The Pub Discussion Board

Barbarian3165 · 2017-04-05 07:21:22

I've watched too many arguments about time and time travel on Discovery and the Science channel. Do we really need to bring it up here? Besides, in my opinion anyway, 'time travel' is way over used in science fiction and fantasy stories, be it in books or on a screen. I also think it tends to be a fall back plot for some of the weaker writers. That doesn't mean an occasional gem involving time travel doesn't come along every once in a while.

Eric Storm · 2017-04-05 18:25:30

Really? You wonder why time travel would come up so often? It is precisely BECAUSE it is so contested. It makes people interested, AND it gives the author plenty of room to maneuver, to tell the story they want to tell without feeling constrained by the readily defined limits of science.

The truth is that when you start to talk about "science fiction", there really are only a few subgenres one can go into: future tech, body modification, space travel, time travel, aliens. There are a few others, but those are the five big ones. So, really, you have to pick one and run with it...

Eric Storm

Barbarian3165 · 2017-04-06 01:02:45

Still, just my opinion, but time travel themed stories seem to use the easy out and rarely have a decent plot line. Again, there are a few gems out there involving time travel. However there are way more turkeys in the time travel genre then in the other types you mentioned, as far as I'm concerned anyway. Even Star Trek, which is a sci-fi universe I love, has used time travel too often and in some cases they've used it poorly.

The other thing to remember here is that, to my knowledge, none of us on these boards are scientists involved in research about time or time travel and how it all might work. Yes, some of us may watch shows on some of the science type channels that introduce us to the general principles of how it might work. But, that doesn't mean any of it is real or possible, at least at this time. I suppose the only time travel currently possible would involve cryogenics and a one way trip into the future where some one dies or goes to sleep and wakes up years, decades, centuries or millennia later and doesn't know anything that happened in between.

Eric Storm · 2017-04-06 02:07:37

... Wait, you're going to mention cryogenics, but not relativistic travel??? At least relativistic travel is merely an engineering problem to be solved... no one's proven that cryogenics will EVER work...

Eric Storm

Barbarian3165 · 2017-04-06 02:16:39

why not mention cryogenics? It's just a biology and medical problem.

Eric Storm · 2017-04-06 04:29:39

Yes, a biology and medical problem with no theorized solution... There is no evidence that you can wake someone up after freezing them like a Popsicle... and a whole lot of evidence that you can't.

Eric Storm

Sniper · 2017-04-06 07:52:36

With what kind of propulsion do we send a human popsicle through time? We could take David as our subject as his body has amazing self healing and would survice the massive cellular damage of being popsicled. He could even create the necessary potions himself, one for the popsicling (i claim all rights for this amazing new word that I just created) and one as fuel, as I suspect that cupcake will not reach the necessary speed.

Sry, I really wanted to go on, but as soon as I try to write more I keep imagining cupcake with some external propulsion with a pospicled David sitting on her. Just writing this sentence took me a few minutes. Thanks for the good laugh.

jdale · 2017-04-06 08:30:41

Was a chapter posted for this month?

(posted from the Item Information Page)

Eric Storm · 2017-04-06 16:10:25

Did you see one posted?

The relevant forum post

Eric Storm

bigfoot · 2017-04-06 19:09:29

Eric Storm wrote:
At least relativistic travel is merely an engineering problem to be solved.
Eric Storm

All this talk of time travel reminds me of an excellent book by Michio Kaku called "Physics of the Impossible". It covers pretty much everything science fiction has dreamed up from invisibility to parallel and anti-universes to time travel. Warning, it was published in 2008 and it's already fun to see what's been proven, created and changed. I recommend it as there is an obvious interest with this crowd and frankly, I loved the treatment he gave each of the topics (blending them with popular books and movies, myths and legends, etc.,). In short, if you're looking for an interesting read...

Last edited by bigfoot (2017-04-07 19:58:13)

Eric Storm · 2017-04-06 19:43:20

Just as a correction for those trying to find it, the author's last name is "Kaku", not "Haku"... I've seen him on various Discovery programs that talk about the future.

Here's the Amazon link to the paperback:
Physics of the Impossible

Why did I link the paperback and not the eBook? Because, stupidly (for such a smart guy), the Kindle edition actually costs MORE than the paperback edition. I will blame his publisher for such an idiotic practice.

Eric Storm

bigfoot · 2017-04-07 20:00:10

I paid $0.49 for a hardback copy that was essentially new at my favotite used book store. So worth it!

Centaur · 2017-04-15 04:09:16

Barbarian3165 wrote:
I suppose the only time travel currently possible would involve cryogenics and a one way trip into the future where some one dies or goes to sleep and wakes up years, decades, centuries or millennia later and doesn't know anything that happened in between.

Hum so we all time travel every night when we sleep. Close our eyes and it's the next day.

Centaur · 2017-04-15 04:27:12

i read one story that compared a time line to a river with no forks and full of stones. each stone represented an event in history. depending how big the stone/boulder, is how bog or major the event was to history and could not be changed. however you could changed aspects. you could travel back in time and keep Hitler from starting the the war. the war was a major event so some one else would take up the mantel and be like Hitler. little things could be changed as the stones would be smaller. like a battle that was lost in a war could be changed but the out come of the war would be the same. another analogy with the river theme that i just read is you go back and just being there you make a ripple effect foreword and back though time that dissipates as it moves though time.

Desgi · 2017-04-15 15:34:26

Centaur

I THINK... don't quote me on this, but I am fairly certain that the Saga of Darren Shan dealt with that concept. I even think they used the Hitler analogy. Not a terrible idea to handle time alteration, until you start working with the details... then it turns into a GIANT headache, like most time travel. XD

Eric Storm · 2017-04-15 23:41:04

Centaur: I think I like that concept least of all. It implies we have free will, but our decisions don't matter in the least, because what's going to happen is going to happen regardless of what we choose to do. Because, again, if time travel is possible, then our "present" is someone else's "past", and that means that events have already taken their shape, and so our actions, by this scenario, are completely irrelevant.

Yeah, no thanks. I think I'll stick with the multi-branched timeline concept.

As to cryogenic sleep being the only form of future time travel... All one has to do is travel 99.9% the speed of light. Time will speed up around you (from your point of view). Take a trip to Alpha Centauri and back. It'll take you about 10 years. When you get back to Earth, about 223 years will have passed. Speed up a little more, and travel at 99.99% the speed of light, and 707 years will have passed. 99.999%? 2,236 years. Yes, there are problems with your ship now weighing a lot more than it should, too, so getting more speed out is tricky... but the point is that this is, as far as we know, "factually possible" time travel into the future. All that has to happen is for us to figure out how to accelerate a ship to these speeds (and then stop it again...) All of the other methods require techniques which are, at best, "theoretically possible", but with no idea at all how to make them happen.

Eric Storm

Augur · 2017-04-27 02:26:57

Sorry Eric, you are mistaken. Not on the principle of the thing, but on how time dilation works. As you close up to the speed of light you will experiece time DILATION (yes, the rest of the universe will seem to have a faster time flow, etc.). This you have grasped correctly. But the trip duration to Alpha Centauri in objective time doesn't dilate too. If you disregard acceleration time and travel at a high enough speed (let's say 99% C), you will go and travel back to Alpha Centauri in somewhat around 8,5-9 years objective time (being that Alpha Centauri is aprox. 4,3 light years away). This trip may take you in subjective time just a few seconds or less if you travel close enough to C and disregard acceleration and turning around instantly. Meaning that subjectively attaining speeds close to C, you subjectively feel as if there is no speed of light limit, as you seem to go faster and faster. Objectively you aren't traveling much faster, rather you are traveling a little faster, but experiencing time much more slowly, shortening in the direction of travel and gaining mass. By that I mean that for example if you travel to the center of the milky way at speeds close to C it will still take you about 28-30 thousand years OBJECTIVE time, but it can be as short as you wish subjective time if you get close enough to the speed of light.

In order for a trip to Alpha Centauri and back to Earth to take 707 years subjective time you would need to travel at somewhat around 1,2% of the speed of light. At this speed there is no perceptible time dilation. So it would also take 707 years objective time too.

So you are right on the principle, but wrong on the specifics.

As for WAY postings, well, here hoping you will get better soon, WAY7-4 or no WAY7-4. 3dsmile

Last edited by Augur (2017-04-27 02:30:36)

Eric Storm · 2017-04-27 04:30:39

Given that your explanation contradicts every single thing I have EVER heard, read, or seen concerning relativistic travel, I'm going to have to say that we're just going to agree to disagree on this one. At least until someone actually does it.

Eric Storm

Augur · 2017-04-27 04:54:27

Then you have read, or understood it incorrectly Eric. If you would wish so I can provide you with plenty of links about the subject. Of course you are free to still disagree on the matter.
http://casswww.ucsd.edu/archive/public/ … Intro.html
Try to see it this way. Light travels at light speed. So if light takes 5 objective years to reach another star, then if you travel very close to light speed (or C), it wouldn't take you much more than that (aprox. 5 years) to travel the same distance in objective (Earth) time (again this is simplifying calculations as we disregard acceleration and dis acceleration time). But if you travel close to the speed of light you experience time dilation, meaning time passes more slowly to you, personally on the ship. To the outside universe (objective time) the travel time is 5, or more years, to you it may seem 3 years, 3 days, 3 seconds subjective time, or any time less than the objective time for the same trip depending on how close to C (the speed of light and time dilation factor) you get.
https://skullsinthestars.com/2012/09/10 … -centauri/

In other words. Here you have a calculator that will tell how much shorter it would feel subjectively (the traveler)
http://www.emc2-explained.info/Dilation … QF14vn1DRY
In the second calculator you can input all the data and find out how long such a trip (at a constant % of C value) would take.
At 99,9% of the speed of light it would take you 4.30430 years (1571 days) to travel 4,3 lightyears, objective (Earth) time, but only 70 days subjective time.
At 99,999% of the speed of light it would take you 4.300043years (1569 days) to travel 4,3 lightyears, objective (Earth) time, but only 7 days subjective time.
At 99,999999% of the speed of light it would take you 4.300000043 years (still 1569 days, but a bit less than the previous option) to travel 4,3 lightyears, objective (Earth) time, but only 5 hours ~20 minutes subjective (ship) time.

It goes on like that.

Last edited by Augur (2017-04-27 04:57:28)

runkmaster24 · 2017-05-01 02:24:32

Has anyone ever wondered what a frog feels like after it thaws out they get natures version of being cryogenicaly frozen. Haha

(posted from the Item Information Page)

Eric Storm · 2017-05-01 07:14:33

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say... cold.

3dsmile

Eric Storm

PS: Their first utterance? rib-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-it-t-t-t...

3dbig_smile

runkmaster24 · 2017-05-01 10:36:53

Probly a good guess

Ps. That's fantastic!!

(posted from the Item Information Page)

Sirkenii · 2017-05-01 18:34:45

Twitches and looks in.. not an addict.. hmm frog legs, time for soup.

(posted from the Item Information Page)

M8jsX7mc7kSZ · 2017-05-02 03:00:11

Congrats on winning second place in the Best Erotic Fantasy Story 2016 in the Clitorides Awards with The Woodward Academy, Year 5:

https://clitoridesawards.org/archives/2016

(posted from the Item Information Page)

Sirkenii · 2017-05-02 14:52:44

Congrats, I still say they need to make a best ongoing erotic series

(posted from the Item Information Page)

The Pub Discussion Board

#226 2017-04-05 07:21:22

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#227 2017-04-05 18:25:30

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#228 2017-04-06 01:02:45

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#229 2017-04-06 02:07:37

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#230 2017-04-06 02:16:39

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#231 2017-04-06 04:29:39

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#232 2017-04-06 07:52:36

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#233 2017-04-06 08:30:41

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#234 2017-04-06 16:10:25

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#235 2017-04-06 19:09:29

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

Eric Storm wrote:

#236 2017-04-06 19:43:20

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#237 2017-04-07 20:00:10

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#238 2017-04-15 04:09:16

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

Barbarian3165 wrote:

#239 2017-04-15 04:27:12

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#240 2017-04-15 15:34:26

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#241 2017-04-15 23:41:04

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#242 2017-04-27 02:26:57

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#243 2017-04-27 04:30:39

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#244 2017-04-27 04:54:27

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#245 2017-05-01 02:24:32

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#246 2017-05-01 07:14:33

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#247 2017-05-01 10:36:53

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#248 2017-05-01 18:34:45

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#249 2017-05-02 03:00:11

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

#250 2017-05-02 14:52:44

Re: Woodward Academy, Year 7, The

Board footer