Well, I would think if he was going to get validity for his test, he would have to eliminate any question there. I didn't see any attempt to address it in the article, and it was the first thing that occured to me. 
Posted on 03/22/2004 4:20:21 PM PST by Momaw Nadon
A physics professor will try to turn back time in an experiment at the Miami Museum of Science.
It's back to the future all over again -- at least, that's what Carlos Dolz has in mind.
The Florida International University physics professor plans to take time to task at 10 a.m. Wednesday, when he presents an experiment that involves using acceleration to speed up a digital clock by four seconds.
Dolz's experiment -- which takes six hours to finish -- will become part of Playing With Time, the current exhibit at the Miami Museum of Science.
Dolz, who has been a lecturing theoretical physicist for nine years, really doesn't know where his experiment could lead.
''The point of this is to question how things really work,'' he said. ``This goes beyond common understanding.''
The aptly titled ''Time Shift Experiment'' combines some of the most complicated physics concepts with simple machines and -- Dolz said -- may prove that time travel is possible.
Time shifts are not uncommon, the professor said. There have been experiments in the past that compared atomic clocks on fast-flying planes to those on the ground. The clocks on board the planes showed a slight shift forward, Dolz said.
He said he became even more fascinated by time when he was studying gravity -- he found that he could not truly understand one without the other.
He began fiddling with time shifts in his experiments and was approached by Museum of Science officials in late 2003.
They had decided to host the time exhibit to pique public interest in the abstract concept of time.
''[Time] is a hands-on phenomenon,'' said Sean Duran, director of exhibits at the Museum of Science. 'This exhibit helps [people] to get some of those `big-picture' questions that were posed by the big guys like Einstein.''
They wanted Dolz to come aboard with his presentation.
But unlike the other time experiments on display, which are already proven and made for learning, Dolz's is an authentic first-time experiment made for both learning and discovery.
He hopes to stir up the public's preconceptions about time, gravity and acceleration.
''A big problem for science is common sense. It works for most everything in people's lives, but not in physics,'' he said. ``It's limited to point of view and perspective, [so] it's really not enough.''
The experiment involves putting a digital clock under immense force by spinning it on a centrifuge.
The basic idea behind the experiment is to speed up the frequency of the pulses, or ticks, produced by the clock with force to push it ahead.
Dolz said it takes about six hours to move the clock ahead four seconds.
While past experiments were expensive and produced minimal results, Dolz said he is taking an economical approach and shooting for a range of results.
''He can use very simple tools to come to some of the same grand conclusions,'' said Duran, adding that Dolz's experiment could prove Einstein's theory that time is only relative.
Dolz's four-second time shift, when compared to the plane experiments, is considered a huge change -- so much so that scientists from various universities will be monitoring the experiment to certify the results.
Dolz said he is looking forward to sharing his discovery, claiming contending that understanding time helps people in everything they do.
But in the science world, Dolz has no idea what kind of impact his experiment could have -- much like the great scientists of the past.
''Did [Benjamin] Franklin know that his fiddling around would take us where we are today?'' he asks. ``We may be seeing the beginnings of time travel, but I have no idea. I'm like Franklin, Columbus and [Michael] Faraday: we [just] do what we are capable of doing.''
What he SEEMS to be proposing would require a NEGATIVE velocity to get the results he is expecting! It may be that we have an ignorant reporter completely goobering this whole experiment up. Perhaps Volz said 4 PICO (one-trillionth) or FEMPTO (1E-15) seconds and the reporter didn't know what that meant.
Well, I would think if he was going to get validity for his test, he would have to eliminate any question there. I didn't see any attempt to address it in the article, and it was the first thing that occured to me.
NAH! That's already gone... they tossed it out with the other bio-hazard waste!
How could we have missed this?!
Dolz = DOLTS
Didn't Jim Croce already do that?
A Google Search for "Carlos Dolz" produces one Carlos Dolz, professor of Medicine in Spain, a Carlos Dolz who teaches Juggling in Los Angeles, and three repeats of the article from the Miami Herald we have before us.
A search of the Florida International University website fails to come up with a Carlos Dolz as a faculty member. The following is a link to the listing of the faculty and staff of the Department of Physics at FIU.> FIU Department of Physics Faculty and Staff
Guess what? No Carlos Dolz.
Methinks the Miami Herald, and perhaps the museum have been hoodwinked or hoaxed!
Might be easier to find under Robert A. Heinlein... but his "All You Zombies" is the best time travel paradox tale ever told.
Yes.
Time travel into the future is certainly possible; we all do it--at a rate of one second per second.
Time travel into the past is almost certainly impossible, at least in practice.
A centrifuge? Please.
--Boris
Hmmm, considering that his first Name is Carlos which means "man" we have, Man Dolts or Dolts Man, whatever, lol
The experiment involves putting a digital clock under immense force by spinning it on a centrifuge.
Timex ®, it takes a licking and keeps on ticking. -- John Cameron Swayze.
The basic idea behind the experiment is to speed up the frequency of the pulses, or ticks, produced by the clock with force to push it ahead.
Digital clocks basically devide and count freqencys produced by crystal osciallators. Sounds like stressing the crystal could increase it's frequency. Could you build a crystal 'strain' guage?
This is clearly not a relativistic effect. It's far too large.
Sadly the original english is cryptic. No doubt the reporters understanding was also less then complete.
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