There Is No Time Travel

[discocrisco01]

I guess I am not going to my fantasy trip back to see Led Zepplin and the Beatles live in concert. Time travel is not possible. http://news.discovery.com/space/time-travel-impossible-photon-110724.html">Via Discovery

"Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein's theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light -- demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, "obeys the traffic law of the universe."

"Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light," the university said on its website.

"Professor Du's study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves."

The possibility of time travel was raised 10 years ago when scientists discovered superluminal -- or faster-than-light -- propagation of optical pulses in some specific medium, the team said.

It was later found to be a visual effect, but researchers thought it might still be possible for a single photon to exceed light speed.

Du, however, believed Einstein was right and determined to end the debate by measuring the ultimate speed of a single photon, which had not been done before.

[gateley]

1. Ah, I can time travel back to when I saw the Beatles (twice) and

got backstage and met Page, Plant and Bonham when Led Zep was opening for Vanilla Fudge.

Sorry. :pals:

[Blue_In_AK]

3. Were you in Denver, Gateley?

That's where I saw Led Zep and Vanilla Fudge and Spirit in December 1968 -- Led Zeppelin's very first US concert. It was awesome.

[gateley]

8. Nope, Seattle in 1968. Wish Spirit had been on the ticket!

I remember my friend gave me their first album for my birthday in March and I said "WOW - How did you GET this?" because they weren't that well known then (we saw them in December). This is from the website:


Notes:
Led Zeppelin (unbilled) open for Vanilla Fudge.

Press: Leading the Led brigade

The band also made musical memories in Seattle. Its second show in America was here at the Arena, two days after Christmas 1968, opening for the now deservedly forgotten Vanilla Fudge. Led Zeppelin was unknown — its debut album had not yet been released in America — and the audience almost completely ignored them. The houselights were not even turned down during their set, because so many people were still finding their seats. People talked over the music.

It's one of the greatest shows I ever saw. The opening song, a cover of the blues classic "Train Kept A Rollin'," hit me so hard that I stood on my chair, waved my arms and yelled and screamed. Somebody behind me said, "Will you please sit down?" I turned and loudly pleaded, "Didn't you hear that? Don't you get it? Shut up and listen!" Everybody around looked at me like I was nuts.

Two months later, after the album had come out, I started my first radio show as a disc jockey at KOL-FM, Seattle's first progressive rock station, by playing the whole album. The phone response was immediate. "Who is that? What album is that?" I was so happy to tell them.

Over my nearly four years as disc jockey/music director/program director at KOL-FM, I played Led Zeppelin on every one of my shows. I like to think I helped make Led Zeppelin one of Seattle's favorite bands — although I know that Steve Slaton, now at KZOK and previously at KISW, has as big a Zep Jones as I do, and has carried that torch for all the 35 years he's been a fixture on Seattle radio.

That 1968 Arena show wasn't the only memorable Led Zeppelin concert here. There was that odd one at the old Greenlake Aqua Theater in 1969, where some fans jumped in the lake (I met the band backstage and invited them to an after-party at my house; they never showed). Equally unforgettable are shows at the Seattle Pop Festival at Gold Creek Park in Woodinville in 1969, where they pulled out all the stops because they preceded The Doors, and before 65,000 fans in 1977 in the Kingdome, where they nearly overcame the sound problems. (Patrick MacDonald-Seattle Times / Feb. 2008)

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/node/1008/7325 (lots of cool stuff at that link)

I was DEVASTATED to miss the one at the Aqua Theater that's mentioned. I was home bedridden with hepatitis. I recall sitting on my bet at my window just gazing out and feeling so sorry for myself!

[Blue_In_AK]

10. That's just the experience we had.

We had never heard of them, and they blew us all away. (Of course the LSD helped. :hippie: )

Here's the write-up about the Denver concert: http://ledzeppelin.com/show/december-26-1968


So they played Denver on December 26 and Seattle on December 27. Who knew you and I shared this history? :)

[gateley]

18. ...

:hippie:, indeed!

I had a doctor say "HOW did you manage to get backstage?" I said, when you're 16 and cute, no problem! :7

[Blue_In_AK]

20. Oh, you were just a baby!

I was all of 22. :)

[gateley]

21. But you were a HIP old 22! nt

[Blue_In_AK]

22. I was a flower child, all the way.

Now I'm a flower granny. :hippie:

[Morning Dew]

12. gately, did you ever see Ballin' Jack?

They opened for Grand Funk at the St. Paul Civic Center in the Fall of '73.

They blew me away and then I never heard of them again and never found any of their music until the internet came along.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWSXF2aqGCI&feature=related

[gateley]

19. The name rings a bell, I'll listen to the vid tomorrow and let

you know if I have an "oh yeah, THEM!" moment!

In 73 I was going out with a musician and it seemed all we did was talk about music and bands and he seemed to know them all, so maybe...

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Here's to your skepticism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7AupwRJrgM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS1-SZ2L81k

[PoliticAverse]

4. There's always a loophole that hasn't been discovered yet... n/t

[FLPanhandle]

5. Not only that but no Star Trek

Not that any physicist really thought "faster than light" travel was possible anyway.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. Information can travel faster than light. Entangled photons "communicate" instantly. n/t

[BzaDem]

14. That isn't information though. There is no way to use an entangled photon to send one bit of

information to another person faster than light.

Sure, it is possible for two observers (using entangled photons) to "see" the same bit. But they cannot control what the bit is. So there is no way for one observer to communicate to the other observer any bits of information using entangled photons.

[girl gone mad]

15. A unit of quantum information is a qubit, not bit.

[Angry Dragon]

23. YET

[FirstLight]

7. what about quantum physics...?

...and the concept that all is happening NOW... :shrug:


and yes, i am serious. :)

[Bill McBlueState]

9. we know backwards time travel is impossible

If it's possible, it will be invented sometime in the future, and people from the future would be routinely showing up in our era.

[jberryhill]

11. Oh yeah, smarty pants...

The only thing they learned about the collapse of our civilization is that it had something to do with "redneck assholes."

That's why they keep showing up to probe them in order to figure out what happened.

[bayareamike]

13. In terms of FTL travel

What about the possibility of bending the fabric of space itself as the Alcubierre model proposes? Of course, it requires theoretical dark matter that hasn't been discovered yet.

Still, whenever scientists claim to prove a negative I am skeptical. After all, they wouldn't be the first scientists to later be proven wrong. Science evolves through new discoveries. Interesting article nonetheless.

Edit: After rereading the article, all they have done is essentially reconfirmed that light travels at the speed of light. This isn't discouraging news at all.

[RagAss]

16. There is no Time Travel because there is no Time.

[Fumesucker]

17. Clarke's First Law:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.