I posted two new questions in Genreal Questions that may help me with this whole time travel concept.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143128
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143130
Thanks! Alot! I really appreciate it.
He started 2 more GQ threads on this-- raising the total to what-- 4?
Talk about one trick ponies. Well, at least its not foreskins this time. . . .
Unless he wants to travel back in time to get it back…
Garsh, we’d have to start a whole new category of troll. The compound-trick pony.
I disagree. I think scotth should’ve opened up a can of Texas whup-ass and kicked BZ’s butt straight into next week. That’ll teach him about time travel.
PS - the secret to time travel is Visine.
Who gets this obscure movie reference?
scotth beat me to it. (Rock on, dude.) Please allow me to summarize:
BZ00000, you asked us to help you better understand time travel. Okay, here you go. Ready?
For many reasons, time travel is basically impractical as far as we currently understand.
That’s it.
Period.
If you want to know why, go study high-energy physics for ten years.
Until then, quit bothering us.
So BZ, did you send me that e-mail?
We’ve got no shortage of people willing to beat morons about the head and neck. But we also need some people willing to take the time to patiently explain things. Especially people who really know what they’re talking about.
But I really wasn’t praising scotth just on the basis of these threads. I’ve noticed him doing the same thing in lots of threads, this is just the one that made me speak up.
Was the Earth making BeepBeepBeep noises like a truck backing up?
Great. Now I have to clean the spit off my monitor. No, wait, maybe If I just trravel backwards at relativistic speeds it’ll all jump back into my mouth!!
On second thought, yuck!
Thanks to all. Best laught I’ve had in weeks. And BZ is definitely a contender for the Thomas Dolby SDMB compound trick pony, marching and chowder(head) society for 2002.
I’m in such a good mood now!
b.
Biggirl, no I didn’t send the e-mail. The guy that wrote that is just crazy.
BZ, looks like your other questions (in the new threads) are being answered about as well as could be.
I’ll make you a deal. (And if you follow through with it, it will also reveal you not a troll)
Buy this book:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=15MS6CKLRD&isbn=0486607690
It is a fantastic book. It is under 400 pages and covers (albeit pretty quickly) everything you need to know about the last 400 years of science that is required to understand relativity. It finishes with relativity itself. (Fairly small part of the book, but if you understand what comes before, it doesn’t take much to get a handle on relativity, especially “special” relativity.
This book is not a popularization, it retains enough of the math and builds principal upon principal so that if you finish it and understand what it says you will have a working knowledge of the current understanding of how the universe works.
It is not an easy read.
So here is the deal:
- Get the book.
- Start at page one.
- When you hit a concept that you are having trouble with (and it WILL happen), stop and post the question on this board.
- Do not continue until you understand everything up to where you are (if you don’t understand where you are, you will never understand what is coming next)
- I will make every reasonable attempt to answer your questions along the way or point you to other primer material that will make the concept clear.
This will put you back to asking questions that you will be prepared to understand the answer to.
If/When you get through that text, you will be pretty well prepared to at least think about the questions you are posting now. It is very frustrating (to say the least) to try to answer very advanced questions for someone who has zero grasp of the basics.
You couldn’t get a better offer anywhere. (Well, maybe you could, but it would probably be a pyramid scheme.)
I knew the Pyramids would figure into all this eventually…
You are correct, and I should’ve made my post clearer with a wink smiley.
Anyway, to contribute to the fight against ignorance, may I add* that BZ should study up on the Second Law of Thermodynamics (entropy) and the “Arrow of Time” (Sir Arthur Eddington’s coinage, IIRC). A Google search will suffice as a start.
- That is, if someone hasn’t mentioned it already – I could not bear to read these threads in detail for fear my brain would implode.
Bruce Willis plays a man sent back from the future. At least, the man thinks he is from the future. Is he a time traveller, who has done what everybody keeps telling him is impossible? Or is he insane?
BZ
This is a vital question in circumstances like this one. Have you found some new insight that all the experts have overlooked? Or do you need psychiatric help?
You say that the moon crystal e-mail is insane. Why do you think that? Can you point to specific details? What about TimeCube? Do you feel that is valid or not? Can you give specific details? Look for other time travel sites and evaluate them in the same way. Finally, use those same methods on your own theory.
If you realize that you have a working method of time travel, that’s an important discovery.
If you realize that you need psychiatric care, that is an equally important discovery. Getting the right diagnosis and treatment can change a person’s life even more profoundly than time travel.
Nah, it’s okay. I knew you were joking. For some reason, I felt compelled to give a serious answer anyway.
Is BZ having a meltdown after the offer of real learning? No posting from him in almost 2 hours.
scotth,
I will go to the library this weekend and see if they have that book, if not I’ll order it at the local Borders or Barnes and Noble (if they don’t have it in stock.)
Should I get this book, too.
Advise, skip the library… You will never come close to finishing during 10 check out periods.
If you are in a major city, your Barnes&Noble should have it in stock. I’ve spotted that book in several of their stores here in Dallas.