Limericaust
19-02-2008, 23:37
So, when I was playing Portal, I had a random brainstorm that I've just now remembered, and, as with all other thoughts that enter my head, I feel compelled to share it with NSG.
To fully appreciate this idea, you will need to be familiar with the physics of "portals"; if you haven't played the game, the portals in question are two-way gateways between two points in space, through which momentum is conserved (also, go out and get the game, because if you haven't played Portal you're missing out).
Now, armed with my albeit limited knowledge of physics, I surmised that the following apparatus could be constructed with portals:
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/5350/omgztimetravel1zj8.jpg
Say you have an incurable disease and don't trust modern cryogenics/cryonic suspension, or you just can't wait for Starcraft 2; for whatever reason, you want to travel to the future. You get in the pod, and the rails' magnetic field will accelerate it to a relativistic speed. Your velocity will always be down (or up, doesn't matter), but due to the portals, you will actually be traversing the same space over and over.
Thanks to our knowledge of relativity, we know that the passage of time is slower the faster an object is moving. If you were traveling at the speed of light, then time would essentially stop (though as far as we know actually accelerating to the speed of light is impossible, but it's possible to get arbitrarily close). This is similar to the common thought experiment in which a person boards a spaceship, travels at relativistic speeds, and returns to earth to find that he/she has aged only a fraction of the time that has passed on the (relatively) motionless earth (the portals make the process much simpler, and aren't limited by the speed limits of contemporary space vehicles).
Therefore, by using this device, you could spend only a few minutes inside, by your reckoning, and then emerge to discover that years have passed on the outside. Thus you have TRAVELED THROUGH TIME.
So, what do you think? Have I found a new direction for those cryonics nuts' hope (no offense to any cryonics nuts on this board ;) ?
To fully appreciate this idea, you will need to be familiar with the physics of "portals"; if you haven't played the game, the portals in question are two-way gateways between two points in space, through which momentum is conserved (also, go out and get the game, because if you haven't played Portal you're missing out).
Now, armed with my albeit limited knowledge of physics, I surmised that the following apparatus could be constructed with portals:
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/5350/omgztimetravel1zj8.jpg
Say you have an incurable disease and don't trust modern cryogenics/cryonic suspension, or you just can't wait for Starcraft 2; for whatever reason, you want to travel to the future. You get in the pod, and the rails' magnetic field will accelerate it to a relativistic speed. Your velocity will always be down (or up, doesn't matter), but due to the portals, you will actually be traversing the same space over and over.
Thanks to our knowledge of relativity, we know that the passage of time is slower the faster an object is moving. If you were traveling at the speed of light, then time would essentially stop (though as far as we know actually accelerating to the speed of light is impossible, but it's possible to get arbitrarily close). This is similar to the common thought experiment in which a person boards a spaceship, travels at relativistic speeds, and returns to earth to find that he/she has aged only a fraction of the time that has passed on the (relatively) motionless earth (the portals make the process much simpler, and aren't limited by the speed limits of contemporary space vehicles).
Therefore, by using this device, you could spend only a few minutes inside, by your reckoning, and then emerge to discover that years have passed on the outside. Thus you have TRAVELED THROUGH TIME.
So, what do you think? Have I found a new direction for those cryonics nuts' hope (no offense to any cryonics nuts on this board ;) ?