It appears that the good Doctor's famous quote, "Time is a bit wibbly wobbly..." may be correct.
In a paper published in the prestigious journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society, Associate Professor Joan Vaccaro challenges the long-held presumption that time evolution — the incessant unfolding of the universe over time – is an elemental part of Nature.
In Quantum asymmetry between time and space, she suggests there may be a deeper origin due to a difference between the two directions of time: to the future and to the past.
The original article is here http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/472/2185/20150670
The implication here is that time resonates at least at the smallest levels. This is similar to quantum superpositioning, wherein an object can be said to be in multiple states at once. Put another way, it appears that at least at the smallest levels that the future affects the past.
What do you guys think? Does the future really leak into the past? Or is this just some strange artifact of the math used to describe the problem?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @02:25AM
So if the future affects the past at that level then it would exist everywhere.
Then at any moment all of the future would affect all of the past. Meaning there is no time. To us that is clearly not true. Neat idea though.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday March 10 2016, @05:02AM
To us that is clearly not true. Neat idea though.
Two points: who is this "us" of which you speak?
And: by what criteria do you judge clarity?
I only ask since to many of us this is not clearly true (for the time being!), and we do not think it is a neat idea. Please respond. But at your leisure, since there is no time.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday March 10 2016, @05:58AM
To start making sense of TFA, maybe one should start with:
* Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory [wikipedia.org] - based on the note that Maxwell's eqs are symmetrical in the time-dimension, why would one need an arrow of time?
* Path integral formulation [wikipedia.org] of QM
* perhaps something on transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics [wikipedia.org] as well?
I read TFA, I didn't find the authors expressing anything like it, so either:
* [Citation needed] - maybe I'm wrong and the authors of TFA have said so; or
* the reasoning the author of the TFS used to derive this implication
---
The way I understood TFA, it looks like some math formalized explorations into the path integral formulation of QM with and without time symmetry assumption, with an attempt to see "Is there anything that would make the arrow of time emerge as derived from some other intrinsic properties/behaviours?"
I guess the entire conclusion of the exercise hinges:
a. on the choice of the non-zero commutator between the advanced/retrograde hamiltonians in the relation (3.7) - the choice seems to be made as simple as possible for the sale of "let's see some quality of the results" rather than "obtains some results consistent with the reality and table a new theory"
b. the choice of TFAuthors to apply path integrals over space coordinates independently of the path integrals over the time coordinate and viceversa - I'm not sure if this is correct, it's like assuming the variables can be separated and a multiple integral can be written as the product of simple ones
I'm afraid I'm inclined towards the "Or" alternative.
As I have to go now, I'll let the question about future leaks to be answered by our ancestors.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Funny) by Osamabobama on Thursday March 10 2016, @09:48PM
According to my reading of TFA, when the Sun shines upon Earth, 2 major Time points are created on opposite sides of Earth, known as Midday and Midnight. Where the 2 major Time forces join, synergy creates 2 new minor Time points we recognize as Sunup and Sundown. The 4 equidistant Time points can be considered as a Time Square imprinted upon the circle of Earth. In a single rotation of the Earth sphere, each Time corner point rotates through the other 3 corner Time points, thus creating 16 corners, 96 hours and 4 simultaneous 24-hour Days within a single rotation of Earth – equated to a Higher Order of Life Time Cube.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @09:57PM
Minor time travel detected! (timecube domain expired Aug 2015)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @02:25AM
here u get downmodded because u say true things about evolution and history...
nobody replies or corrects what u said, cuz there is nothing to correct, but u get downmodded...
fuck this site....
also, developers of this place, let go and get on with ur lives...
better for us all...
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @02:38AM
dont b mad, lets b friends 👬
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @02:40AM
NT
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @03:00AM
Listen to this AC folks! He's a true historian and scientific ace!!!
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday March 10 2016, @03:04AM
No thanks. If I had any more free time I'd end up overfishing my favorite spots. Just going to have to live with something you hate being continuously developed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @03:08AM
Link us some examples of what you're talking about so we can decide whether to agree or laugh at you.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by arslan on Thursday March 10 2016, @03:20AM
What I do at present, is in some parts affected by the future, or at least my perception of the different possible outcomes of the future; and those present actions become the past the moment I act on it.
So in that sense, yes the future affects the past.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Thursday March 10 2016, @05:01AM
Sure, but not at all what the article is about.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Thursday March 10 2016, @03:43AM
What do you guys think? Does the future really leak into the past? Or is this just some strange artifact of the math used to describe the problem?
If the math describes the problem and you can't map it onto other math that doesn't show the same strange artifact, then there's your answer.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday March 10 2016, @04:15AM
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @03:49AM
One should not send in stuff (to SN or journals) when one is high on weed and acid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @04:27AM
That's ok, as long as I can still drunk post off topic comments on the interwebs!
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Thursday March 10 2016, @04:30AM
The content is perfectly understandable. Maybe you shouldn't read it while using weed, acid, alcohol, etc.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @04:37AM
Can't help it. My future must have "resonated" back that led to this ... ah ... flashback.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @05:04AM
I call bullshit, you didn't read shit beyond summary.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Thursday March 10 2016, @04:44AM
Fourier series [wikipedia.org] for a square wave never sum to exactly zero. Therefore when one flips on the light switch, the process, it seems, starts from the big bang and beyond.
This was only partially a joke.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @04:46AM
Fourier series does sum up if extended infinitely as it is supposed to.
(Score: 2) by legont on Thursday March 10 2016, @04:55AM
For the sum up to zero, the communication channel, wire in the switch in this particular case, should be able to handle unlimited frequencies, which is obviously not the case.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Thursday March 10 2016, @05:44AM
And that, my friends, is why you shouldn't trust mathematical equations without verifying the results experimentally.
Math is perfectly happy with things like Xeno's paradox, whereas an experiment or some common sense would suggest that at some point you get close enough to touch the destination at which point you decide that you're there. Different cultures will affix different radii to "here," but all cultures agree that eventually you do hit a point where the difference between here and there is nil.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday March 11 2016, @01:18AM
Before an attempt for an experiment, should we do some estimates? Perhaps, the amplitude of the back in time wave is well below the noise levels. May be we need a set-up similar - in monetary terms - to the one which presumably discovered gravitational waves along with some nice Python software.)
Sounds like a nice weekend project... and no, I do not know the answer. However, I did knew some curious engineers - not scientists - who tried but gave up for various reasons.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday March 10 2016, @09:42AM
Of course, in the real world circuits ring if you attempt (and fail) to apply an actual perfect square wave. It's just an example of mathematics being able to express something that doesn't occur in nature.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @12:28PM
It's just an example of mathematics being able to express something that doesn't occur in nature.
I believe this is exactly OP kinda-humorous point about TFA.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday March 11 2016, @01:06AM
I would buy this for turning the switch on. However, there are some real fast ways to interrupt the circuits. One off is enough.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday March 11 2016, @02:32AM
And not one of those ways can actually kill the circuit in Plank time. That would be necessary for a mathematical square wave to happen.
Further, a circuit (however simple) that has absolutely no capacitance and no inductance only exists in the world of spherical cows in a vacuum.
That's not to say that the ringing is significant in most cases, certainly it isn't in the case of a light switch. In the world of those very fast switches, it sometimes is significant even if tiny.
Another interesting thing about the real world, quantum mechanics dictates an upper bound on frequency.
Given all of those ways that the mathematics is just a good approximation of the real world, it's no wonder the sums don't converge exactly.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday March 11 2016, @03:53AM
As a (former) mathematician I would say that it is physicists who do "approximation" and not very good at that) That was a negative cow joke revenge;).
Regardless, I haven't seen a model that would describe the effect in the ways you suggested and show how the waves null out in the past. Until such a model is presented, any honest researcher should either assume time travel or say that it is an open issue; right on the wiki page that is.
BTW, I also think that some quantum effects should explain this even for a rather simple switches.
Anyway, it illustrates how science, as presented in schools and almost anywhere, is basically a fairy tale. I much prefer any scientific explanation left out with open questions, not limited answers.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday March 11 2016, @07:16AM
I wouldn't go so far as to call it a fairy tale. It's a simplification to be certain, but a useful one. If I use Newton's laws (known now to be only an approximation), the space probe still ends up where it's supposed to, the jet still flies, and the cars still have time to stop for the red. It works for practical real world engineering.
We do amazing things in signal processing with FFT even though we know it doesn't converge perfectly. You can get a long way in circuit design knowing nothing of quantum mechanics in spite of semiconductors operating on quantum effects.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday March 10 2016, @06:26AM
Not to mention that it's impossible for Achilles to actually catch up to the damned tortoise, and arrows simply can't fly.
I prefer Anne McCaffery's solution (toyed with in her Pern novels): The future can't affect the past because the future hasn't happened yet. And how could the past be affected by something that hasn't happened?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @07:18AM
The future can't affect the past because the future hasn't happened yet. And how could the past be affected by something that hasn't happened?
Well, it hasn't happened yet where you are. But what makes you think your time line is the only, or even the primary, one? Puny Humans, ugly bags of mostly water!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday March 11 2016, @09:32AM
I actually tried it, and experiments showed its true. Now the hardest part was to find Achilles. Well, I've found someone who claimed to be Achilles, and after the experiment I verified that he was indeed Achilles be checking that he could be killed through his heel, so it is clearly verified that this was, indeed, Achilles. Finding a tortoise was easy, of course.
So I set up the race, putting some food at the end of the race track to motivate the tortoise, which was hungry because I didn't feed it beforehand (to be sure it's sufficiently hungry, I didn't feed it for half a year), but Achilles simply declared that it is beyond his honour to do such a silly race. Thus, as predicted, he didn't ever reach the tortoise, despite the fact that the tortoise decided not to move at all, which I take as further evidence that movement is, indeed, impossible.
Unfortunately publication of the experiment was denied with the argument that it was not repeatable. Currently I'm investigating the option to clone Achilles in order to remove this objection.
Sincerely,
Zeno
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bogsnoticus on Thursday March 10 2016, @04:56AM
After all, the older I get, the better I was.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday March 10 2016, @01:34PM
And the sex you haven't had yet was great! :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Thursday March 10 2016, @05:25AM
Even a PhD mathematician and physicist would need a while to review this paper. I think it is reasonable to accept that these scientists know what they are talking about.
So the math says something is there and only experimental testing will decide if that is true. There is no mathematical trickery going on, if there is a problem it is with the equations governing the theories and one way or another experiments for this will teach us more about the universe. Our armchair commentary is only going to result in three positions:
1. That is silly, anyone can see this makes no sense because the past and future are obvious.
2. Of course the future affects the past, that is how Cthulu sneaks through the dimensional chains, through our dreeeeams man.
3. Intriguing possibility (queue discussion of details), can't wait to see how this turns out.
The first two are really just opinionated nonsense based on personal deep seated beliefs. #1 is how the old flat earthers thought, "that doesn't fit my sense of reason so it isn't true" #2 is pure belief, possibly influenced by personal anecdotes which are not scientifically rigorous (hence my metaphor), #3 is the only viable option unless you personally understand the nature of the universe, or if you have concrete proof of the future affecting the past.
Being open minded is good, it is usually not harmful to entertain different possibilities in the world.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 4, Informative) by Tork on Thursday March 10 2016, @05:39AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @06:00AM
In fairness, they could be referring to the series, not the character. And at least they didn't refer to it as "Dr. Who" but spelled the name out correctly.
(Score: 1) by devlux on Thursday March 10 2016, @03:39PM
Ya, my bad. Sort of a recent fan of the series never have been able to figure out which is the correct way of addressing the person vs the show.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 10 2016, @07:55PM
I love that the highest rated "Informative" post in this physics thread is the one correcting the name of a fictional time lord!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by jIyajbe on Thursday March 10 2016, @05:50AM
Oof. I need to read the paper, but--a thought that occurs to me is that the concept of a photon being in a superposition of "forward-in-time" and "backward-in-time" might (MIGHT) have a bearing on quantum entanglement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement/ [wikipedia.org]
"Don't blame the log for the fire." --Andrew Ratshin
(Score: 1) by devlux on Thursday March 10 2016, @10:35PM
Interesting, I was thinking something similar.
I confess, I barely have the math skills to follow the paper. Which is why I asked the question. Is she doing the math right? I honestly can't tell.
If so then it makes for a lot of thinking that maybe this is key to the whole GUT problem.
We see time as progressing forward because that is the only state that leaves us able to remember.
http://phys.org/news/2009-08-physicist-solution-arrow-of-time-paradox.html [phys.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @06:18AM
So if Schrodinger's cat while in an undetermined state kills his own grandfather cat before he's born...
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday March 10 2016, @08:53AM
Then don't dare open that damn box.
Pandora made that mistake once already in this universe.
(Although my Italian girlfriend will tell you that she opened a vase, not a box, but who cares).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @02:56PM
For, you see, in English "box" is slang for vagina, thus every woman has her very own Pandora's box; And the warnings for opening it and the monsters that may spring forth are all apt. analogies. Speaking of analogies:
It's similar to how a car has a trunk in the US, but a boot in the UK -- That is to say: Sometimes even a flashy vehicle will open Pandora's box due to either shoddy manufacturing or the female adoration for rear ends.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday March 10 2016, @09:23AM
That's easy. The life part kills the grandfather and therefore doesn't exist, thus there remains the dead part that cannot kill the grandfather. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @06:27AM
Especially after 4 drinks
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Thursday March 10 2016, @08:49AM
Now, this explanation may be nonsense. I don't get quantum physics and I'm no longer in the uni frame of mind correct enough to do the maths.
But I once had something explained to me, in the guise of "this is how weird quantum physics gets".
The basic gist was: A certain type of particle is able to "borrow" energy from nowhere. It literally get energy that it didn't have a moment at go. And this appears to violate certain principles of science, of course.
It then uses that energy to undergo a kind of state change.
And then at that point it "repays" the energy back.
I've spoken to a couple of people heavily involved in the theoretical side and they seem to agree that this is the case, but for the life of me I can never remember the system/particle/states they attribute this to.
Because the maths fits (which is where a lot of weirdness initially is posited in quantum theory, which then results in illogical nonsense, that then appears to actually BE TRUE in real life), things work out, but the current "best explanation" is that the particle is borrowing energy from either a) another dimension or b) itself in the future. Which, mathematically speaking, could be one and the same thing.
And it wouldn't take vast stretches of a quantum theorists brain (which is already so scrambled as to void all explanation!) to suggest that, as time is a dimension, although WE can only get forward in it, there's nothing saying that the particle's source of energy isn't "going the other way", so it's able to borrow from its future self where it does have the energy.
Now, this is a HIGHLY SIMPLIFIED version of events, I realise that. When I mention it on forums, often quantum physicists pop up and announce what this phenomenon is, but it's one of those things that's hard enough to explain, let alone understand, so my simplified version may be complete rubbish. But, in a way, to my mind, it could kind of make sense. And time might indeed be a bit wibbly-wobbly on quantum-scales. It doesn't mean we can time-travel, it just means that the universe gets weird when you're massless or at the speed of light or a particle hopping dimensions.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday March 10 2016, @08:55AM
Ah ha! I found what I'm referring to:
http://quantumace-enying.wikispaces.com/Borrowing+Energy+from+the+Future [wikispaces.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday March 10 2016, @11:10AM
It appears that the good Doctor's famous quote, "Time is a bit wibbly wobbly..." may be correct.
Well it's not correct, because that's not what he said:
"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... timey wimey... stuff."
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday March 10 2016, @01:41PM
I'm kind of hoping that they 'reboot' the series, going back to more of the old Who stuff: Capaldi reminds me of the original Doctor, except he got some pretty shit writing (It's the stuff you wipe from the corners of your eyes.... wtf!?!)
Give me a simpler Doctor, who was quite willing to be the 'Doctor who would!', rather than the one who wouldn't.
I dunno where they are/will be going with the series... they just need to do more long term planning..... and maybe be willing to lose some viewership in the non-real-fans.......
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 1) by devlux on Friday March 11 2016, @12:05AM
It was correct at the time of the original submission. Clearly the problem is that the show has retconned what was said.
Here is proof...
http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=4043 [smbc-comics.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @02:43PM
The guy is taking the classical "space" and "time" as axioms, and then doing whatever.
But these days, it is already the premise itself that is questionable.
http://www.nature.com/news/the-quantum-source-of-space-time-1.18797 [nature.com]
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/quantum-experiment-shows-how-time-emerges-from-entanglement-d5d3dc850933 [medium.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @04:45PM
i think it's just comparing stuff thus physics uses math and math compares stuff. yeah! for the equal sign.
now in math you don't need reality; the one that poops in your front yard, makes your tummy growl or
burns down your house. you got the basic "fantasy rules" (axioms?) and start constructing stuff that are
tautologies.
however if you use the math-"tool" in physics or engineering you have to define or classify the common reality, like with
a language.
if you fail at defining objects (with a language) or with your perception (or you are stuck in a certain view of the world)
then the math "tool" will fail because you cannot compare.
thus, the real job of a physicists might be to define a global object tree of things in reality FIRST before applying math?
blah blah blah .. sorry ; )
not sure if this is a good example but we have no word (or perception) of ONE object being in two places at the same time?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 10 2016, @05:31PM
e.g. say you create an MMO game world and you don't store any copies of the past world. There is just the Now state, which includes memories and other effects of past events, but that's not the same as having a past world to go to (unless you "snapshot" the game world at a particular point). And time is just a made up measurement of the rate things seem to change in that world (which may not have any relation to the outside world - could change if computation of the game world gets complex).
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday March 10 2016, @06:18PM
I have always thought that this was inherent in quantum mechanics. And I'd strike "at the smallest level", since it's just as true at larger levels, but with decreasing probabilities, just like position and velocity.
I'm too long away from the math to even try to read her argument, but this *sounds* like a restatement of the standard interpretation of uncertainty.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.