The Thought Page

This page was put up by me, Mike Mirowski, and has various thoughts from myself and Mike Paus. It is meant as a way to write down some of our thoughts, usually about scientific stuff. Some actual facts will be stated to use as support for our theories. The ultimate dream of this page is to develop ideas for faster-than-light travel. Not all the topics will be directly related to it, but they're interesting nonetheless. Remember, this is a thought page, not a science book. It is intended to open the minds of whoever might read it, and to get them thinking about what may be true in our universe.

The thought page was originally just a piece of paper that Mike Paus and I used to write our ideas on when we got bored in high school classes. He just reminded me of it, so I thought I would turn it into something that we could share with the whole world. Some of the thoughts may seem to be random and disconnected, but as time goes on I will try to connect them to make sense. Chances are, I will also change some as I realize I'm totally wrong on something. Enough background, here it is:

1) First, Einstein's Theories

2) What is a Warp Field?

3) What is Subspace?

4) Faster-Than-Light Travel

5) Time Travel Effects

6) Chaos Theory

7) Multi-verse, not Universe

Before I begin talking about what may seem to be gibberish, you must understand the theories of Einstein. Check out these pages to brush up on your knowledge of the Special Theory of Relativity and the General Theory of Relativity . NOTE: These pages were not written by me, and have some ideas I disagree with. They're pretty good though. They are part of a FAQ that talks about faster-than-light travel, but they also have a very thorough discussion in layman's terms about Einstein's two big theories, so they are quite lengthy. Now, on to my theories! Back to menu...

 

In this section I will use actual facts on what a warp field is to create a theory based on it. By the way, I don't necessarily believe that this is what happens, I'm just brainstorming (that's why this is the "Thought Page").

Imagine that the space-time continuum is a thin rubber sheet. Any object (maybe) that has mass and is lying on the sheet would cause an indentation on the sheet. Imagine that the Earth is a big marble. It causes the rubber sheet to stretch down and an another, much smaller marble nearby would fall into this depression. If the Earth is the large marble, then John Doe would be the small marble. Yes, John makes a depression in the rubber sheet too, but it is insignificant when compared to the Earth's, so John ends up falling toward the Earth. These depressions represent the warp field around an object. Now, they are not exact mathematical representations, but they serve to better visualize what happens. This "indentation" in the rubber sheet (the time-space continuum) is what we will call a warp field. Mathematically speaking, the effects of the indentation should extend to infinity, but we will only consider that portion which has any significant effect on its surroundings.

Gravity is created by a warp field. The warp field causes objects to "feel" as though they are accelerating outward from the planet. Just as when you step on the gas in your car and you get pushed against the seat, inertia keeps objects on the ground. A warp field distorts time, just as an acceleration to a relativistic velocity does. So, in a warp field (on the Earth's surface, for example) time goes a little slower than it would outside the warp field. For example, let's say that an observer outside of Earth's warp field had an atomic clock. He then synchronized it with John Doe's atomic clock on Earth. After a while, if we were to compare their clocks, we would notice a difference in their times. John's would be slightly behind the outside observer's. They would both be slowed down by the Sun's warp field, but that's another reference frame in which they're both affected about the same (if they're about the same distance from the sun).

How is this time variance related to gravity? If our freind John Doe stood at the top of a ladder, then time would go a little faster for him than it would for his wife Jane, who is standing on the ground still. To the outside observer, it would be natural for John to fall to the ground (to have gravity pull him down). This is because of a feeling of acceleration. As John stands on that ladder, time goes a little faster than it would if he was on the ground. Although he is not moving, the field that he is in (the Earth's warp field) appears to be accelerating outward from Earth. Inertia keeps John on the ground, and would make him fall to the earth if he lost his balance.

Why does the field seem to accelerate outward? Is it time itself that accelerates as we travel outward from the center of the warp field? I'll have to make some clarifications later, but time is interwoven with space (as we all know). Therefore, if time accelerates outward, so does the space connected with it, only not really. At any point in time the net movement of the field is zero, which is why the acceleration of the field causes the inertia of the objects in the field make the objects fall downward, toward the center of the field, instead of them remaining in the same place as the field moves away from them. What I'm essentially saying is that because the warp field is not moving in our frame of reference in space-time, yet there is still an acceleration, then the inertial force must actually cause movement toward the center of the field. There might be some support for this in my explanation of subspace, below, in which warp fields exist in subspace, but act in the time-space continuum. Hmmm. I'll keep thinking. (This all may sound crude, but they are initial ideas that will be refined later. Any rational suggestions are welcome) Back to menu...

 

Ok, this section is really going to sound like a bunch of random ideas for a while, until I can straighten things out in my head. Don't mind my brainstorming.
The universe as we know it is in the time-space continuum, which traditionally consists of 4 dimensions (3 for space, and 1 for time). Some people have theorized a hyperspace, subspace, or superspace. I will call this new dimension "subspace", for all those Trekkies out there. A common way to think of subspace is the field that the space-time continuum exists within, therefore it has no time and perhaps no real space, and can link all parts of space-time. If the space-time continuum is a donut, then subspace is the coffee that the donut is floating in. This coffee permeates the donut (wormholes), but the donut itself must obey all the laws of the space-time continuum. Wormholes may be a "doorway" to subspace, or maybe they just are pieces of subspace that happen to link parts of space-time.

Subspace might be the dimension in which warp fields (gravity fields) work. Back to menu...

 

This section is not completed (duh), but will have ideas on warp travel, hyperspace, etc.
*Assume that subspace, hyperspace, superspace, or whatever you want to call it does exist. I won't go into too much theorizing quite yet, but I'll say a few things. First, in order to travel near, or even past the speed of light and not have the relatavistic effects, you might have to create some sort of field that does not work like the "conventional" universe. One theory is that there is another "dimension" in which things go a little crazy. The universe as we know it is in the time-space continuum, which traditionally consists of 4 dimensions (3 for space, and 1 for time). I will call this new dimension "subspace", for all those Trekkies out there. A common way to think of subspace is a dimension that has no time, and can link all parts of space. Read the above section on subspace above for a better explanation. Perhaps

Subspace might be the dimension in which warp fields (gravity fields) work. I'll theorize more on this later. Back to menu...

 

Whether or not traveling back in time is possible is irrelevent to this discussion. I simply theorized on what would happen if we could go back in time.
If something went back in time, the space-time continuum would shift course. This means that the slightest change in past events would cause everything else to happen differently. Some changes may be slight, while others may be more drastic. The Chaos theory helps explain this.

It IS possible for a person to meet himself in the past. This means that a person could even kill his other self (perhaps he's depressed?) without any sort of paradox. How? Let's suppose that events happen a certain way before a person travels back in time. Then, he goes back in time and kills his other self. Events will now progress to make a new future, one that didn't happen before. Suppose that in this new future, time-travel was not invented, so the person was not able to travel back in time and repeat the events.

So how then did he kill his other self? First, stop thinking linearly. Let's think of time for a moment as a baseball field. We'll say that this person took a leisurely stroll from home plate on a straight line to second base, without stepping on first. On this journey, he obviuosly ran over the pitcher's mound. Let's suppose that this run was what happened in "normal" history (as far as this guy is concerned) before he used the time machine. Then, when he got to second base, he ran straight back home again. This represents him traveling back in time. When he reached home plate, his actions caused a series of chain reactions that created a future that turned out slightly different than before (chaos theory becomes huge here). Instead of walking to second base, his new future took him on a windy path to third base. Let's say that third base is just as far in time away from home plate as second base was. So now he is back to the date at which he rode in the time machine, only this time the new future did not have a time machine for him to use. Therefore, he could not make that same trip back to home plate. It's all a matter of reference frames. For a normal, non-time-traveling person, time may go forward in any one of the routes, which was determined by past events (chaos theory). However, for the time-traveler, his reference frame would include the original route, then the trip back, plus the second route of history. So his age includes all of these time periods. Get it? To use an old phrase, it's all relative.

Does this mean that the second base route doesn't exist anymore? YES, the space-time continuum was changed (just like it's always changing), and the guy never reached second base again because he took an alternate route that didn't include second base. In fact chaos theory would say that the second base route never could happen again, though a similar one could. This new route took him to third base instead, which represents a different future than second base. In other words, there can only be one route (one history) on the space-time continuum at any point in time. Let's continue the analogy and say that he continued his new stroll from third base into left field. Now that he's in left field, a time machine is available for him to use. If he were to go back in time to home plate again, he could do so, but he would have to follow the SAME path backwards that he took to get to where he was in left field, because that's the only path that exists now.

This means that changes in the space-time continuum can only affect events that occur in the future, not ones that never will happen (unless you have a time machine). Time only moves forward, so that a time machine would have to actually leave the continuum in order to go back to a previous point in time. Hmmm, subspace comes to mind here...

Some would think that if a person were to kill his other self after traveling back in time, that he would cease to exist. I say that this is not so. I propose that it is all relative (pardon the cliche) and depends on the point of view. From the reference frame of the person who went back in time, there is one reference frame in which he goes back in time and then continues on in a different version of history than what he first knew. But in his reference frame he seems to be aging normally, and the two different histories he went through are just one big history to him. But from the reference frame of his other self, the one that did not go back in time, not as much time had passed, and he still only went through one history (assuming he wasn't killed by his time-traveling other self). So as his time-traveling self came back to meet him, the time-traveler would be older. Does this make sense?

Despite its many downfalls, "Back to the Future" actually demonstrates part of my afore-mentioned theory somewhat well (don't get me wrong, I liked the movie). Remember the part where Doc draws a straight line representing a time-line with 1955 at one point and 1985 at another? He then shows marty how their actions in 1955 caused a tangent to occur, making the "original" 1985 obsolete and a new one to form. This is what I believe should happen. Of course, they could never get the original 1985 back due to chaos, but I'll talk about that in a minute. The point is that there is not a parallel universe or anything, rather the future just plain changes. It's as simple as that. Of course it changes gradually with time, as it always does, it just has some differences from the "original" 1985.

What I really want to make clear here is that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A PARADOX when it comes to time travel or faster than light travel, at least none that I can think of. Let me reiterate: If you go back in time to before you were born and kill your parents, then you simply would not be born in this "new" future. However, that does not mean that you would just disappear because according to you and your past, you DID get born, then travelled back in time. This caused a "new" future, which is only "new" to you. I know this concept is difficult for many to grasp because it's difficult to visualize the space-time continuum and they can't see how the "original" future would allow the "new" one to form. Remember, once you go back in time, the "original" future (your past) doesn't exist anymore to the rest of the universe (only in your memory) and therefore a "new" future can occur, regardless of what you think should happen. This, by the way, also solves the supposed paradoxes that traveling faster than light could bring about.Well, I think I've beaten this dead horse long enough, let's move on to one of my favorite topics.

Chaos Theory

Chaos theory suggests that any small event could have huge impacts on all future events, but it might not. If a butterfly flaps its wings in california, it might cause a chain of events to occur which would cause it to rain in New York City. It might not, but it might. From an outsiders point of view, history will follow NEARLY the same path nomatter what little changes happen. In other words, mankind will develop farms, then industry, then move on into space. However, if you look closer, the individual events might happen very differently depending on how each event before them happen. This scenerio can be viewed from many points of view (fractals, neat stuff), but it will always follow the same general principal.

So what does chaos theory have to do with time travel? As I mentioned above, if the guy who took a certain path to second base went back in time to home plate, he could never again take the same EXACT path to second base. It might be a very similar path, but never the same (statistically speaking). In fact, the route could be extremely different, but it PROBABLY won't be. A significant result of this theory has to do with what some people would want to do if they had a time machine. Suppose that you went back in time and killed Hitler as a kid. You would therefore think that the Nazi party wouldn't develop and millions of people wouldn't die from a holocaust. Wrong! A party called the "Nazis" might not develop, but a similar one would somewhere down the line. It might not have occured in the same decade or even the same century, but human nature and statistical probability would state that a similar situation would still occur, bringing the same lessons with it. So even though it would be nice to say that you saved millions of Jews, perhaps it was a good thing that we learned the lessons when we did, instead of 100 years from now when maybe a billion people would have been killed in the same fashion.

Looking at chaos from a smaller point of view, think of this statement: if you traveled back in time to before you were born (well, conceived, actually), you would not be born! Perhaps your parents would have a child that was similar to you, but a child with your exact genetic makeup would (according to all statistical probabilities) not be born. The reason is that whatever you do after you've gone back in time, nomatter how small and seemingly insignificant, would cause ripples that affect everything after it. This includes the exact sperm and perhaps egg that meet up, each of which has its own distinct genetic makeup. I'll probably write more on this later to clear up some confusion, but this is enough for now on the subject. Back to menu...

 

Note: This part is by Mike Paus.

Read any book on the Big Bang and the first thing it'll say is you couldn't see the Big Bang rush by you because there is no outside vantage viewpoint to watch it from. I claim this is the latest in a long line of human self-centered thinking that originated with the Earth being the center of the Universe, then the Sun being the center of the Universe, then the Galaxy being the center of the Universe, Then the Big Bang being the Center of the Universe. While it is probably true that the incredibly massive explosion 15 billion years ago was the beginning of this Universe, who is to say there isn't anything on the outside of the big Expanding Ball which is our Universe? There could be an infinite number of MULTI-verses strewn about some null space which properties would be like nothing else we humans could truly fathom. Instead of Four dimensions, no dimensions. In this null space multiverses could overlap each other. Or maybe our Universe is perhaps one tiny Part of a larger, infinite universe, and our Universe is like a galaxy, or even just a star. The reason we couldn't see these other universes is the same reason the ancients couldn't fathom other galaxies: they didn't have the tool to observe nor the insight to think of something beyond thier own little patch in the Universe. We should learn from history and not automatically assume ours is the only universe. Time and time again, as soon as we keep thinking we have found the ultimate reference point, (i.e Earth, Sun, Galaxy, Univesre) we always find another one. It will be no different this time, however it may take quite a while to determine what lies on the other side of our own Universe.
-Michael A. Paus
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Last modified: 29 October 1999