[simeonie (OP)]

I really think that, that is a kinda weird theory and is like a multi-story buildin....has lots of floors!!! lol

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[DoctorBeaver]

I refer my good friend to the point I raised elsewhere concerning the 2nd law of thermodynamics  appearing to imply that there is an arrow of time that cannot be reversed. It just doesn't feel right to me that time could be mirrored, & maybe the 2nd law prevents such a thing.

If 2 timelines diverged as an exact mirror image of each other, surely that divergence would start when time began - i.e. the Big Bang. 1 would go forwards from that point & the other would go backwards. How could it go backwards in time by going forwards? (eh?) As such it would be absolutely impossible to ever know about it as one would have to not only travel backwards through time but back beyond the start of time. And if that happened, would the traveller then not become subject to the reverse flow of time there and hence not notice it anyway?

Staying in 1 piece only so long as it's used?... hmmm - that reeks of the "would a tree make a sound falling if no-one was there to hear it" problem. If the act of observing changes the state of that which is being observed then I suppose taking that to the Nth degree would allow for such a thing. It's not nice to think about though! I need a drink!!

[DoctorBeaver]

quote:Originally posted by chimera

Which is how he got his degrees, ofcourse. []

Lawks, I've been rumbled! [:0]

[chimera]

quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaver

 If the act of observing changes the state of that which is being observed then I suppose taking that to the Nth degree would allow for such a thing. It's not nice to think about though!

Now hold that thought: all forms of autopoiesis *are* struggling upstream in that exact fashion - any kind of 'order', self-imposed or not. Without constant fiddling it will fail.

So by turning things inside-out, you see some amazing Janus-faced similarity between supposedly orthogonally opposite things.

Also think on the statistic nature of entropy. In a simplistic realistic example with gas, there is the distinct statistic possibility of an exactly identical composition/configuration recurring given enough time, however small. This negates the idea of irreversibility, and effectively 'resets' time, since everything is back to where it was before, and whatever happened in between no longer of any interest, really.

On cosmic scales such total recycling would take near infinite time, though, but the chance is statistically not zero, and maybe more local 'resets' are a possibility, especially if chaos and order are something like different sides of the same coin.

[DoctorBeaver]

quote:Also think on the statistic nature of entropy. In a simplistic realistic example with gas, there is the distinct statistic possibility of an exactly identical composition/configuration recurring given enough time, however small. This negates the idea of irreversibility, and effectively 'resets' time, since everything is back to where it was before, and whatever happened in between no longer of any interest, really.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. Do you mean that if a volume of gas is left to its own devices there is the possibility of the same composition/configuration recurring? If so, surely that has nothing to do with entropy: it's just the molecules moving around in random fashion & by chance alone all arriving simultaneously at points where they simultaneously were at some previous point in time.
Presumably if all the particles had the same direction & velocity that they previously had the whole cycle would repeat itself indefinitely.

Then again, if it were an enclosed system totally free from any outside influence, the particles would eventually submit to the force of their gravity thus precluding any such re-occurrence.

[chimera]

Nope, all seemingly valid points, but look it up: Henri Poincare (with accent aigu) proved rigorously that a finite collection of particles confined to a box and subject to Newton's laws of motion must always return to initial state or (at least very close thereto) after a sufficiently long period of time. The Poincare cycles.

This forced Boltzmann to revise his earlier claim of the irreversibility of entropy to a less clear-cut statistical one, after which Planck stepped into view...

(I suggest Paul Davies' About Time (1995) Simon&Schuster, very good)

The living are the dead on holiday.  -- Maurice de Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

[DoctorBeaver]

quote:Originally posted by chimera

...proved rigorously that a finite collection of particles confined to a box and subject to Newton's laws of motion...

But isn't that where it falls down? Don't particles comply to QM rather than Newtonian laws of motion?

[chimera]

QM is a refinement on Newton, can say things better than Newton at times, but will never contradict Newton.

Question is of course the fine print: at least very close thereto. Is that good enough. And that's where QM comes in, and says no, most probably not, since QM deals in probabilities. That's only my words, but I think it's safe to say. This is also based on experiments with inequalities between particle/antiparticle pairs that would indicate time indeed has an arrow points thataway and not the other. You could not run them in reverse, in short.

Frankly, it also appeals to other knowledge we both share, I think, about pure deterministic models breaking down in the face of sheer numbers of variables, like DNA and exact twins, and other stories. We could not even begin to retrace all the minute differences, let alone do anything important about them, or even swap them just for the hell of it.

Life is not a film that can easily be played back frame by frame, since in real life the next frame with all content is *built* by the previous one, and if they fail to act, these actors disappear from it. And living things themselves a good example of how difficult it is to undo certain things.

No, QM is superiour there, I think. Now just a simpler to grok QM, and life would be a lot sweeter.

The living are the dead on holiday.  -- Maurice de Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

[DoctorBeaver]

quote:Originally posted by chimera

 Life is not a film that can easily be played back frame by frame, since in real life the next frame with all content is *built* by the previous one, and if they fail to act, these actors disappear from it. And living things themselves a good example of how difficult it is to undo certain things.

This is a problem I've come across a lot in psychology research. When looking for the cause of a certain behaviour there are just too many variables and interactions of them to be able to point the finger with any degree of certainty.

A pair of twins could grow up to be very different as the result of just 1 small difference. The earlier in their development that occurred, the more pronounced the difference (chaos theory in action).

I've had many arguments about spanking or caning children to do with this exact problem. It seems to be accepted that corporal punishment causes children to grow up with violent tendencies. I dispute the evidence for that. No account whatsoever seems to have been taken of the general environment of the children that have been researched - stability of family, hours worked by parents, hobbies, the behaviour of significant others in their lives, etc

I also think the genetics of it needs to be examined more closely. If a parent has a violent trait that is kept well in check, the child may not see that violence manifest itself but could well have inherited a "violence" gene.

erm... I seem to have digressed again. Sorry [:I]

[chimera]

quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaver


I also think the genetics of it needs to be examined more closely. If a parent has a violent trait that is kept well in check, the child may not see that violence manifest itself but could well have inherited a "violence" gene.

erm... I seem to have digressed again. Sorry [:I]

Interesting angle. Hadn't they already found some clear genetic correlation about that with children of violent abusers that  had a (far) greater chance of becoming violent abusers themselves even when placed into foster families at a young age? And compared that with children of people that were abused, but not by their parents, since these grow up normally nearly without exception?

Would have thought that report would put them high on some peoples sh*tlist when it ever comes to enforced (chemical) sterilisation or other such draconics...

The living are the dead on holiday.  -- Maurice de Maeterlinck (1862-1949)

[DoctorBeaver]

Yeah, there have been a few studies but i've got doubts about the research methods & interpretation of the data. I think most of these were cases of finding what you want to find.

[swim]

so glad you came back around to discussing QM. I am trying to help give my kid some scientific ammo to support the possibility of say tractor beams or transporters "beam me up Scotty" stuff. Any takers?

[chimera]

quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaver

Yeah, there have been a few studies but i've got doubts about the research methods & interpretation of the data. I think most of these were cases of finding what you want to find.

Well, never mind. I doubt though that such 'guided' research in the end would work, since eugenics don't really have a leg to stand on, as has been shown in the past, already starting in the late 19th century in the States.

You cannot extinguish certain traits by pruning alone, since a DNA-pool works like a kind of holographic memory in that sense. Kill off all examples of one undesired trait, and over time they will be back to the old level, simply because it crawls back out of the woodwork, so to speak. It an expression of something deeper, like cutting your hair does not make it stop growing.

And they were sh*t out of luck when their first target was not gays, but schizos, very topical and interesting disease at that time, but from their own research it showed that those happened to come quite a lot from exactly the sort of families that produces the representatives voting on that type of bills in certain houses of parliament, so they could have probably kicked themselves for  beginning about that particular ailment.

Otherwise I agree in general those bastards can make life hell for a lot of innocent people, without any scientific groundwork whatsoever.

OK, back to the topic. Every realised that a beam-me-up-scotty drive would imply you die, and a copy of you, but not you, lives on? There is no 'transportation', just destruction at one end and creation at the other. No 'sending' of anything but information. That teleporter is a mini-meatgrinder, and they just slap some saucages together again at the other end and give it your name, is more like it.

[love this crap]

[DoctorBeaver]

quote:Originally posted by chimera

quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaver

Yeah, there have been a few studies but i've got doubts about the research methods & interpretation of the data. I think most of these were cases of finding what you want to find.

OK, back to the topic. Every realised that a beam-me-up-scotty drive would imply you die, and a copy of you, but not you, lives on? There is no 'transportation', just destruction at one end and creation at the other. No 'sending' of anything but information. That teleporter is a mini-meatgrinder, and they just slap some saucages together again at the other end and give it your name, is more like it.

[love this crap]

NOOOOO... Captain Kirk is alive & well & living in Azerbaijan rearing goats!

[simeonie (OP)]

OO KK this is really strange stuff here and totaly off topic lol but W/E

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Think about it! lolz

[daveshorts]

quote:so glad you came back around to discussing QM. I am trying to help give my kid some scientific ammo to support the possibility of say tractor beams or transporters "beam me up Scotty" stuff. Any takers?

You can move atoms around using laser beams
http://www.stanford.edu/group/blocklab/Optical%20Tweezers%20Introduction.htm
basically it works because when the atom moves off centre it tends to refract the light in that direction and bending light produces a miniscule force which pushes the atom back again. So not going to be able to move ships very fast...

[drkev]

E=MC squared (cant do the power signs so lets assumed sq means to the power of 2)

E = energy required, M = mass of object and C = speed of light

We find that if these are plotted on a graph the closer we get to light speed, the more energy is required and the more mass is generated. When we get to light speed we find that we require infinite energy and we generate infinite mass. This is a basic principle which was explained in About Time by Stephen Hawking. Therefore it follows that it would be impossible to travel at light speed.

Theoretically (assuming such a craft could be built) we could travel at 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the speed of light but never at the speed of light as we would require infinite energy and would create infinite mass.

Time travel is possible and has actually been demonstrated with two synchronised atomic clocks on various occassions.

Live long and Love life

Kevin Fisher

[simeonie (OP)]

why is the speed of light infinite energy?

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[Ultima]

simeonie it's only like that when something has mass and is travelling towards the speed of light. Light itself is mass less and isn’t under the same constraints. The "speed" isn't infinite kinetic energy; the amount of energy required by the system to reach the sped C is infinite under those conditions. Since you can't have an infinite supply of energy something with mass can't ever reach the speed of light.

wOw the world spins?

[ukmicky]

simeonie
No matter how fast you go light will always pass you by at the same speed. even if you could travel at
186,000 miles per second which is the speed of light c. or even 200,000 miles per second
light would still go pass you at 186,000 mps.  but as to what would happen to time for you compared to earth at that velocity is anybody's guess