FTL/Time travel and society

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

This recent news about the faster-than-light neutrinos got me in the mood for some speculation. Suppose the apparent effect is real and it is possible to travel faster than light. Well, since FTL travel implies time travel (http://sheol.org/throopw/tachyon-pistols.html), breaking the light barrier would also enable us to escape from the bounds of causality as we know it.

Now imagine if, in the far-flung future, FTL travel was as common as say, air travel. Now since FTL would enable us to colonise most of the Milky Way in short order, in historical terms it wouldn't be long before people start running into their past or future selves. Oh, and this would likely be after learning how to deal with time dilation due to relativistic velocities (cf. twin paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox)).

One idea, which I thought might be a nice little detail in a science fiction (or "speculative fiction" if you want to be posh) story, would be a custom of "timelooms", or useful objects which are handed from one's older self to one's younger, so that when the person becomes older (a state which the timeloom itself should ideally contribute to), they can maintain the cycle. Or is it a helix? I guess it depends.

What are your thoughts? How would society react to such increasing strangeitude?

[Nox]

You're relying on Einstein's theories for that statement, which have de facto been proved wrong by the fact that neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light.

What I'm trying to say is, how do you know that you will travel back in time if you go faster than the speed of light?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I'm not sure what would be accomplished by creating time travel, seems like anyone, or group, which uses it would just abuse it and create a clusterfuck.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

You're relying on Einstein's theories for that statement, which have de facto been proved wrong by the fact that neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light.

Bollocks, that result hasn't been confirmed, and even if it is, that doesn't necessarily mean the end for Einstein's theories.


What I'm trying to say is, how do you know that you will travel back in time if you go faster than the speed of light?

You obviously didn't read the first link in my post. Read it and you will understand why FTL implies time travel, including to the past.

[Veovis]

Bollocks, that result hasn't been confirmed, and even if it is, that doesn't necessarily mean the end for Einstein's theories.



You obviously didn't read the first link in my post. Read it and you will understand why FTL implies time travel, including to the past.

FTL implies time travel only because under Einstein's model the speed of light is the fastest thing in the universe and therefore governs causality. Time travel could still very well be impossible even if speeds faster than light can be achieved.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

FTL implies time travel only because under Einstein's model the speed of light is the fastest thing in the universe and therefore governs causality. Time travel could still very well be impossible even if speeds faster than light can be achieved.

I doubt it. Relativistic time dilation has actually been measured with atomic clocks on jet planes, so it's not some theoretical construct but a physical fact.

[Nox]

I doubt it. Relativistic time dilation has actually been measured with atomic clocks on jet planes, so it's not some theoretical construct but a physical fact.

Relativistic time dilation occuring on jet planes does not imply that going faster than the speed of light makes you go back in time.

Besides, how do you even know the speed of light is the limit after which you begin to go back in time? That statement is based on Einstein's theories, which are now in question.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Relativistic time dilation occuring on jet planes does not imply that going faster than the speed of light makes you go back in time.

It does, because that time dilation is a consequence of the unified nature of spacetime and the "failure of simultaneity at a distance". Read the link and it should become clear.


Besides, how do you even know the speed of light is the limit after which you begin to go back in time? That statement is based on Einstein's theories, which are now in question.

Because despite the recent anomaly, Einstein's theories are still the best we have to go on.

[Nox]

Because despite the recent anomaly, Einstein's theories are still the best we have to go on.

I wouldn't call it an anomoly, it totally smashes the basis for many of Einstein's theories.

They may be the best we have to go on, but that doesn't necessarily make them correct.

[piet11111]

If this was possible in our lifetimes i am pretty sure i would have send myself an email before now.

(unless i am a dick and do it right after posting this of course.)

I would think sending digital messages would be the first possible contact via time travel unless there is some sort of natural restriction on that.

[EvilRedGuy]

If 'Time Travel' was possible it should be illegale/against the rules.

It would only fuck everything up, it would probably be nothing like in the movies as its depicted.

[Welshy]

If 'Time Travel' was possible it should be illegale/against the rules.

It would only fuck everything up, it would probably be nothing like in the movies as its depicted.

But we would be able to ask Marx, Engles and Lenin who the real revisionists are and finally put to rest any argument between Maoists and Hoxhaists.

[Veovis]

If time travel were possible, why haven't I met anyone from the future? Am I that unpopular? :(

[Nox]

If time travel were possible, why haven't I met anyone from the future? Am I that unpopular? :(

That's one of the main paradoxes that makes it unlikely that we will ever be able to travel back in time, why has nobody from the future ever visited us?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I wouldn't call it an anomoly, it totally smashes the basis for many of Einstein's theories.

Actually, even if the results are confirmed, that doesn't mean we need to throw out relativity (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/no-cause-to-dispute-einst_b_982429.html).


They may be the best we have to go on, but that doesn't necessarily make them correct.

All scientific models of the universe have their limitations, but that does not mean they aren't "true" in some some sense. Classical Newtonian mechanics is good enough for sending spaceships around the Solar system, even if it breaks down at very high speeds or masses (which is where relativity comes in).


If 'Time Travel' was possible it should be illegale/against the rules.

It would only fuck everything up, it would probably be nothing like in the movies as its depicted.

Banning technology never works, because the folks who ban the technology get steamrollered by the people who did not.


That's one of the main paradoxes that makes it unlikely that we will ever be able to travel back in time, why has nobody from the future ever visited us?

As piet11111 pointed out, there may be natural limits as to where one can go in time.

For example, attempting to travel to a date before the time machine was built seems about as likely to succeed as calling someone who hasn't got a phone. Just like how one doesn't see locomotives where there are no railroad tracks.

[Nox]

As piet11111 pointed out, there may be natural limits as to where one can go in time.

For example, attempting to travel to a date before the time machine was built seems about as likely to succeed as calling someone who hasn't got a phone. Just like how one doesn't see locomotives where there are no railroad tracks.

If speed itself is the time machine, we should theoretically be able to travel back to the beginning of the universe if we are travelling faster than the speed of light.




Actually, even if the results are confirmed, that doesn't mean we need to throw out relativity (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/no-cause-to-dispute-einst_b_982429.html).

Ok, but the point I'm trying to make is that most of Einstein's theories including that travelling faster than the speed of light makes time go backwards are based on nothing being able to travel faster than the speed of light, so he was indirectly saying that time travel to the past is impossible.

It will take proof before I'm convinced that time travel to the past is possible. Wasn't there a big story on the news a few months ago about Chinese scientists proving that time travel to the past is impossible?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

If speed itself is the time machine, we should theoretically be able to travel back to the beginning of the universe if we are travelling faster than the speed of light.

Theoretically yes, but if FTL/time travel is possible, and yet relativity holds, then we have to explain why we don't see any time travellers.

Of course, there may be other reasons, perhaps not even any purely physical reasons, why we don't see time travellers today. Perhaps time travel costs non-trivial amounts of energy to achieve, and our hypothetical time travellers have much better things to do than visit our dumpy little dirtball.


Ok, but the point I'm trying to make is that most of Einstein's theories including that travelling faster than the speed of light makes time go backwards are based on nothing being able to travel faster than the speed of light, so he was indirectly saying that time travel to the past is impossible.

FTL travel equalling time travel is a consequence of space and time being unified. Relativity forbids acceleration from sublight to superluminal speeds because to do so would require infinite energy, but there are a number of potential ways of achieving FTL travel without necessarily accelerating beyond the speed of light in a vacuum. In the case of a wormhole or warp drive, for example, FTL travel is achieved by bending space - at no point in either case does an object with non-imaginary rest mass locally exceed the speed of light, but if cosmological inflation is any indication then spacetime itself can move (or at least expand, and presumably contract) faster than C. With wormholes, not even spacetime needs to move or change at speeds exceeding C - just create the two ends of your wormhole, and move one of them at STL velocities towards wherever one wants it.


It will take proof before I'm convinced that time travel to the past is possible. Wasn't there a big story on the news a few months ago about Chinese scientists proving that time travel to the past is impossible?

You've missed the point of this thread entirely. My OP assumes, for the sake of a hypothetical, that FTL/time travel is not just possible but relatively common (why do you think I posted it in Non-Political as opposed to Sciences and & Environment?). I was wondering what fellow Revlefters' thoughts were regarding how a recognisably human society would deal with the implications.

[Smyg]

This thread is awesome. I approve.

I'd say that society would collapse, mentally speaking.

[Nox]

Theoretically yes, but if FTL/time travel is possible, and yet relativity holds, then we have to explain why we don't see any time travellers.

Because time travel to the past is impossible ;)


Of course, there may be other reasons, perhaps not even any purely physical reasons, why we don't see time travellers today. Perhaps time travel costs non-trivial amounts of energy to achieve, and our hypothetical time travellers have much better things to do than visit our dumpy little dirtball.

I don't believe time travel is possible, or ever will be possible. I will need solid proof of travelling to the past before I begin to take the concept of it seriously.


FTL travel equalling time travel is a consequence of space and time being unified. Relativity forbids acceleration from sublight to superluminal speeds because to do so would require infinite energy, but there are a number of potential ways of achieving FTL travel without necessarily accelerating beyond the speed of light in a vacuum. In the case of a wormhole or warp drive, for example, FTL travel is achieved by bending space - at no point in either case does an object with non-imaginary rest mass locally exceed the speed of light, but if cosmological inflation is any indication then spacetime itself can move (or at least expand, and presumably contract) faster than C. With wormholes, not even spacetime needs to move or change at speeds exceeding C - just create the two ends of your wormhole, and move one of them at STL velocities towards wherever one wants it.

Hmm... That's interesting, I didn't think about wormholes.

One other question I have: isn't it impossible for the neutrinos to travel faster than the speed of light? Surely that would require infinite energy?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

This thread is awesome. I approve.

I'd say that society would collapse, mentally speaking.

Could you elaborate?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Because time travel to the past is impossible ;)

That's only one explanation, and far from a definite one.


I don't believe time travel is possible, or ever will be possible. I will need solid proof of travelling to the past before I begin to take the concept of it seriously.

Physicists don't seem to have any trouble taking it seriously.


Hmm... That's interesting, I didn't think about wormholes.

One other question I have: isn't it impossible for the neutrinos to travel faster than the speed of light? Surely that would require infinite energy?

Not if their superluminal speed is a consequence of something other than acceleration.

[Smyg]

No, not really. :D

I just feel that the implications of time travel would create a lot of problems for the people involved. Duplicates of yourself? Meeting people from your past? Just the very act of disregarding the flow of time? I sense complications.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

No, not really. :D

I just feel that the implications of time travel would create a lot of problems for the people involved. Duplicates of yourself? Meeting people from your past? Just the very act of disregarding the flow of time? I sense complications.

A feudal king might have said something similar about the internet. "A vast repository of information, open to practically anyone? Madness! Anarchy! Societal collapse!" Yet here we are.

[Smyg]

Indeed. I'd say that the modern world would blow the mind of pretty much any pre-industrial person to pieces. :D

[EvilRedGuy]

NoXion you are a fucking idiot. Just seriously. UltraPseudo-science all the way.

[Nox]

Not if their superluminal speed is a consequence of something other than acceleration.

What could it be then?

[eyedrop]

If a time machine was created that enabled future travelers to travel back to the making of the time machine, such as a part of a worm hole time dilated, that could lead to reaching the pinnacle of technological evolution at the moment the time machine was created.

People from 500 years into the future decides to share their tips and technology to the fore-bearers. The next set of people 500 years into the future are more advances than the previous and decides to share again. And so on and on.

Or we just go instinct during one of the cycles.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

NoXion you are a fucking idiot. Just seriously. UltraPseudo-science all the way.

Is someone still upset because I criticised some bullshit action by some animal "rights" group that did more harm than good?

In any case, you are hardly the person to be throwing around words like "pseudoscience", when A) I posted this speculative thread in Non-Political, not Sciences & Environment and B) you have yet to point out why I am wrong. Simply spitting out the word pseudoscience isn't going to cut it, you have to show where and why.

Now, are you going to actually engage the topic, or are you just going to continue shitposting?


What could it be then?

If we're talking about the recent and puzzling OPERA results, I can think of two possibilities - one is that neutrinos can be created as already having superluminal speeds, or that certain flavours of neutrino are inherently superluminal and neutrino oscillation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino_oscillation) means that neutrinos in general can beat a beam of light to a destination.


If a time machine was created that enabled future travelers to travel back to the making of the time machine, such as a part of a worm hole time dilated, that could lead to reaching the pinnacle of technological evolution at the moment the time machine was created.

People from 500 years into the future decides to share their tips and technology to the fore-bearers. The next set of people 500 years into the future are more advances than the previous and decides to share again. And so on and on.

Or we just go instinct during one of the cycles.

Why would we go extinct?

[eyedrop]

Why would we go extinct?

Could. As long as there is a non-zero chance of going extinct.

Racial depression, nihilist terrorists. I'm not saying it's likely but it could be possible trough an almost infinite iterations of the same time period.

[piet11111]

Or perhaps there is a "prime directive" to not interfere with non-time traveling society's.

Or to use noxions example we still have to invent the "phone" before we get to receive our calls.

[thesadmafioso]

I'll leave everyone with this thought. Battlestars with FTL jump drives.

http://media.battlestarwiki.org/images/7/7e/Battlestar_stern.jpg

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I'll leave everyone with this thought. Battlestars with FTL jump drives.

http://media.battlestarwiki.org/images/7/7e/Battlestar_stern.jpg

This could have interesting consequences for warfare:


Time was slippery. The way Pirius understood it, it was only the speed of light that imposed causal sequences on events.

According to the venerable arguments of relativity there wasn't even a common "now" you could establish across significant distances. All that existed were events, points in space and time. If you had to travel slower than lightspeed from one event to the next, then everything was okay, for the events would be causally connected: you would see everything growing older in an orderly manner.

But with FTL travel, beyond the bounds of lightspeed, the orderly structure of space and time became irrelevant, leaving nothing but events, disconnected incidents floating in the dark. And with an FTL ship you could hop from one event to another arbitrarily, without regard to any putative cause-and-effect sequence.

In this war it wasn't remarkable to have dinged-up ships limping home from an engagement that hadn't happened yet; at Arches Base that occurred every day. And it wasn't unusual to have news from the future. In fact, sending messages to command posts back in the past was a deliberate combat tactic. The flow of information from future to past wasn't perfect; it all depended on complicated geometries of trajectories and FTL leaps. But it was good enough to allow the Commissaries, in their Academies on distant Earth, to compile libraries of possible futures, invaluable precognitive data that shaped strategies -- even if decisions made in the present could wipe away many of those futures before they came to pass.

A war fought with FTL technology had to be like this.

Of course foreknowledge would have been a great advantage -- if not for the fact that the other side had precisely the same capability. In an endless sequence of guesses and counterguesses, as history was tweaked by one side or the other, and then tweaked again in response, the timeline was endlessly redrafted. With both sides foreseeing engagements to come for decades, even centuries ahead, and each side able to counter the other's move even before it had been formulated, it was no wonder that the war had long settled down to a lethal stalemate, stalled in a static front that enveloped the Galaxy's heart.
- From Exultant by Stephen Baxter (2004)

That's a damn good book, by the way.