I know, it is very coincidental, it almost fits together perfectly.

How do I know for a fact this is bull shit?

That "laser" is bent ~60 degrees. This could not possibly be due to gravitational lensing.

The sun bends star light by about 2 degrees (this is one of the comfirmations of general relativity). To warp space by enough to bend light 60 degrees in less than 20 cm you would have to have a gravitional field so strong that it couldn't help but create a singularity. Or at the very least destroy everything in an absoloutly massive radius.

Oh and of course there is the whole conservation of energy thing which kind of implies that to artificially create a gravititional field you would need to supply the same amount of energy as is in a mass that would create that field. i.e. E=mc^2.

There is honestly no way of generating that kind of power. Hydrogen bombs are nothing compared to this. Hell, the energy stored in the ocean/atmosphere is nothing compared to this.

It just makes no sense.

He says he was born in 1998. His name is John Titor. If he was really trying to be secretive about his whereabouts, he wouldn't have given this information, given the possibility that someone could threaten to take him hostage as a child.

Although I must admit; this following statement does intrigue me: "Real disruptions in world events begin with the destabilization of the West as a result of degrading US foreign policy and consistency. This becomes apparent around 2004 as civil unrest develops near the next presidential election."

He mentioned that that's not his real name =) Titor come from TIme TravellOR, apparantly.

So is this election going to determin if this shit actually happens?

And if so, whos going to live if this shit is true.

its the apocalypse... it made for an interesting read...but c'mon its obviously a very well crafted fiction (very well crafted) this is hard sci-fi at its best

I'm no expert but...

http://www.gsp.com/2038/

Dude. 32 bit unix systems haven't been industry standard for over 4 years. As a matter of fact, HP is dropping support for 32 bit unix hardware and s/w this year.

Yes, there are still those that will run the os and hardware until it dies. But the rest of the world is on 64 bit, which John Titor didn't know about when he initially tried to fool us all. Long story short, as much as many of us would like to believe, this guy is FOS.. And S doesn't stand for string.

Well, Bush is now back in office... I guess it's not too long now before we'll see Titor's predictions for what they are. And as for:

I don't have a link, but look up something called quantum entanglement. The grossly basic idea is that two particles, originated from the same source though taking different paths, and travelling the speed of light, will arrive at the same place at the same time. In other words, while one can take a direct course at the speed of light, the other can travel twice as far but arrive at the same instant, meaning it must have travelled faster than the speed of light. It's one of the basic problems of quantum physics.

I've been reading through the John Titor page, almost at the end now. I think it's a fascinating read, but I personally don't believe it because he goes to great lengths to explain that he doesn't particularly care if we believe him. From what little I understand, it seems that everything that can happen, will happen, so I don't see why he can't give out stock tips? What would be the harm?

All the science both makes sense and doesn't make sense to me, as it's all just technical jargon that I can't possibly begin to get my head around.

He tells us things that will happen in the future, things that won't be proven or disproven for years to come. Only now, four years or so after he started posting, can we even begin to see if he was right.

If he really didn't want us to benefit by telling us things (such as when earthquakes or bombings happen), why didn't he say something like "911"? Something vague enough that before the attacks we wouldn't understand, but straight afterwards we'd say 'Ah, that's what he meant!' Saying '911' on the message board wouldn't have a hope in hell of preventing the September 11 attacks only six months later so nobody on Earth would benefit from him hinting about it. I cannot imagine for a second that somebody on those boards would see '911' and then stay away from New York city six months later.

Considering the September 11 attacks are arguably the number 1 trigger for the conflicts that the US and the West are involved in now, and he says that the current conflicts are the lead-ups to WW3 and the US Civil War (any day now, it seems), it makes sense that he would make some reference, even a heavily disguised one, to the events that cause the wars in the future.

And yes, to those who don't believe it, all this talk is a waste of time but whether I believe it or not is overshadowed by the conversation it generates.

Can you post some links that state these facts? I've done a lot of research on astrophysics, and consider myself to have a more than average knowledge base on such subjects. I have never heard any scientifical proof relating to anything similar to this, other than sci-fi books.

No offence to you, but it sounds like you watched too much Back to the Future when you were a kid.



I just wanted to state one thing that has already been stated, which proves, more than anything I could say, that this guy is a fake.

WHY DOESN'T HE GIVE US ANY DATES OR ACUTAL FACTS ABOUT EVENTS THAT ARE ABOUT TO HAPPEN?

If he's from the future, wouldn't he know that Bush was going to win? Why didn't he say flat out that the president of the united states is going to be george bush in 2004 after the election? Why doesn't he make bets on sports and things like that?

I knew that Bush was going to win!

I didn't read too far into his predictions, because I have seen it all before on those 'psychic' sites, where others have made generalizations and 'predictions', which 'come true' becaue they are so general that something close to it must happen around the time (usually 1 year) that they say it's going to happen.

Also, I went to the site and couldn't handle it. I find it quite offencive to my eyes.

If he's such a great man, and a time traveller, who would obviously know how to make a lot of money, and who would probably be rich from being able to actually go back in time and bet on things, or simply because he's a genius who works for a multi-billion dollar company, in his time, why does he have to have links to tripod? Why are there advertisments on his page?

That page is horrible. I would think that someone from the future would be able to afford to make a better site.

Also, he said "Time travel is not a secret in 2036 and I expect it will become more common."

If time travel is going to become more common, wouldn't we know about it by now? What would stop it from being more common if you are able to go back in time? Time wouldn't be a factor anymore, so saying that it will 'become' more common is irrelevant.

This whole site is a joke, and it's only entertaining because of that fact.

I'll give you some physics about time travel.


There are 3 possible ways that you could possibaly travel back through time.

1) Travel at a speed faster than the speed of light.

2) Pray that wormholes exist (wormholes could exist in the overlapping of gravitational fields of two very very very massive objects, like supermassive black holes. Since gravity bends space-time, it's possible that one could be sent to a new time and space after passing through this field, since they will overlap and change the value of space-time.)

3) Fall into a black hole.


Here are some reasons why you wouldn't be able to travel through time using these three possible ways.

1) No object with a mass can travel the speed of light, let alone exceed it. Your mass increases as you travel faster, and as you approach the speed of light, your mass approaches infinity. E = mc^2 is what proves this. m, which is mass, changes as you approach the speed of light. To get m, you have to use a formula that looks like this.

m(v) = m(0) / sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)

If you look at this and figure it out, if your velicoty (v) is the speed of light (c), you end up getting something equal to c/c, which is 1.

Now, you take 1-1, which equals 0.

Try to take the square root of 0, then try to divide by 0. Possible? Nope!

If you get close to c, you will notice that the denominator gets closer and closer to 0. If you divide something by a number that is very close to 0, you get a very large number. This proves that, as you increase speed, close to the speed of light, your mass increases and approaches infinity, but never reaches it, because it's impossible to get there, due to the equation, or, if our math skills just aren't good enough to figure out an equation with a denominator of 0, you will reach a mass of infinity, which is impossible, and due to E=mc^2, the energy it takes you to get there would be infinity(c^2). In other words, you would have an infinite mass, and it would take an infinite amount of energy to get there.


2) wormholes

Even if wormholes do exist, which I think they don't, how are we going to find one? We would have to use number 1 to get us to a binary orbiting system, since it would be insanely far away. The only place that supermassive blackholes exist is at the centre of galaxies, as far as I know. To have two orbiting eachother is a very rare and improbable occurrence. People would have to have travelled for more than 59 years to get to these rare celestial miracles. It would be more probable to have visited aliens, and more feasible.

Another problem is, you would get shot to a random space and time. It would be impossible to tell what part and time of the universe you would end up in.


3) Same as above, to get to a black hole, you would have to use case 1, since they are many many light years away from us. The closest would probaby be the one at the centre of our galaxy, which is further than anyone can comprehend. It would take us millions of years to even get there.

Just to give a little example of how far it is. It's so far away that we, as in our solar system and star, do not feel the effects of the insane amount of gravitational pull that the supermassive black hole has at the centre of our galaxy.

If you were to come close to a black hole, you would not survive. Due to the level of acceleration you would experience, whatever part of you that was going in first would be stretched out across a great distance, compared to your trailing end. You would be stretched to death.



I also noticed someone talking about moving things faster than the speed of light.

Yes, it has happened, but they moved a photon faster than the speed of light. Photons do not have a mass. When it's said that nothing can move faster than the speed of light, it's referring to objects with a mass.



I also wanted to point out this post.



Well stated. I was going to touch on the same thing, but figured I would let you do the job for me, and since you already posted it, which woul dhave been my strongest argument, I thought I would continue to give you the credit.

I wanted to go a little further.

Someone on here posted that they have been into researching time travel and everything since a very young age. They said they have degrees in mathematics and such. Now, props to that, but I would just like you to explain a few things for me.

I understand your points about gravity and magnetic fields being a factor in such cases, but, what about the singularity that this would produce? You would need to have a supermassive black hole to bend light like that, which is what the above poster pretty much stated.

And, if you read, in this post, about wormholes, that is the only way i can see time travel being possible by using gravity as the means. The bending of space-time through gravitational fields doesn't change your time. It changes the rate of space-time. It's the overlapping of two gravitationally bend space-times that change the value of space-time. As far as I know, and believe, at the moment, this is the only way to actually change that value. If you can show me otherwise, I would be greatful.

I just can't see how simply using one gravitational source can change your space-time, rather than just change the rate of space-time, unless you get into singularities, which would rip you apart, because you would be dealing with black holes.


Anyway, enough of my rant. It's fake, and you should be able to agree after this post.

Nothing so special about time travel. We're all time travellers, moving at precisely one minute per minute into the future.

Before stating facts of something that is not understood realize that all the equations and science you used are not absolute truth. For instance E=mc^2 is a mathematical model that may or may not be correct. When our mathematical models fail it does not mean things cannot happen it means that using this current model we cannot show this behavior. This happens with a lot of mathematical models especially when you get things like dividing by 0.

Listening to people on both sides of this argue facts on things that are theoretical is really kind of funny.

Do I think this guy is real? No. Do I think time travel is impossible? No, i guess it may be possible i can't prove it is impossible. Do I think moving faster than the speed of light is a guarenteed method of traveling through time? No. Do I think traveling the speed of light is impossible? No.

There is no proof on either side of time travel.

Why can't you argue physics with someone who said they physically went back in time?

If there were no proof on either side, then you just proved that this guy didn't go back in time. If he did it, he would be able to prove it.

As far as proven physics (as in proven physically, rather than with 'just' math), it would seem possible that one might be able to travel back in time, but far too unlikely for humans to ever reach that goal.

You're right, things may be disproven in the future, but don't say that the formula E=mc^2 isn't physically proven. Aspects of it might change, but if it weren't truth, atomic bombs wouldn't exist. That's physical proof for you.

Time dilation is fact as well. So is the fact that a massive object can not travel faster than the speed of light. If it were to do so, a singularity would occure.

By me saying that no massive object can travel faster than the speed of light, I mean that this object wouldn't exist in our physical world the way we do if it were to happen. Black holes have proven this for us.

Anyway, there is proof on either side that time travel might, or might not be, possible, but for humans, it's proven that it's more than likely (as in you would have a better change of winning the lottery 234235234235 times in a row) that it is impossible.


Now, you could go and argue that all math or all physics may not be true, since we only have this little portion of the universe to test things, but that would just be silly. Physics holds truth higher than your thoughts on things, since many people have put a lot of thought into the science, and have proven them to be physically true for many situations. Once you go and prove them to not be true, I'll regard your thoughts as being more valid than what I have learned through the scientists that have done the leg work.

ok e = mc^2 has almost nothing to do with atomic bombs,

secondly, e = mc^2 is a mathematical model. a tool used by mathematicians and engineers to help design and build technology. It will be valid for some occasions, but eventually situations will occur where it is not valid. infact this has already happened in quantum mechanics.

another example is newtonian physics, these models have been proven to be inaccurate again and again but are still used as they make designing things easy and understandable. They arent physics, they are models used to represent certain aspects of it.

That equation has nothing to do with the creation of the atomic bomb?

What? Are you joking?

So I guess I'm wrong to think that Einstein warned the states about Germany's work on creating different types of weapons, one possibly being the atomic bomb. That's when Einstein sent President Franklin D. Roosevelt a letter warning him about the possible creation of the atomic bomb.

I guess I'm also wrong to say that atomic bombs work by splitting atoms up, to create great amounts of energy. And I guess I must then also be wrong to say that the study of atomic bombs is also used to try to think about a way to reverse this great scientific discovery, by trying to create mass out of energy, rather than creating energy out of mass, which is how they work.

E=mc^2 has nothing to do with creating energy out of mass, or mass out of energy.

Also, models are how things are explained. I don't see you explaining anything valid on here. It's easy to sit there and say everything is a model, therefore it's not true. Prove it!

Yes, models are how things are explained, but they are rarely, if ever, perfect. The physical world is, generally, too complex to completely map out in mathematics, much less with our current systems. What's more, models are usually made for use in a perfect environment, not the physical world.

As for, "I don't see you explaining anything valid on here," that is a statement full of ignorance. That's not meant to be taken as an insult by any means, but to say that it is invalid to state that E=mc^2 is not a model shows a lack of understanding on your part, especially when Hanabal is correct in stating that it has not held up when it comes to the realm of quantum mechanics.

"but to say that it is invalid to state that E=mc^2 is not a model shows a lack of understanding on your part"

Now, do you mean invalid to state that it is a model? Or, invalid to state that it isn't a model?

Either way, if you are saying that I said that E=mc^2 isn't a model, you show more ignorance than myself, and a lack of understanding is shown on your part.

If you are saying that it isn't a model, than you show more ignorance, aswell, and a great deal of a lack of understanding on your part.

I didn't state that it isn't a model, in fact, I stated that it is a model.

Sure, I may have been out of line when I said that I don't see that guy explaining anything valid on here, but I do know what I'm talking about, probably moreso than yourself, when it comes to relativity. I give myself a lot of pride in the fact that I can understand a lot more about the physical world than most people. When someone comes along and simply states that everything is just theory and all of these theories could be invalid, then goes on to state that they think they are, I take it as a personal insult to my intelligence, and I take it as that person insulting the many scientists who have devoted years of study on the subject. If you want to say it's invalid, show me why. Don't just say that you think it's invalid.

I do not know much about quantum mechanics, and if you do, post your thoughts. I would love to learn about the subject, so back everything up about the differences between quantum mechanics and relativity.

I do know this though.

Quantum mechanics is the study of the small, whereas relativity is the study of the large. They are on opposite sides of the spectrum, so it's no surprise that they don't fully fit together. A unified theory is what we need to find between the two to fully understand how everything truely works. So, to just say that relativity doesn't hold up in the realm of quantum mechanics could be wrong. Aspects of it don't, but it's a two sided situation. A lot of aspects of relativity, including the ones I had stated, have been proven in our physical world, which would neglect your comment about models being made for perfect environments.

I will admit that the theories and models I have posted on here may be wrong, but they are proven moreso than not, so to say that they are just theories that might not work is lazy. Scientists have given their entire lives to test and model these theories to best fit our physical world, and therefore, I hold their thoughts and findings on a very high platter. Scientists will go and disprove, or prove, a lot in relation to relativity, but like I have stated, many of the topics at hand have been proven to work in our current situation.

Since newtonian physics was touched upon here, we'll take a look at that for an example.

Many things that you learn in physics relate to Newton's laws. Why do we learn them even though there have been further proofs to explain things a lot better and more accurately (relativity)? Well, because Newton's laws still work for small general cases. They don't work in every situation, but they are still valid a lot of the time.

It's the same as relativity. It doesn't work correctly with quantum mechanics, but it's still valid. A lot of aspects have been tested and proven to work in our physical world. Therefore, we have more pros for these aspects being valid than not. It's likely that the models will need to be reshaped, but the general idea still holds, and I believe it will hold for the rest of human existance.

Can all of this change? Yes. At a great degree where we realize that E=mc^2 is no longer a formula that does us any good? It's more likely that this dude actually did go back in time.

Either way, this topic was about a guy who said he went back in time. Obviously his people would have been able to figure out the unanswered questions to the theories we are talking about, or they would have come up with something so new that has never been thought of before. It's possible, but if it happened, he would have told us.

He was the one who said that he had this crazy time machine that was able to bend light 60 degrees. That relates to the way things work in todays physics, so why not argue todays physics in this thread?

Why can't you argue about how things work physically in relativity with someone who supposedly broke the now accepted boundries that scientists believe, with using ideas based on todays boundries and physics? He should be able to answer them, shouldn't he? Or, we should be able to get someone to go and figure out what is going on exactly.

This argument has gone on a 360 degree turn. It has turned into a battle of who holds science on a higher platter, and who has more faith in science. The argument started off with, 'who thinks this guy is a fake'. I have stated why I think he is a fake, and everything i stated relates to him, physically.

To me, physics is something that people have worked on for a very long time and many people have devoted their lives to trying to figure out how the universe works around us. To say that it is probably wrong is ignorant. You're basically saying that all these people with a great amount of intelligence are probably wrong. Doesn't it seem like there's a bit of ignorance in that?

I first read this via Art Bell's web page a year or two ago, and seeing the pictures immediately takes me back to what I thought at the time..

For a guy from the future he sure drives a piece of crap car.


Nuh-uh, nice try. Now go get a Delorean and you might have something..

Devin

Alright, I too probably stepped out of line with the whole 'ignorance' statement. However, what I'm arguing is not that these great people are wrong so much as that their statements are imperfect and most likely will change as we progress scientifically. I don't believe, in the least, that this Titor is actually a time traveller. I'm just trying to say that time travel caused by faster than light speed movement may be possible and not to automatically throw it out because of the theory of general relativity. I had no intention of upsetting you, but as a physics major I'm saying that it's a rapidly changing field and forumulas and theories like Einstein's may not hold up in the near future as technology progresses and creates situations where modern-day mathematics and physics may or may not hold up. In all fairness, I kind of hope that they don't so that people like me can struggle to figure out improvements on old theories.

I know that you are not arguing that they are wrong. The original poster simply stated that he thinks we can go faster than the speed of light, without any type of backup. That kind of bothers me, because the only thing he reasoned was because physics might be wrong. It's too easy to say that. If something was said about fact that photons have been accelerated faster than the speed of light, or some situations in quantum mechanics where it might seem possible, which I have heard of, but will not quote, because I simply don't know enough about it, then I would have no problem with him stating that he thinks we can move faster than the speed of light. To me, if you think something like that, you should have a reason why you think it. If you don't have a good enough reason, you might end up making your own 'cosmological constant' mistake, like Einstein did.

I do agree that it could be possible to move faster than the speed of light with using some differnet type of technology. Something not thought of yet, and possibaly related to quantum mechanics. I, however, find that very unlikely. That's just an opinion, and the reasons why are all the reasons why relativity seems to work in todays physics, which I had stated. I am very open minded, so if I am given good reason as to why things might not work, I will take them into consideration.

I do agree that all physics might take a huge turn in the future. It's guaranteed that physics is going to change, especially relativity, but I really don't think that it will change as far as to say that we can travel faster than the speed of light.

Every time I think about how we could possibly travel faster than light, I think about the fact that light is always the same speed, no matter what reference point you take. If you are moving half the speed of light, someone else is standing still, and you both measure the same beam of light, you both get the same value.

I also think about black holes and what happens with them. ie., mass being sucked in and moving at or faster than the speed of light. What really happens there? What happens to that mass at the event horizon? If singularities exist (Hawking came up with them, and supposedly has disproved himself. I haven't read up on this yet, though), what happens there, in reality?

I'm not only basing my "we can't move faster than light" thoughts on a possibaly needed to be modified formula, I'm also basing it on observations that astronomers have made.

These questions are all valid in trying to figure out if we can move faster than light. The observations we have made leave little room for this case to be true. The easiest way to explain that is to refer to E=mc^2, since it shows the mass increase that happens with black holes and such, which is why I referred to that model.

Is it possible that we could figure out a way to do it? Yes, it could be possible. I just find it so unlikely that I will say that it is impossible.


However, lets look at that situation. Lets assume that a massive object can travel faster than the speed of light, and we'll assume that time dilation still hold true.

Since time dilation changes the rate of your time, would time reverse after you pass the speed of light?

Your time slows down as you move faster. In theory, if you reach the speed of light, your rate of time would then be 0. Does that mean your rate of time would be, lets say, -1 once you reached a curtain speed. Does this mean you would be travelling backwards in time?, or would the rate of your time just be moving at a decreasing speed?

If you take a person at rest. Their rate of time would be going at some speed. Your rate would be 0 at the speed of light, so you wouldn't age compared to them. If you went faster than light, would you start aging negatively? So, you would get younger, in other words?

I guess, if this is the case, you would go back in time, but only to make yourself age negatively. You would get younger, while everyone else around you gets older.

Hmm, this doesn't seem, if this is true, like you would be able to go back in time, in the classic way that this guy claims, using this model. I guess that would leave us with looking at wormholes, or using gravity in some way.

Of course, I may be totally wrong on this, and there could be another way that I haven't thought of. Or, time dilation could be wrong. Either way, I like thinking about things like this.

I wish someone had traced the guy's ip and looked him up in person... Is he still around, or did he stop posting?

If I remember correctly, he's supposed to have already left a long time ago.

The physics Titor tries to describe is gobbledygook. Most of the terms he uses do exist, but they make no sense when put together that way.

The other physics comments in this thread need correcting though. There has never been a (repeatable) experiment which has contradicted relativity's prediction that nothing moves faster than light. There are various effects which get headlines because they seem to do this, but this is really just because journalists don't understand physics very well (they are fun experiments though).

To clarify a little, relativity does not really say that things go back in time if you move faster than light. It says that any two events which could not be connected by any beam of light will occur in a different order for different observers. Person A will see one event happen before the other, and person B will see the opposite. This is considered ridiculous, so the conclusion is that those two events are not causally connected. In other words, it is information that does not travel faster than light. If it did, you'd have causality problems. There is a lot of fine print to add to this when you include the general theory of relativity, which requires that all of the words I've been using be given much more precise definitions.

Also, quantum mechanics can be made fully consistent with special relativity. This is quantum field theory. Its predictions are very well established, and it required no fundamental modification of either relativity or quantum mechanics. Entaglement etc. is consistent with what I said above. It is only general relativity which brings up problems with quantum mechanics. These are actually quite serious, and their resolution will certainly change physics in a very fundamental way.

I don't know if (backwards) time travel is possible. Special relativity does not allow it. It follows that quantum field theory also does not allow it. General relativity has some solutions involving the ability to travel through time, but they require lots of exotic of matter (might as well call it "negative mass") and don't look anything like the universe that we actually observe. It is possible that people simply haven't been creative enough yet with known physics, but I think this is unlikely. Any description of time travel with our current worldview would be quite hard to mesh with reality.

That said, I think it is likely that physics might discover something allowing some sense of time travel in the future. Although I'm being really speculative right now, I wouldn't be surprised if a quantum theory of gravity would allow this sort of thing at least on a very restricted microscopic scale. That might not mean much though. As physics progresses, the concept of time becomes further and further removed from the everyday meaning. "Time travel" in whichever sense it is eventually understood will probably be very different from the version we've learned about from science fiction.

his predictions include a world war iii... that wasn't/isn't that bold of a claim to make i think....

that's like saying In the month of november in the year 2009 it will snow.

Just to comment about that infinite future thing and how we'd be overrun with time travelers, well there's one option that was left out, and that is that there isn't infinite futures in the first place. It has not been proven.

"Just to comment about that infinite future thing and how we'd be overrun with time travelers, well there's one option that was left out, and that is that there isn't infinite futures in the first place. It has not been proven."

No, but if time travel is more common in the future, like he said, I would assume that we would also know that time travel is more common. More people would have travelled back through time and let us know that it's more common. 2063 or whatever date he gave isn't all that far away.



I want to direct the rest of this post to stingc, and anyone else who is interested. You got me thinking about all this time jazz, and different views on time travel.

First off, nice post, and well worded.

I wanted to kind of go into the whole idea of what we think time travel is.

I always get a little mixed up when it comes to explaining time travel, or the possibility of it. I look at time as being defined differently than most people, and thus, I look at time travel a little different, in a way.

You got me thinking about the different types of time travel.

Like i stated above, which you might be able to verify, if one were to move faster than the speed of light, lets say they could, then do you think their rate of time would then start moving negatively? In other words, do you think they would be able to start becomming younger?

I look at it like this

The following is all in reference to something at rest.

Now, you have a person who is stationary. Their time is moving at a given speed, lets say t0, since they are at rest, and their speed is some value less than the speed of light, lets say v0, which is c, the speed of light, minus v, their speed, 0. So, you would have c as their difference in speed from the speed of light.

Then, you have someone moving the speed of light. Their time is moving at a rate of 0, and their difference in speed compared to the speed of light is 0.

Now, you have someone moving faster than the speed of light. Their difference in speed from the speed of light is the same, but opposite to, the first speed, at rest.


Given these three situations, you would expect that the first one be us, on earth, moving at the same rate of speed as everyone else.

In the second one, the person moving would not be aging at all, but everyone else would be aging at the rate of the first one.

In the third one, the rate of time change would be equal to, but opposite the first. You would be aging, negatively, at the same rate that everyone is aging, positively.


Now, I don't like this idea. I dont' know if this is fully correct, but that is, kind of, what special relativity says. To me, this doesn't sit right and must be impossible, but I can't grasp the words to explain why. I'll try, though.

I keep going back to thinking about the direction of time. I wish I had a brief history of time here, which is where i read about this, where it talked about different types of time. Space-time, which i believe is what we are talking about, is moving in a forward direction, and always will, unless the universe starts to collapse on itself.

Where this gets tricky is when we start talking about what we are viewing as time. Are we actually talking about our space-time being manipulated when we move faster?, or, are we talking about some other type of time? I believe Hawking touches on a theory of time called destructive time. It is also moving in a forward direction for every object, and is dependent on that object. If i am correct about this, this is the time that time dilation refers to. These times will be related, since they live in eachothers worlds. Destructive time can be explained by an object falling off of a table, lets say a cup, and breaks. That object is on it's way to destruction. It can be slowed down so it takes less time to break, if it were to be moved at a faster speed (you would have to move the whole falling object, not move if faster to it's destruction), but it will never reverse and fix itself.

I think this is because you would have to then manipulate the direction of space-time for this to occur.

So, to manipulate your direction of time, you would then have to manipulate the direction of space-time, which is defined by the expansion of the universe. You would have to somehow change the direction of space-time. The only way to do so is by waiting for the universe to collapse on itself, if that will ever happen. Even still, if space-time does start going backwards, due to collapse, does this mean our 'destructive time' will also change direction? Will the cup go back and fix itself?

If you think about our current universe, destructive time kind of makes sense. Ever since the very beginning of the big bang, things have become more and more out of order. It would explain why there is an over-abundance of particles in relation to anti-particles, though probably not enough, but it kind of goes with the whole idea.


Anyway, given this information, which is probably more my way of looking at things, without any proof, rather than anything scientific, the situations i showed above would seem to be impossible. Maybe that's why Einstein's formula about calculating rate of time for a given speed falls apart at speed = c.

Anyway, like I said, I read something about this destructive time stuff in a book somewhere. I believe it was in 'A Brief History of Time', by Stephen Hawking, which is a good read. Either way, the whole idea is to not just base time on one scale. Time seems to have different effects on different things, and seems to be independent for different things, but dependent on everything as a whole (space-time). It's interesting to think about.



Oh, something that also makes me think about defining different types of time and such, and goes with the idea of a space-time and a destructive time (our individual time).

Light seems to be independent of our time. It seems to move with space-time, rather than our time. Something that seems to show this is the fact that, no matter how fast you are moving, light is always measured to be the same speed.

This kind of suggests that space-time is always moving at a constant rate, and we can never manipulate it. That makes sense to me. Our time is what we are manipulating. Space-time moves forward, at a given rate, and our times are within that space time, independent of space-time.

Since they are both a type of time moving forward, at a given rate, they will be somewhat dependent of eachother. One thing that would be dependent between the both would be their direction. Like i said, our rate wouldn't be able to exceed the rate of space-time (you can't move slower than a velocity of 0), and our rate can't go slower than space-time (you can't move faster than light). If you were to do either of these, and succeed, you would have to manipulate space-time.

Any thoughts on this?

I've never heard of destructive time, so I can't comment on it. It sounds more like you're talking about proper times, though. There are many different ways to define time, and proper times are probably the most useful. The proper time with respect to a particular object is simply the time measured by that object. You would usually have a bunch of different objects moving around all with their own internal clocks. This makes things easier because all of the quantities involved are intrinsic to the physical situation. There's less of a worry about having to construct arbitrary coordinate systems.

The sort of definition used for the time dilation formulae is different. It assumes that there is one universal definition of time picked out by a single inertial observer. Time dilation etc. are really not fundamental parts of the theory, but are derived once certain definitions and constraints are made. So you really shouldn't put any meaning to the fact that those equations make no sense for things moving faster than light. If something is doing that, then an observer could see it moving backwards in time. As I said before, though, that observation isn't unique. Someone moving at a different speed would see the object moving forwards in time (both observers would agree that it is moving faster than light though). It is reasonable to assume that causality is something that can be universally agreed upon, so then this situation would be contradictory. So we say it can't happen. This is much more fundamental than the arguments about mass increase, which are a little misleading.

Also, spacetime is not modified by the speed that you travel. It is also not "moving" in any usual sense. In the absence of gravity, spacetime is fixed as a single four dimensional structure. All of the strange effects that people talk about (length contraction etc) are really just due to trying to force a split between space and time that is completely unnatural to the geometry. It is much better to learn about things from the invariant geometric perspective, but I think this is quite rare in introductory books.

Titor changed his predictions!
 

Originally he claimed that the USA civil war would occur in 2004... In more recent posts and sites the date was moved forward to 2005.

Unless anything drastic happens in the next six weeks, Titor's original prediction (2004!) would be proven wrong as the clock strikes midnight on new year's eve.

Sorry, John. You've been exposed.

Maybe time travel is possible. Maybe there are time travellers among us... But John Titor is not one of them.

(Niether am I, despite my username)

any explanation branching from the iraq war being anything less than a "blip on anyone's radar" is an absolute joke. this guy is no more than a political idealist who wants the world to see the error of its ways, love one another, trust people with our lives and bike 10 miles a day. to play upon an impending iraq war (we're talking 2000-2001, right?) is no more than a "prediction" of the obvious. clinton went into iraq in 1998 because due to weapons inspection problems, anyone could have predicted that we weren't going to be able to sit on that bubble for much longer. W campaigned against terror and WMDs before 9/11 happened, everyone did; our time traveler merely trusted a politician's promises (smart guy, huh?) and i wouldn't be surprised if he's sitting at his desk watching it all pan out.

i don't believe a word of what this guy has to say; whether he's a time traveler or a crazy hippie idealist out of bohunk colorado, his bar is way too high. come to think of it, this glaring extreme is a fantastic basis for a doctoral thesis in sociology, don't be surprised if our "time traveler" publishes a book, possibly before the civil war...?

This guy's "world" reminds me of the past and NOT the future.
It seems he's been reading too much history novels and has mistaken the past with the future.
Nice try, but I DONT buy it. Most of the things he says is common sense nad the rest is just what already took place in the distant past, such as riding horses, eating directly off of farm produce, bad economy, death from diseases. Those all look like the past times in colonial America.

Maybe John Titor is the guy planning all the wars and destruction (and 9/11), so that's why he knew all those things...creepy, huh? :hmm:

of course there are time travelers among us. but we'll never know it because of intertemporal law which forbids any person from going into the past and disclosing that information to residents of the "past" or otherwise profiting from traveling back in time.

Oh, they'll know. Time cop 'll get you. :suave:

The "skeptics" in here havent listened to enough overnight talk radio. Perhaps the fatigue allows the odd thoughts to penetrate deeper, maybe it makes sense, maybe its just so entertaining.... maybe its real....

I'm gonna go buy water and batteries now.

Are you quoting Titor here? Or are you intentionally sounding like another time traveler?

The grandfather paradox still holds weight with me: A man goes back in time, he kills his grandfather, which means he was never born, which means he could have never traveled in time to begin with.

I think perhaps there is something to be said about wormholes. If the technology to fold space is ever developed long distances can be traveled which means by looking at our sun from trillions of light years away we are looking at the past. Thats where is gets fuzzy for me.

Titor, while a very well studies futurist, has been proven wrong. Kerry (Abe Lincoln-esque president) was not elected in 2004, no civil war, no more Waco like attacks (unless you count 9/11, which I suspect he would have mentioned with more enthusiasm). Whoever this guy is would make a great writer. Too bad he wasted his talents on fortune telling.

I can do it too, you know. Spoiler: After years of wars in the Middle East, the US will be fighting terrorism in South America, specifically in Venezuela. After that, we will fight the war on tyrany with China. How do I know this? Simple. There are patterns in history that tend to occour. Rome is an excellent model upon which to predict political decisions and events.

I don't know much about the science, but I thought this prediction was interesting.
www.johntitor.com
Also, from the perspective of the story a waco event isn't neccessarily slaughtering religious cults in their compounds, but more of the federal government grossly overstepping its authority and trashing the constitution. That's what I gathered from reading the story. Things like the wiretapping stories, Bushes signing statements, Katrina events, torture, thousands of militarized police officers during RNC/DNC, and the list goes on and on. I guess that's my interpretation of it.

I killed my Grandpa and I'm still here/:icare:

For the record I haven't combed over Titor's information or predictions yet ... I will when I get a chance.

As far as the "physics" goes I'd like to see a REAL schematic of his machine ... not just illustrations that communicate more esthetic information than technical info. I used to be a researcher in physics at Lawrence Berkeley Labs before I became an MD. I'll go through his website to see if there's anything there.

I'll let y'all know what I think. I'm skeptical but open-minded, too.

After inventing the first time machine far beyond the abilities of the greatest minds and budgets in science/technology in the world today
and with all he's learned from Earth 2036,
I'm disappointed this man still can't manage to make clear, high-resolution digital images.

BTW - has this man brought back any "stuff" from 2036? Like some of the latest PDAs or gizmos? Or does he have an explanation of why that's not possible. Remember, any argument based on causality falls apart because he's already in violation of causality by being able to go back and forth in time.

Like I said, I haven't read his stuff yet ... I'm just giving you my initial impressions.

If he can tell us the results of the next 12 World Series I'll be 100% convinced.

*Update:
I read some of his stuff ... nothing I didn't expect. What's the purpose of being cryptic unless you are unable to be specific? And, as far as his political commentary, he's not saying anything that hasn't been said by other folks before ... the only difference is that he claims to be a time traveller.

One thing I know about sociopaths (and I've talked with many of them) is that they take advantage of other people's desire to believe in oddities. The year is 2006 ... I must've missed the US Civil War of 2004 ... or was it 2005?

I was wondering the same thing...

Anyway, I really didn't read that whole site; I just skimmed through it. Most of that stuff is way over my head, anyway.

It's not over your head ... it's just unorganized, poorly written and referentially obscure. ... not to mention boring.

If he's a time traveller on a mission to collect objects from time periods why does he spend ALL his time on message boards, preaching predictions for us in this time period and writing/selling books?

I will admit that my first thought upon rediscovering his site and finding fault in his predictions was, "That idiot changed history..."

I watch way too many science fiction movies.

Sounds like a futurist posing as a time traveler.

I'm kinda' wondering why he doesn't take the power to time travel and save the (Supposed) 3 billion people that are going to die in 2015.

Of course, I don't understand anything about quantum physics, so I'd be willing to bet that there's some underlying theory of time travel which states that the past can't be changed (Or something along those lines).

Perhaps John Titor is the reason why Kerry lost the 2004 election and the reason why the US civil war of 2005 never occurred. If the US civil war of 2005 never occurred, then I wonder if John Titor also managed to save 3 billion people from dying in 2015.

Or better yet, maybe John Titor changed history so that he never came in the past. Of course, if he never travelled back through time, then why do we still remember him...?

Edit: I got around to reading up on his predictions regarding WWIII, and I have to say it's a bunch of baloney.

1.) As we're all aware of, there hasn't been a US civil war for almost 120+ years. Since there was no civil war 2005, there is no AFE (American Federal Empire) of which Russia will be fighting against.

2.) First of all, I don't see China being able to forcibly annex Taiwan, Korea and Japan by the year 2012 (Or any time soon for that matter) and second of all, I don't see China launching a failed invasion of Australia. Nothing against you Aussies, but if China is able to overpower Taiwan, Korea and Japan, then they shouldn't have much problem with Australia. Of course, Australia could very well be the world super power in 2012, so what do I know...

3.) As we are all aware, the reason that the United States and Russia didn't attack each other during the Cold War was because of MAD. If Russia didn't attack the United States during the Cold War for this very reason, then why the hell would it launch nucleur attacks against the United States, China and most of the European Union?

4.) How does Russia survive but not China or the European Union?

I know where I was when Jacksonville was bombed; I was reading the book "Alas, Babylon!" by Pat Frank.

His depiction of a nuclear war with Russia is almost the same as those depicted in the novel. The only thing he did was basically create a sequel to the story (He begins his story where the novel ends). In fact, anyone who's read the book would pick up on this instantly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alas,_Babylon

There ya' go :thumbsup:

Holy Heck, I didn't see that one!
"Shotgun infantry unit?" OMG. A unit comprised exclusively of shotgunners: useless in just about every type of military engagement known. That's the type of factual/logical blunder only a bullshitter could make.

At the risk of being counted as a Titor supporter...that not entirely true. When I was in the Air Force, I was on a Tactical Response Force. We relied heavily on the use of shotguns, for close in combat. Remington 870s, to be exact. That said, we were a highly specialized unit, in no way to confused with an "infantry".

Besides...in a "post-apocolyptic" world, who's to say? I can certainly envision armies that are forced to resort to arming themselves with whatever was at hand. The Confederate army, in the "1st" Civil War (:rolleyes:) used whatever they could get their hands on.

I call BS on John Titor. But not for being in a "shotgun infantry".

Oh...and by the way...I first read Alas, Babylon in 1978, and several times since. If you haven't read it, I recommend it. It's a very good read. Fairly accurate, and realistic, portrayal of the Strategic Air Command, too. Pat Frank obviously did his homework.

I have never seen or heard of this before, really fascinating - though I can´t help but think it´s a hoax.

Geez. I just knew someone would to try to bring up something like that. I stand by what I said.

As you state, the shotgun is a CQB tool especially effective for the purpose of entry. Still, an entry team isn't going to be exclusively dependent on 870s, right? While you might have relied heavily on the 870 - did you consider yourself a "shotgun team"? It's hard to believe you wouldn't also rely on the M4 and M16A2 among other tools at your disposal depending on the task at hand.

And, as you state, you were not an infantry unit.

Despite how it sounds I wasn't trying to dismiss the combat shotgun at all. (Even though I favor my AR carbine). What I said was, "A unit comprised exclusively of shotgunners: useless in just about every type of military engagement known." Do you disagree?

It seems to me that if Titor had any form of tactical training (or basic firearm knowledge) he'd be more precise with his terminology.

In a post apocalyptic world, a regiment armed with toothpicks and slngshots would have an advantage of unarmed people. In an unarmed world, the man with the shotgun is king.

And that same regiment can be wiped out by mice armed with swiss mini-revolvers.

Just to clear something up.

John Titor was born in 1998, correct? By the time he's fourteen, the year would be 2012/2013. World World III doesn't occur until 2015. Therefore, it's not a post-apocalyptic world yet and one would have to think that there are better weapons than a shotgun.

Of course, the United States is supposed to be going through a civil war at the time, and seeing as he is part of the "Rebellion", perhaps the best they could get were shotguns to fight against the AFE with...

Shotguns do strike me as a last resort type of weapon. In an ideal situation, something powerful, automatic, and versitile would be used, and shotguns would be used in zombie movies (zombie movies pwn). But, yeah, after a civil war between the state and the individual, the US would be quite the wastelnd. They - the freedom fighters - would be lucky to have shotguns, and if they are the only weapon available I can see them being usefull. Of course I have no undertanding or experience pertaining to shotguns or firearms in general, so I do have to take longbough's word as being reliable.

Either way, the civil war is at least 10-25 years off, and WWIII isn't going to go down between the US and China. Think more like Humanity vs. Neo Sapiens (genetically engineered humans). My time machine was made by Honda, so it is less likely to break down and it get's better fuel econemy. :thumbsup:

Under ideal conditions, proper weapons are available for specific conditions. Typically, that would be an assault rifle. I do concede that point. However, consider WWI. When the infantry would go "over the top", to assault the opposing trench, it was the rifleman's rersponsibility to protect the shotgunners until they could actual get into the enemy's trenches. Once in, the shotgunners could basically "clean house". Right tool for the right job, and the shotgun will always have a place in the toolbox.

Actually, the GUU-5P was our rifle of choice. And, of course, the Baretta 9mm after they replaced the S&W .38s.
But...again, I was in the Air Force. I was not in an "infantry". I was on a highly specialized response force. Our means, and our methods, were not conventional.
Counter terrorism is nothing new. We were preparing for it over 20 years ago, and we were good. And shotguns played a very large part of that, albeit not the only part.

In any event...none of this has anything to do with the fraud (I believe) that is...John Titor.

I believe Titor said the civil war was in 2004. Or did he change the date?

And it's interesting to note that we're the ones who have to introduce the possiblity of resources being so sparse that we couldn't assemble enough rifles to equip our troops. C'mon. They can build friggin' time machines but can't figure out how to mass produce rifles? Even in WW2 the US could grab enough scrap and collect enough raw materials to make M1 Garands.

Having no access to the GUU-5P I make do with my AR (16" POF upper, Aimpoint Comp M2 sight, Surefire vertical foregrip, the improved USSOCOM M4 5 position stock), my FAL (18" Belgian Congo configuation) and a few 1911s (9mm is subpar IMO - I've dealt with many gunshot wounds and will tell you first-hand that there's a big difference between the 9mm and .45 - that's why I stick to the .45). I've trained primarily with the pistols and the carbine. So if the future is so strapped on resources that everyone is underequipped ... I guess looters would regret coming to my place.

Time Traveler?????
 

Maybe not a "CIVIL WAR" but war with the ISLAMIC TERRORISTS
started on September 9,2001. As for John Titor...my opinion
of this idea of time travelling is weirder than my questions
about "if the American people believe we are being visited by
aliens from space and are they abducting people?".

My other comment is your wondering about "Time traveler John
Titor" would make a good Sci-Fi Movie but that's about all.:D

Actually the UK and the League of nations are responsible for the war with terrorists, and it started a long time before 2001. Just fyi.

Yeah, there are way too many holes in his predictions.

If he's got so many important missions to do ... why the hell does he NEED to convince us? Why should he even care about what the public thinks? Why does he need to sell his book on 20th century Amazon.com? Does he need 20th century money?


If I made a time-machine and I had a mission in the 1940s - wouldn't I just haul ass to do my job without drawing attention? Why would I spend all my time writing books and calling radio shows trying to convince everyone I was from the year 2006? What's the point?