STUDENT IN NEED OF HELP

V

vcustudent

Temporal Novice
Hey everyone.. i've been reading this site for a couple months now and it got me so interested in the subject of time travel that i am TRYING to write a research paper on it... well.. it's actually an "argumentative" paper. This is the problem. I originally was going to debate the many paradoxes associated with time travel and use the multiverse theory and a few others to prove how these paradoxes are false. Except my teacher is complaining how my topic doesn't argue anything and stuff. So, here's my question:

Can someone either:
Help me show her how I could argue this and make it into a well-developed argumentative paper
OR
Help me think of a different route to go about it. Many a different topic... but still about time travel since I have done two months of research on the issue. I was considering talking about the ethics of time travel and how it might become one of those thigns mankind could wish it could uninvent.. but i don't know if i can pull 10-15 pages of stuff out of that topic

ANY HELP/SUGGESTIONS would be amazing.. Thank you all very much already and for keeping my mind going on this subject
 
Yea it's kinda hard making a good thesis statement about time-travel, mine sucked, it was "Research in space-time travel is being taken more seriously than it ever has." Pretty crappy, but I got a B+ on the paper...

That's the only advice I can give ya, except make it better than mine. It seems there has been a lot of research lately by NASA, Stanford, etc... you can't prove or disprove the multiple universe theory because it's like proving a theory is wrong by using a different theory. You might argue that the earth warps space-time just as Einstein said it would according to recent test results from NASA.

--- Razimus
 
Perhaps you could put two theories against each other. One that is utilizing physical mechanisms verses a spiritual approach. In this site you have both sides claiming success and different methods of time travel. So there should be plenty of material available.
 
vcustudent,

Is it possible that your professor (you said "teacher" so is this a grad student "TA"?) might find your research topic inappropriate for Virginia Commonwealth?

As I recall VCU's physics tends to focus solely on Classical Mechanics because the University is basically an engineering school and doesn't offer a BS in physics.

Just a thought.

In any case, for a university level paper, if you're not a physics major you might be biting off a bit too much. First, you'll probably have to offer some math in your proof which means at least some ordinary differential calculus if not partial differentials. Second, there is no single "Many Worlds Interpretation" theory. There are at least three major theories and none of them have anything to do with what you see on time travel boards (sorry about that).

If you go ahead with the paper regarding "many worlds" you'll have to address Neils Bohr (The Copenhagen Collapse), David Bohm (Higher Multi-Dimensional Order), Hugh Everett (Relative State Formalism) and Bryce DeWitt (Many Worlds Interpretation).

Relative State Formalism (Everett-Wheeler) is the basis for Many Worlds Interpretation (the term was coined by DeWitt). John Wheeler has stated that the term is very unfortunate because it is misleading. Wheeler was Everett's PhD advisor.

All of these theories are deep interpretations of quantum mechanics.

If you haven't already done so I would suggest that you take both College Physics and Classical Mechanics at VCU. They won't cover Special and General Relativity but it is the stepping stone toward that.
 
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