Titor information, please step forward?

Until 1957, all theoretical time travel ideas provided for paradoxes which most scientists believed proved that time travel was impossible. However, the Everett/Wheeler hypothesis was created by Hugh Everett and signed off on by John Archibald Wheeler of Princeton University. The Everett/Wheeler hypothesis, or many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, states that the measurement problem of the wave function is solved by the alternate outcomes, that were part of the probability of the wave function, still being real except they are in parallel universes. For those of you that want to delve into the heavy scientific material about this, this link is a good place to start : http://www.hedweb.com/manworld.htm#believes

http://www.bielek-debunked.com/LJames.html
 
Hi Darby,

While the Copenhagen Interpretation might be the correct one we can't apply the wave collapse function to Titor's Saga.
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Yes, based solely on how Boomer characterized the "correct" interpretation of QM, I would agree with you. But given this and what you point out here:
But, on the other hand, even Titor eventually fell back into calling Everett-Wheeler the "Many Worlds Interpretation" (which is Bryce DeWitt and not Hugh Everett).
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You may have just found another one of those small (yet still annoying) inconsistencies in his story.

I think it all tends to point back at the "metric" of divergence that he used so loosely in the story. Until you define the base metric from which the percentage divergence is measured, you really don't have any metric at all, which is why I call it a "metric" and not a metric.


I believe I was just agreeing with the general thrust of the paper that TimeNot_0 had posted in his reply. Beyond that, I think there is something "wrong" with almost all of the varying QM interpretations. Mostly just a gut feeling of mine, mind you, but I tend to think it all hinges upon what an electron "really" is. I'd like to think Milo Wolff is on the right track... and if so, I would not be at all hesitant to describe the present as being "defined" by the intersection of waves from our deterministic past and our probabalistic future. It fits the Inward/Outward spiral model, for one! /ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif

RMT
 
Mem,

Wheeler was very specific about his feeling concerning the term "Many Worlds Interpretation". He didn't like it at all.

The following quote is from his autobiography "Geons, Black Holes and Quantum Foam", pages 269-270:

Bryce DeWitt, my friend in Chapel Hill, chose to call the Everett interpretation the `many worlds' interpretation, and DeWitt's terminology is now common among physicists (although I don't like it). The idea has entered into the general public consciousness through the idea of `parallel universes'.
*
Although I have coined catchy phrases myself to try to make an idea memorable, in this case I opted for a cautious, conservative term. `Many worlds' and `parallel universes' were more than I could swallow. I chose to call it the `relative state' formalism.
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Hugh Everett didn't have much more to say about his dissertation after he received his PhD. He immediately left physics as a career. He spent his entire post-academic career working on the engineering side of computers, electronics and weapons systems for the Department of Defense.

But there is a true difference between Relative State Formalism and Many-Worlds Interpretation. In RSF the universe begins as a single body that branches out from there. In MWI the many worlds always existed and there is no "beginning" from which they branch.

Time in those two interpretations is very different. In the former there is some (though vaguely defined) beginning for space-time. In the latter there is no begining thus time really doesn't exist at all.

Obviously, those two "explanations" are about as simplistic as an explanation can be...and accordingly technically inaccurate. But they do give the "flavor" of the two interpretations.

I don't even want to throw in Hawking-Feynman and integral pathways - which is a third interpratation.
 
In RSF the universe begins as a single body that branches out from there. In MWI the many worlds always existed and there is no "beginning" from which they branch.
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Do you have a reference or link for that statement? tia.
 
Hi 1122,

RainmanTime, didn't we eliminate the possibility of Titor's existence (as a genuine time traveler)?
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Yes, I do agree with you. But you will note that this thread was started as a courtesy for a friend of mine.


RMT
 
1122,

RainmanTime, didn't we eliminate the possibility of Titor's existence (as a genuine time traveler)?
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As RMT pointed out, you did take care of this in June.

I think that we might be following a false trail, however, by trying to use the Lorentz Transformation to judge his velocity of space-time translation. He took a wormhole, in the story, so it's a shortcut. His velocity can remain well below c and still allow him to make such a large jump (10 years/hour).

But you both correctly point out that no matter how he slices the pie he's goijng to carry his linear and angular momentum with him through the wormhole. Exiting the wormhole on the surface of the planet (as described) would be an interesting ride. He could be exiting the hole with a linear velocity of Mach 10 or more. That would be a very rough landing if he was just skimming the surface. It's a definite *Splat* if he has a negative angle of attack upon exiting the hole.

Newbie was correct, in so far as quoting Titor, about the fact that he described his gadget as being "stationary."

But that just isn't the case. He's a supposed time traveler. He's left the world of Galileo and Newton far, far behind. He doesn't travel through a space that is mediated by a concept called time. He travels through a 4-D reality called space-time where the temporal and spatial axes of his frame of reference are not only interchangeable but upon rotation they become mixed together. Moving in time is the same as moving in space. On this point Titor was absolutely misinformed (i.e., wrong). That's why Minkowski changed the formula from:

s^2 = -c^2*t^2 + x^2 + y^2 + z^2 to

s^2 = x_1^2 + x_2^2 + x_3^2 + x_4^2...all four axes are labeled "X". You can't tell them apart. He was making a point: its a 4-vector that describes in simple terms movement through space-time...not space and not time alone.
 
But you both correctly point out that no matter how he slices the pie he's goijng to carry his linear and angular momentum with him through the wormhole. Exiting the wormhole on the surface of the planet (as described) would be an interesting ride. He could be exiting the hole with a linear velocity of Mach 10 or more. That would be a very rough landing if he was just skimming the surface. It's a definite *Splat* if he has a negative angle of attack upon exiting the hole.
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You do not have enough information about the physics behind time travel as described by titor to make that statement. You are assuming he went through a wormhole.
 
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