Travelling to the Past---Timelines

[eric1]

This no doubt has been covered at other threads. Would appreciate if someone could confirm for me that if one travels to the past that they are in fact travelling to another timeline. Thank you.

 

[sprite]

yes they are.

 

[Darby]

Would appreciate if someone could confirm for me that if one travels to the past that they are in fact travelling to another timeline. Thank you

Not even a theoretical physicist could confirm that statement. Everett's "Many Worlds Interpretation" of quantum physics is still, after almost 60 years, highly speculative and has no experimental verification. It's not even a particularly well received theory in the physics community.

It might help if you define what you mean by "another timeline". Every particle, every molecule and every compound from a grain of sand to a star carrys along with it its own independent "clock" and experiences the passing of time uniquely. That much we know to be true from special relativity through multiple thousands of verifying experiments. In physics what some people call a "timeline" is correctly called a "worldline". A worldline is a line on a lightcone that traces the history of a particle as it lives out its life moving in spacetime. It's just a graph. Each particle has its own worldline. You have a "worldtube" associated with you because you are a very large collection of individual particles that move together through spacetime.

If you mean by "another timeline" another universe then that is one interpretation of general relativity when a particle travels at the speed of light. The problem is that general relativity predicts its own downfall when applied to massive particles traveling at the speed of light because the equations blow up - mass goes to infinity and time goes to zero.

Then we have the issue of what is meant by another universe. "Parallel universes" in the sense of the superposition of probabilities as defined by a probability wave in quantum mechanics or totally indepent and detached universes that may have been created during the Big Bang event. They are not the same. The very theory that postulates the superpositioned universes (quantum mechanics) also forbids any form of direct communication between them.

 

[jameswade]

the equations blow up - mass goes to infinity and time goes to zero

If it is true that the theory of mass going to infinity at light speed is due to a mathematical deception and/or misinterpretation of relativity then what do you think is the common error factor when dealing with the math involved?

 

[eric1]

Thanks for the replies. Actually after reviewing one of recall's posts I believe the answer was revealed to us(see Designer's 12/25/06 post (indeed a Christmas gift!! : ) )

Recall:

Timeline 39, sounds like a 2.0 guy, right? I AM SWITCHING BACK TO TIME LINE 1 VARIANT 83 or what's left of it where it's safe.

 

[eric1]

Notice that there appears to be some problems getting links to work at this forum. Links appear to be correct---just not connecting. Perhaps it's just on my end.

 

[RainmanTime]

Not that anything I say here carries very much weight and that is ok but yes when you travel to the past you are indeed in another time-line. Reason is because just looking at the future or knowing the future changes the time-line.

Either that is just your speculation (what I suspect), or you have some way to scientifically discern any one "time-line" from any other "time-line" and resolve such an explanation with the continuum of matter. So which is it?

What people dont know that in time there is a coordinate system.

Do explain, if you will.

In space there is a coordinate system.

No. We select one of any number of coordinate systems. They are not inherent to space itself. In fact, a major premise of Relativity is that there is no, single, preferred coordinate system...they are all equal. All that matters is once you select a coordinate system you like (spherical for some? Hyperbolic for others?), that you remain consistent in analyzing physical interactions with respect to that selected coordinate system. That means if you have multiple, moving reference frames, you must perform coordinate transformations to resolve all into a single, common frame before you do your physics, otherwise you will certainly come to incorrect conclusions.

A time-line is just a collection of events within a measured amount of time within a specific space-time coordinate system.

As Darby so often points out: There is a tautology in that statement.

Changing those events within that same coordinate system to a different set of events within the same system is creating a new and different time-line altogether.

Again, coordinate systems do not matter. They are "invariant" with respect to the laws of physics. But ignoring that, you are saying changing events changes timelines. How did you ever verify this? An example will show what I mean:

1) A baseball is coming at your head. You have a choice to make:
2) Do nothing and it smashes into your noggin.
3) Move your head, or use your hand to block.
4) Once you make your choice, the events are "cast into that timeline."

According to your theory, once you make the choice, you have created another timeline, right? But how can you ever know, because that moment is gone? How can you verify there is "some other timeline" where you choose the opposite? And how does that resolve with the choice you DID make, here in your "timeline" given that there was only one set of masses (you and the baseball) before your choice? In other words, for your theory to be true, we would somehow have to magically have two baseballs and two you's "spring from" these two potential events. Violation of conservation of mass.

Well?
RMT

 

[Darby]

If it is true that the theory of mass going to infinity at light speed is due to a mathematical deception and/or misinterpretation of relativity then what do you think is the common error factor when dealing with the math involved?

Its not really an error and its not a misinterpretation. It's no different than any other scientific theory. General relativity is a well verified theory that is very accurate in describing reality and it makes extremely accurate predictions - but it is an approximation of reality valid only to the limits of its domain.

It is correctly interpreted. Massive particles cannot be accelerated to the speed of light thus their mass cannot blow up to infinity. Infinite mass is an artifact of the approximating math.

 

[Darby]

TimeCrime,

Ray is correct about systems of coordinates. They are arbitrary. Useful to be sure but arbitrary none-the-less. I can lay out a system of coordinates where my y-axis points north-south and my x-axis points east and west. You could lay out your coordinates by rotating the y-axis 45 degrees toward the east WRT my coordinates. It isn't even necessary that your system shares a common origin with mine.

Neither you nor I would have any problem applying sine-cosine transformations so that we could each express the location of events in one system as coordinates in the other system.

All this means is that there is no preferred system of coordinates. They all work and its just a matter of expressing two or more sets in common terms.