NewGuy,
I've been lurking for quite some time and have a couple of very simple questions. I do not mean to offend anyone, so I apologize in advance if I do.
1. Are there people here that really believe time travel is possible?
Yes, sure. There are people who believe that time travel is possible. I'm one such person.
2. If the answer to #1 is "Yes", is there anything that I can read/view online that would help convince me?
Google Special Theory of Relativity (SR) and the General Theory of Relativity (GR). You can also take a look at Hugh Everett and John Wheeler's view of quantum mechanics (QM) - "Many Worlds Interpretation" - for a description of how one school of quantum physicists look at QM and GR.
Avoid the BBS forums if you're looking for something that is of an academic nature. The forums are fun but they aren't generally helpful if you want to bone up on the specifics. There are plenty of information sites that discuss and describe the theories in a way that doesn't require a degree in physics. The "avoid the forums"
caveat is especially true regarding MWI. Many Worlds is an interpretation of quantum mechanics, was Hugh Everett's PhD dissertation and is not a theory of QM. It's an interpretation of the Standard Model that attempts to combine QM with General Relativity. Everett never completed the research after receiving his PhD. He went to work for the Department of Defense and developed computer game theory for them.
MWI just doesn't lend itself to typical BBS speculation if you want to have a chance to understand what it really is and isn't. What you tend to find on BBS forums is a blend of cosmology-based multiple universe theories and loosely MWI-based "parallel universe" theories that aren't related to each other but are inappropriately melded together by posters because they think that they are the same theory based on a (mis-)understanding of the theories on most BBS forums.
For me half of the fun is doing the research.
In any case the answer to the question isn't simple.
Time travel to the future is straight forward (even though Special Relativity is hugely complex). You're already moving "forward" in time toward the future. All you need to do is move at great velocity - a velocity that approaches the speed of light. The faster you go relative to a "rest frame" the faster the at rest clocks appear to move from your perspective in the moving frame of reference. Short periods of time in your moving frame are long periods of time in the slow frame. You can move rather quickly into the future with this method. BUt it's a one-way trip. Just how much diffrence there is in the passing of time between the frames is given in the Lorentz transformations.
This relativistic class of time travel is as much verified as any theory that physics has ever contemplated.
TIme travel to the past is another situation and it
hasn't been verified. The General Theory of Relativity has solutions that indicate time travel to the past. But the question remains as to whether the real universe that we live in is the same the universe(s) described in the specific solutions to GTR being contemplated that allow time travel to the past. After 80 years we still haven't completely solved Einstein's equations of GR. The jury is still out on this aspect of time travel.
So - you have some studying to do.
3. Is TheCigSmokinMan3 just some crazy guy posting random stuff?
I don't know if he's crazy but he does appear to have an obsessive-compulsive "issue" with one Manhattan-based bank and people of the Jewish faith.
4. If the answer to #4 is "No", is there anything that I can read/view online that would convince me otherwise?
I don't know how one could convince you with online references based on his posts that he either is or isn't crazy. I suppose that all you really can do is glean whatever appears to be "fact" in his posts and Google them. If you don't have enough information you can always ask him to expand on the idea.
I personally don't have any interest in his posts so I haven't asked.
5. Are most of the folks here looking for 'hard evidence' to whatever topic they are looking for, or is this a kind of 'for fun' forum?
It depends on what you mean by "hard evidence" I suppose. I look for hard evidence in any debate, but posting here or on any other forum is supposed to be fun and entertaining.
But I think that it's a fair observation to say that on the TT forum you have the people who post a new time travel story every two weeks and they fall into two losely defined categories: You have the would-be TT's that have no interest in time travel itself. Rather, they simply want to rant about their political beliefs. The other general class is those would-be TT's who want to test the waters to see how gullible people really are - and laugh at them if they discover that some really are "that" gullible.
Among the Believers you generally find that they aren't interested in science because the science aspect of the TT sagas is always very weak. They want to believe but if they are forced to look at the story rationally it falls apart. Instead, they tend toward New Age mysticism-spiritualism and somehow combine it with the MWI in an arbitrary fashion that usually is in conflict with MWI. By doing that there's no possible way that a TT saga can be falsified. They generally call it "open mindedness" but in reallity its a closed mind approach to reject the science simply because it conflicts with their desire to talk to a "real" time traveler. But its still fun to quibble with them.
