U. Connecticut professor works on time machine

U-WIRE ^ | 9-28-2001 | Andrew Chemistruck & Courtney Hickson

[Cagey]

Attillathehon? I have a time related question for you. If you could go back to yesterday, would you still yell what you did to X42?

[RandallFlagg]

I'm still working on a fully functional lightsabre. Imagine a device that emits positrons on a controlled beam. Everything it touched that was surrounded by electrons (All matter) would sheer away, it would emit no heat until it touched matter, and it wouldn't go through another beam.

Seriously, though. If the rescuers had a few of these at WTC, there might have been more survivors: the wreckage would be cleared faster.

[surfer]

Please cagey we need to bestow Clinton(i) with all his honors...x42(i)...the (i) for the distinguished honor of being impeached!

[CubicleGuy]

If it were possible, someone in the future would have already invented it and come back to mess with us.

Is it possible that the Clinton's really are from the future?

[ServesURight]

ANOTHER STEVEN WRIGHT CLASSIC:

"When I was a fetus, I used to sneak out at night...."

The guy is hilarious!!!

[Tymesup]

"Time travel is impossible. If it were possible, someone in the future would have already invented it and come back to mess with us. "

The End of Eternity by Asimov.

[onedoug]

Entropic twaddle.

[Wright is right!]

I'm always amused by the fact that whenever (seemingly) ANYONE talks about "time travel," it's ALWAYS in the context of travelling backward to the past, and almost NEVER about travelling FORWARD into the future. Never understood that.

I've good a good grip on the past and have no interest in going back. But I'd LOVE to see what the FUTURE holds. Am I the only one?

Michael

[okie_tech]

"The direction that we travel happens to be forward,and at what we perceive as a fixed rate."

The key here is "perceive" when in fact we know it to be a variable based on speed.

[gunshy]

They have.

[Aurelius]

So let's assume you manage to construct a device capable of sending a brief message back in time. You use it to get race results before the race. You sit at the machine, get your message sent by yourself in the future, bet and collect your winnings. A day passes, it is time to send back the results. Can you choose not to do so? If you can and do, what happens?

Some other nice paradoxs of time travel were written into the Terminator movies.

[okie_tech]

We know how to travel forward in time, just approach the speed of light and your time travel forward will be less than that of the universe at large. The effect is that the world traveled much further in time than you did so voila you have traveled forward in time. We just don't know how you could ever go back.

At least that how it's been explained to me a-la relativity, it all makes my head hurt.

[Gumption]

That makes as much sense as a a screendoor on a battleship.

Way out..WAY OUT..that's where the fun is Way out...WAY OUT..that's where the fun is WAY OUT!

[#1CTYankee]

read a similar article some time ago in the Hartford Courant.

Found it, it's a little more in depth.

you can find it at
http://www.ctnow.com/scripts/editorial.dll?render=y&eetype=Article&eeid=4954446&ck=&ver=3.0

[Critter]

When you're done with it, I'm stealing it and going back to 1978 and spending the rest of my life in the back seat of my 59 Cadillac with Suzy Weltzel. :)

[PetroniDE]

I can handle respectful disagreement.

Even if a person could travel back in time, if he/she tries to prevent an event, it causes alterations in the "time-line" between that point and the current time from which he/she came from. This creates contradictory situations like this simple example:

Person C goes back in time to prevent event D. In the process, he prevents person A (dad) and person B (mom) from ever meeting and producing person C (time traveler). Therefore, person C never existed to prevent event D.

Perhaps if time was altered so that EVERYONE goes back in time, that would be more plausible. However, it is still science-fiction as "do-overs" do not exist in real life.

If by chance I am wrong, I doubt either of us will be alive to see it, but be sure to look me up and say I was wrong in any reversed timelines.

[OKSooner]

Cool. Can I go too?

[GeekDejure]

Yikes !!! Sounds like another area for the letcherous lawyers to expand into !!!

[phillibuck]

He is selling the device, which looks like a large over stuffed chair, and though there's still work to do, he's offering a free upgrade to the firmware when it is completed.

SIGN ME UP!!!!!!!!!!

I need a good new place to sit...

[phillibuck]

Person C goes back in time to prevent event D. In the process, he prevents person A (dad) and person B (mom) from ever meeting and producing person C (time traveler). Therefore, person C never existed to prevent event D.

As long as you don't go back in time with the idea of being a matchmaker, it'll all be okay!