, they went on a "don't tax but increase spending" spree.
Cutting taxes without correspondingly cutting spending isn't actually
a tax cut, of course-- it's a tax deferment.

Since the second world war, Republican administrations have NEVER cut
the deficit. Never. Look at the data. Every single Republican
administration has had a higher deficit rate leaving office than
entering office.

As I said, policy wise, Clinton was very odd; socially liberal and
fiscally conservative.

The current budget defecits are a result of Repubs
acting like Dems, and havign a weiner of a Repub President who's also
acting like a Dem...

The current budget deficits are the result of people in office who are
socially conservative, but financially liberal (protectionism in the
steel industry, increased government spending, subsidies for farming,
timber, export, and mining, large pork-barrel spending in the budget
bills).

--
Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis

TKalbfus wrote:
But this is making a rather special connection between ligh cones and time,
which need not really be the case. Unlike space, time clearly has a prefered
direction.

Perhaps we only see that portion that is consistent with our own existance,
this is a version of the anthopomophic principle. The Universe allows for the
existance of life, because otherwise we could not observe it.

I don't think the universe cares if it is observed or not. It can perfectly
well observe itself.


Time Travel is impossible from our perspective for similar reasons. We cannot
go back and change our own history. If we create another timeline we cannot go
back and prove we have done so since the Universe will have changed. The
skeptics left behind in the original universe will therefore remain skeptical
as no time traveller back into history has ever appeared in the history books.

But this is only so if there are multiple timelines. There need not be.


Tom

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

Scott Lowther wrote:

The budget surplus was a result of the Repubs stopping the Clinton
tax-and-spend spree.

okaaay. . .

The current budget defecits are a result of Repubs
acting like Dems, and having a weiner of a Repub President who's also
acting like a Dem...

Wait. Aren't these the same repubs who stopped the Clinton spending
spree? Why are they all of a sudden acting so differently? Seems like a
Jekyll and Hyde syndrome.

Face it. Fiscal responsibility isn't a Republican trait.

Oh wait . . . Tricky Dick did have the balls to ax those damned
expensive Saturns.

Hop
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

Peter Fairbrother wrote:

Alain Fournier wrote



That's not time travel as I see it. Time travel is coming back to _here_
before you left (or perhaps after, but no-one doubts that the latter is
possible). Anything else doesn't count (and probably doesn't violate
causality).



Travelling faster than light does mean arriving here before you left. Imagine
two ships going to Alpha Centauri and back, both ships start there voyage at
the same time. Ship A travels at the speed of light and ship B travels faster
than ship A, therefore ship B arrives back on Earth before ship A.





Relativity
tells us that clocks slow down with increased speed until clocks completely
stop at the speed of light. So for people on ship A the trip back and forth
took zero seconds (of their on board time), but people on ship B arrived
before them so they must of made the trip in less than zero seconds as
measured by the clocks on board ship A.



I got this far..



Which means that people on Ship A see
people on Ship B arriving before they left.



But I don't follow that. Do you mean ship A, on arrival at Earth, sees ship
B arriving at Earth before ship B left? Ship A wouldn't see that.

They don't see ship B arrive at all. But they do have evidence that it
has been there
for a long time. At the exact time of the departure of ship B, people
from ship A
see that people from ship B had enough time to sell the goods they
brought back
from Alpha Centauri, invest the procedes and earn interest on those
proceeds.
They don't see people from ship B arriving but they notice that they
have changed
timeline. The world they see isn't consistent with being zero seconds
after the
departure of ship B. People on ship A don't see people on ship B
arriving because
you don't see anything while travelling at the speed of light. If people
on ship
A would travel just a touch slower than the speed of light then yes they
would
see people on ship B arriving before they left and they would try to
figure out what
would happen if someone who has arrived on ship B would go and kill the
himself
which hasn't yet left.

When ship A arrives back on Earth, 8 years have passed on Earth. Lots of
things could have happened on Earth, in what seems like no time to ship A.
Including the departure and arrival of many ships, which need not have gone
FTL.

Special relativity measurements should be made from inertial frames anyway.
And ship A is most definitely not in an inertial frame!

Even if you accelerate, people shouldn't have the possibility to shake
hands with a
past replica of themselves.

Another way of seeing this is that for a person on a ship travelling at
the speed of
light, his speed is infinite. His clocks have stopped and he can reach a
point at
any distance in no time according to his watch. If you can travel a
large distance
in zero seconds wouldn't you say that your speed is infinite. So if at
the speed
of light you reach your destination exactly at the same time as when you
left,
wouldn't you reach your destination earlier if you went faster?

The light speed traveller also has infinite speed from an energy point
of view, his mass
has shifted to infinity and he had to spend an infinity of energy to
reach that speed.

The speed of light is also an infinite speed from the perspective of how
far one is
from reaching the speed of light. If you travel at 99.9999% of the speed
of light
and want to know how much more you have to accelerate to reach the speed of
light you will notice that you must increase your speed by exactly the
speed of
light to reach it. Going very fast doesn't get you any closer to the
speed of light.
Just like going very fast doesn't get you any closer that an infinite speed.

So asking if it is possible to go faster than the speed of light is like
asking if
it is possible to go faster than an infinite speed. The answer is yes,
if you can
travel back in time and no if you can't.

Alain Fournier

Explorer8939 wrote:

Are you guys seriously trashing Clark because he is not sufficiently
good at being a politician?

I don't speak for others, but that's what I'm doing in this
particular instance.

Please, if you want good politicians,
that's what you will get.

I *always* want good politicians. I don't, however, always get them.
Partly from the lack of a universal agreement on what constitutes
'good.' Partly because being an effective campaigner doesn't always
translate into being good in office.

Geoffrey A. Landis wrote:

His 96 state of the
union address declared the end of the era of big government.

Perhaps the biggest, boldest, baldest lie in US political history.


His HillaryCare would have taken over something like seven percent of GDP
for Da Gubmint.

That's the part where I said "socially liberal".

That's also not Fiscally Conservative. Taking over large portions of the
GDP for *any* purpose ain't FC.

Only the fact of the "Republican Revolution" in '94, when the Repubs finally
had the balls and the numbers to stand up to the Dems,

And *increase* government spending.

But they fought down increased taxation. While it's Not Good that Repubs
are also spending whores, at least they're not as bad tax whores.

prevented the Clintons from totally trashing the economy through even *more*
massive tax increases.

Sorry, unsubstantiated.

Clinton's 1993 tax increase. As memory serves it was the US's largest to
that date.


Instead, they went on a "don't tax but increase spending" spree.
Cutting taxes without correspondingly cutting spending isn't actually
a tax cut, of course-- it's a tax deferment.

Cutting taxes can be a way of increasing revenue, not decreasing
revenue. Just as increasing taxes is a way of decreasing revenue, as
California is finding out.

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address