... Kenneth?"
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.''
Does it go 'round in a circle?
If so, ask Billy Preston.
I am a time-traveller from the future. I live in the year 2112 in a world ruled by a cyborg constructed to house the mind of Arnold Schwartzenegger. It took the 31st and 295th Amendments to make that possible.
There will be a civil war over the issue of cyborg rights. The neocons will be replaced by the mechanicons, who are constantly battling the jurassicons over the latter's belief that the war against the alien overlords is ill-conceived.
When I arrived fully nude (something you did NOT want to see, BTW) into your world, I couldn't believe you were unable to see what is obviously going to happen in the next year. It's kinda funny. Oh, boy are you going to be surprised. I just can't wait.
I shouldn't say much, though. Disrupting the time-stream and all.
Anyway, I just wanted to tell you, this whole experiment is bogus. If you want real time travel, you have to construct a . . .
. . . what? . . .
. . . oh, I gotta go, "Law and Order -- Robocops" is on.
I did the math...then added 42....seemed like the right way to go.
Superfluous ping. I'm just visiting back in the past, so I already knew about this thread.
And your qualification for such a comment? Or, do you simply naysay anything scientists come up with as a knee-jerk reflex?
You guys are a little late.
Terry McAuliffe already tried to turn back time to Florida 2000 in November 2002. He failed miserably.
He's going to try again on November 2, 2004.
-PJ
I would be going that way to avoid people so the risk would be minimal. :)
My interest is mostly a historical curiosity about a pre-industrial world.
(Not to mention I'd love see a time where lobster were considered 'pests' and they used bass for fertilizer because of their abundance.)
Well, that is the ultimate answer. ;-)
Possibly. I would be much more concerned about the clock mechanism if it was mechanical.
,,, and we never thought you were!
using acceleration to speed up a digital clock by four seconds.
,,, imagine how many times throughout history that four seconds have actually mattered. A good number of times, for sure. I bet his next experiment will involve trapping four seconds in a jar. I'd say Carlos is a bit non-standard too.
Wouldn't time travel not only involve going back into time but also going back to a certain position in the universe. Like say 500 years ago, the earth and sun were not at this location but somewhere else in the rotation of the Milky Way, and the Milky Way was somewhere else in the universe.
So for time travel to really work, you would have to go back in time and go to the actual spot and rotation of the earth at that particular time. Am I off base?
Try taking a different point of view. Look for time travelers from the past. Once you do that you will see things differently. You can find such examples of past-to-future time travel right here on FR. Just read any Evo/Crevo thread.
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