Their theory prevents a person traveling back in time, but sending messages back might be possible. What message would you send to your younger self if you could?
One of the major goals of the [Large Hadron Collider] is to find the elusive Higgs boson: the particle that physicists invoke to explain why particles like protons, neutrons and electrons have mass. If the collider succeeds in producing the Higgs boson, some scientists predict that it will create a second particle, called the Higgs singlet, at the same time.
According to Weiler and Ho’s theory, these singlets should have the ability to jump into an extra, fifth dimension where they can move either forward or backward in time and reappear in the future or past.
“One of the attractive things about this approach to time travel is that it avoids all the big paradoxes,” Weiler said. “Because time travel is limited to these special particles, it is not possible for a man to travel back in time and murder one of his parents before he himself is born, for example. However, if scientists could control the production of Higgs singlets, they might be able to send messages to the past or future.”
The test of the researchers’ theory will be whether the physicists monitoring the collider begin seeing Higgs singlet particles and their decay products spontaneously appearing. If they do, Weiler and Ho believe that they will have been produced by particles that travel back in time to appear before the collisions that produced them.
I don’t see the point of sending messages into the future. Since we have been doing this since wirtten language was invented. the whole point of the written word is to save message for someone in the future to read.
So unless we can get replies back from the future, like some kina time-warp SMS, I see no need for it.
Also this doesn’t avoid a paradox at all. If you can send a message back in time, it can STILL effect (indirectly) what the future will become.
I could send a message in the past to someone before 1971 and instruct someone to kill my parents before I was conceived, or before my parents got married.
Plus there is the butterfly effect too, where even the smallest event in the past can largely change the future. I could send a message back to when my parents were little kids, and tell my father that the girl who will be my mother has the “cooties” and he wouldn’t wanna spend time with him and I’d never would have been conceived.
I’d like Sarah Palin and Miss South Carolina share there thoughts on this.
To my past self, you will be faced with a life altering decision of enormous magnitude. You will not know which path to take.
My advice is: go with VHS and skip the Betamax.
#22 They will be the same as yours
Dear Self,
Do not be fooled by any messages, or even particles, purporting to be from the future. Time travel is logically impossible and cannot exist. If you are reading this, you are mentally ill. Quickly – seek the help of a licensed quantum physicist.
-Future Self (if you are lucky & do as I say)
This is old news. Time travel was invented way back in 2053.
I would tell myself to buy gold at $300 an ounce.
We just learned that this is possible. They won’t start listening for messages until they figure out how it works. Therefore, messages can only be understood after that.
tell my father that the girl who will be my mother has the “cooties” and he wouldn’t wanna spend time with him and I’d never would have been conceived.
If she “put out” Dad might not have cared if she had cooties.
Stay away from Scary Mary!
Every event is unique and cannot be repeated or subsequently altered. Traveling back in time is impossible.
Why if people could send messages back in time the stock market would be just crazy, going up and down for no apparent reasons… oh, wait
We don’t know what we don’t know. One thing I have learned though, is never say never.
It’s the go/come paradox. Once you go, you can never come. Back that is.
Hawking just said time travel to the past is impossible because of “feedback” in the form of cosmic rays. Same kind of feedback as exists with microphones and speakers which was a nice effective demonstration except that such feedback does exist? THAT analogy demonstrates that time travel to the past is possible but would blow everything up, whatever that would mean in a multi-dimensional way.
I guess thats another paradox.
I sent myself a message that said not to read this post. Like the rebel asshole I am I ignored it and read it anyway. damn.
#36 Monster’s Lawyer, I always knew you were a rebel. At a time several years ago when the public seemed to take the side of an adorable little girl threatening seemingly justified violence against a monster, you represented the monster and asserted his inherent right to try to scare her. That took guts, and just maybe changed a few minds
#37 Gary – Ah yes, those were the good old days. You’ll be glad to know that the monster is working out his final days of employment before retiring. He’s thinking about being a Walmart Greeter when he retires just to keep in practice.
Can’t send information to the past. Maybe you can send higgs singlets, or pigs in a blanket or whatever, but they won’t contain any information.
INFORMATION cannot travel faster than the speed of light. It’s up to you to figure out what isn’t information.
I explained this before but as usual nobody was listening.
You’re not listening still.
Tell my Dad to schedule his MRI a week earlier.