Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The Rocket That Ran Into Itself (Or So We Wish)

A time machine without motion is doomed to collide with itself once it begins its transit back in time. This is easy enough to understand: once the stationary time machine begins the time-travel process, it will occupy space and time already occupied by an earlier incarnation of the time machine itself. Of course, this seems to be a self-abortive process.

It also seems that this may offer a clue as to why time travel (into the past, that is) has not yet been accomplished (that we know of). A corollary to this idea may be that it prevents faster-than-light (FTL) travel as well. As a rocket approaches the speed of light, there are relativistic effects, from the vantage point of a stationary observer, that prevent it from ever reaching the speed of light. The rocket’s length along the direction of travel decreases and approaches zero. The rocket’s mass approaches infinity. Time aboard the rocket, according to the stationary observer, becomes eternity.

Could this threshold, the speed of light in a vacuum, be rooted in the same property of space-time that inhibits the stationary time machine from its journey into the past? Could it be that the would-be FTL rocket simply starts to run into itself?

Scientists define inertia as the property of matter that causes it to resist acceleration. It is represented in the textbooks as mass. This mass is one of the primary studies in physics; it has rules, structure, and function, and its behavior can be observed. Where is the inertia hidden in matter? Is it a property of space-time? Bernard Haisch, in his book The God Theory, discusses his work with the zero-point field, describing it as “a sea of quantum light,” the very energy that is everywhere in the vacuum of the cosmos. He and a collaborator have developed a theory that it is this zero-point field that causes mass to resist acceleration. While not being fully embraced by most of the physics community, it has become a subject of serious discussion among physicists.

With all this being said, there are some questions that arise:

  • What thresholds does the zero-point field introduce?
  • Does the zero-point field behave differently for bodies approaching the speed of light?
  • Could the zero-point field prevent time travel?
  • Does the zero-point field act as some sort of guardian to prevent bodies from transitioning from one reference frame to another?

A more basic question is: is inertia simply the universe’s way of keeping us from running into ourselves?

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