Why Delainy can't be cured of lycanthropy...

[CamDawg]

Wow, I really screwed up my paradox question. From the traveling twin's PoV, he sees his brother traveling near the speed of light while he stands still. Why is it that his brother is older when returns home?

 

This is the first I've heard of the spinning cylindrical solar mass idea. Do you have any refs you can point me to?

[Userunfriendly]

larry niven...tales from known space, etc...one of his short stories...yeah, i know, everything he writes is a short story...sorry, i forgot the title...but the title has to do with the fact that a civilization building this device, the sun exploded to prevent its completion since if the device existed, it would invalidate causality...the universe censored the device...

 

   

[BigRob]

Thoroughly off-topic, but what the hell.

 

You only violate causality with time-travel if you can actually change anything. If you step into the past, but your presence there causes what has already happened to happen, then you are following causality by making the past make sense. Assuming, of course, that the universe even allows time travel.

 

Alternatively, if you travel in time and don't travel in space, the you're gonna end up floating in space and unable to do anything. The Earth moves at 90 miles/second * around the sun, so travel back in time just 1 second and you'd be about 90 miles up in the air (or under the ground. Magma, anyone?) Add to this the movement of the solar system and the galaxy through space and you're gonna end up somewhere out by Mars (assuming that you don't keep your original momentum).

 

 

* this value taken from the Monty Python "space" song in the Meaning of Life. It is reasonably accurate, as far as I know.  

[CamDawg]

I think we were way OT a few posts back.

 

Now we're running into the quantum mechanical arguments on the subject. There have been serious studies on this issue, and there are two theories which are believed to be allowed (i.e. they haven't been debunked yet), although not very practical.

 

A black hole is simply a concentration of matter so great that it forms a singularity in spacetime. If the black hole is spinning, the singularity actually forms a ring. Passing through the center of the ring would move you to a different place in space and time. All you need to do is manipulate a black hole and survive the event horizon. Simple! I think this is similar to Niven's spinning cylindrical mass idea. The second theory is UU's portable wormhole. In this scenario, all you need to do is achieve near lightspeed travel and create wormholes.

 

Causality is a problem, but quantum mechanics offers a way behind its back. One possible theory runs like this (and this will definitely be familiar to any sci-fi fan): whenever a quantum object has a decision, every possible path is followed. A simple example would be the classic dual-slit experiment and the wave/particle nature of electrons. Thus the universe is split into an infinite set of copies, all following different paths. If you were to go back into time and affect your own past, you could move along a different universe from that point forward.

 

Sorry, I'll stop rambling now.

 

On-topic: Um yeah, like, Delainy's a werewolf, right? Um... yeah. Yep. Sure is.

[BigRob]

The second theory is UU's portable wormhole.

 

Yeah, the Unseen University's got lots of good stuff.  

 

 

Slightly more on topic.... Lycanthropy can be seen as an infected vs. inherited disease.

 

An infected lycanthrope's struggles against the infection produce the periodic changes and bloodlust associated with lycanthropy.

 

A born lycanthrope already has the disease built into every part of the body (a bit like an endogenous retrovirus), doesn't fight it and instead can harness the disease for its own benefit.

 

A neat, scientific (and of course totally worthless) explanation for the behaviour of Lycanthropy.  

[Userunfriendly]

I think we were way OT a few posts back.

 

Now we're running into the quantum mechanical arguments on the subject. There have been serious studies on this issue, and there are two theories which are believed to be allowed (i.e. they haven't been debunked yet), although not very practical.

 

A black hole is simply a concentration of matter so great that it forms a singularity in spacetime. If the black hole is spinning, the singularity actually forms a ring. Passing through the center of the ring would move you to a different place in space and time. All you need to do is manipulate a black hole and survive the event horizon. Simple! I think this is similar to Niven's spinning cylindrical mass idea. The second theory is UU's portable wormhole. In this scenario, all you need to do is achieve near lightspeed travel and create wormholes.

 

Causality is a problem, but quantum mechanics offers a way behind its back. One possible theory runs like this (and this will definitely be familiar to any sci-fi fan): whenever a quantum object has a decision, every possible path is followed. A simple example would be the classic dual-slit experiment and the wave/particle nature of electrons. Thus the universe is split into an infinite set of copies, all following different paths. If you were to go back into time and affect your own past, you could move along a different universe from that point forward.

 

Sorry, I'll stop rambling now.

 

On-topic: Um yeah, like, Delainy's a werewolf, right? Um... yeah. Yep. Sure is.

the every possible states expressed is one explaination for a classic experiment in quantum physics...a light source is shone at a block of steel, lead, or similarly dense opaque material...put a photometer at the other end, and light can be detected thru the opaque light block...one explaination is that in another quantum possibility, the steel block does not exist...

 

another experiment has shown it is possible to travel faster than light...or rather to make light travel faster than the "c" constant...

 

all these i sorta remember from episodes of "nova" and other science shows, i am probably misremembering stuff left and right...

 

ask me about what i know, like networks and lans and wans and routing protocols...

 

oh yeah, werewolves are cool!!!