The Premonition Mirror - Reflecting Light From the Future

a reply to: swanne

originally posted by: Astyanax
Does antimatter have negative entropy? If it doesn't, how do you know it's going back in time?

originally posted by: swanne
That is the point, we don't know. We would need to produce actual anti-atoms and see how they behave.

We have, but it's early days yet.

a reply to: Astyanax

There you go.

Also, if I may add: entropy is (at this stage at least) not exactly a perfect proof of the arrow of time, especially in the case of antimatter. For there are many instances where even normal matter's entropy can temporarily reverse (albeit such systems may follow the Second Law of Thermodynamic once closed) - and it follows that matter with temporarily reversed entropy does not necessarily becomes matter going back in time. Which implies that the direction of Entropy only vaguely follow that of Time. And, by extension, that antimatter may not always show reversed entropy in the first place.
Notice that Time keeps on progressing towards the future even in a vacuum.

And remember that Antimatter could be Premonition Mirrors. If antimatter is not matter going back in time, then it simply means that antimatter particles are not premonition mirrors; not that Premonition Mirrors do not exist altogether.

originally posted by: Blue Shift
I like the idea of a sub-atomic camera obscura, where the aperture is a "hole" in spacetime, rather than a hole in a wall.

A hole in spacetime... You mean, a black hole?

a reply to: swanne

I suppose any mirror with a sufficient enough curvature would indeed bend or warp our perception of time.

Sounds like the premise to the movie "Paycheck", interesting topic all the same.

There's the causality problem, as with anything involving going forwards or backwards in time.

If you stand in front of such a mirror with a glass of drink in your hand, and you see your reflection drop the glass, which shatters on the floor ... are you obliged to drop the glass when that moment of time comes? What happens if you don't drop the glass, will you have broken the laws of causality?

To quote Sarah Connor, the future is not set. Therefore, nothing can show you the future.

If any kind of information (or even matter) could really go back in time, it would go into a parallel reality, a timeline that branched off our own timeline.

a reply to: wildespace

Interesting proposition indeed.

What you propose is a variation of the Grandfather Paradox. It so happens that I recently investigated the implications of Einstein's Special Relativity and found a solution to the Grandfather Paradox: Paradox waves.

If in your future (say, 5 seconds from now) you drop your glass, and the information is send to you, you might be warned to be careful, and thus avoid dropping the glass. There is no real causality violation because although you change you present history, this change propagates at a finite speed (+1 second each second) towards the future. And as you reach the point of you future in time, the point which will your future self occupy will, too, progress futureward, some 5 seconds even further into the future (it survives the paradox). So although the mirror will be showing you an image of you future, you may change your own future at will without changing the image in the mirror, because in that case the preceding future (the one showing in the mirror) will become an alternate universe in itself.

a reply to: swanne

Maybe it's a way to view multiple universes? cool thread indeed.

originally posted by: swanne
a reply to: Astyanax

There you go.

Also, if I may add: entropy is (at this stage at least) not exactly a perfect proof of the arrow of time,

Saying 'antimatter is going back in time' is an application of the CPT symmetry, any flip of charge & parity & time in the *equations of motion* is equivalent.

en.wikipedia.org...

Equations of motion are the underlying laws of physics. But the outcomes---where the particles go and the thermodynamic states they explore due to chaos---don't have to obey that symmetry. After all, many interactions in normal matter are microscopically time-reversible but not macroscopically time-reversible.

Entropy is the time direction that matters for macroscopic objects. An anti-glass made of anti-atoms smashing on an anti-floor breaks irreversibly in the same direction.

What CPT theorem probably means is that one expects anti-particles to exist for every particle.

originally posted by: wildespace
If any kind of information (or even matter) could really go back in time, it would go into a parallel reality, a timeline that branched off our own timeline.

Time is funny because it's personal. There is no "alternate timeline," because the only timeline that exists is the one you personally are living and the others are just mathematical abstractions. (Mathematics and reality are not the same.)

originally posted by: mbkennel

Equations of motion are the underlying laws of physics. But the outcomes---where the particles go and the thermodynamic states they explore due to chaos---don't have to obey that symmetry.

My point exactly.

originally posted by: swanne
A hole in spacetime... You mean, a black hole?

No, the opposite. A black hole is a hypercondensed ball of matter. I'm talking about a temporary true vacuum where nothing exists. Zero density. If you were to think about the air in a room, all swirling around, there will be tiny points in the room where all the air molecules randomly separate from each other, leaving small points or holes or tubes where there is no air. Now just extend that to matter in any given area of spacetime. As the matter bounces around, there will be points at which for just an instant it will disperse, leaving literally nothing. That's when you get the camera obscura effect of half of the universe (including the reverse time) "reflecting" through the hole and into the other half.

I'm probably wrong, but I think this may partially explain why some people using the quantum components of their brains are able to catch glimpses of either the future or an expanded reality.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Well the idea certainly deserves discussion; and a star for the original thought!

Okay, so this perfect vacuum acts like a pivot point through which one part of the universe gets reflected in opposite direction unto the other part.

The only counter-arguments I propose are this: first off the image inside a camera obscura is inversed not because of the hole's density, but actually because of the hole's small size. To maximalize the effect, the hole must the smallest possible, but also the roundest possible, and it has to be only one hole. So I express a doubt at the statement that an infinity of holes and/or a hole the size of half the universe could be used to produce the effect you describe - and, even if such holes could in fact inverse images, they would not inverse Time, just like pinhole cameras do not inverse time.
Secondly, remember that spacetime is independent of matter. Even a perfect vacuum still has space properties, and a time property - therefore even absolute nothingness is filled with spacetime.

But I have an observation to bring to your attention, which may very much interest you regarding your hypothesis of an inversed component of the universe. If Paradox Wave Theory is right, and if there are indeed an infinity of alternate universes, then something has to create these alternate universes in the first place - that is, affect them so that their history changes. Which means, that some natural phenomenon must exist in which matter is indeed reversed in time. Otherwise there would be no alternate realities to begin with, except those made by manmade time travel from an unfathomably futuristic technology.

a reply to: andy06shake

I couldn't say, I didn't see that movie.