Sounds like a government project to me, except with governnent it takes six years to acomplish something that should take 4 seconds.
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.''
Sounds like a government project to me, except with governnent it takes six years to acomplish something that should take 4 seconds.
,,, wheel him on as the backup act.
Not quite. It was/is the butterfly effect. Hitler surviving is the least damaging limit of all of the time-travellers' efforts to correct and re-correct "history". You obviously have never heard of Filbert Camembert, "The Ghastly". He did/will not survive.
How does one determing if a straight line is, indeed, a straight line?
Kinda depends on which side is winning at any given moment, doesn't it?
Well not exactly. We do have death and taxes lying in our future. That's a certainty!
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