6 ms·

Perhaps no evidence was found because people from the future have seen this paper and therefore know not to reveal themselves this way!

by gb 12y ago

jerf 12y ago
It depends on which model exactly time travel works on. Really, this is good science; it has a low probability of working, but the cost is very low too (literally a hobby-time expenditure), it asks a lot of interesting questions, and has a reasonable method for finding answers. It could also shine light on the question of how time travel works, if it does. Science should include a healthy portfolio of such experiments. (As opposed to low-probability, very expensive experiments, such as I occasionally wonder about our fusion experiments.)
- pyre 12y ago
  In general, I agree with you, but I think that there is a difference between time travel and (e.g.) fusion. - Time travel as a phenomenon is not known to exist, while fusion is known to exist. - Fusion experiments are trying to create human-controlled, energy-generating fusion reactions. We know that energy-generating fusion reactions are possible, we just don't know if we can create them under controlled conditions. - Fusion-generated energy has the possibility to transform that world. Time travel will transform our understanding of the universe, but seems like playing with fire. Were we to discover time travel, we would now have to 'protect time' from 'evil' time travelers.
  - delian66 12y ago
    >>seems like playing with fire well, fusion is playing with fire (plasma) almost by definition.
- arethuza 12y ago
  What makes you think that ITER has a low probability of success? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
  - jerf 12y ago
    The low rate of success achieved to date would be my first clue. I try to avoid the trap of letting today's glittering promises of future success distract from the fact that yesterday's glittering promises of future success' dates have actually come and gone (and come and gone and come and gone again). Cards-on-the-table, my definition of success is full-on commercially-viable fusion, because little else justifies the enormous investments made into this technology. Any other "incidental" benefit you might want to cite, such as "better understanding of plasma physics", could probably have been obtained for orders of magnitude (plural and no exaggeration) less money. (I also try to avoid the trap of seeing the word "science" and just shutting off my brain and throwing money at the problem because "SCIENCE!". Nonsense. Science is not immune to cost/benefit analysis just because it's shiny, and cost/benefit analysis is always probabilistic so yes, it can perfectly well deal with uncertainties of discovery too. See my previous comment about the value of keeping some cheap longshots in the portfolio. Just think, what other science could we have done with the billions of dollars it has consumed?)
    - DennisP 12y ago
      The fusion triple product has improved exponentially, and is 10,000 times better now than it was in 1970. It's a hard problem, but it's not so much "we keep trying and failing" as "we're consistently improving, but the bar is really high." It's as if computers were useless until we had a 6th-generation Core i7, and people were saying "bah, computers, haven't succeeded so far." We're not there yet, but we're getting pretty close. It is true that early researchers made some over-optimistic predictions. But they conditioned those on a certain level of funding. For the funding they got, they said it would never happen.
      - jerf 12y ago
        Again, I just can't help but think you've been blinded by SCIENCE! What I see is a curve that is slowing, not speeding, and no particular reason to believe that the curve ever gets over the "commercially-viable fusion" break-even point, ever. We are not obligated to stop thinking about things because of how awesome the alternate reality where this all works like gangbusters would be. This is science, not politics. Or, more accurately, ITER is politics, and not science, which is another reason I'm not holding my breath for this. It's not an experiment we're doing because the results are just so darned promising we had to carry on... it's an experiment we're doing because politicians have decided this is the way forward. We pour billions into this, and other approaches have a hard time getting single-digit millions. I do not care to follow along with the everybody-get-happy politics of ITER, I want fusion. Might I further add that as this is science, should ITER succeed and produce a commercially-viable reactor, I will celebrate them all the harder for doing something I thought very unlikely, not try to argue it away. However, that is my bar for success, and I will not accept something sneaking under it under a cloak of pretty words.
madaxe_again 12y ago
If there are time travellers from a future, it isn't our future, and this isn't their past - otherwise causality doesn't work. Instead if you travel back in time you travel to a point, which immediately bifurcates into a new reality. I like to think that we're all time travellers, collectively collapsing the universe's wavefunction through will alone... And now I'm onto determinism so I'll shut up.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- bentcorner 12y ago
  What's to say that we're not existing in a reality created by a time traveler? A new-reality model of time travel only affects the viewpoint of the time traveler.
  - Chronic28 12y ago
    Who cares if our present was altered by a time traveler. We can't tell.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Causality could be a generalization that breaks down in extreme cases, like Newtonian mechanics.
  - ludwigvan 12y ago
    This is scary.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      Why?
- maxerickson 12y ago
  We only have a very firm belief that causality is inviolate. I guess there isn't a way to prove that it is.
lloeki 12y ago
I claim the opposite: one of the rejections was obviously made by a time traveler who has seen a yet to be shot Doctor Who episode written by the scenarist mentioned by the paper's author. Quite a mise en abyme.
bbwharris 12y ago
Furthermore, simply the act of publishing this paper likely caused our time line to shift to a point where future travelers are privvy to automated methods to detect their presence in the past.

Perhaps no evidence was found because people from the future have seen this paper and therefore know not to reveal themselves this way!

by gb 12y ago

Perhaps no evidence was found because people from the future have seen this paper and therefore know not to reveal themselves this way!

jerf 12y ago

It depends on which model exactly time travel works on. Really, this is good science; it has a low probability of working, but the cost is very low too (literally a hobby-time expenditure), it asks a lot of interesting questions, and has a reasonable method for finding answers. It could also shine light on the question of how time travel works, if it does. Science should include a healthy portfolio of such experiments. (As opposed to low-probability, very expensive experiments, such as I occasionally wonder about our fusion experiments.)

pyre 12y ago
In general, I agree with you, but I think that there is a difference between time travel and (e.g.) fusion. - Time travel as a phenomenon is not known to exist, while fusion is known to exist. - Fusion experiments are trying to create human-controlled, energy-generating fusion reactions. We know that energy-generating fusion reactions are possible, we just don't know if we can create them under controlled conditions. - Fusion-generated energy has the possibility to transform that world. Time travel will transform our understanding of the universe, but seems like playing with fire. Were we to discover time travel, we would now have to 'protect time' from 'evil' time travelers.
- delian66 12y ago
  >>seems like playing with fire well, fusion is playing with fire (plasma) almost by definition.
arethuza 12y ago
What makes you think that ITER has a low probability of success? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
- jerf 12y ago
  The low rate of success achieved to date would be my first clue. I try to avoid the trap of letting today's glittering promises of future success distract from the fact that yesterday's glittering promises of future success' dates have actually come and gone (and come and gone and come and gone again). Cards-on-the-table, my definition of success is full-on commercially-viable fusion, because little else justifies the enormous investments made into this technology. Any other "incidental" benefit you might want to cite, such as "better understanding of plasma physics", could probably have been obtained for orders of magnitude (plural and no exaggeration) less money. (I also try to avoid the trap of seeing the word "science" and just shutting off my brain and throwing money at the problem because "SCIENCE!". Nonsense. Science is not immune to cost/benefit analysis just because it's shiny, and cost/benefit analysis is always probabilistic so yes, it can perfectly well deal with uncertainties of discovery too. See my previous comment about the value of keeping some cheap longshots in the portfolio. Just think, what other science could we have done with the billions of dollars it has consumed?)
  - DennisP 12y ago
    The fusion triple product has improved exponentially, and is 10,000 times better now than it was in 1970. It's a hard problem, but it's not so much "we keep trying and failing" as "we're consistently improving, but the bar is really high." It's as if computers were useless until we had a 6th-generation Core i7, and people were saying "bah, computers, haven't succeeded so far." We're not there yet, but we're getting pretty close. It is true that early researchers made some over-optimistic predictions. But they conditioned those on a certain level of funding. For the funding they got, they said it would never happen.
    - jerf 12y ago
      Again, I just can't help but think you've been blinded by SCIENCE! What I see is a curve that is slowing, not speeding, and no particular reason to believe that the curve ever gets over the "commercially-viable fusion" break-even point, ever. We are not obligated to stop thinking about things because of how awesome the alternate reality where this all works like gangbusters would be. This is science, not politics. Or, more accurately, ITER is politics, and not science, which is another reason I'm not holding my breath for this. It's not an experiment we're doing because the results are just so darned promising we had to carry on... it's an experiment we're doing because politicians have decided this is the way forward. We pour billions into this, and other approaches have a hard time getting single-digit millions. I do not care to follow along with the everybody-get-happy politics of ITER, I want fusion. Might I further add that as this is science, should ITER succeed and produce a commercially-viable reactor, I will celebrate them all the harder for doing something I thought very unlikely, not try to argue it away. However, that is my bar for success, and I will not accept something sneaking under it under a cloak of pretty words.

madaxe_again 12y ago

If there are time travellers from a future, it isn't our future, and this isn't their past - otherwise causality doesn't work. Instead if you travel back in time you travel to a point, which immediately bifurcates into a new reality. I like to think that we're all time travellers, collectively collapsing the universe's wavefunction through will alone... And now I'm onto determinism so I'll shut up.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bentcorner 12y ago
What's to say that we're not existing in a reality created by a time traveler? A new-reality model of time travel only affects the viewpoint of the time traveler.
- Chronic28 12y ago
  Who cares if our present was altered by a time traveler. We can't tell.
dllthomas 12y ago
Causality could be a generalization that breaks down in extreme cases, like Newtonian mechanics.
- ludwigvan 12y ago
  This is scary.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Why?
maxerickson 12y ago
We only have a very firm belief that causality is inviolate. I guess there isn't a way to prove that it is.

lloeki 12y ago

I claim the opposite: one of the rejections was obviously made by a time traveler who has seen a yet to be shot Doctor Who episode written by the scenarist mentioned by the paper's author. Quite a mise en abyme.

bbwharris 12y ago

Furthermore, simply the act of publishing this paper likely caused our time line to shift to a point where future travelers are privvy to automated methods to detect their presence in the past.