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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 martyb on Friday April 28 2017, @11:39AM (5 children)
Heh. I was waiting for someone to post something like that... did you notice the "dept" line for this story?
=)
On a separate note, you piqued my curiosity with this statement:
I'm genuinely curious what chapter(s)/verse(s) suggest that? A quick search suggests you may be referring to Ez 1:4?
I wonder if this is a one-off, or if there are other similar references in other books of the bible?
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday April 28 2017, @12:49PM (3 children)
The Ezekiel thing is from Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods. An analysis of it:
https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/337-does-the-bible-refer-to-ufos [christiancourier.com]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 28 2017, @03:45PM (2 children)
Rather hard to read with a straight face as nearly the entire article sounds like the author wildly pulling stuff out of their ass, and barely-relevant quotations from elsewhere in the Bible. "This is true because I say so" :P
But I mean, we're arguing between Biblical literality and ancient astronauts so what does one really expect, lol. The idea that Ezekiel saw a flying saucer but couldn't describe it properly is that preposterous?
16 As for the appearance of the wheels and their construction: their appearance was like the gleaming of beryl; and the four had the same form, their construction being something like a wheel within a wheel. 17 When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering as they moved. 18 Their rims were tall and awesome, for the rims of all four were full of eyes all around.
Ball bearings? Can't say "eyes" would be the first word I would reach for, but hey.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Friday April 28 2017, @04:44PM (1 child)
I remember reading (long ago) something about Ezekiel in Chariots of the Gods; I didn't read much of the essay that I linked. I expect that there exists other commentary about von Daniken's book that may make more sense. I'm sorry that that essay does not.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday April 28 2017, @05:12PM
The chapter in question is pretty trippy. I'd recommend a read :)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Touché) by stormreaver on Friday April 28 2017, @07:02PM
Using the Bible as evidence of the possibility of time travel is like using Star Wars to violently defend your theory of the evolution of the Wookie: It takes someone's drunken fantasy way too seriously.