Arnold wrote on 11/03/10 at 17:03:34:


Actually, he was a mathematician. His wife was a physicist, and many think Einstein actually stole his wife's idea.

Now, back to business.

Jerry, scientists insist nothing can ... never mind pass, but even reach the speed of light... because they are thinking (IMHO) with the wrong physics in mind.
Let me get this right, before you all fall off your chairs laughing.

I am NOT saying "Me smart, you Cheetah", but...
- the ancient geocentric theory was proven WRONG by Galileo;
- Kepler's Heliocentric theory was proven WRONG by 19th century astronomers;
- it was thought outer space was a vacuum of nothingness WRONG
- it was thought light was made of particles WRONG
- a steam engine can't ride any faster than 10meters/sec = 20mph WRONG
- a plane can't fly faster than sound WRONG
- I'll never win the lottery WRONG (whoops, I said it !!! )

Science is that one aspect of man's intellectual activity where whatever is considered th elimit today, will lead to startling discoveries tomorrow...

So, just because you can't sail west of the Pillars of Hercules doesn't mean a daring sould couldn't try...
...who knows, he just might return... yesterday ???

mpesc.... And Darwin was proven wrong by......
              And Global Warming was proven wrong by...

ha ha,just kidding.


but back on time traveling, isn't the simplist argument against time travel the fact that no one's come back to our time and told us? In the future, wouldn't you come back and stop Hitler if you could?

I always made more sense to me that forward only would be the way to go. But as WebsterMark said, why has no one from the past come forward to our present time and told us?

Arnold wrote on 11/04/10 at 10:47:15:

There would be no advantage to going forward in time unless it was to travel to some far distant star and return in your own lifetime.

Jerry;  
I believe that’s call time dilation and is very real. Not sure of all the details, but I’m told the effect had to be taken into account when designing color televisions. Don’t know why, but I imagine it has to do with the fact that mass increases as speed increases and time slows down.  
Which would seem to mean if you could speed up in a ship to near light speed, I’m not sure you would be able to observe anything else not traveling at the same relative speed. You could slow down and return to the point where you left, but that point would have aged more than you.

I'd much rather go forward.  I have no desire to go back.

Just think about the endless possibilities of what life MIGHT be like in the future - could be bad, but as the eternal optomist, I'll assume it would be much better.

For sure, more medical advances and other neat stuff we can only dream about.

What would Abe Lincoln have thought if he could have gone forward and traveled to distant lands in Air Force One, for instance.  I don't think he ever even traveled outside the U.S. to Canada or Mexico, did he?  Did he even go west of the Mississippi in his lifetime?

Go back further in time and bring Julius Caesar into the 21st century - can you imagine the gaze in his eyes as he would see our world?

For the most part, we now about the past - it's the future that mystifies us.

We cant go in the past for the simple facts that the Langoliers ate it all.