From: ghesmiz@brahms.udel.edu (Michael Macchione)
Subject: Re: DS9 was very BAD
Keywords: bbbaaaaadddd?  Think again.
Organization: University of Delaware
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 20:53:33 GMT

In article <1993Jan10.122547.12235@wam.umd.edu> rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari) writes:
>In article <17879@umd5.umd.edu> jblum@hamlet.umd.edu (Hi ho -- Kermit the Frog here...) writes:
>>Seems that the biggest complaint of the DS9-bashers is about the aliens who
>>don't perceive linear time.  How dare an SF TV show come up with an unusual
>>idea, and not explain it to their satisfaction!
>
>
>	Unusual?  Original?  Try, stupid.  Try, "Why don't they try consulting
>	witha freshman physics major before they dump this crap on TV.

Please do not send them to a freshman physics major!!! (A) From personal
experience I've noticed that only about 2 out of every 3 freshman physics
majors graduate with a physics major.{I might be generous}  (B) Those that
do make it past their first year will usually take a number of years to
understand that the current view of the universe, is only our best guess as to
the ultimate nature of reality.  (C) Most freshman have troubles with
Newtonian physics, let alone relativistic quantum mechanics.

>
>
>>"Ah!" say the self-appointed paradox-spotters.  "If they didn't follow linear
>>time, then how come they didn't know everything that was ever going to happen
>>through the episode, etcetera etcetera?"
>>
>>Well, here's a thought for you.  The aliens DID follow time of a sort.
>>Maybe time's arrow doesn't point in the same direction for them, or it's
>>some weird other dimension involved as well, but they do have an order to
>>their existance.  (A little thought shows you that they have to -- otherwise,
>>that entire sequence in the wormhole would have been over in a nothingth of
>>a second.)

All of the responses in this series have been defining non-linear in close
to the same manner.  Non-linear = not in a line.  There are many possible
universes that do not have a linear time. All time in one point would be
one such example.  Length of universe is one instant would be another. 
But consider the following.  Take a standard normal time existence.  Pick
any particular instant of time.  Now start moving backward in time but
instead of retracing history exactly modify events.  Thus creating a
second time line that would have at least one instant in common with the
original time line. These two time lines would create a plane of time.  If
movement is allowed arbitrarily around this plane than Time would be
non-linear and most of the inconsistencies would be taken care.  Things
could cease to exist but never be actually lost.  {Existence of an object
could be limited to a particular region of the plane.  Thus if one leaves
that region of the plane, the object ceases to exist in your time, but  one
could always return to that region thus the object is not entirely lost.}

This plane of time also does not interfere with our apparent view of the
universe. since our view is simply the cross section of that plane with
one line.

>	Typical ST fan reasoning.. "Well maybe.. well, we could have all
>	these other concepts that violate physics.. and that would explain
>	the doozy.. see...

Only when the ultimate reality of the universe is understood could
concepts come across that violate physics.  There are many wild and off
the wall theories that are accepted (or at least tolerated) by scientists
because they do not violate the any known fact; or if they do, ammendments
can be made to the LAWS of physics to make them tolerable.

For example, Time travel is usually considered to be a fantasy in the mind
of most sci-fi fans.  But, there are a few plausible (highly unlikely)
theories that have made it to reputable science publications.  One I can
think of deals with moving one end of a stable worm hole at relativistic
speeds, thus the two ends of the worm hole will exist at different times
(each end would have experienced a different length of time.)





Science fiction is the realm of these sort of improbable ideas, if the
writers only kept their writing to what is considered to be pure everyday
science, then it wouldn't be science fiction, but science fact. or worse
yet normal fiction.


Mike Macchione

{a graduate student in Mathematics with a BA in Astronomy, Physics, and
Mathematics with a concentration in 4 or more dimensional analsis, but a
more or less nice guy}