From: Rannou@info.polymtl.ca (Patrick Rannou)
Subject: Re: Time-loop flaw in Time's Arrow II
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 10:03:30 GMT

In article <16877B6B7.JC924@uacsc2.albany.edu> JC924@uacsc2.albany.edu writes:

   >
   I believe that he Clemens left his new watch, not the old one.  I could be
   mistaken, though.

I can't believe how half of you could be confused by such a simple problem.
THERE ISN'T EVEN A PARADOX!

See the following timeline...

19th century A:

The aliens's portal #1 open up. Everybody gets rumbled, Clemens
inadvertantly drops his watch, that looks NEW.

19th century B:

Clemens go through the portal #1. The NEW LOOKING watch stay
here. If you follow Clemens, go directly to 24th century A, if you follow
the watch, read on...

19th century C: 

The portal #1 closes.
The NEW looking watch stays on the ground... Picrad gets up and everything.

19th century D:

Portal #2 opens. Clemens arrives through it from 24th
century, but he arrives not in the cave but in the city.
He runs to Picard. He tells him to go back fast.

19th Century E:

Picard say bye bye to Guinan and departs through the portal #2.
Then portal #2 closes. If you follow Picard, go to 24th century .
If you follow Clemens, read on. Notice that the NEW looking watch hasn't
moved from it's place in 19th century A, through B, C , D, E.

19th century F:

Clemens discover the new looking watch. Take it. Then he feels the OLD
watch in his pocket (if you're puzzled, you just have to restart and follow
Clemens's trip instead of the watch). Then he puts back the OLD looking
watch in his pocket, PUT back the NEW looking watch on the cave's floor,
and depart with the OLD watch. End of Clemens.

19th to 24th century:

Clemens die somewhere else with the OLD looking watch... the NEW looking
watch stays 500 years in that cave, which transfroms it into an OLD looking
watch. (500 years old). The enterprise discover the OLD looking watch and
pick it up. Then the crew go into the past...

24th centure A: 

Near the end of the episode,
Portal #1 opens, linking up with 19th century A. Clemens WITHOUT a watch
steps in.

24th century B:

Portal #1 closes, linked with 19th century C.
Clemens is on the ship as SEE the OLD looking watch that the crew picked
up. he TAKES it.

24th century C:

protal #2 opens, linking up with 19th century D. Clemens go trough it. If
you follow Clemens and the OLD watch, go to 19th century D. If you follow
the crew, read on.

24th century D:

Picard comes in through the portal, from 19th century E and the portal
closes, linked it was with 19th century E. There is no watch left in the
future, only rust...

24th century E: One one "watch" is left, 1000 years old, super-rusted...


Now, if you follow Clemens, he went through 19-A lose his NEW watch go to
19-B jump to24-A pick up an OLD watch at 24-B and then at 24-C he returns
to 19-D, then he tells bye bye to picard at 19-E and then he finds the NEW
watch at 19-F but decides to leave it there. End of story, no paradox.

If you follow the watch, it starts NEW  at 19-A, gets lots, stay in the
cave iat 19-B,C,D,E, is dicovered bhy Clemens at 19-F, put back in place,
then sleep 500 undred year in 19-24, which make it old, then discovered by
the E crew, then go on  the ship (24-A) and picked up by Clemens at 24-B,
then it follws Clemens at 24-C jumping down to 19-D, then it follows
Clemens.


So as you can see, apart from the fact that from 19-D to up to until the
OLD watch, which followed Clemens, rusts completely, there are TWO
DIFFERENT watches in existence!!! One old, the one new. Only when 24-C
arrives do one watch (the old) disappear from the current time and leave
only the VERY old watch (probably in Clemen's very tomb, completely rusted
by now...) in existance. So you can see, this vERY old watch as effectively
1000 years of existence (well, at least what little rust is left of it
anyway), which is 500 more than it should.

Now, since nothing can be created or destroyed, we hit a bone...

;-)

But there is no Paradox. THere is a discontinuity in the total energy of
the universe.

Suddeely, at 19-D, a new mass arrives already OLD, and the atoms of the
mass of the NEW watch will disappear only in 24-C, where the watch is old
too. So it's the SAME watch to goes from 24-C to 19-D.






We have:


Backward time travel: -500 years.
   i.e., the watch's internal energy has LOST 500 years of entropy, by
rusting 500 too much (when you look at AFTER 24-E when all is said and done).

Timestream disruption: Two watches instead of one during a period of 500
years.

So, if "Nothing is created, nothing is deleted" and time-travel exists,
THEN the universe's total energy can change BUT not the total energy...

If some historical period gains a new mass ( a LOT of energy if you put
E=mc^2), then this enertgy must be "used up" in the only other way
possible: by the watch;s erosion.

But that's stupid. Say, instead of a watch we use an isolating  ceramic
containing fuel. High enrgy in there, and a much highr mass than a watch.
but after 500 undred year the ceramic will still look the same, quasi
intact, and the fuel this stays protected. I.E. a lot less corrosin than
the watch.

Contradiction.

THEN:

Either objects "spend" energy just by "being there", or the universe
doesn't go that much higher in it's energetic state when another mass
hrrives from anothr epoch (i.e. the energy of the universe incrrease isn't
MC^2. )

The first is useless since that would simply mean that the energy spent by
a mass is exactly equal that the additionnal enerrgy the universe gets. For
all we care, that could be zero.

And we have no way of detecting, weven less manipulating, that "time"
energy.
THink about it: RThe IDEAL machine! You just "suck up" it's time-energy
faster than normal, and the item simply corrodes faster...
Super weapon, too.


The other idea is then much similar. And IMHO makes more sense. Since it's
obvious that when you consider the energy in a TNT bar released from an
explosion, if we replace the watch by the TNT both bar, when they coexist,
can theoretically deliver each that energy. But by Frodinger's theorem, as
long as you didn';t try a thing, it's incertain. It's OBVIOUS that IF a
linera time-stream exist, then you CAN'T detonate both TNT bars. So the
energy ISN'T doubled, it's still only represented once.

Thus, only the corrosion energy, naturrally done, is exchanged, and THAT is
the amount of energy that the universe gets: 500 years worth or erosion.

In short: almost nothing. In short, The time-portal doesn't "suck up" much
jiuce, if any at all, to transport the masses in time (it needs some to be
activated, sure, and maybe some to throw the object in time, BUT it doesn't
really exchange energy with the other era... The object does it.


Conclusion: WE still can't be sure of anything...


--
/---------------------------\
| Patrick "Paradak" Rannou. |
| Rannou@info.polymtl.ca    |
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