Time Travel? Scientific breakthrough in quantum mechanics rolls back time

For those who are interested, "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry" by Tyson is a good introduction.

The thing I like most about modern physics is that the world is imprecise and "God" does play dice. Things like "spooky force at a distance" are actually the way the world works and our illusions of human centrality, importance and certitude are false.

As much as the world has changed with semiconductors, telecommunications and flight, it will change more, and faster, with AI, robotics and quantum computing. Whether our species can adapt our social construct away from zero sum competition toward creating broader, stable, principled, and free societies is as important as the tech itself. It is a shame that to many (most?) Americans "Heisenberg" is just a character in a TV drama, and that fact does not bode well for the broad based understanding of these technologies and our wise use of them.

 

That just doesn't make sense to me. The past and the future aren't really there. The past only exists as a memory, nothing tangible. You can only create an idea of the past through the use of the present. And the future is the opposite, only projection. The only tangible reality is the present.

 

Even freakier imo, is that an arg could be made that the present does not exist. it's duration approaches 0

 

For sure. It has to exist in some capacity for something to exist, I suppose.

 

But it's asymptotic. It approaches zero, but never actually reaches it. Theoretically, that's how a three dimensional object projects into the fourth dimension.

 

I guess that’s true. Better to have a limit of 0 than a nonexistent one.

 

I guess technically every thing we see is in the past. & the farther away the further in the past.

 

And the time it takes anything you see to travel from your eyes to your brain puts it further in the past.

 

The question is where is the center of the universe? More to the point if the Hubble telescope were that far out looking back at us what would the result be if anything at all? It is also worth noting that all photons are not entangled a special circumstance must occur for this to happen.

Where is the center of the universe?

The universe, in fact, has no center. Ever since the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, the universe has been expanding. But despite its name, the Big Bang wasn't an explosion that burst outward from a central point of detonation. The universe started out extremely compact and tiny. Then every point in the universe expanded equally, and that continues today. And so, without any point of origin, the universe has no center.​

 

I think you have to consider that the present as any person experiences is in fact mediated through your own senses, just like the past or future

 

Interesting article on time. The Illusion of Time: What's Real?.

 

Is t that the same article I posted on the last page? Is this some sort of subtle time thing?

 

Quick, someone go and stop Cam Newton from throwing that laptop out the window.

 

So then the question that should really bake your noodle is if you move towards a stationary object, does time slow down relatively? If the image travels to your eye at the speed of light, wouldn't moving towards it exceed the speed of light by your velocity towards the object?

 

I thought at the end of the day Physicists have determined we are actually a holographic projection about to spin into a black hole?

 

Neither. Speed is relative to the object in motion not the collective of two objects in motion. It is the same as cars of equal mass where one car traveling at 60mph into another car traveling at 40mh head on. The impact is horrendous and at some point the 40mph car is overcome and pushed backward by the 60mph car. Now if that 40mph car is a tank and that 60mph car could be a Volkswagen beetle that's a different story regarding the outcome. In no case is this a 100mph collision.

 

In your example though, the objects both have mass. Images and light are massless.

 

Past, present and future exist, effectively, and as I write this, simultaneously. Our minds, of course, can only perceive it as you describe it, as a separate sequence.

The future is problematic, though. It seems inexorable, but it is not guaranteed. In essence, it’s an expectation.

 

I knew this thread wouldn’t convince me time travel was possible but I didn’t think I’d leave it wondering if time was real? Yikes.