Sci/Fi: Have Time Machines Arrived?

Sci/Fi: Have Time Machines Arrived?

www.smithsonianmagazine.com

A physical time machine—a device available at Wal-Mart, as opposed to a natural wormhole somewhere in the cosmos—is possible. You begin with something square. Next, install mirrors at the corners and send a beam of light, perhaps from a laser, at one of the mirrors. The light will bounce to the second mirror, the third, the fourth and back through this cycle forever.

The force of this constantly circulating light will begin twisting the empty space in the middle. Einstein's theory of relativity dictates that everything happening to space must happen to time, so time begins twisting, too.

To fit a human inside this time machine we need to stack a bunch of these mirrors on top of each other, and add more light beams. Eventually, we'll have a cylinder of circulating light. Once we step inside, we're ready to fly through time.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Using the parameter's as set forth in the story do you think time travel is possible using mirrors?

www.smithsonianmagazine.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 3/10/2007 by shots]

No. I see it as impossible. Friction, however negligible, would eventually stop the light beam.

Friction is the reason that perpetual energy machines cannot be created.

Ok, let's say this is true. Would you want to travel back in time? How would you control it? Lets look back at every timemachine movie, especially The Butterfly Effect. Did any good happen at all? I say if this is true, we are opening Pandora's Box that sould remain sealed.

No. I see it as impossible. Friction, however negligible, would eventually stop the light beam.

For light, what slows it down is refraction and absorption through a physical medium.

A very different process than friction.

In a perfect vacuum, it would go on and on and keep bouncing against the perfect mirrors forever. As to the point that it actually bends and twists space-time, I dunno.

I know it's hard to comprehend, but everything in science tells us that Einstein was right, and that Space-time is very malleable. The question is whether we can travel backward is still very much open for debate, in a practice sense, as theoretically it has already been verified dozens of times using a variety of mathematical models.

Practically impossible? Most likely yes.

Impossible as in, goes against the Laws of Physics? Absolutely not.

[edit on 10-3-2007 by sardion2000]

interesting to say the least and i find it intriguing that it was thought of but what if? and what would happen who says we would move backwards through time? it might fling us years into the future or it might possibly kill us theres no possible way of knowing...

If such a device was built, and that's a big if, before any "wormholes" are produced...the irradiance, together with temperature inside the device would just continue to increase, until the energy of the beam is completly transformed into heat. Since the energy of the beam is finite, you won't get any reactions such as "opening a wormhole"... Depending on how powerful the beam is, you would first either crack or melt the mirrors. That's the most that could happen with such a device, but i could be wrong.

[edit on 11-3-2007 by Muaddib]

That's only if you're using a non-perfect mirror. A perfect mirror, which reflects 100% of the light with no energy transfer would continue on forever. I'm not sure it would ever open up a wormhole, (highly doubtful IMO), but it's an interesting hypothesis nonetheless.

Originally posted by sardion2000

No. I see it as impossible. Friction, however negligible, would eventually stop the light beam.

For light, what slows it down is refraction and absorption through a physical medium.

A very different process than friction.

Not different conceptually.

In a perfect vacuum, it would go on and on and keep bouncing against the perfect mirrors forever. As to the point that it actually bends and twists space-time, I dunno.

In a perfect world, yes. Not in today's world.

Practically impossible? Most likely yes.

Impossible as in, goes against the Laws of Physics? Absolutely not.

My point exactly.

In a perfect world, yes. Not in today's world.

Negative Refraction has already been achieved. Perfect vacuums also exist and have for some time.

Originally posted by sardion2000
That's only if you're using a non-perfect mirror. A perfect mirror, which reflects 100% of the light with no energy transfer would continue on forever. I'm not sure it would ever open up a wormhole, (highly doubtful IMO), but it's an interesting hypothesis nonetheless.

Perfect mirrors would only trap the light beam for a bit longer than regular mirrors, it still absorbs a portion of incident light everytime the lightbeam hits one mirror, still the irradiance and the heat would increase inside the device and eventually it would once again have the same effect as before. The difference would be that "perfect mirrors" will retain all the heat inside the device, until the mirrors crack or melt, depending on how powerful the light beam is.


[edit on 11-3-2007 by Muaddib]

There is one way that such a time machine "could" be built, in theory.

There is a phenomenon which Einstein referred to as micro-wormholes which theoretically we think they exist.

Micro-wormholes are, well, wormholes which occur at the micro level.

If we could find, stabilize one such microwormhole, and give it enough energy to increase it's size, there is a possibility that we could build a time-machine. In order to be able to do this we would need large amounts of energy, and since we are still a type 0 civilization, we haven't reached that point yet where we can "build a time machine". Again, I could be wrong.

There is one big problem with such micro-wormholes, and that is that they supposedly exist for a few miliseconds.

So you would have to find it, and stabilize it in less than a few miliseconds, unless you could make a reaction to produce one.


[edit on 11-3-2007 by Muaddib]

Im no time travel geek, but what if you stop light? Uh what does that do?

In 1999, a team of scientists led by Lene Hau were able to slow the speed of a light pulse to about 17 metres per second; in 2001, they were able to momentarily stop a beam.

In 2003, Mikhail Lukin, with scientists at Harvard University and the Lebedev Institute in Moscow, succeeded in completely halting light by directing it into a mass of hot rubidium gas, the atoms of which, in Lukin's words, behaved "like tiny mirrors" due to an interference pattern in two "control" beams.

?

A device like this wouldn't work for the simple reason that if you were to shine the laser to the mirror, the light would circle the mirrors quicker than you could move the laser pointer out of the way. There would be no other possible way to shine the laser at the right angle, without having it at a 180 degree angle, and in between the object, unless you can move the laser pointer out of the way, faster than the speed of light. This is what I mean:





As you can see, the laser pointer will always be in the way.

I was thinking along the same lines as DJMessiah. How could you get the light to continue on if you couldn't move the source out of the way fast enough? Is it possible to have the angle of projection at a slightly different angle so that you wouldn't have the beam pass through the original point of projection? Can any of the math gurus out there shed more light on this? The whys and why nots? And please dumb it down as much as possible, I won't be offended and will actually appreciate your attempt to explain.

Maybe its possile to have the beam behind one of the mirrors and somehow be able to go though the mirror?

.. the theory as purposed by Dr. Mallet isnt it? as early as 2004 or 2005.

The full program with Dr. Mallet on time travel

However shortly after viewing that movie I found another webpage of a paper published in late 2006 proving that Mallet did a calculation error.
At the moment Im trying to find that link again to post it here...

[edit on 11/3/07 by flice]

...the machine, how about this addition to DJ's drawing, as it could appear seen from the side:




Just a thought, I know nothing of physics But I can imagine that we could make a "mirror" of some kinda of nano material that we could flip fast enough to make the laser pass through after it's first run?

[edit on 11/3/07 by flice]

A mirror like that would require it to move faster than the speed of light as well. It's impossible to move physical matter faster than light, which is why none of this experiments have been accomplished with accuracy. If you could move the mirror or laser pointer faster than the speed of light, then time travel would be the least of your worries.

Originally posted by DJMessiah
A device like this wouldn't work for the simple reason that if you were to shine the laser to the mirror, the light would circle the mirrors quicker than you could move the laser pointer out of the way. There would be no other possible way to shine the laser at the right angle, without having it at a 180 degree angle, and in between the object, unless you can move the laser pointer out of the way, faster than the speed of light. This is what I mean:

As you can see, the laser pointer will always be in the way.

Ok I thought I had it, drew it an realized I didn't have it lol. Ended up being way too many mirrors without a solution. Anyone have any ideas?