Many of us have heard about the double slit experiment where a photon can take a different path if someone observed it, proving when we look at things it changes their outcome. The same theory has been applied to an atom as well:
We all have times we wish we could go back in time and make a different decision. Now that appears to be possible – for single atoms, at least. Physicists at the Australian National University have confirmed one of the most profound thought experiments of quantum physics. It appears to show that present actions can affect past events.
Andrew Truscott and his team showed that if you offer a speeding helium atom two possible paths, the route it takes appears to be retroactively determined by the act of measuring the atom at the end of its journey.
Let’s find out what happened in this time travel experiment on the next page
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Time travel at the atomic level. Very cool stuff
If you were to go back in time or forward in time, it would be parallel. The silly grandfather paradox, it’s fallacious. Time was created for punctuality.
Time travel is impossible. If anything were altered it would cause a different timeline ergo you’d never know if someone DID timetravel and you’d never need to timetravel since the future you’re apart of never happened, hence no need to “do/fix” anything. It might happen on a particle level, but higher levels of it would be impractical and impossible.
I have to ask,why? I’m not against us technologically bettering ourselves,but why do we try to push into things we have no business in? Sorry but usually in the movies and novels, messing with time equals a domino effect of horrific effects.
@[100001218458063:2048:David Sanchez]
@[100001944388682:2048:Jeremy Caraway]
Aliens beg to differ 🙂
This is old af
I think time is related to perception. I’ve heard that the past, future and present exist at the same time. It’s our perception that time is linear. Don’t know if it’s true. But seems to be valid with time being affected by gravity. I know GPS satellites are affected by time dilation. Hence you need multiple satellites to find your location. Time is weird.
@[1678298114:2048:Toni Conley]
Time is more than a matter of perception–time exists whether or not anybody is paying attention to it. Nobody is really sure why time seems linear, though I have heard some interesting theories about thermodynamics and information theory that attempt to explain it. We call this the “arrow of time” and it is still very much a matter of debate.
It is sort of true that the past, present, and future exist simultaneously, as a consequence of relativity. Since time moves more slowly the faster you move compared to the observer, there could be a star on the other side of the universe where it is currently thousands of years in the past or future, depending on your frame of reference.
In short, yes time is weird, but that’s what makes it so fascinating!
@[100000501725873:2048:Hans Holdiman] @[100004106381317:2048:Cody Shelton]
@[100001104917619:2048:Anthony James Smith] @[1038279011:2048:Mitch Marvin] @[100001342388610:2048:Chris Anderson]
How does it feel being so intelligent? Just curious. Hahah
Honestly? Kind of lonely, at times. It isn’t easy finding people to talk to about these sorts of topics, as most people just tend to tune out after a minute or two. Fortunately, the Internet provides opportunities like this thread to generate fulfilling dialogue.
I’ve had a thought about time for quite a while now. Just follow me and let me know what you think. Time is viewed to the human mind as a number like pattern, you go forward or back wards, you can count numbers as they get bigger and u can count numbers as they get smaller. Positives and negatives. Now think about a stop watch, it reads 0.01 seconds. A smaller number would be 0.009 and then 0.008…0.001. You have an infinite amount of 0s before you get the next smaller number. Time can’t be viewed backwards because it infinitely moves forward just at a smaller numerical “speed”. You can’t ever really get 0
@[1303380561:2048:Alex Kuhn]
I like your response a lot.
It is impossible to travel through time by traveling long distances over a short time. The only thing that happens is that the time you experience becomes stretched allowing the time your present in not to be affected by the time it takes to travel the long distance relevant to the time you either enter or have left. Meaning if we sent a satellite through a worm hole on Earth millions of years would p$#%&!@* while if you were in the satellite only minutes would p$#%&!@*. Time is only relevant to distance when your determine speed. Time doesn’t change whether your moving fast or slow.
At the sub atomic level. By circulating fields of light using high powered lasers
But at the LHC the higgs-boson (GOD PARTICLE) has been discovered. This is an incredible discovery
That’s a theory. It could be like throwing a rock in a river. U will get ripples but eventually the river will end up flowing to the same destination.
@[100001454299686:2048:Joshua Crutchfield]
Well, teleportation has already been achieved at that level, so I’ve figured that it was only a matter of time (“matter” “time” too many puns hehe) before time travel occurred.
@[100007084478970:2048:Appian Nasabit]
The theory as I understand it, is that it was always possible to travel forward… just not backwards.
Great Scott
Maybe that’s because time is perception. It only exists because we can observe it.
Please explain to me:
Everything is relative to the observer.
If one person is stationary (the sun) and one is circling (_earth) once a year the relative positions haven’t changed. Has a time separation occurred?
2: if two people (relative to us) are traveling at 98% of the speed of light and one increased their speed to 99.999% the speed of light how would that affect the relative relationship in time for the two speeders?
To extend this, and address the first question, if the speeder going 99.999% the speed of light increased their speed to 100.000000001% the speed of light would that traveler appear to travel backwards ? (Because, according to what I’ve read, one must breach the speed of light in order to travel to the past. But in the past both travelers were further back than their current relative position. This is why time appears to be a one way street)
Relativity is concerned with momentum, separation, so circling something will still result in time dilation. That’s what I was implying with the comment about GPS satellites. Such satellites orbit the Earth at around 17,000mph., which is fast enough to cause measurable time differences. Because of that, clocks on said satellites have to be set fast to compensate.
If one of the two speeders accelerates, it would now be moving in relation to the other speeder (whereas before they were stationary, relative to one another), so relativistic effects would occur based on that relative difference in momentum between them. The faster speeder would experience time dilation relative to the other speeder, and would experience additional time dilation from our perspective as a 3rd party observer in a stationary frame of reference. So each individual (us, and both speeders) would experience time moving at a slightly different rate for each other.
Your last question isn’t really relevant, because nothing with m$#%&!@* can reach the speed of light (the universal constant;C). Anything that doesn’t have m$#%&!@*, such as photons, must always travel at C, and therefore does not experience the p$#%&!@*ing of time, at all.
Think of it this way: imagine a graph, where the X axis is time, and the Y axis is space. Everything in the universe is always moving at a constant rate: C, but the more of its speed it devotes to moving through space, along the Y axis, the less distance it can travel along the X axis, so it experiences less time. This is the effect of time dilation. Light devotes all of its speed to moving through space, straight along the Y axis, so it doesn’t travel through time at all.
Nothing that has rest m$#%&!@*, m$#%&!@* that isn’t derived from momentum, can reach the speed of light because it must always devote some of its movement through time (because it can be at rest). Light has no rest m$#%&!@*, and therefore all of its energy is derived from momentum, so it always moves at a specific speed through space: C.
All of this is formulated by the m$#%&!@*-energy-momentum equivalency formula, of which E=mc^2 is a simplification (the famous equation is only applicable to subjects that are at rest, relative to one-another). If we illustrate the complete formula as a triangle, we see that the hypotenuse represents total energy, with the other sides being momentum and m$#%&!@*. Since the hypotenuse is always longer than either of the other sides, we can see that anything with m$#%&!@* can never derive all of its total energy from momentum, thereby showing that nothing with m$#%&!@* can reach the speed of light.
This is a pretty complex and counter-intuitive topic, so if you need further clarification, feel free to ask!
Question #1 is easy and a given,
#2… If there is an absolute speed limit to the universe, C, what is this is relation to? How do we derive “absolute zero” so to speak?
#3 … In that case, you have gone in to answer your own question you posed at the start of this thread:
Why does time have a set direction in the first place?
Absolute zero is the theoretical minimum temperature of the universe in a state of maximum entropy: meaning that all energy is evenly distributed through the universe. It is approximately -460 degrees, Fahrenheit, but it isn’t actually possible to reach absolute zero before the heat death of the universe. That really has more to do with thermodynamics than relativity.
As I mentioned, the “speed limit” of the universe is derived from C, the universal constant. Without going very deeply into the math, everything moves at C, just some things move more through time than through space (as I explained above). In other words, C is, by definition, the fastest speed in the universe. If it were possible to move faster than C, light would do so, which would simply redefine C to that higher value.
That’s why i used quotation marks. I was referring to absolute zero speed.
Surely this would have to be in relation to the average speed of all other m$#%&!@* in the universe
It is, yes. As I said, C is the total speed of everything in the universe, with objects that have m$#%&!@* splitting that speed between movement through space and time.
Zero speed (through space) is simply moving at full speed, C, through time. That’s why the faster you move through space, the more time slows down (time dilation).
So time as we know it is only for us, on this planet, around this sun, in this galaxy in this part of the universe.
And if we were to travel at 99.9999% the speed of light we would basically be ageless to an observer from this planet.
But if one was to find the center of m$#%&!@* of the universe and parked their behind there… Here it goes… They would age, from our reference here, almost instantly, to the maximum age of the universe?
No. Time is relative between each observer and each frame of reference. It doesn’t matter where in the universe you are, only the distance and relative speed between you and whatever observer is taking the measurement. So if two people sat next to one another in the center of the universe, they would see time p$#%&!@*ing normally between them. If they looked at a star moving away from them at 20% of C, it would appear that time for that star slowed down (it would also be physically shortened along the direction of its movement, another result of relativity we haven’t really mentioned, this far). If they looked at another star moving toward them at 40% of C, time for that star would appear to move even more slowly, still.
Also, bear in mind that relativity causes time to appear slow down, not to speed up. You will never see a person age super fast, because time has a maximum speed of C, which is basically the speed at which we are used to time running, since none of us generally ever move fast enough for noticeable time dilation to occur.
If you are moving in relation to another observer, both of you will see time slow down for the other, neither will see time speeding up.
Simply put the universe is infinitely expanding as it does such so does time continue to do so. It seems linear because it is. Drifting in one common direction. Time exists whether we are circulating a star or not. Matters will form and die. Fully understanding the exact relativity involves specific equations. Some perhaps beyond human capability.
Brian, that’s why I noted “from this planet”
As the observation point
You were correct in your statement that an object moving at 99% the speed of light would appear to be ageless, as it would seem like time stopped for it. I just meant that your second statement about aging quickly was incorrect. Sorry that I wasn’t clear.
I got a question. At the speed of light, does time stop. As you go into a black holes event horizon, time slows to a stop.
No matter how fast some thing travels… Nothing is faster than immediately.
You all need to think in the multiverse,,
We can get into string theory I think once we prove it we will be able to travel vast distance
I have read theories that it wouldn’t alter the distant future one example for the laymen is imagine throwing a rock in a river it will cause ripples but eventually the flow of time will cause the events further in the future to be unaffected
@[705535405:2048:Antonio Barnum] @[100009565923320:2048:Nakia Irvin]
@[100003797822699:2048:Carl Russaw]
Thanks guys awesome conversation!!!!
Physics major here! Photons and atoms aren’t waves sometimes and particles other times. They’re both at the same time and how we interact with them makes them reveal one nature, the other nature, or a combination of the two.
You haven’t time traveled here. You’ve interacted with the “tail” of the field, which interacted with the “head” of the field which changes the nature of the atom/photon.
That said, the actual effects observed here have some $#%&!@*ogies to what we think of as time travel in layperson language. But nothing has gone back in time under a rigorous definition of tone travel.
Heath Boyles: Its not impossible! it’s just improbable… we are just not advanced enough yet to understand the the possibility of quantum mechanics. I’m one to believe one day we will and dimensional travel will come first.
I think it’s just a different way of thinking of dimensions we are you used to one and there are many dimensions