From: chejasw@yalevm (Jason Cherry)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
Subject: Re: Time travel - NOT! (my 0.2$)
Date: 27 Jan 93 21:39:50 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.startrek.tech
Organization: Department of Mech. Eng., Yale

In article <gunnarh.342.728022260@dhhalden.no>, gunnarh@dhhalden.no (GUNNAR
HORRIGMO) wrote:
> 
> 
> I believe someone wil probably come a with a good argument rendering mine 
> insignifacant, but still I will present a couple of thoughts on the 
> subject, just because nobody else has yet had a subject line saying time 
> travel is impossible. 
> 
> As far as I know, "jump's" can't occur (ie. you can't go directly from one 
> place to another, from 40mph to -40mph, or even from 100mph to 100.00001mph).
> All numbers are random, of course. I'm saying that it's not forward in 
> time / backwards in time. There's something in between. I'm not going to 
> elaborate this as it is 5am. However; in order to go from normal to reversed 
> passage of time, you have to go through NO passage of time. Now if time 
> stood still, nothing would happen, right? So if, in an attempt to go back in 
> time, slowed it down till it stood still, you wouldn't get any further, thus 
> be captured in one single moment and, in a way, sieze t exist. Cogito ergo 
> sum. I think therefore I am. If time stood still, one wouldn't think and 
> therefore not exist. A bit philosofical, I know but tell me it's not a crazy 
> idea...


			Well, not bad reasoning, but let me refute with some other ideas. The
reason that time travel occurred in STIV was because of a gravitational
"slingshot" effect. Now, we all know that warp travel is superluminal, and
I think that it's been fairly well established that although ships in warp
go superluminal velocities, they actually are switching back and forth
between super- and sub-luminal speeds. They only stay in each state for 1
unit of Planck time, therefore they essentially never go the speed of light
(there's other subspace physics involved here, but I don't want to go into
it). Now, theoretical physicists of our time have speculated on the
validity of time-travel by crossing the light speed "wall" in real-space
(no subspace schwee in here). This is borne out by relativistic physics and
the Lorentz transformations (time and length dilations). Lookup the
equation--time should actually go backward if you make your speed >c. This
is all theoretical of course, but it is real-space physics. 
			The gravitational slingshot is used in the following way:  the ship is
propelled to high warp on approach towards the sun. Now, as the gravity of
the sun pulls them toward it (once they have achieved enough speed to swing
around and escape, rather than fall into it), the subspace fields are shut
down. Voila, they are now entirely in real-space, but the trajectory
established ensures that they will remain at superluminal velocity. But now
relativity kicks in, and the Lorentz transformation throws time into
reverse. Now, this works for going back, but here is where my logic breaks
down. I'm not sure how to make this work for going forward... 
			Perhaps if we regard the forward leap as actually going backwards int
their own established  timeline--if they simply go backwards along the line
 that they came back on, then they would be going forward relative to the
original timeline. Simply retracing their own steps. Hmmm... That would
explain Spock's trouble in his second set of calculations...the conditions
aren't exactly the same. However, this last part is just a guess, so if
anyone can add to it, please do...

--Jas
chejasw@yalevm


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