Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: EmmaHildyard on 19/08/2019 10:39:35

Title: Reversing time with simulations?
Post by: EmmaHildyard on 19/08/2019 10:39:35

Avery asks...

If one were to scan the entirety of the Earth, down to the quark (theoretically), would a computer be able to take this information and reverse time in this simulation?

We love quark-y questions like this! Can you help?

Title: Re: Reversing time with simulations?
Post by: yor_on on 21/08/2019 12:14:28

Reverse time as in 'playing' all processes backwards?

I don't think so, there is a limit as I understands it to all magnitudes (in time). Passing it everything becomes 'fuzzy', and the magnitude of all processes involved in 'reading'  this scan of earth should definitely surpass that limit.
=

There is also the problem with quantum mechanics to consider, that's why I asked if you by it meant the computer playing it backwards. What you see falling out one time do not guarantee that you will find the same process giving you the same result next time. If we could play it backwards I'm not sure what we would see in types of outcomes. With a computer you have a program with fixed values etc, like a movie. That makes it possible to reverse. With a quantum system you instead have probabilities, and they are not set in stone.
=

You can think of it as laws, that's what I do. Those laws sets a border to what can happen within a system (hopefully:). And this 'earth scan' can be seen as a 'system' for this, but the borders are wide and the probabilities for each outcome will be what  gives you your result. A low probability is not the same as it not being able to become a outcome.

Title: Re: Reversing time with simulations?
Post by: Bill S on 21/08/2019 19:33:58

 Frank Tipler, in his book, book The Physics of Immortality, argues that Point Omega is where our material universe recontracts to the Big Crunch.  By then, he argues: “intelligences will have become so adept and computerized that we shall be recreated as virtual computer programs, run so fast that we have an effective eternity of existence in which we are resurrected before the universe ends in the Crunch.” 

Anyone wishing to delve further into the amazing world of future computing should also read David Deutsch’s  The Fabric of Reality.