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Time Travel Impossible,Say Scientists(So Forget The Stakeouts in Early 1960's Kenya)
Discovery News ^ | July 24, 2011 | Staff

Posted on 01/29/2014 11:10:03 AM PST by lbryce


By proving a single photon can't travel faster than light, scientists say they have proven time travel is impossible.

THE GIST
Hong Kong physicists say they have proven a single photon cannot travel faster than the speed of light.

This demonstrates that time travel is impossible, they say.

Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein's theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light — demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, "obeys the traffic law of the universe."

"Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light," the university said on its website.

"Professor Du's study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves."

The possibility of time travel was raised 10 years ago when scientists discovered superluminal — or faster-than-light — propagation of optical pulses in some specific medium, the team said.

It was later found to be a visual effect, but researchers thought it might still be possible for a single photon to exceed light speed.

Du, however, believed Einstein was right and determined to end the debate by measuring the ultimate speed of a single photon, which had not been done before.

"The study, which showed that single photons also obey the speed limit c, confirms Einstein's causality; that is, an effect cannot occur before its cause," the university said.

"By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring a closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon," said Du, assistant professor of physics.

"Our findings will also likely have potential applications by giving scientists a better picture on the transmission of quantum information."

The team's study was published in the U.S. peer-reviewed scientific journal Physical Review Letters.


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: falsesyllogism; grandfatherparadox; strawman; stringtheory; timetravel
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As noted in the keywords, the grandfather paradox has always relegated the possibility of time travel to the genre of science fiction. The premise of the grandfather paradox seemed to have settled the question of time travel with the sceanrio in which someone goes back in time and kills his grandfather, which ultimately renders him non-existent and if so then he wouldn't be around to kill his grandfather which would then have his grandfather survive, securing the time traveler's existence as descendant, and so going back in time to kill his grandfather.....

And that speaks for any attempts at time travel as means to changing history. So, you might as well conjure up some other scenario for the failure of Obama-Don't-Care.

1 posted on 01/29/2014 11:10:03 AM PST by lbryce
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To: lbryce
I'd be more impressed with this conclusion if the scientists in question could tell me with some degree of certainty just what a photon is.
2 posted on 01/29/2014 11:12:38 AM PST by Oberon (John 12:5-6)
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To: lbryce

This merely proves (if correct) that a packet with zero rest mass cannot travel faster than light. That’s has been known from the math behind special relativity for a long time.


3 posted on 01/29/2014 11:12:50 AM PST by Pollster1 ("Shall not be infringed" is unambiguous.)
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To: lbryce

This can’t be true. I saw the movie Peggy Sue God Married—not to mention Back to the Future. Time travel all over the place. It happened in one of Ray Bradbury’s short stories too. How many examples do I have to give?


4 posted on 01/29/2014 11:15:28 AM PST by Fantasywriter
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To: lbryce

Dammit. I wanted to go back and get some cars.


5 posted on 01/29/2014 11:15:43 AM PST by Jeff Chandler (Obamacare: You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.)
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To: Pollster1

“This merely proves (if correct) that a packet with zero rest mass cannot travel faster than light. That’s has been known from the math behind special relativity for a long time.”

True. And it is not true that faster than light travel necessarily equates to time travel. All of relativity is based on the idea that nothing can travel faster than light, and all of the related math flows from that premise.


6 posted on 01/29/2014 11:16:33 AM PST by PreciousLiberty
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To: lbryce

Agent J: There's no such thing as time travel.
Agent O: Well, there is.
Agent J: No. There's not. Because if there were, a class-one senior agent such as myself would have been made aware of it, wouldn't he have?
Agent O: Were it not classified and way above his pay grade.
Agent J: You know what? I need a pay raise.
7 posted on 01/29/2014 11:18:52 AM PST by DannyTN (A>)
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To: Fantasywriter

“Simpsons did it”


8 posted on 01/29/2014 11:21:12 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: MrB

I didn’t know about that one. But as seen above, it’s in Men in Black too. Now the Simpsons.

The evidence just keeps piling up. I’d call it ‘settled science’ at this point.


9 posted on 01/29/2014 11:25:09 AM PST by Fantasywriter
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To: lbryce

I read about this in June 2045.


10 posted on 01/29/2014 11:25:12 AM PST by JRios1968 (I'm guttery and trashy, with a hint of lemon. - Laz)
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To: lbryce

Yes, of course, but this will not put an end to the wild-eyed believers who are absolutely convinced that “time travel” is possible.

Time is the measurement of motion. (St Thomas of Aquinas. Right then, right now, right always.)

As such, there is no way to travel in it.


11 posted on 01/29/2014 11:26:54 AM PST by I want the USA back (Media: completely irresponsible traitors. Complicit in the destruction of our country.)
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To: lbryce

Tell me that story again, Grandpa!


12 posted on 01/29/2014 11:27:27 AM PST by 1010RD (First, Do No Harm)
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To: lbryce
Did someone forget to tell this guy?


13 posted on 01/29/2014 11:28:27 AM PST by Lx (Do you like it? Do you like it, Scott? I call it, "Mr. & Mrs. Tenorman Chili.")
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To: Jeff Chandler

“Dammit. I wanted to go back and get some cars.”

Fret not, there’s still Cuba. But, then again, it’s in a different time dimension too :)


14 posted on 01/29/2014 11:29:13 AM PST by snoringbear (E.oGovernment is the Pimp,)
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To: lbryce

So that means we’re STUCK here??!!!!


15 posted on 01/29/2014 11:29:55 AM PST by Argus
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To: lbryce

Maybe they should test a faster proton. The one they picked might have been an out of shape overweight smoker.


16 posted on 01/29/2014 11:30:00 AM PST by smoothsailing
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To: lbryce

Yep. That’s what we thought in 2025, too.


17 posted on 01/29/2014 11:30:34 AM PST by Billthedrill
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To: Fantasywriter

There certainly is a “consensus”.

I believe it was one of the Halloween specials...


18 posted on 01/29/2014 11:33:09 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: lbryce

“The possibility of time travel was raised 10 years ago when scientists discovered superluminal — or faster-than-light — propagation of optical pulses”

And at the time I said that “time travel” was impossible.


19 posted on 01/29/2014 11:33:27 AM PST by I want the USA back (Media: completely irresponsible traitors. Complicit in the destruction of our country.)
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To: lbryce

IOW, light cannot travel faster than the speed of light.


20 posted on 01/29/2014 11:35:51 AM PST by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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