Time, Negative Time observed

[GrayHare]

The mix of benefits and dangers of knowledge has been discussed for ages, witness the Tree of Knowledge, Pandora's box, among others. So far we've kept a lid on the worst dangers, perhaps in part because of the age-old discussions mentioned. I like the benefits of the consequent higher standard of living and creature comforts. How long can those benefits endure? No one knows the value of L in the Drake Equation, the average length of time in years that civilizations maintain technology.

 

[CaptTom]

Each of those has harmed man more than improved them in my opinion.

Tagging along for some high-tech procedures in a couple of large city hospitals the past week left me with an observation:

We have some absolutely fantastic, futuristic technology to help save and improve our lives. And some smart, compassionate and talented people pursuing the same goal.

Yet, we seem to expend even more talent and treasure on creating weapons to kill and destroy.

I'm not convinced we should blame the technology.

 

[Chuckanut]

There’s no doubt the IRS is already drafting provisions to prevent the possibility of time-travel Roth conversions. After all, if someone could go back in time to convert traditional retirement funds into a Roth IRA during a low-tax year, the government would miss out on significant revenue. It’s almost amusing to imagine them trying to legislate for something as far-fetched as time travel, but the complexity of the tax code suggests they’d leave no loophole unaddressed even in theoretical scenarios. Who knows, maybe they’re also preparing for quantum accounting regulations!

Darn! If humanity can master negative time sooner than they did or will do, I could get what I need to fix my Time Machine and return home.

 

[Retch The Grate]

Sabine Hossenfelder​

Negative Time is Real, Physicists Confirm. Kind Of.​

Sabine is pretty problematic unfortunately. If you want a scientist's critique of how she presents things is harmful:

 

[CaptTom]

I've watched both Sabine and Dave. I find myself leaning more toward Dave's opinion. Admittedly he gets a bit animated with his debunking efforts. But I find it hard to disagree with him on much. As with anything remotely click-baity, you need to look at multiple sources and take them all with a grain of salt.

 

[jim584672]

On a slightly different topic atomic clocks are so accurate today that gravitational time dilation can be measured at a millimeter scale. The idea of a master clock for the world isn't possible at this level of precision.

Gravitational time dilation measured on millimetre scale in atomic clocks​

Gravitational time dilation measured on millimetre scale in atomic clocks – Physics World

Experiments could lead to "relativistic geodesy"

physicsworld.com

 

[MC Rider]

Time travel does not exist? It's been a staple of Sci Fi and cartoons for years.
You can't tell me the Wayback Machine is not real.

 

[GrayHare]

Dave admits he's not a physicist, which makes me wonder if he is qualified to comment on physicist Sabine. For example, Dave opens by complimenting Sabine on her Entropy vid, without realizing her description of Entropy is very non-standard. Specifically, Sabine talks about how as the universe ages, i.e. as it moves toward higher entropy, less and less information is available. That's a backwards way to express the concept because it is opposite the foundation of widely-accepted quantum information theory, part of the scientific approach Dave favors. That theory says information cannot be destroyed, so the quantity of it can't decrease as the universe ages. But Dave doesn't know Sabine is presenting the Entropy subject in a very non-standard way, or is simply wrong. That leaves me wondering what else Dave is missing.

 

[grasshopper]

The hands on the clock go.....

 

[Gumby]

I has been a very long time since I studied thermodynamics, but, as I recall, ever increasing entropy in a closed system (or, more properly, never decreasing entropy) is how we know that time is unidirectional.

As far as the wave packet experiment, it would seem to me that if you slow one of the waves and shift the harmonic, then you are creating a different wave packet and therefore measuring two different things, not one thing over time.

 

[CaptTom]

You can't tell me the Wayback Machine is not real.

Of course it's real: Wayback Machine

Dave admits he's not a physicist, which makes me wonder if he is qualified to comment on physicist Sabine.

Which is why I hedged a bit on taking Dave's side in this particular pissing contest. But at least he admits where his credentials end. And I always learn something, even when he's just dumping on someone. Plus it keeps my skepticism sharp.

 

[Koolau]

EZPZ. Right?

Or as Niels Bohr said;

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.

In the Physics course where I learned about quantum theory ca 1967, we all called the course "Science Fiction."