You should make that your signature.
Jim,
Actually that's a pretty close paraphrase of what Michio Maku has been saying for a long time.
I think that today he might slightly modify what he was saying in the 1990's by stating that we're now beginning to develop 22nd Century ideas while simultaneously being shackled with 20th Century math. What he means by that is that we can't fully describe and extend our evolving
ideas in a truly useful form because we can't as yet imagine the math to do so. (He originally said that we were developing 21st Century ideas while being shackled with 20th Century math.)
Actually, I want to know why a cynic like yourself sticks around.
Why wouldn't a cynic stick around? Cynicism is a school of philosophy that orginates from Socrates' follower Diogenes of Sinope. Cynicism is a "dogged" pursuit to awaken the masses from their go-with-the-flow following of the "conventional wisdom." And the conventional wisdom today is to believe just about anything that comes down the pike without any real questioning.
I take no offence at the term as applied to me.
You can't really believe that, can you? Why would any true time traveler subject themselves to your anal probing?
Because they came onto the site with eyes wide open. If a real time traveler, of the general class of would-be time travelers that is represented by those that appear here, actually wanted to make their political points without offering any proof of time travel they'd more effectively appear on a political science-philosophy site and not reference time travel at all. If a political message is the object muddying the waters with the very questionable and all too common tactic of "I'm a time traveler but won't answer direct time travel proof questions - and I don't care if you believe me" isn't likely to win the hearts and minds of any significant number of people.
In any case my conclusion is that there might be a handful of people who take the dim view that my questions, and the like minded questions of other members, is anal. Most of the handful are either Believers or the otherwise frustrated would-be time travelers themselves.
It's no stretch that I've correctly coined the term "OETW" (Oh, we too) - Once Every Two Weeks. That's a pretty accurate mean time between the beginning and end of one time traveler story and the appearance of the next. The time traveler, along with their Earth shattering news and warnings, just fade away. About one in five end up admitting to the hoax. Virtually without exception those who fess up say that they did it in order to see just how gullible people really are.
It's the cynical skeptics that made these discoveries, not the "wide open minds." It is those people, with their skeptical questions, who will discover a time traveler...and they won't make that discovery by asking the time traveler what their favorite food or favorite color is.
What have I personally gained from the "anal" time that I've spent here and on Anomalies? I suppose that I could put it this way:
How many non pop-sci physics books have you read since TItor's appearance? How many advanced math texts have you read since then? How many physics papers have you read on ArXiv since then? How many of Einstein's original papers have you read since then? How many posts have you read on sci.physics.research (SPR) have you read since then? How many physicists have you been in contact with since then? How many (slightly OT) aeronautical engineering, thermodynamics, chemistry and electrical engineering texts have you read since then?
I've read many dozens of the above - and learned to understand them - from the perspective of a non-physics major college graduate...since then. I've completely brushed up on my physics, engineering and calculus...since then.
In short I've revised and extended my college education and general knowledge base.
So why do I stick around, anal cynic and all? See above. /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif
