I just finished reading Michael Chrichton’s Timeline novel.
How accurate is his description of the nature of time and our understanding of it?
And just what, exactly, is his problem with theme parks?
Nobody’s traveled in time yet. That I know of.
I have. I’ve developed a method to go forward in time at the rate of precisely one second per second.
Michael Chrichton was borrowing from a lot of things for that book.
In the books case they weren’t travelling in time. They were travelling between parallel universes. Some interpretations of Quantum Mechanics holds that there could be an infinite number of universes out there. Since it’s infinite all possibilities are represented. One universe could be identical to this one except one blade of grass doesn’t exist there that does here. In another one Hitler won WWII. In others there is no life at all. Basically most anything you can dream up.
Our ‘time travelers’ didn’t travel in time, they travelled to another universe where they could re-experience France in the middle ages.
The concept may be out there but Crichton skirted what would have been much bigger problems with paradoxes had the people really time travelled in our universe.
MAJOR SPOILER
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I just remembered that the ‘time travellers’ in the book didn’t really travel at all. IIRC they were killed here (in our universe) and another universe, where they knew how to squirt people through the ‘quantum foam’, sent nearly exact copies to medieval France.
Astronauts & cosmonauts have managed to give themselves a few nanoseconds of Einstein’s Twin Paradox effect.
IIRC the cosmonauts that stayed in Mir for 6 months were about three seconds younger than those they left on earth.
IIRC the cosmonauts that stayed in Mir for 6 months were about three seconds younger when they returned than those they left on earth.
I think the idea of parallel universes has, if not a paradox than a conundrum. Let us postulate that: (1) There are an infinite number of parallel universes, all representing alternate versions of history, in which anything and everything possible happens in one or another of them. And (2) Travel or communication between them is possible.
The problem comes when you consider that the contact between the universes is itself one of the possible events that can alternately occur. For example: Let’s say that in some alternate universe there exists a race of sentient, scientificly advanced polka-dotted elephants. Let’s say that they have the ability to traverse the universes at will, and that for some reason your particular life is of great interest to them. If that seems unlikely, remember that by postulate #1 anything possible can be found in one universe or another. Yet no wormholes spouting polka-dotted elephants have appeared before you.
I can only suppose that: postulate #1 is wrong; postulate #2 is wrong; or else, you get into the mathematics of different kinds of infinities (alephs), which would allow for an infinitely greater number of universes in which you didn’t encounter “sliders” then ones where you did. But to prove or disprove that is beyond my schooling. Anyone?
Yeah, that must mean that there is some physical reason that there are no polka-dot universe-hopping elephants interested in our particular slice-of-life. We just don’t know what that physical reason is, yet. Hell, we haven’t figured out what spam is.
These quotes would be so much more effective if I could remember the original speakers, but…
“If you believe in the many worlds model, then you should play Russian Roulette for high stakes, because somewhere, you’re going to make a lot of money.”
According to the findings of QM which suggest that alternate Universes might (or might not) exist, it’d be absolutely impossible for there to be any sort of contact between them, anyway, so even if they do exist, it doesn’t really matter to us.
lumpy, first off there needs be no reason that communication or movement between branches be possible. secondly, even if it is possible, just because an event must happen somewhere does (emphatically) NOT mean that that event will happen everywhere. so in some theoretical uber-branch of this reality, you in fact have been approached by said elephant. you’ve also probably been successfully propositioned by Carol Channing, and liked it.
well I would’ve.
If anything were possible in the universe of universes, perhaps our universe is the single universe that is considered the most dull to all other universes, and not worth a second look by those with the capability to step over. 
P.S. - universe (just thought I’d throw one more “universe” (or two) in there for good measure)
The key word is “possible”. If it were POSSIBLE for alternate universe dudes to come visit us, they would. So the only conclusion is that travelling between parrallel universes à la Sliders is impossible.
They would visit us, assuming that we were a desireable destination. That might be assuming too much.
Also, in an infinite number of universes, there would be an infinite number of universes that were never visited. That’s one of the infinite possibilities, and would be represented. It’s possible we live in one of those… or in one that hasn’t had any visitors yet.
–John
Michael Chrichton is 6’9" tall and cannot participate in many of the thrill rides utilized by normal people as his limbs and head exceed the safety zone boundaries of the ride. This makes him bitter. He also hates to wait in line.
How do we know that they haven’t visited us? Maybe the new resident in your apartment complex is really some dude from another universe? Similarly, couldn’t people from 25,000,000 AD be walking among us after travelling back in time?
This thread just goes to show why many scientists have a problem with the many universes theory. While most think it’s ridiculous there IS enough doubt to not absolutlely toss the idea in the dust bin. GREAT stuff for sci-fi writers as they can, to some extent, defend themselves from the scads of nitpickers who’d write them and say such-n-such is impossible. With the Many Unverses (or is it “Many Worlds”) interpretation the sky’s the limit as long as you don’t violate ordinary established physical rules (i.e. I assume even in an infinte number of universes light speed always has to be roughly 186,000 mph.
FTR I wasn’t trying to suggest that many universes theory is correct but that it gives a fiction writer a rather wide berth to couch their story in.
As many of you have pointed out Many Universes can have weird consequences of its own…part of the reason physicists aren’t comfortable with it. They have enough of a brain bending job without throwing that crap in to boot.