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After some serious number crunching, a University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus) researcher has come up with a mathematical model for a viable time machine.
Ben Tippett, a mathematics and physics instructor at University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus, recently published a study about the feasibility of time travel. Tippett, whose field of expertise is Einstein's theory of general relativity, studies black holes and science fiction when he's not teaching. Using math and physics, he has created a formula that describes a method for time travel.
"People think of time travel as something as fiction," says Tippett. "And we tend to think it's not possible because we don't actually do it. But, mathematically, it is possible."
"The time direction of the space-time surface also shows curvature. There is evidence showing the closer to a black hole we get, time moves slower," says Tippett. "My model of a time machine uses the curved space-time -- to bend time into a circle for the passengers, not in a straight line. That circle takes us back in time."
The division of space into three dimensions, with time in a separate dimension by itself, is incorrect, says Tippett. The four dimensions should be imagined simultaneously, where different directions are connected, as a space-time continuum. Using Einstein's theory, Tippett says that the curvature of space-time accounts for the curved orbits of the planets.
[...] "While is it mathematically feasible, it is not yet possible to build a space-time machine because we need materials--which we call exotic matter--to bend space-time in these impossible ways, but they have yet to be discovered."
[...] For his research, Tippett created a mathematical model of a Traversable Acausal Retrograde Domain in Space-time (TARDIS). He describes it as a bubble of space-time geometry which carries its contents backward and forwards through space and time as it tours a large circular path. The bubble moves through space-time at speeds greater than the speed of light at times, allowing it to move backward in time.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170427091717.htm
[Abstract] Traversable acausal retrograde domains in spacetime
What do you think ?
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday April 28 2017, @10:05AM (2 children)
It could work if you can't interact and only observe.
It fails to work in the other direction though. If you move the bubble forward in time, you would be able to see the future. Back in your own time you can now 'invent' stuff you've seen, but you would not only change your own future but also the real inventors miss out on their inventions. Or you can find out where hidden treasures are found and get them before the 'rightful' finders find them. Or play the stock market, or bet on sports. It's a mess.
One way to solve this is although you could travel in time, you couldn't interact outside the bubble, or even observe outside (in case you go to the future). This would also take care of the 'accident' problem, you can't get killed for instance by a supernova as long as you're in that bubble. But what would be the point if you can't even see outside your timeship?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @11:47AM (1 child)
Sounds good on the surface, but I would ask how one can observe without interacting?
The act of seeing implies the interception of photons from whatever path they had previously been on. Or, if you prefer, of light waves from their path. Listening implies the interception of sound waves. And so on. I am unable to imagine any kind of observation that does not bring with it an attendant interaction with or change to the environment.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday April 28 2017, @04:47PM
Go back to bed Heisenberg, we've heard this all before.
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