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[pollo]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4097258.stm

Quantum behaviour is governed by probabilities. Before something has actually been observed, there are a number of possibilities regarding its state. But once its state has been measured those possibilities shrink to one - uncertainty is eliminated.

So, if you know the present, you cannot change it. If, for example, you know your father is alive today, the laws of the quantum universe state that there is no possibility of him being killed in the past.

It is as if, in some strange way, the present takes account of all the possible routes back into the past and, because your father is certainly alive, none of the routes back can possibly lead to his death.

"Quantum mechanics distinguishes between something that might happen and something that did happen," Professor Dan Greenberger, of the City University of New York, US, told the BBC News website.

"If we don't know your father is alive right now - if there is only a 90% chance that he is alive right now, then there is a chance that you can go back and kill him.

"But if you know he is alive, there is no chance you can kill him."

In other words, even if you take a trip back in time with the specific intention of killing your father, so long as you know he is happily sitting in his chair when you leave him in the present, you can be sure that something will prevent you from murdering him in the past. It is as if it has already happened.

"You go back to kill your father, but you'd arrive after he'd left the room, you wouldn't find him, or you'd change your mind," said Professor Greenberger.

"You wouldn't be able to kill him because the very fact that he is alive today is going to conspire against you so that you'll never end up taking that path leads you to killing him."

I will delete if old

 

[themadcowtipper]

Only John Titor knows for sure....

 

[MetatronM]

Note to self: Kill only people who might already be dead while travelling through time.

 

[Cauliflower of Love]

Sounds weak.


Their doing this to throw people off their achievements!

 

[Nerevar]

these scientists are clowns, they haven't even come up with a flux capacitor yet.

 

[impirius]

That's all well and good, but we still don't have an answer from the scientific community about who would win in a fight between Batman and Superman.

 

[Diablos]

Such a nice example they use.

 

[Borys]

Sounds pretty logic but so is 2+2.

 

[Ghost]

Makes sense i guess.


But that means because i know im poor now i cant go back and make myself rich either!

DAMN YOU QUANTUM BEHAVIOUR.

 

[WHOAguitarninja]

This sounds a bit hypothetical for my tastes. Kindof like something that would make sense, but we don't really know for sure. I'd like to see the whole paper.

Regardless, we can't test this yet (or can we...perhaps earlier expirements of pushing light past c could give some sort of means of testing it).

 

[RonaldoSan]

Is he saying what I think he is saying? You can't go back and kill your father, because that would make him dead right now? It makes sense in some sort of time-travel-theory way.

 

[Mama Smurf]

So if you went back you couldn't change anything? Time travel just for observation? Booooring.

 

[Borys]

So if you went back you couldn't change anything? Time travel just for observation? Booooring.

No it means that time travel must "make sense" in the time era you arrive in.
Following his theory you can be sure that the very first time travel won't happen from PRESENT to the PAST (like from 2050 to 1770) but from the FUTURE to the PRESENT (like from 3040 to 2050).
It will make sense for us (or our children) when finally someone from the future arrives and it will be automatically part of history for the guy who arrived.

I hope I made myself clear :/

 

[karasu]

No it means that time travel must "make sense" in the time era you arrive in.
Following his theory you can be sure that the very first time travel won't happen from PRESENT to the PAST (like from 2050 to 1770) but from the FUTURE to the PRESENT (like from 3040 to 2050).
It will make sense for us (or our children) when finally someone from the future arrives and it will be automatically part of history for the guy who arrived.

I hope I made myself clear :/

That sounds hella relative.

 

[Mama Smurf]

No it means that time travel must "make sense" in the time era you arrive in.

Fucking time travel. I just deleted a whole paragraph explaining what I said, as all it came down to was "even if you didn't know if your father was dead and go back in time and kill him, that didn't change anything as you'd already called him in the past before you went back only...only...*head explodes*"

 

[CabbageRed]

So the person who travels into the future and observes it creates our future. Bastard.

It seems like his view of time is far too rigid. Wouldn't it make more sense that killing your father would simply create/thread out into other near-parallel realities?

 

[themadcowtipper]

F*ck this news, I prefer to believe the laws of time travel set forth in Primer....

 

[Phoenix]

Rhetorical foolishness. Every moment of our lives could be rewriting itself because of quantum entanglements caused by time travellers screwing around in the past.

To be honest I'm surprised that they would even waste time on this line of thinking. Focus on travelling back in time, because until you do this your thoughts are no better than Berman and Bragas (losers from Star Trek)

 

[ConfusingJazz]

I think they aren't looking into the mulitple universe theory enough. Wouldn't it be possible that you just spawned a new universe instead, which was the explination in BttF 2? Or what if "time travel" is actually just springing into a parallel universe that just happens to be however many years behind that you are trying to go to? Or maybe I am just really tired and not thinking straight, and the Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy is just fucking with my head?

 

[maharg]

This book has an interesting take on the observer effect.

 

[Space Age Playboy]

I just don't understand why "observing" should mean jack squat. What if I take LSD and observe myself flying, does that mean I can fly?

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Pffft. Basic philosophical ideas make me doubt everything. It confounds my brother so much when I tell him I'm not absolutely positive the wall in front of me is really there.

Perhaps if I went back and killed my father, someone would get cosmetic surgery to look like him and be my actual father. It's certainly possible.

 

[maharg]

I just don't understand why "observing" should mean jack squat. What if I take LSD and observe myself flying, does that mean I can fly?

If you're taking LSD, you observe yourself flying, and no one else observes you during that time, who's to say you didn't? Heh. If you want to argue about conscious effect on observation, the counterargument to this would be other people observing you *not* flying is what would make you go splat on the pavement.

But I think the idea that conscious thought impacts the quantum observation is generally considered more philosophy than science. I doubt there are very many people on this forum who really *get* quantum physics to really argue the point in a sensible way though (and I'm not saying I think I'm one of them -- this stuff is fucked, if you ask me).

 

[alejob]

Makes sense i guess.


But that means because i know im poor now i cant go back and make myself rich either!

DAMN YOU QUANTUM BEHAVIOUR.

I got a solution, travel back in time and make sure that you set something up that will make you rich in two months or something. I'll be waiting for a check from you in about 2 1/2 months from now for my brilliant idea. Now do it! Do it damn it! Do it!

 

[DDayton]

You can't go back in the past and change something you know about because then you'd have no reason to go back into the past and change it, and thus you'd never do it.

If I wanted to go back in time to kill someone, I couldn't do it... for if I did kill the guy, then there wouldn't be a reason that the present-day me would want to go back to kill the guy.

 

[Boogie9IGN]

It's 1:44AM, and all of this is blowing my fucking mind

Thanks for disproving 90% of time travel scifi