Chapter 4, wherein I come up with a brilliant scientific deduction and then go home. What else would I use as a title?
So today dawned a bit late for me; I usually don’t sleep until 9 but I was pretty wiped. A quick jaunt to Starbucks and I was ready for the day! First stop: a panel on Wikipedia, of all things. It was pretty interesting. Some deranged fan put up a Wiki page about me, which is both flattering and scary. But there you go. I was interested in the panel discussion, as my page has sometimes been defaced slightly, no doubt by a juvenile or juveniles whom I have ticked off by being so unfortunately mired in reality. The panel had lots of good info for me, and I’ll look into Wikipedia a little more.
I then went to a panel discussion on time travel, which was fun! Niven was there, and a cool thing happened. The discussion was about how you could tell if a time-traveler had been mucking in the timeline. I am of the assumption that you can’t tell, since by definition any changes (s)he makes will alter the whole timeline, past and future, and everything will change leaving no trace.
There was lots of fun discussion, but it all danced around the point. People made statistical arguments (like, an event happens that is so unlikely it must have been due to intervention– a notion that I find distasteful, and not just because twinkie Intelligent Design proponents use it), and historical ones, but I think there may be a physical solution. And because I am so, so evil, I won’t reveal it here. It deserves some thought, and about 1000 words at least to flesh it out. Who knows? I might even publish it!
I then had my Koffee Klatsch, which was basically me and four people sitting around a table and just chatting. That was pretty nice, especially since an old friend I hadn’t seen since my undergrad days showed up (Hi Laurie!). Very cool. It was nice to talk with her, even if only for a few minutes.
Then I finally got Niven to autograph my copy of the Ringworld role-playing game. Hurray! Right next door, Seth Shostak was giving a talk on SETI, and it was nice to see the audience was pretty big compared to what I had been seeing for other talks, including ones by the guests of honor. Anyway, by then it was getting late, so I said goodbye, hopped in my car, and came home.
All in all, I had a fun time, and I would be tempted to go again next year. But I think I’d rather go to the really big cons, like the upcoming Worldcon in LA. That should be a blast! And I just found out, I’m officially on the guest list!
So that’s it. I survived another experience, had some fun, talked with friends, and walked away with a couple of interesting ideas, too. I call that a success.
May 28th, 2006 at 11:47 pm
I’m going to assume your physical method doesn’t revolve around detecting “chronometric particles.” That would be one ST reference too many. Maybe we would use gravity wave detectors like LIGO … assuming a “ripple in time” causes ripples in gravity.
I guess it isn’t late enough – I can’t think of a realistic way to detect time travel.
jbs
May 29th, 2006 at 2:42 am
Space-time, right? So maybe by altering time, you also alter space. You could build a detector of some sort that detected changes in space? Just a wild idea
May 29th, 2006 at 6:22 am
That is my big problem with altering the past. By altering the timeline, you are altering all future events from that point on. Which means that your are changing the momentum of A LOT of particles. Can you imagine the gigantic unbelievably incredibly huge amount of energy it would take to make even a minor change in the timeline?
Because when you make even a small change that change will ripple throughout the universe. So if you time travel, and have the ability to affect the timeline, you are effectively slightly changing the entire universe. That seems rather unrealistic to me.
May 29th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Hey, Wikipedia needs all the skilled science explainers that it can get.
May 29th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Aw man! I was going to put an article about you! Well,
at least I don’t have to now.
May 29th, 2006 at 11:05 am
John Sandlin, you pretty much nailed it. This isn’t so much a physics problem as it is an engineering one. I was having fun tinkering with the idea, which is why I’m thinking of writing it up as an essay.
One thing I like about Niven: he takes an idea and runs with it, playing it out all the way. I have some notes on other fun science topics, and when I can figure out what kind of venue I can write them for, I’ll start typing.
May 30th, 2006 at 10:05 am
WorldCon’s a blast, if you’re ready for the sensory-overload three ring circus atmosphere. If you’re not ready for it, it can be more than a bit overwhelming.
The great thing about the smaller conventions is the intimacy you experienced at Baycon. At the really big cons, you don’t get as many relaxed gab sessions with the guests–the huge crowds simply don’t allow for it. For my money, Armadillocon in Austin is one of the best around. Jame P. Hogan’s GOH this year, as well.
May 30th, 2006 at 11:07 am
I was at WorldCon in Baltimore a few years ago, so I’m ready. I have a few friends going, and someday I’ll tell the story of why Joe Haldeman owes me a drink. Rick Sternbach is going– he designed Star Trek ships for years, and was an infrequent but valuable poster on the BAUT bulletin board. Lots of other good folks attending too, so I’m really excited!
James Hogan. Hmph. He promoted Velikovski-ism for quite some time, though I don’t know if he still does. I’d love to debate him… and he’ll be at WorldCon too.
May 30th, 2006 at 11:21 am
This supposed debate as to how you would know if a time traveler changed history is pointless, since anyone can effortlessly prove that time travel is intrinsically impossible. There is no way you could have time travel without paradoxes, so therefore time travel can’t exist.
Jeffery Winkler
http://www.geocities.com/jefferywinkler
May 30th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Thank you for coming to Baycon this year. I certainly hope you can come again next year, we enjoyed having you. Next time, bring Mrs. Bad Astronomy and the little one. (remember, there’s lots of family friendly programming).
Nora Kelly
Programming Operations
Baycon ‘06
Tales of Purple Space
May 31st, 2006 at 4:38 am
Love the reference to the “Little Bad Astronomer”. Seems like a little spotter scope on the main telescope!
Ivan.
June 18th, 2009 at 3:28 am
Jace Hall has brought together some of the greats from past Star Trek on http://jacehall.tv. It’s definitely worth a look.