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From: llunch@knuth.cba.csuohio.edu (Jason Baker)
Subject: Re: Predicting the Future
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In article <778840861snz@chatham.demon.co.uk>,
Oliver Sparrow <ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Time travel is irrelevant to this conference but it's a good morning for 
>trout: I'll rise to the bait.
>
	You all seem to be behaving as though time were continuous.
Time is actually made up of discrete moments, 17*10^21 for every wink
of an eye.

>If an event-particle can be characterised by four co-ordinates and four vectors
>(ie when or where it is and how fast it is moving in respect of that 
>particular dimension) then I suppose that one can arrive at a formalism in 
>which the vectors can point in either direction. Time being apparently 
>unidirectional and quantised (all points move in the same direction at the same 
>rate) most formalisms do not have anything very interesting to say which 
>matches what one observes with a casual glance about. It may be, however, that 
>a particle can have a negative vector in time and that this would show up as a 
>reversal of (some of the) properties of its conventionally-oriented neighbour. 
>This issue is, however, whether it is possible to convey information from one 
>co-ordinate system to another by this means.
>
>At first glance, you could: change the particle now and a detector in the past 
>pops. Change it it back and it clicks. Modulate the signal and telephone 
>yourself some good advice about the markets. There is, however, a false analogy 
>at play here: time plays a double role, as itself and as an analogy to a 
>spacial dimension. Change it and *then* and *after that* and so forth. There is 
>no "before" or "after" in a time line: it is all that there is. One cannot 
>invoke a meta-time within which changes are evoked. Signalling this way would 
>not be possible. 
>
>Suppose, however, that you can flip the orientation of an existing particle 
>such that this is mirrored in its state throughout its existence. (This is not 
>time travel, more time tattooing). If one knew where a group of particles were 
>at a particular time, one could alter them individually at some other time such 
>that the pattern that they made could be read as information: a book, tattooed 
>on the body of space time, so to speak. If the "flip" were possible, then I 
>suspect that this could be done. Might the "flip" be achieved?
>
>Think what this would imply. A particle is a world line in four space: it just 
>is. The arrow in one world line might point back, others forward. You cannot,
>however, move any part of the world-line except the bit accessible to you at 
>this instant (which looks like a particle). Suppose that you could reverse the 
>polarity of the arrow on that particle. This would imply the reversal of the 
>arrow on the entire world line. There would be consequences to this: notably, 
>the path which led the particle to the state which allowed you to change it 
>would no longer pertain. It would have interacted with the universe in a 
>different way and would no longer be there for you to manipulate.
>
>Ergo: forget it. Rotating black holes and superdense hollow cylinders may offer 
>a path for energy to other wheres, other whens without the need to traverse the 
>intervening space time. It has been shown, however, that the information 
>content of the emergent material would be lost. Capn' Kirk would emerge as a 
>diffuse plasma.
> 
>_________________________________________________
>
>  Oliver Sparrow
>  ohgs@chatham.demon.co.uk


