Let's Talk Divergence... Shall We?

RainmanTime

RainmanTime

Super Moderator
Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

I really get a good laugh when people use Titor's "measure of divergence" as if it has any scientific merit whatsoever. So I thought I would start this thread to give anyone who thinks they can verify or validate this "measure" that Titor suggested a chance to do so. Let's set the stage by examining exactly what Titor said about this measure which so many people seem to want to rely upon for why Titor's predictions are not coming true:

Question: You mentioned a divergence from time lines. How is it possible to measure such a divergence?
Titor's Answer: The measurement for worldline divergence is an observation variable isolated to the distortion unit. An effective analogy would be a 'gravity radar'. The unit's sensors take a 'snapshot' of the local gravity around the unit before a flight. During travel, this baseline is periodically checked to make sure there are no major changes in the environment that would cause a catastrophic mass failure (brick wall appearing from nowhere). The percentage of VGL divergence from one worldline to another is a calculated guess by the three computers that control the unit based on its starting point. It is useless in describing characteristics of individual worldlines.
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So just to get us started, let me point out some facts and my own observations from the weakly-worded, non-answer:

1) "The measurement for worldline divergence is an observation variable isolated to the distortion unit." He never defines the measurement parameters of this "observation variable"... not here, and indeed he defines it nowhere in his story.
2) "An effective analogy would be a 'gravity radar'." - A theoretical instrument, for which only theory (no facts) exists. Even still, this analogy does not define the metric upon which "percentage divergence" is based.
3) "The unit's sensors take a 'snapshot' of the local gravity around the unit before a flight." - Absolutely no quantification of how it takes a "snapshot". And for those of us up on our science, let's not forget that gravity is a field effect, and thus must be described as a vector (minimal) and more likely a tensor. Thus, if his machine actually can do this, it is one very complex "snapshot".
4) "During travel, this baseline is periodically checked to make sure there are no major changes in the environment that would cause a catastrophic mass failure (brick wall appearing from nowhere)." Again we are devoid of scientific specifics. Moreover, he infers that something might be able to be done about a situation where there are "major changes in the environment". What sort of magic will his time travel unit pull out of its hat in this case? He is suspiciously silent about this.
5) "The percentage of VGL divergence from one worldline to another is a calculated guess by the three computers that control the unit based on its starting point." - Calculated guess? Huh. That probably classifies as one of Titor's worst attempts at being vague so as to avoid having to say anything further. Either it is calculated, or it is a guess. If there are any calculations done, for anything, then it ceases to be a guess! I dunno about the rest of you, but I would certainly like a bit more clarity (scratch that...a LOT more clarity) on this little tidbit!

6) Piece' de resistance: "It is useless in describing characteristics of individual worldlines." Useless... there, he said it himself! And yet, he wants to lead you into some sort of false sense of scientific certainty that, even though it is useless, you should somehow believe this non-quantified metric is "good enough" to explain why his predictions for our worldline might not come off quite as he states (whenever he does provide some sort of specific predictions, which is not often at all!). Not only this, but even though it is "useless in describing characteristics of individual worldlines", it is somehow "useful enough" (by implication) for the machine to use this non-quantified metric for VGL navigation! Yeah....sure it is!

Now let me whip a little bit of my own scientific statements into this discussion. Here is my statement of the scientific usefulness of a relative percentage measure. See if someone can refute it on a scientific basis:

Any relative percentage metric is wholly and utterly USELESS (for anything scientific) unless you can specify (numerically) the base metric from which the relative percentage is derived.

In the case of Titor's worldline divergence, he failed miserably in his story and in his attempts to get scientifically-minded people to believe him. He would have been much better off, in this case, relying solely on his "I am a historian, not a physicist, so I don't know enough to explain the scientific details" schtick. But if he did that, he would not have been able to lure the non-scientific people into believing him! /ttiforum/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Anyone care to try to "defend" Titor's atrocious science?

RMT
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

First, I ain't attacking or goading you. We're on the same page just from two different perspectives. I was also hoping there would be more people here than there are but hopefully with time that will change. As such, let's see what ground rules we both agree on.

1) "The measurement for worldline divergence is an observation variable isolated to the distortion unit." He never defines the measurement parameters of this "observation variable"... not here, and indeed he defines it nowhere in his story.<<

"Each universe has its own unique 'gravity'". I agree with that concept.


2) "An effective analogy would be a 'gravity radar'." - A theoretical instrument, for which only theory (no facts) exists. Even still, this analogy does not define the metric upon which "percentage divergence" is based.

I agree.


3) "The unit's sensors take a 'snapshot' of the local gravity around the unit before a flight." - Absolutely no quantification of how it takes a "snapshot". And for those of us up on our science, let's not forget that gravity is a field effect, and thus must be described as a vector (minimal) and more likely a tensor. Thus, if his machine actually can do this, it is one very complex "snapshot".

I agree. And to make matters worse, we don't know what a "graviton" is either.


4) "During travel, this baseline is periodically checked to make sure there are no major changes in the environment that would cause a catastrophic mass failure (brick wall appearing from nowhere)." Again we are devoid of scientific specifics. Moreover, he infers that something might be able to be done about a situation where there are "major changes in the environment".

I agree.


5) "The percentage of VGL divergence from one worldline to another is a calculated guess by the three computers that control the unit based on its starting point." - Calculated guess? Huh. That probably classifies as one of Titor's worst attempts at being vague so as to avoid having to say anything further. Either it is calculated, or it is a guess. If there are any calculations done, for anything, then it ceases to be a guess! I dunno about the rest of you, but I would certainly like a bit more clarity (scratch that...a LOT more clarity) on this little tidbit!

Somehow magically, this time machine can quantify gravitons accurately enough to where you can make some king of magic wormhole that connects universe A to universe B, then the time traveller magically goes through that wormhole. And since each universe is unique, the best one can hope for is a close match, like a 97.5% match. Any more and you run into Heisenbergian problems, any less and brick walls start appearing.


6) Piece' de resistance: "It is useless in describing characteristics of individual worldlines." Useless... there, he said it himself! And yet, he wants to lead you into some sort of false sense of scientific certainty that, even though it is useless, you should somehow believe this non-quantified metric is "good enough" to explain why his predictions for our worldline might not come off quite as he states (whenever he does provide some sort of specific predictions, which is not often at all!). Not only this, but even though it is "useless in describing characteristics of individual worldlines", it is somehow "useful enough" (by implication) for the machine to use this non-quantified metric for VGL navigation! Yeah....sure it is!

Since it is impossible to quantify both the spin and momentum of an atom, the closest we can ever get is "close enough to where we know walls don't appear in the past".


>Any relative percentage metric is wholly and utterly USELESS (for anything scientific) unless you can specify (numerically) the base metric from which the relative percentage is derived.

I wish I read this post first. I agree. But "Per cent" is both a measure and relative measure in one; it works.

In the case of Titor's worldline divergence, he failed miserably in his story and in his attempts to get scientifically-minded people to believe him. He would have been much better off, in this case, relying solely on his "I am a historian, not a physicist, so I don't know enough to explain the scientific details" schtick. But if he did that, he would not have been able to lure the non-scientific people into believing him!

Anyone care to try to "defend" Titor's atrocious science?

I will, but weren't we discussing ground rules, not conjecture?

So I agree with everything you said. Now let's see your math.
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

Are you saying that you believe that the Everett-Wheeler-Graham interpretation is correct? If so, did Titor influence any of your beliefs in this matter?
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

1) "The measurement for worldline divergence is an observation variable isolated to the distortion unit." He never defines the measurement parameters of this "observation variable"... not here, and indeed he defines it nowhere in his story.<<

"Each universe has its own unique 'gravity'". I agree with that concept.
Click to expand...

Where did you get the idea that RMT said anything about each universe having its own "unique gravity?" I don't agree with this. I'm just assuming, but I don't think that RMT does either.
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

You know Ray, what's really funny, is that you are not attacking the following two links?

http://www.timetravelinstitute.com/ttiforum/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=ttclaims&Number=36273&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

http://www.timetravelinstitute.com/ttiforum/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=ttclaims&Number=35990&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

Says the same thing as the source your attacking here, but for some very odd reason, your absolutely ignoring these?

Hmmm, you know if people get wind of this, they might want to resettle somewhere else?


Canned response: Well' you know Ray is a copy of Darby lurks here for X amount of years, nobody can find his old post, nor what he said, blah blah blah.
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

>"Each universe has its own unique 'gravity'". I agree with that concept.<

>>Where did you get the idea that RMT said anything about each universe having its own "unique gravity?" I don't agree with this. I'm just assuming, but I don't think that RMT does either.<<

Really sorry, I am getting ahead of myself. Lemmie change it:

>>1) "The measurement for worldline divergence is an observation variable isolated to the distortion unit." He never defines the measurement parameters of this "observation variable"... not here, and indeed he defines it nowhere in his story.<<

"The parameters of gravity, and the principle of time travel itself, is based on the understanding that the time travelling machine decides where "here" or "there" is. Better? The time machine itself is little more than a "McGuffin" (Hitchcock).
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

5) "The percentage of VGL divergence from one worldline to another is a calculated guess by the three computers that control the unit based on its starting point." - Calculated guess? Huh. That probably classifies as one of Titor's worst attempts at being vague so as to avoid having to say anything further. Either it is calculated, or it is a guess. If there are any calculations done, for anything, then it ceases to be a guess! I dunno about the rest of you, but I would certainly like a bit more clarity (scratch that...a LOT more clarity) on this little tidbit!
Click to expand...

Not to back Titor up, but he does say that programming changes from if/then to if/then/maybe.
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

Titor: The divergence measurement refers to the local gravitational field as compared to the point of origin. It is mearly an empirical indicator of overall change in a world line.
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Titor said the Time machine is built based on Trial and Error. By this, he means they practically experiment with the microsingularities to manipulate gravity, then use gravity locks to achieve Time Travel. By this, they wouldn’t have cared much about equations and theory behind it, including numerical values.

The divergence percentage is an empirical value. Hope everyone knows what empirical is.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=empirical

TimeTravel_0 : Altering gravity is not the hard part.
TimeTravel_0 : Detecting gravity is the hard part.
TimeTravel_0 : I will tell you a littlke story.
TimeTravel_0 : When time travel was invented.
TimeTravel_0 : They built prototypes that would go back in time for a
split second and then return.
TimeTravel_0 : They had sensors and cameras on them.
TimeTravel_0 : ...and they never returned.
TimeTravel_0 : It was later discovered that the machines were ending up
about 15 miles away and 3000 fett in the air.
TimeTravel_0 : feet
TimeTravel_0 : The Earth was rotating away from them.

TimeTravel_0 : A system had to be invented that would "hold" the
machine to the Earth.
TimeTravel_0 : Its called VGL.
TimeTravel_0 : Its based on very sensative clocks and gravity sensors.
TimeTravel_0 : It stops the time distortion machine if radical changes
in gravity are detected.


This divergence can be better understood from the following post.

Titor: Imagine your path through time is through a cone. The farther away from the center of the cone, the more differences you will see in the world line. The C204 begins to "break away" at about 60 years. This means the level of confidence drops rapidly after 60 years of travel and the world line divergence increases. In other words, if I wanted to go back 2000 years and meet Christ, there is a better than average chance I would end up on a world line where he was never born.
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Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

Titor said the Time machine is built based on Trial and Error. By this, he means...
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Herc is back and telling us (again) what Titor meant. Perhaps you should correct yourself and say "By this, it is MY OPINION that he meant..." unless you think you can actually tell us, without error, what he meant?
By this, they wouldn’t have cared much about equations and theory behind it, including numerical values.
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That would be your first contradiction in this thread. He defined percentage deviation (correctly) as a measurement. A measurement involves numerical values. There is no way around that. Furthermore, there is no way around the fact that a percentage deviation is a numerical value, and as such it must be based on another numerical value for it to be a meaningful percentage measurement. You can't rightly tell us you know what Titor meant if you are going to contradict the basic science of measurements, now can you?

Now let's deal with Titor's statement and your response to it:
The divergence percentage is an empirical value. Hope everyone knows what empirical is.
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Yes, many of us do. Thanks for that dictionary reference. The key words here are "observation or experiment". These processes ultimately result in measurements. In other words, "empirical" can be said to rely more on actual measurements than on any specific theory. With that understanding, let's re-examine Titor's statement:
Titor: The divergence measurement refers to the local gravitational field as compared to the point of origin. It is mearly an empirical indicator of overall change in a world line.
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There you go... he even mentions the word "measurement". Unfortunately, he has still not defined precisely what measurement defines the percentage. He tried to explain it away as "empirical" and I don't think Boomer thought deep enough on that one. Because empirical would mean there were measurements, and that he should be able to define that standard measurement reference in order to make the percentage meaningful. Instead, he simply brushed it off in one of his other qoutes (see my initial post above) by saying it was a useless measurement.
This divergence can be better understood from the following post.
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No, it really can't. You might think it could be better understood by his weak analogy, but the ONLY way it could be better understood is by understanding the measurement upon which the percentage divergence is based. And again, unfortunately, that would lead to speculation about how one measures gravity.

I might want to point something out before you go assuming that Titor's machine could directly measure gravity: We don't have a means to directly measure gravity, and none is known. Certainly, we know how to measure the EFFECTS of gravity by measuring mass acceleration. But that is not the same as measuring gravity directly. Thus why people are theorizing things like gravitons (those damn reductionists and their particle solutions!) and gravity waves. I might also point out that one of the results of the Einstein Equivalence Principle says that you cannot distinguish between the acceleration due to gravity and that due to a body's acceleration in an inertial reference frame. That is why accelerometers have a natural "1-G bias" which we must account for in their use in aerospace vehicles. It is a source of error if you wish to program a vehicle to track a specific acceleration, but the error varies with altitude, so we can correct for it fairly well with terrestrial vehicles.

The point is, you may think Titor described the basis metric for percentage divergence, but he really did not. He simply told you it was empircal, but then did not describe what empirical measurements it was based on. IOW, he pulled the wool over your eyes again.
RMT
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

I might want to point something out before you go assuming that Titor's machine could directly measure gravity: We don't have a means to directly measure gravity, and none is known.
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He is not measuring gravity. The VGL keeps track of the local gravity and senses change in gravity of how much the gravity changes in the target worldline with respect to the original worldline. That would be an approximate value.

There you go... he even mentions the word "measurement". Unfortunately, he has still not defined precisely what measurement defines the percentage. He tried to explain it away as "empirical" and I don't think Boomer thought deep enough on that one.
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Yes the word “measurement”. But can you suggest a better word for that?

Perhaps you should correct yourself and say "By this, it is MY OPINION that he meant..." unless you think you can actually tell us, without error, what he meant?
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Yes it is my opinion. I do not see any flaw in his method, because it uses singularities. I already mentioned, without knowing whether or not it is capable of manipulating gravity as you might put it
, it wouldn’t be fair concept to debunk it.

On the other hand, I agree that it wouldn’n validate Titor either, unless you believe in MWI and black holes.
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

He is not measuring gravity. The VGL keeps track of the local gravity and senses change in gravity of how much the gravity changes in the target worldline with respect to the original worldline. That would be an approximate value.
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This makes no sense. You say he is not measuring gravity, and yet you also say it "keeps track of the local gravity". Care to explain how a machine "keeps track" of something without measuring it? And the same applies to "how much gravity changes". Detecting a change directly implies a measurement. If you really think you know what Titor meant, then give me the technical specifics. I'm all ears.

Yes the word “measurement”. But can you suggest a better word for that?
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I think that is a perfect word. One that, as an engineer, you surely must understand. My question is why you seek to stretch or change that word, that Titor used. This goes back to my continual point of people not literally interpreting the words he used. Rather, the tendency is to stretch those words to fit their needs in validating Titor. What do you think is "wrong" with the word measurement? It seems clear to me. I only want to know WHAT he is measuring.

I do not see any flaw in his method, because it uses singularities.
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OK, let me tell you how I interpret this statement of yours by giving you an analogous statement. You admit that you do not understand the technology he claims to use (singularities). You cannot describe the technical details of how it works, all you can say is "it seems plausible because he uses singularities". So the analagous statement I would make goes like this:

"I do not see any flaw in his method, because it uses magic."

If one cannot explain the technology behind a magic trick, then this is the same as saying "it works because of singularities" without being able to specify how the singularities either (a) measure local gravity or (b) manipulate local gravity.

It's one thing to have a singularity that certainly would exhibit a large gravitational force. It is a completely different thing to say one has a means to CONTROL its output. And I think I know a thing or two about control.

RMT
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

If one cannot explain the technology behind a magic trick, then this is the same as saying "it works because of singularities" without being able to specify how the singularities either (a) measure local gravity or (b) manipulate local gravity.
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Whichever way I put it, I know you are going to stretch it very long and keep saying it is flawed. However, I’ll say a few words.

“Atomic clocks with a stability of one part in a hundred million million (1014) have been developed and adapted for space. With recent advances in space technology, we can now expand our laboratory to span the entire solar system and use massive bodies and large distances to measure directly the changes caused by gravitation on time and dimensions. Communication by phase-coherent microwave systems is now possible over enormous distances, and we can realistically consider performing the "gedanken" or thought experiments described in the literature on gravity and relativity.
Traditionally, relativity has been described in terms of systems moving with respect to one another, each containing rods and clocks. Pulsed-light signals connect the systems observationally and provide the basis for comparisons. To make experimental measurements, we can, in fact, use rods and clocks. However, the rod lengths are related to the clocks by the velocity of light, and we can describe distances in terms of wavelengths of the clock frequency if we postulate that the velocity of light is constant in space-time. Thus, we can design relativity experiments that require clocks only.
Most theories of relativity describe space and time by four-dimensional geometry - the three dimensions of space as we perceive them - and time. The presence of accelerations, and in particular acceleration due to gravity, affects the shape of the geometrical lattice work, or coordinate frames used to describe physical phenomena. These frames are said to be warped by the presence of massive bodies and the warping affects both the spatial and the temporal dimensions.
GP-A, an experiment using an atomic clock aboard a space vehicle, will determine directly the effect of gravitation on time by comparing the rate of the rocket-borne clock with another on Earth. Our new "laboratory" has extended into space and may well be the forerunner of other direct measurements of relativistic and gravitational effects probing even as far as the Sun itself.”

http://einstein.stanford.edu/content/faqs/gpa_vessot.html

Trial and Error method is completely different from what you are doing to achieve time travel. You are working out the equations before practically achieving Time Travel.

Whereas in the case of black holes, it is the other way around. Microsingularities are created first, then they are experimented with practically to find out its capabilities. It does sound like magic to those who do not believe in black holes, but it is plausible considering the theory of Kerr type (rotating) black holes and Tipler Cylinders. But there is a possibility that the COMPLETE theoretical math could not be derived before its creation and even after its implementation.
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

Whichever way I put it, I know you are going to stretch it very long and keep saying it is flawed.
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No. I am asking about Titor's measurement. You ignored those questions and focused only on my issue with lack of knowledge about singularities.

Please don't lead us off topic. I want to know the technical measure upon which the percentage is based (or if you don't think Titor's words were correct in stating it is a measurement, then the argument against his words).

Titor says it is a measurement based on gravity. I want to know what the measurement is. We've already both agreed (I think) that anything empirical is based on a measurement.
RMT
 
Re: Let\'s Talk Divergence... Shall We?

I wonder if those pit boss servers will let you save turn based games, that would rock.
 
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