Time Travel via Parallel Worlds

Commenting on the previous article (about time travel) David (IL) asked "What about parallel worlds?". So here's a different mental model, time travel via parallel worlds.

Quantum mechanics has an interpretation stating that there are infinite parallel universes and we jump between them every time a decision is made (Schrödinger's cat, anyone?). Who(sic!) knows if this is correct.

Anyway, look at these three worlds, lines A,B and C. On the 45° line A we travel at 1 minute per minute (objective time = subjective time). Then we could jump over onto the world of line B where our subjective time proceeds at 1 minute per 1/10 minute of objective time. Moving back would be like moving back in time on world A. Jumping to line C and back would be like moving forward in time on line A. Time Travel via Parallel Worlds.

David (IL) also sent me his plea for the existence of parallel worlds ;-)

Jenny (Ibiza) sent me this cartoon, also from Failblog, claiming I should not ignore the spatial dimensions ;-)

Comments (3) :
David (IL) chides me "Those lines don't look very parallel to me!" Think of them as being a pack of cards in a third dimension coming out of the screen. Each line is at a different slope and is on a separate card, but the cards are parallel (branes) in that extra dimension.
Schorsch (D) asks "How would we be affected by the different time-'speeds'?" I need a separate post to cover that, because it is a lot of stuff. I'll answer in december, OK?
Paul (CH) letches "That Emma Watson would look great even wearing a carpet!" Yes :-) Indeed that dress even looks like an approximation to a triangular Sierpinski carpet ;-)

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 30, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

The Age of Time Travellers

A fter I wrote the spoof about "J. Peasmold Zeitgeist - inventor of Time Travel" back on november 19th 2012, I received a number of mails asking two main questions "How can someone die more than once?" and the related question "How do you count the age of a time-traveller : obviously not just by subtracting their birthdate from the current date as you would for the rest of us?" Let's tackle that last one first.

Since we don't know (yet/ever) how time-travel works, we need a mental model. The most common mental model - as used in the Dr.Who TV series and in the excellent novel "The Time Traveller's Wife" - distinguishes between subjective time as seen by the time traveller and objective time as seen by everyone. In the diagram below I've sketched (albeit badly) subjective time along the horizontal axis and objective time along the vertical axis. Spatial dimensions are ignored. The lines sketched are supposed to be vertical (=time jumps) or at 45° (living at a normal rate). My bad sketch :-

The time traveller is born at the point in time labelled zero and lives at a normal rate (45° line) as his subjective age increases linearly (horizontal scale). At time 1 he jumps (subjectively instantaneously, whatever that means) into the future (vertical line) and arrives at time 2. This is not the H.G.Wells model where subjective time elapses as Wells time machine gets up to speed (whatever THAT means ;-)).

The time traveller then lives at a normal rate until point 3 whenupon(sp?) he jumps (vertically) back into the past at time 4. There are similar forward jumps at points 5,6,7 and 8 and a large backward jump at point 9 in this sketch. And so on and so forth (whatever THAT means ;-).

The 'age' of the time traveller is the displacement along the horizontal axis in this mental model. It is the sum of all of the 45° segments wherein (whenin?) the time traveller lived at a normal rate because we assume all the time jumps to be subjectively 'instantaneous' (H.G.Wells excepted).

That's answered question two "How do you count the age of a time-traveller?". Now let's try answering question one "How can someone (a time traveller) die more than once?"

Look at the normal-life phase between jump 5 and jump 6. On the objective-time (vertical) scale this phase overlaps with the normal-life phase between point 0 and point 1. Objectively, there are two clones alive at the same time, one subjectively young (0-1) and the other subjectively older (between jumps 5 and 6). If the older 'clone' dies then, it doesn't matter because the younger 'clone' is still alive and jumps into the future at point 2 and continues along the jagged line as shown on the diagram, perhaps this clone dying in phase 8. The same argument applies anywhere along the jagged line. So my next question would be "Are time travellers immortal?" I don't know if I have time to answer this before 22/12/2012 ;-)

PS: What is YOUR mental model of time travel? Answers by email between 21/11/2012 AD and 21/12/2012 AD please ;-)

Comments (4) :
David (IL) asks "What about parallel worlds?" I'll cover that in a future post;)
Jenny (Ibiza) asks "Whenupon? What kind of word is that? It's a portmanteau I just made up. Because we do not (yet?) have time travel, we have no vocabulary to deal with it, let alone suitable verb tenses. So I used words like 'clone' with a meaning near the one I wanted and made up words like 'whenin' as an analog to 'wherein' to imply the temporal dimension only. A verbal cappricio :-)
Mary (TX, USA) asks "So what would a Groundhog Day timeloop look like in your notation?" It'd be a sawtooth pattern (45° up, 90° down) running across the page for the guy and up the page for the girl.
David (IL) corrects my answer to Mary "No : the man's sawtooth pattern running across the page is indeed 45° up, 90° down. But the woman's sawtooth pattern running up the page is 45° up, 90° left again." You're right.

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 28, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

Hey, Joe!

Jimi Hendrix would have been seventy today.
I wonder what he would have sounded like?

I was there - at a Cream gig in London(UK) in 1966 - when THIS happened...

Comments (1) :
Xtreme English sent a contemporary photo :-

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 27, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

Goodbye Schumi

Deja vu as Schumi took his last drive (again) as a Formula One racer. Seventh place today, and he let Vettel pass for him to get that extra point :-)

Michael Schumacher was an excellent racing driver, seven times F1 world champion. The link to Wikipedia gives you full details. Unfortunately his F1 come-back turned out to be a flop, much like his attempts at racing motorcycles, where he didn't have that feeling for the edge of the grip when drifting & fell off several times [been there, done that] :-(

Now he has hinted he will take up aerobatic flying. As a flying instructor, I have found that I can teach motorcyclists more quickly how to fly because they have an inherent sense of balance already trained. We'll see how that goes for Schumi. The ultimate test will be the Lomcovak, often performed at airshows or in 4 minute freestyles. [It is not in the Aresti catalogue and therefore may not be flown in competitions] :-( The Lomcovak consists of tumbling the airplane through the pitch axis (end to end) while it travels in a lateral direction (wingtip to wingtip). Watch the video & crap yourself ;-)

Wishing him all the best, I just want to say thankyou for entertaining us all these years (over 20 years now). Good Speed, wherever you go! :-)

Comments (1) :
Schorsch (D) jotted "Here are the main numbers, from today's paper : 7 F1 world-titles, 91 F1 wins, 68 poles, 154 podia, 1441 points, 76 fastest laps, 23,947 kms as leader, 5,096 leader laps, 305 races and 116 starts from the front row." Yes, those are impressive numbers! :-)

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 25, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

'Robinson Crusoe' Equal Rights first edition ;-)

Comments (5) :
Cop Car (USA) grinned "You are incorrigible! (Love it!)" Dark humour ;-)
Jenny (Ibiza) wrote "Excellent timing!" Thanks, lass :-)
Dan Hill (FL, USA) wrote " Join the movement and boycott Black Friday. Better to shun the mayhem and shop from home. Even Amazon ain't all evil; you can download a tool which enables a small part of purchase price to support Jamie Oliver's Foo Revolution, as well as identify other supporting online retailers when you google." We don't have your mayhem day here; it's just a US consumption-phenomenon so far.
Cop Car (USA) added "I saw a t-shirt that applies to you: INCORRIGIBLE, please do not incorrige." If I make one of those I'll be sure to post a photo for you, meanwhile I'll go for "Effable, so please eff me ;-)"
Schorsch (D) "I couldn't find that at Amazon :-(" Perhaps because all Kindle books are palimpsests ? ;-) It was a joke for Americans, man!

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 23, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

In Memoriam J. Peasmold Zeitgeist ;-)

Send YOUR one-liners by email please ;-)

Comments (5) :
Jenny (Ibiza) quipped "Your blog is temporally out of order ;-)" Yup. Actually it's a new approach to teaching schoolchildren a little history with some background (i.e. unexpected and stupid but appropriate reason the Time-Tourist might have died :-) After a few examples like these shown here, the kids get to add one-liners of their own next day after they've done some (Wikipedia) research. So the whole class teaches one-another AND it is fun.
Anne (UK) asks "So what are AUC and AH? Typos?" No, I was teaching the kids that there are other calenders besides the Gregorian one. AUC is anno urba conditae, Latin for 'after the building of the city (Rome)'. Latin was spoken by the occupation forces in Jerusalem back then. 786 AUC translates to 33AD. AH is the Islamic calender, 'Dhu al-Hijja' being the name of the month. The date was the islamic 'sermon on the mount'. Multi-culti 101 ? ;-)
Cop Car points out in her blog that CPT is violated so the arrow of time is not symmetrically bidirectional. Well, that buggers my story :-(
Ivan (Moscow) adds his one-liner "Died too 7 November 1917 at 9:45, hit by the ejection of the Aurora blank" Well, that's revolutionary ;-)
Jenny (Ibiza) asks Ivan "If your revolution was in november, why is it called the october revolution?" Please miss, I can answer that for Ivan. Back then the Russians still used the Julian calender. So 25th Oct Julian AD = 7th november Gregorian calender AD :-)

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 19, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

Cause for cerebration :-)

Comments (9) :
Eva (D) replied "Congratulations & best wishes"
Berthold (D) wrote "I hope you have several thousand more!"
Frank (D) wrote "That's an achievement; looking forward to the boozeup"
Jenny (Ibiza) responded "Go for the full forty!" Next target is the 30,000 or if I'm lucky 33,333. Forty is a few too many, imho. :-)
Norton-Paule (D) wrote "Compliments for your well 25.000 days on the globe. Good luck for the next chapter."
Anne (UK) stole this from FAIL-blog "Congrats on breaking your personal record of most days alive" Don't we all do it daily?
Hans (D) wrote "A real old fart indeed..."
Kees Kennis wrote "Congrats on living 68 years and some days. For your past you lived on riding Bikes, Planes and as a Pilot, woman. All of which makes you strong. For your future you will live on riding Bikes, Planes and as a Pilot, woman. All of which makes you strong."
Xtreme English wrote "Congratulations, I must say. I have been on this happy orb for more than 27,000, and in a few days, that'll change to a firm 27,740! Uff da! Have enjoyed it all, mostly. Onward!" Keep going, lass!

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 18, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

Anagramming David Petraeus ;-)

1. Prude Sad Vitae
2. Separative Dud
3. Supra Deviated
4. Vita Persuaded
5. Depraves Audit
6. Adviser Update
7. Spear Vita, Dude!
8. Dude rapes Vita
9. A private's dude
10. Duvet Paradise

Comments (1) :
Wendy (USA) asks "And how about Paula Broadwell?" There are NO 2 word anagrams of Paula Broadwell afaik.

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 15, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

Tenga en cuenta el juego de palabras¹ ;-)

There are rumours² that the king of Spain³ is not too keen on opera⁴, especially sopranos "¿Por qué no te⁵ Callas?"⁶ ;-)

¹ : which means 'Note the pun'.
² : Starting here ;-)
³ : In a snide remark to Hugo Chavez.
⁴ : Nor on Firefox and Chrome, not to mention IE. But he DOES like a good Safari ;-)
⁵ : Callas could sing notes ranging between F-sharp below Middle C to E-natural above High C :-)
⁶ : which means 'stfu'.

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 12, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

Malala Day

The UN has declared today as "Malala Day" in recognition of the 15-year old girl blogger Malala Yusufzai from Pakistan who was shot by the Taliban for blogging about the difficulty of getting an education as a girl under the aegis of the Taliban.

Although the Taliban are religious fundamentalists who are gun nuts, the October 9th assassination attempt failed despite the assassin firing three shots point blank at her head. The Taliban are strongly against education and women's rights. Sort of a Pakistani Tea-Party :-(

After an emergency operation in Pakistan, she was transferred to Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, UK, which has specialists in repairing her kind of injuries. She is recovering well - albeit slowly - and her father Ziauddin Yusufzai said she wanted to thank well-wishers for their humbling support. "She wants me to tell everyone how grateful she is and is amazed that men, women and children from across the world are interested in her well-being," he said (in good English).

Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown - in his role as UN Special Envoy for Global Education - made a trip to Pakistan to deliver a petition containing more than a million signatures to Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, urging him to make education a reality for all Pakistani children, irrespective of gender. Afaik, about a third of Pakistanis are analphabetic (illiterate).

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 10, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

America has chosen well. Thanks, Yanks :-)

But now the difficult part comes, given that the Reps will still be running in blocking mode. I just wish Obama could rid the House of the scourge of the one-percenters and regulate Wall Street.

BTW : I heard that seven or eight people wrote in "Sarah Palin" for presnit; how big is her family again?

Comments (1) :
Demeur (USA) wrote "Unfortunately it's not up to Obama to rid our congress of the scourge of the Tea Party. But you will note that ten running for congress who held those extremist views will not be seeing the floors of the House or Senate anytime soon. Regrettably there are still 87 members of that radical group still in congress. Whether or not they're willing to play ball remains to be seen. There has been a shift of thinking here in the U.S. of late. I believe it started with Bush. Call it a lack of compassion for lack of a better defining phrase. It is for the most part not what the average American stands for by any means. I just have to look back and wonder exactly how FDR accomplished what he did under those circumstances. Much has changed in our system since then and not for the better. Greed at the top is beyond pervasive and our political system is now controlled not by agreement and common sense but by some bottom line neatly guarded by Washington corporate lobbyists. I hope you get the picture. " I fear they will continue their blocking tactics; let's see what the mid-term elections bring.

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 7, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

Today the USA gets to choose. A Janus choice : repeat/epanorthosis :-(

From a Yurpeen point of view, we would prefer Obama wins. It's a choice between another 4 years of slow improvement and driving off a cliff asap :-(

Whatever. The plañideras are on standby ;-)

Comments (1) : ED (USA) wrote "Them's big words, buddy :-(" Epanorthosis means correcting a word for emphasis, satire, etc, like me deleting the J there. Plañideras are women paid to lament and wail loudly at a funeral, typically seen in Mexico. Illegals arcasm on so many levels ;-)
BTW, I hope ED is your name and not your condition ;-)

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 6, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

Maths Puns

The other pun must have been 90° late, 'cos it got phased out ;-)

I wonder if this joke originated from Sarah Palin's boy, Trig ;-)

Thanks to Doug Alder for sending me the sketch :-)

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 4, 2012 permalink . Comments Email

Sistine Chapel Ceiling 500 Year Anniversary

While most of you were out celebrating Halloween - and a minority suffered at the hands of Sandy - an interesting centenary passed almost unnoticed on wednesday. 500 years ago to the day - 31/10/1512 - Michelangelo completed painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the One True Church^™.

Now there are so many tourists craning their necks and contorting their spines to look at all the magnificent paintings that their mere breath (aka gasps of Looka THAT, Martha!) is threatening to corrode the very paintings they are admiring. As a result, admission may become rationed in the near future. So if you DO get a chance to see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, grab it with both hands (holding binoculars). Those less fortunate can buy a book of photos or look via Wikipedia.

Coincidentally, a mere 5 years later, on the very same day 31/10/1517 one Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses onto the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, upsetting the One True Church^™ more than a little ;-)

Comments (2) :
Xtreme English (USA) wrote "So the breath of the sweaty tourists is threatening to corrode the glorious paintings? Hmph. I'll have to get there before they take it off the tour. I read the wikipedia, and I can't imagine Michaelangelo standing up to do this. It's probably easier, but what about his neck??? Eek. As usual, your blog is full of good things. And I don't think I've truly appreciated Martin Luther until just now." I read that Michelangelo was difficult to work with, so wouldn't have taken lying down ;-) But then his name anagrams into 'Egomaniac Hell' AND into 'Angelical Home' ;-)
Jenny (Ibiza) quipped "@Xtreme English : appreciate Martin Luther more, knowing HIS anagram is a 'manlier truth'" Hey, that's a go(o)d one!

Copyright ^© Stu Savory on November 2, 2012 permalink . Comments Email