I do not understand
- Thread starter TimeCase
- Start date
RenUnconscious
Quantum Scribe
Someone, someday, will explain it to you in laymens terms. First I recommend watching every movie about time travel including back to the future parts 1 2 and 3. Then make sure you watch Quantum Leap and Sliders. Then you need to understand relativity theory which pretty much tells you everything you've seen in all the movies and TV shows is BS. Then you should watch Bill and Ted's excellent adventure and laugh just because its "Bogus Dude". Then watch Stargate cuz its kewl and they try to keep the science pretty accurate. Then dismiss everything that is said on forums like this by people like me, do your own research and come to your own conclusions.
Because if anyone had the physics of time travel all figured out they wouldn't be here explain it to you in laymens terms.
Because if anyone had the physics of time travel all figured out they wouldn't be here explain it to you in laymens terms.
Darby
Epochal Historian
TimeCase,
I'm going to assume that you probably haven't taken any physics classes so you need to start with the basics without the math.
Start with Hawkings "A Brief History of Time". It's a very good popular science treatment of the subject of what time is to a physicist.
Then try out Einstein's little book, "Relativity: The Special and the General Theory." Professor Einstein did a great job of writing a PopSci version of the subject.
I know that neither of these books deals with time travel itself but time travel involves the theories of relativity (Special and General).
The third book is a lot more advanced but like the other two it (generally) gives a non-math treatment to the subject.
The third book is John Wheeler's "A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime."
Don't jump right into Wheeler. As I said, his book is a lot more advanced than the other two.
To truly understand the subject in a really meangingful way you need to speak the language of physics. Unfortunately (for most people) that language is math. If you've had high school algebra you can get through some other good books that start dealing with spacetime mechanics.
Beyond that its calculus at ever advancing levels. Fortunately we don't need to have that deep level of understanding to have a good conversation here. /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif
The thing to begin to appreciate about Special Relativity is the Lorentz Transformation and the idea that "simultaneous events" fails to be meaningful in the way that we normally view the subject. From Special Relativity you will understand that there is at least one form of time travel that is a slam dunk (albeit a one-way trip to the future) situation that has been proven to be true without fail.
I'm going to assume that you probably haven't taken any physics classes so you need to start with the basics without the math.
Start with Hawkings "A Brief History of Time". It's a very good popular science treatment of the subject of what time is to a physicist.
Then try out Einstein's little book, "Relativity: The Special and the General Theory." Professor Einstein did a great job of writing a PopSci version of the subject.
I know that neither of these books deals with time travel itself but time travel involves the theories of relativity (Special and General).
The third book is a lot more advanced but like the other two it (generally) gives a non-math treatment to the subject.
The third book is John Wheeler's "A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime."
Don't jump right into Wheeler. As I said, his book is a lot more advanced than the other two.
To truly understand the subject in a really meangingful way you need to speak the language of physics. Unfortunately (for most people) that language is math. If you've had high school algebra you can get through some other good books that start dealing with spacetime mechanics.
Beyond that its calculus at ever advancing levels. Fortunately we don't need to have that deep level of understanding to have a good conversation here. /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif
The thing to begin to appreciate about Special Relativity is the Lorentz Transformation and the idea that "simultaneous events" fails to be meaningful in the way that we normally view the subject. From Special Relativity you will understand that there is at least one form of time travel that is a slam dunk (albeit a one-way trip to the future) situation that has been proven to be true without fail.