Test could lead to time travel

The Miami Herald ^ | Sunday, March 21, 2004 | BY RAFAEL SANGIOVANNI

[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.''

[William Terrell]

The experiment involves putting a digital clock under immense force by spinning it on a centrifuge.

Wouldn't immense force created by a centrifuge affect the digital clock mechanism itself?

[PatrickHenry]

What does that spinning disk on the back of the sled do?

Wells never revealed it ... exactly. This is from the book:

The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline substance. And now I must be explicit, for this that follows--unless his explanation is to be accepted--is an absolutely unaccountable thing. He took one of the small octagonal tables that were scattered about the room, and set it in front of the fire, with two legs on the hearthrug. On this table he placed the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair, and sat down. The only other object on the table was a small shaded lamp, the bright light of which fell upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces, so that the room was brilliantly illuminated.
[snip]
`This little affair,' said the Time Traveller, resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus, `is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through time. You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way unreal.' He pointed to the part with his finger. `Also, here is one little white lever, and here is another.'

[RightWhale]

the famous anecdote of orbitting the planet a few times near the speed of light to produce the time effect should cancel itself out too

The key is that there is a linear [tangential] acceleration to get going in the first place. An ordinary satellite experiences this since it is going fast enough to produce a measurable effect. The radial acceleration the speed-of-light satellite would need would cancel itself out every orbit for no net effect. It is the speed that does this. If the speed is 99% the speed of light, the effect would be very strong due to the speed alone.

[SamAdams76]

I'm not a scientist but I just don't see how time travel is possible. Consider this. If time travel WAS possible, we'd already know it because we'd have already been visited by travelers from the future. The fact that this did not happen indicates quite strongly that the human race was never able to figure it out.

[cyborg]

This is the novie where I got the idea of wearing a tinfoil hat out in the rain when I was 12. Remember I never said I was normal.

[PatrickHenry]

If time travel WAS possible, we'd already know it because we'd have already been visited by travelers from the future.

That is Stephen Hawking's opinion too.

[chance33_98]

Ping (you will see this as a ping after you have already posted, if you do, but I am posting it from another time, once reality catches up to me hitting the post button you will see it....) - chance, 1999

[RightWhale]

It is, though only remotely practical near a huge black hole where space is distorted sufficiently. Even then there are limits, you wouldn't be able to timetravel very far and if you get too close your feet would get out of synch with your head. That would not be good.

[tpaine]

19th LA Inf wrote: I'm no physicist, but it seems to me that acceleration imposed by a centrifuge will have very little effect in "inertial space" as the center of rotation is just moving along with the earth's surface and is constantly cancelling out. If the force were applied in a straight line, then some measurable effect could be expected. Comments

_____________________________________


I'm no physicist either but it seems to me that acceleration imposed in our local gravity field will have very little effect on relative time, - as the object [the clock] is just moving faster than the earth's surface, not faster thru space than our system. If the force were applied in a straight line, accelerating away from our solar system, then some measurable effect could be expected.

I suspect this story is BS.

[mhking]

wearing a tinfoil hat out in the rain

What, you wanna Zot yourself!?

[reg45]

If time travel WAS possible, we'd already know it because we'd have already been visited by travelers from the future.

Perhaps they are not revealing themselves so as not to violate the Temporal Prime Directive.

[cyborg]

I could have gotten some serious zottage. God had to decide to keep me around for laughs :-)

[StriperSniper]

I never liked the movie, but the car...

I was making pressure activated switches with my tin-foil at the time(to set off small mines ;-)

Normal is overrated. :)

[cyborg]

The car was great...I wanted to be a nutty scientist like Doc Brown :-) Hence continued listening to Art Bell.

[Focault's Pendulum]

Whoa! Is this correct? Wouldn't the clock slow down if anything? And then consider that the radial acceleration would be cyclical and cancel itself out. Only the initial tangential acceleration would count. For this to work, the clock would have to be accelerated to a tangential velocity and stay there. How fast will the clock be moving in the centrifuge? I would estimate no more than 700 mph due to sonic shock. They would have to spin it for a year to see anything, and even then it would be only a fraction of a second.

I actually think I understand what you just said. Let me get this straight.

If you're correct it would take Michael Jackson aprroximately 300 years to get his original nose back.

[Rudder]

''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.''

Nothing like clarity of expression to make a point.

Will you translate what this guy just said...or should I ask again when you reach this point in time?

[Licensed-To-Carry]

The Bible, a farming almanac, and a chemistry book.

[RightWhale]

I understand what you just said

You might be one up on me. :)

[StriperSniper]

I wanted to be a nutty scientist

I would have gone underwater if I followed that line of work back then. But now, I might like the time machine idea to go backwards a couple hundred years, then it would have been forward.

I'm not too sure I want to see in that direction anymore...

[Socratic]

"If the force were applied in a straight line, then some measurable effect could be expected."

Straight line relative to what? Isn't that the point of relativity? If another watch on the other side of the centrifuge were to "look over" at the other one, they would each seem stationary to each other. (Actually I'd like to see more than one watch in that centrifuge, with its crystal aligned at 90 degrees to the first one to rule out physical deformation being the cause of any time change.) But, if it's the motion in space which causes the time shift, can't one posit a space referent? This has always been the paradox of relativity to me, since it seems that one ultimately has to define a referent space/time which then contradicts the notion of everything being relative. Any comments?