ROFL i knew someone was going to ask that...

hmm, u guys should read "Timeline" by Michael Crichton. Its a good book theyre making into a movie and it has to do with time travel and parallel universes. And a lot of the stuff is true because he does tons of research and credits all kinds of sources and [censored] in all his books.
Heh, howstuffworks is a cool site, I used it for my science project. L8r

I have never heard anything (from someone respectable) about us using all of our brain. Even subconciously. We've all seen the studies where they have the red to purple brain thing and only parts of it have color. Yeah, howstuffworks is my favorite site. the cure for boredom or curiosity. I had never heard anything about quantum computing usin any alternate dimensions or universes or any of that, but I haven't looked into so I don't know. One thing that interests me is the way we store information in our brain. If it is just because we have so much space to store it, or if we can just store it so efficently..like a kind of memory compression or something. I don't know...

Another thing I have been thinking about, if time travel ever is possible, i don't think we could go into the past since time moves forward. And if we could go into the past, i think we wouldn't be able to affect anything. Another thing i have wondered, if something is creating light (or changing something into light, whatever) and it is accelerating in the direction the light is going...then would the light be moving faster when whatever is creating it is moving faster? And if not, and the object was moving at the speed of light (yeah i know, but if) then would there be alot of light just building up in the same place? Would it just make it brighter or could it even happen?

I don't know if any of that makes sense cause i just woke up. Anyways, SR, you can feel free to flame me man. I won't fight back more than one post.

I didn't mean we use all of our brain's potential. Just that we use a lot more of our brains than people seem to think we do. It's just that our subconscious uses more than our conscious mind does.
Everything I have read about quantum computers (that goes into any depth) talks about parallel universes. Check here , and here . I can provide more links if you like.
It's believed that we don't store information in any one part of our brain, but that we store it in patterns throughout our brains.
That's impossible. You couldn't go into the past and not affect anything.
Now that's just basic realtivity theory. Light appears to travel at the same speed for all observers. Yourself included. So if you're speeding along in a spaceship and shining a light in the direction you're going, it appears to race away from you at the speed of light. The thing that changes for another observer is time. The light also appears to be moving at the speed of light to a stationary observer as well.
LOL! Feel free to "fight back" all you want. I won't flame you.

Well what I meant by not being able to affect anything is that let's say you go back 5 seconds. I mean that whatever you try to do it doesn't do anything. I don't really know what I mean completely. Right now, you can't change something that happened in the past because you aren't in the past, you are here in the present. I was just thinking that since you can't change the past now that maybe you wouldn't be able to go back and change it. And if there are infinate universes, I think that they would all steam from the same beginning but each one is a single variation which changes it from then on...like the difference between this universe and the next universe might be me hitting backspace. And then if that were true then maybe if you went back in time you would actually be shifting universes if you could change something and went forwards in time. I don't know...maybe it is all just stuff i think should go in scifi books. Ever see the Langoliers? Never read the book though.

Yeah I see what you mean on the time thing with the light, but still wouldn't that mean that if the thing creating the light went faster than than the speed of light and then slowed down or something that the observer might see something happen backwards for a little while? I am not really paying much attention to what I am saying so maybe after I post if i think about it it will be more obvious or maybe this won't make any sense.

Another thing...is light considered to be (by the majority) a continuous wave kind of thing, or a broken particle kind of thing? I had always heard wave but i have heard particle a few times too. Heh..just going on. But if the light is created and moves one speed, then whatever is creating it catches up to it and is ceating light could more than one wave/particle (or whatever) of light be in the same place? I don't really know what all I am asking, just wondering.

I get what you meant about using our minds, yeah that makes sense now. I will check out the links on quantum computing, see I had never really heard much of anything about it at all so I was surprised sort of by the alternate dimensions thing.

Yeah..well you suck! Balls! and poo! Yeah..balls and poo.

one theory of time that I've always like is that you can't go back into the past and change it - cause you'd actually be carrying out what has already been done.

I.E. You go back into the past to prevent Bill Clinton from reaching the presidency, but then you find out - Bill was in the presidency BECAUSE you had already, in the past, attempted to stop him. You had instead, CAUSED it inadvertently.

Under that theory there is nothing you can do to change the past - cause you've already tried. heh. I wonder if this is a little too deep for some of you.

like in time machine...

never seen it actually. I read the science fiction series dragon riders of pern which used that concept.

One theory about time travel to the past is that it wouldn't effect this specific dimension, but because just traveling to the past to bein with would alter SOMETHING, it would simply create an alternate dimension for everything that altered.

If it turns out that time travel is ever realy possible, i think the theory SR pointed out would be the most correct. However, I don't really think time travel is possible, perhaps travel to alternate dimensions yes, but not time travel. Only reason I don't think it is possible, becuase anytime you start to think about it, there are a million situations that cuase endless logic loops.

For instance, the old question of: "What would happen if you kill your father or mother before they concieve you"
I mean, if you kill them, you can never be born, making it impossible for you to kill them, or perhaps you never were born becuase sometime in the future you did kill your parents, but then how are you here now?

If someone put that situation out before, im sorry, I really didn't feel like reading all the posts.

well, under my favorite theory, all attempts to kill your father must have failed cause you ARE alive. heh

Under secular theory, I don't believe time travel is possible - nor are there multiple dimensions.

However, under theistic theory, it may be possible that God can revert the universe to an earlier state - or a future state. Since he knews the past and the future and is all-powerful - than sure, he can cause time travel if he wants. It's like taking a tape recorder and pushing rewind and fast forward. There's nothing stopping him from creating multiple dimensions too - who knows, maybe he already has. Maybe angel's can flit between our reality and some other parallel universe that exists right here and now but we cannot see unless God wills it.

Actually that's what a lot of scientists think. If you go back in time you actually go to an alternate timeline, or you create an alternate timeline. And yes, I've seen the movie and read the book. The book is better.
Stop trying not to sound stupid. Questions are good. At least you're not pretending to know what you're talking about.
Um, OK, you said IF you go faster than the speed of light.... But you cannot deccelerate to less than the speed of light anymore that you can accelerate beyond it. There are theoretical particles called tachyons that move faster than light, but the thing is, as they lose energy the go faster. As they gain energy, they slow down towards the speed of light. But there's no way they can slow down to less than the speed of light. It's as much of a barrier from the other side as it is on this side. The speed of light is an asymptotic limit (I think that's the right term).
Well, it's both. It's called wave/particle duality. Photons, and matter appear to behave both like waves and like particles at the same time. It's kind of weird actually.
I don't like that theory. It's interesting to think about, but it negates free will. And it just seems too unlikely.
You seem to be using the term dimension when you actually mean alternate universe. It can be kind of confusing.
But if you travel to an alternate universe (another timeline) then you avoid all the contradictions.
What is secular theory? And what do you mean by multiple dimensions? No alternate universes? Quantum computers probably wouldn't work without them.
Lets not turn this thread into a religious debate.

I'm not debating whether God is real or not. I'm just providing possibilities for both theories. So no worries about religious debate from my end... *grumble about people fearing to say the word "God" in a serious manner*

Secular theory = Basically Atheism, universe was born by a big bang or other means.

Whatever they're talking about in quantom computing is not what I'm talking about. There's a confusion of definition there. What I'm talking about is other "dimensions" (by the most widely accepted meaning) where life forms are communicating and going about their business invisible to us.

Let a man state his opinion without having to defend something which can not be proved or disproved.

"one theory of time that I've always like is..."

There's what I'm talking about. I'm not saying other people are WRONG with their concept of time travel - I just like this one the most - made the most sense in my mind to how the way things work from my angle.

So gosh darnit - I believe you can't time travel unless some supernatural being like GOD (fear dat word! A sermon must be coming on!), which some people believe in, is out there to cause it.

LOL! I just wanted to avoid a religious debate. I've started one of those before, but I quickly discovered people can't handle it. They can't control their emotions. And a lot of people just don't know how to argue.
OK.
OK, dimension:
"A measure of spatial extent, especially width, height, or length."
I don't know anything about quantum computing involving other dimensions. Can you post a link or something perhaps? The only quantum computing I know about involves other universes. Or at least, strange quantum effects in this universe. But not in other dimensions...
I'm not forcing anyone to defend their opinion. I ask more about peoples opinions to learn more about what they think, and I ask questions to understand. If someone wants to just say, "That's my opinion and I don't feel like defending it" then that's fine.
Well I like it too, as an interesting (if remote) possibility. But I don't believe it's true (my opinion).

I often attempt to engage others in debate because I enjoy debating. I'm not trying to make others feel threatened by jeapordizing their beliefs. I would think that an intelligent person would want to challenge their beliefs, to see what they can learn.

I'm not trying to sound anything. I am sure there is evidence supporting the theory that nothing can accelerate past the speed of light or it wouldn't be considered common knowledge, (I plan to search around for it after I make this post), but I have never seen any of it so i am not sure. Also, how do we know we aren't already moving that fast? The universe is expanding, but do we know if it isn't also sliding as a whole. If it were going faster than the speed of light then maybe light created would go faster and since it is relative, we think of us as still, then it would appear to be light speed. Like I said, i haven't looked into this much yet, so that could have a few holes in it.

I don't think it negates free will. To me it seems like this, months ago I had a choice of doing my homework or not doing it. Whatever decision I made, I had free will then. Looking back on it, I might wish I had of chosen differently, but it already happened. So let's say you went back in time to do something, before you went back in time you didn't know you were going to do it. So in the loop of what you did you had already done before you went back in time etc. All theory, but i like it because it makes sense.

As for the argument over dimensions or universes, i think it is pretty obvious what someone means when they say alternate dimension. Let's not nitpick. Unless by alternate universe you mean another universe that is physically far away from here but i thought the universe included everything.

Edit: i had the quotes messed up.

Of course i am not done looking around about breaking the speed of light and such, but going back to where this topic began, howstuffworks.com, found this: http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item6.htm

I think it will probably be replaced by another piece of news soon since it has a general name, so here is the thing. I'll edit it out or a mod can if they think it is a waste to paste it in the post.

"Once thought to be unbreakable, the speed of light as set by the laws of physics has been exceeded in two recent experiments, according to a New York Times news report. The speed of light in a vacuum, or empty space, is 186,000 miles per second. Exceeding this speed jeopardizes the entire theory of relativity, which rests on the idea that light speed is the universal limit to how fast anything can travel.
Scientists have found ways to break that speed limit. In one experiment performed by researchers at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, N.J., a pulse of light was sent through a transparent chamber filled with specially prepared cesium gas and was pushed to travel at speeds of 300 times the normal speed of light. The light travels so fast that the main part of the light pulse exits the chamber even before it enters. Theoretically, this means that you could see a moment in time before it actually takes place.

Researchers at the NEC declined to comment on the experiment while it is under review by Nature, a weekly peer-reviewed science journal. However, Kazuko Anderson, a spokesperson with the NEC in New York, confirmed the accuracy of the New York Times report.

In a second superluminal study, published in the May 22 issue of Physical Review Letters, scientists at the Italian National Research Council of Florence shone light beams at a curved mirror. The mirror then shot the beams back at the instrument that measured the rays' speeds. The beam coming from the center of the mirror was measured at 5 percent to 7 percent faster than light speed. The authors said this effect only works over relatively short distances, such as the one meter used by the Italian researchers.

Exceeding the speed of light may have future implications for space travel and computer chips, but for now scientists are uncertain about the practical use of this discovery. Neither experiment was able to use a light beam to carry any information or prove that an object of any weight would be able to travel beyond light speed."

I've seen that before. The speed of light was not exceeded though. I did a little more research than you. Go here to see why the speed of light wasn't exceeded.

Doesn't make sense to me. If you go back in time in the same timeline, but can't alter anything, then you don't have free will. Even if you think you do.
OK, the universe can't be sliding, because by definition the universe is everything. There can be nothing for it to slide in, or towards, because there's nothing "outside" the universe to move relative to. The concept of outside the universe doesn't even make sense.
But there are some "holes" in the theory of relativity. For example the speed of light barrier is only local. You could theoretically (if you had enought energy) warp space around you and make a warp bubble. Just like star trek. Within this bubble you would be moving slower than the speed of light, but the bubble itself would be moving, so from an outside point of view, the speeds would stack and you'd effectively be moving faster than light. Look up the name Miguel Alcubierre.

I may be wrong, but I think there was actually a startrek(next generation) episode based on a theory like that. I know it is a TV show, but the theory it presented was pretty interesting. For every decision you make in your life, 100s of new paralle universes developed, each one based on how the world would be if you made a different decision.

I just finished reading some of the links on quantum computing that were in this thread and one of the 100s I found on google.

If you want a good explination of quantum computer, I found this to explain it well, and simply enough for me to still understand

http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~westside/quantum-intro.html

There are articles like hosted by almost every major university out there. I like this one becuase it is cross referenced well.

From what I understand, quantum computing could have to do with parralle universes, then again it may not. It is all based on superposition, where a qubit( quantum bit) is no longer restrained to just 1 or 0, but could be 1 and 0 at the same time. It's easier to understand if you follow the experiment given in the article. Depending on what quantum theory you believe this could be acheived in various ways, however the multible universe theory is the most widely excepted from what I have read so far.

Here are a few more good links
http://www.qubit.org/oldsite/intros/comp/comp.html

http://feynman.media.mit.edu/quanta/nmrqc-darpa/qc/local.html

Thanks for the link explaining the other article on breaking the speed of light thing. I guess i should have phrased what i said differenty; i don't mean all the universe, just what we know of it, all the galaxies and things that supposedly came from the big bang. Since the universe is supposed to be infinately big or whatnot, there could be other things we don't or may never know about in the universe. Sorry for wording it wrong. I still don't like the idea that you are only moving if it is compared to something else. About it negating free will, i guess it is all in how you look at it.

One thing i think would be really interesting, is traveling to a different dimension (universe, whatever) where there are completely different laws of physics and all that. I think there are alot of things we still can't explain, so maybe in a different universe they would be different.

Religion and Science is a bit deep for me SR,
(Yes I belive in god)

But I belive in the possibility of time travle. I mean why not. Man has made the impossible hapen time and again. But I do agre just by you going back you would change things. Just thrusting matter back in time would cause change. And if you moved anything or did anything, talked to anyone, I belive it would cause a fork in time. 2 time lines, call them demesions if you want. But I think it would be the same demession just one after the change and the one you lived.

Personaly I do not belive anyone should ever do it. Not to see if a person on trial realy did it, or even to just check things out, or to get rich. You never know what you could change.

Just to butt in real quick . . .

The missing word is parallel. Par and several other people have used it, so you all mean the same thing. It's parallel universes though.

And check out some stuff by Michio Kaku and superstring theory. Superstring doesn't directly relate to this (though dimensions-wise it does), but it's interesting nonetheless, and Michio has written extensively on multiple dimentions/parallel universes, though how many of these are online is unknown to me.

Think of things like this

::puts barret on::

I could choose to go and [censored] my neighbors wife, and I could choose not to, two different descisions, in some lifeline i would have done the one, and off of that i would have gotten caught and i would have not gotten caught, and from that and normal time that i see as normal now it'd be totally different but the same only with that descision.

Everything happenes, its just how do you want it to seem to the you you think you are .

::takes off hat and slams head against desk::

PS, my military hat makes me feel smart and sexy ::hides in corner::

Isn't superstring theory an effort to create the unified theory( aka theory of everything)? I remeber reading an article by him on the net once blue, I will try to find it again and post a link up. Superstring theory--a world based on vibrating strings existing in ten dimensional hyperspace--all seems a bit silly when you say it like that.

http://www.mkaku.org/hyper.html

Haha, I knew I would find it. It was real hidden though. Who woulda thought he would host articles he has written on his website. Hell don't these big scientist people know that you are supposed to hide all the really good information on some obscure FTP server.

Anyway, there is alot of other stuff he has written there too.