Time Travel Project...

[kindergoth441]

Well our teacher wants us to build a model expressing time travel...we have like a month to complete it. it has to demonstrate time travel or a form of how time travel could work and it has to be...well nice. So...any ideas? I was thinking of making a model of a worm hole or something but I am lost. Any suggestions?

[Tormod]

Well, we'll probably never hear form Mr kindergoth441 again. But I wonder...what would a model of a worm hole look like?

 

And how do you demonstrate time travel? Seriously - could it be done? Not actually travelling in time, but to create a model which describes the concept? What would it look like? Could be a fun project for my real life job at the space centre.

 

Tormod

[Uncle Martin]

I can't think of a small scale model, but it sounds like a great ride for a theme park. Put people into a capsule, send them at high speed with a bunch of bizarre lighting effects to a predetermined point in history or the imagined future. You could have all sorts of interesting time periods and places-past and future. The Renaissance, inquisition, early Rome and Greece, Mars colony, WW II reenactments......Just how BIG is your BUDGET? Think how much money you could make sending Christians to Jerusalem ca. 1 BC to 40 AD... Then have technical problems with the time machine and just leave them there...HaHa ! I may be on to something big here??

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: Uncle Martin Think how much money you could make sending Christians to Jerusalem ca. 1 BC to 40 AD... Then have technical problems with the time machine and just leave them there...HaHa ! I may be on to something big here??

Actually, we would WANT them to come back. So they could tell all their Christian buddies that it IS a joke! That it never really happened.

 

But then we would be accused of having brainwashed them or exchanged their bodies like some kinda pod people.

[Freethinker]

OK, while the ribs are on the grill being smoked in Mesquite.

 

When the discussion is "what would a worm hole look like?"

 

One has to ask, would it be a VISIBLE phenomenon?

 

What does a blackhole look like?

 

We have some concept of what the event horizon looks like, but the hole itself? What would make it a VISIBLE phenomenon?

 

The question would be, not what does it "look" like, but:

 

"How do we 'REPRESENT' a worm hole?"

 

Seems like, rather than representing it as a tunnel or such, asi ti usually is, the trick would be to 'REPRESENT' what it does.

 

Perhaps have some flat surface with a star field on one side of a box and the same on the other, but a different star field. Each represents different spacial locations. or different times at the same spacial location.

 

Then have some object that you shove into a hidden hole on the one side and have a perfect copy of it coming out the other in sync.

 

I've always had trouble with the "dimensional stretch" CGI so common in effects. What you are doing is connecting to different time/space locations with a common juncture. A Boolean operation. a common plane between two 3 dimensional objects. I used to sell high end 3D software and saw how it would work graphically. The common surface would be a 2d plane at a given juncture or a 3D area of commonality.

 

Hmmm

[Freethinker]

One of the infationary universe theories I have heard of involves universes expanding at the speed of light towards each other. Where they meet, one destroys the other. The other just stops existing at any intersecing/ common space.

 

What if that common space is NOT destructive, not subtractive, but either additive or in some form averaged/ common? Then the entrance to a worm hole would not be some funnel, but a 3D area of commonality. You would enter this 3 dimensional common space and exit some other point.

[Tormod]

Hm. these are good suggestions. I will try to discuss this with one of the folks who creates things for us (ie, a magician, some call them designers) and see if he can't come up with something intelligent!

 

Tormod

[TeleMad]

The simplest model that explains time travel would be a light clock.

[carlosncarlos]

Don't need of building anything.

 

Just presenting yourself to the judges and in front of everybody close firmly your eyes, make an expression like if you were making a great effort of concentration and say that you have disappeared from the room and that you are somewhere in the past or the future.

 

Your prize will be a T-shirt with the picture of that lunatic of Einstein and a free ride to the closest mental institution.

 

Good luck.

[Tormod]

Well, at least if I claim to be in the future I have a fair chance of being correct.

 

Tormod

[Anthony]

Very simple really:

 

Stand in a large open space and do something that you will recognise later such as pat yourself on the head. Then run faster than the speed of light, turn around and you will see yourself doing the action as the image of your doing so reaches you.

[Freethinker]

Actually, "time travel" CAN be demostrated just by standing there. You would be "travelling" thru time. You would not have a choice in fact. THis could on fact be the most informative demo of "Time TraveL' as it would demonstrate that "Time" is a dimension that everything exists in as part of time/space. Instead of some fictional streaking stars effect.

[Uncle Martin]

Time travel is simple really. Just come to Alabama, upon arrival you will find yourself in the mid 1800s. Should you decide to stay, you will find that we are in a time warp where time stands still. Here the arrow of time is actually shaped more like a cross, there's really no way to know which way time may travel while in the cradle of the confederacy..... and they like it that way!!!

[Freethinker]

I think you do disservice to the 1800's! Lincoln was an Atheist. He could never get elected today. Bertrand Russell was born late in that period. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony pushed women's rights and anti-god issues which are being fought AGAINST today.

 

Think "Inquisition".

[IrishEyes]

Lincoln was an Atheist. He could never get elected today.

 

Ok, I've heard this before, but never took it too seriously. After reading it here, I did a quick Google on 'Abraham Lincoln atheist", and found lots of stuff. After reading through 7 or 8 sites, this seems to be the concensus: while Lincoln was not a Christian, he was also not an atheist. I'm not sure where he would fall on your x/y graph, but from readin many of his quotes, he seems to have a belief in God. This would be evidenced by his many references to God, a Divine Being, and "Him". If you have a personal belief in God, doesn't this disqualify you as an atheist? I kow you went over this all in another thread, but that just raised my "???" flag. The following quote was taken from:

 

http://www.geocities.com/peterroberts.geo/Relig-Politics/ALincoln.html

 

Written by Abraham Lincoln-

"I have not forgotten--probably never shall forget--the very impressive occasion when yourself and friends visited me on a Sabbath forenoon two years ago. Nor has your kind letter, written nearly a year later, ever been forgotten. In all, it has been your purpose to strengthen my reliance on God. I am much indebted to the good Christian people of the country for their constant prayers and consolations; and to no one of them, more than to yourself. The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance. We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge His wisdom and our own error therein. Meanwhile we must work earnestly in the best light He gives us, trusting that so working still conduces to the great ends He ordains. Surely He intends some great good to follow this mighty convulsion, which no mortal could make, and no mortal could stay." -- letter to Eliza P. Gurney, 4 September 1864

[Uncle Martin]

Lincoln being an Atheist or not seems rather inconsequential at this point. I do however think that politicians felt obligated to make an attempt to please everyone in 1864 as much as they do today. We all know that they will say whatever is necessary, to attain or retain office, with no regard for what their actual convictions are.

 

NOW we're off topic.

 

Welcome back IrishEyes, My condolences on the loss of your neighbor.

[Freethinker]

Originally posted by: IrishEyes

Lincoln was an Atheist. He could never get elected today.

 

Ok, I've heard this before, but never took it too seriously. After reading it here, I did a quick Google on 'Abraham Lincoln atheist", and found lots of stuff. After reading through 7 or 8 sites, this seems to be the concensus: while Lincoln was not a Christian, he was also not an atheist.

Naturally there is a strong effort to hide the actual personal philosphy of Lincoln. The Christians can't have the general population know that one of their most highly regarded Presidents of all times was very anti-Christian and referred to with the popular term of the time ("Agnostic" was not an out at that time) "Infidel".

 

So lots of stuff is litterally made up. The rest twisted or hidden. But these are all verifyable facts and quotes.

 

"The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma." -Abraham Lincoln quoted by Joseph Lewis

 

Interviewer Opie Read once asked LIncoln his conception of God, to which he replied: "The same as my conception of nature." Asked what he meant, Lincoln said: "That it is impossible for either to be personal."

 

"It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity." Abraham Lincoln in Manford's Magazine.

 

"I am not a Christian." Abraham Lincoln quoted in Noyes

 

Lincoln wrote to his life long friend, Judge J.A. Wakefield, this "testament" of his beliefs:

 

"My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the Scriptures, have become clearer, and stronger, with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them."

 

Lincoln's law partner, Mr. Herndon, in the years following the assassination, said:

 

"Mr. Lincoln was an infidel, sometimes bordering on atheism." "He never mentioned the name of Jesus, except to scorn and detest the idea of a miraculous conception." "He did write a little work on infidelity in 1835-6, and never recanted. He was an out-and-out infidel, and about that there is no mistake."

 

"Oh, that [religious inclusions in speaches] is some of (Secretary of State) Seward's nonsense, and it pleases the fools. -- Abraham Lincoln, to Judge James M. Nelson, in response to a question from Nelson: "I once asked him about his fervent Thanksgiving Message and twitted him with being an unbeliever in what was published."

 

When the Know-Nothings get control, it [the Declaration of Independence] will read: "All men are created equal except negroes, foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. -- Abraham Lincoln, letter to Joshua F. Speed, August 24, 1855

 

When Dr. Holland asked Mr. Herndon (Lincoln's Law partner) about Lincoln's religoius convictions, Mr. Herndon replied that he had none, and the less he said on that subject the better. 'Oh well,' replied Dr. Holland, 'I'll fix that.'" -- Dr. Josiah G. Holland, later editor of Scribner's Monthly, having spent only two weeks interviewing Lincoln's friends before preparing his Biography "Life of Abraham Lincoln,", in which Holland fabricated accounts of Lincoln's piety.

 

Yes he was definately a skilled politician. He used the god card to his advantage. He knew "it pleases the fools."