Re: Time

From: George Levy <GLevy.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 13:43:45 -0700

Tim

I agree with you. Scientific American did not do a good job covering the
issue of time. The days of Martin Gardner are over. Paul Davies' article
on time travel making use of worm holes is just a rehash of "old
science-fiction technology" of the fifties and sixties. Falling into a
worm hole is identical to falling into a black hole and would completely
destroy any (information carried by a) time traveler and would therefore
make time travel pointless and unverifiable. I was disappointed by the
absence of any mention of the MWI. The MWI, in my opinion, is essential
in understanding time and has the potential to lead to "new
science-fiction technology" for time travel and parallel universe travel
"a la Roger Zelazny."

George

Tim May wrote:

> The September issue of "Scientific American" is usually/always devoted
> to some special theme. This issue is ostensibly devoted to "Time" and
> problems associated with it. Articles include some physics articles,
> some perception/psychology articles, and one or two on clocks and
> timepieces.
>
> Sad to say, "Sci Am" has fallen far from its once lofty perch.
> Flipping through the issue at a boostore, I found the first _half_ of
> the thin magazine devoted to advertising, general news, and a special
> 20-plus-page insert devoted to Italy and its industries, blah blah.
>
> Once the articles started, they were of course no longer the meaty,
> detailed dozen or so solid articles. (Used to be the special September
> issues were thicker than usual!) The articles were short, filled with
> colorful graphics (but with less content than the SciAm graphics of
> the 1950s-recent), but carried little information.
>
> The articles may be of use in introducing people to notions like
> "block time," but the entire idea is covered in just a few paragraphs.
> Not much to go on.
>
> Paul Davies does one of the physics articles on time...nothing in his
> article not covered in much more detail in the books by Huw Price,
> Julian Barbour, Kip Thorne, and others.
>
> I didn't buy the issue.
>
> Meanwhile, my study of lattice and order continues. I'll say more in
> the future (if it exists, that is).
>
>
> --Tim May
> (.sig for Everything list background)
> Corralitos, CA. Born in 1951. Retired from Intel in 1986.
> Current main interest: category and topos theory, math, quantum
> reality, cosmology.
> Background: physics, Intel, crypto, Cypherpunks
>
>
Received on Sat Aug 31 2002 - 13:44:20 PDT