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What Happened When We Tried to Publish a Real Paper Investigating Time Travel

thewinnower.com

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Re: What Happened When We Tried to Publish a Real Paper Investigating Time Travel

#171
post #46

Imagine: Google itself could find proof of this, given that it's organizing the world's information. In fact, Google is one of the only entities that could actually 'prove' this out. What would they do if they identified the time traveller? Locate him/her? Use his knowledge to further their plans? The knowledge may be potentially world-changing; whoever finds the traveller will be in a very powerful position. Script…

It did happen, there is even a movie about it

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1862079

Re: What Happened When We Tried to Publish a Real Paper Investigating Time Travel

#173
Method described would work only on Time Travellers that are stuck in our time with no technical means of going back and no detailed documented knowledge of current time [1]. Two queries chosen (pope and some comet) are non significant in daily life. You would be lucky to find 1 in 10000 people that ever in their lives formulated a question about those subjects out loud. In my opinion it would be more prudent to look for signs of prior knowledge about natural disasters. Stranded time traveller will be more interested in avoiding tsunami, earthquake, tornado or a flood, and will most likely know general time frame instead of detailed dates (unless he possesses [1] device).

*1: $25 WikiReader Pocket Wikipedia

http://www.amazon.com/WikiReader-PANREADER-Pocket-Wikipedia/...

Something tells me time traveller from the future would have modernized equivalent.

Re: What Happened When We Tried to Publish a Real Paper Investigating Time Travel

#177
post #79
post #50

The biggest issue that I see with publishing this work in a physics journal is that although time travel is certainly a concept in physics, the research involved here is not physics research. I'd describe it as sociological(?) research intended to shed light on a problem of interest to physics. That may seem like splitting hairs, but there's a real question of competence here: as a physicist, I don't feel especially…

I agree. His attempts to get his type of paper being published in established physics journals are sort of explained in his last paragraph though. He thinks that there's "room in the world of publishing for science motivated primarily BY public interest, instead of IN THE public interest". Certainly there's no reason why such a journal to exist--free speech and all. I'm not a physicist, but certainly saying that such…

>> motivated primarily BY public interest, instead of IN THE public interest

Isn't this what the Discovery Channel or a show like Myth Buster's does?

Re: What Happened When We Tried to Publish a Real Paper Investigating Time Travel

#178

The "Real Paper investigating Time Travel" involved Searching the the Internet for two terms. The conclusion that these searches, even if they had been found, (which they were not) implied "time traveling Internet savvy people from the future searching for events in their past" is a staggering leap. Might as well theorize fairies from another dimension materialized into ours to poke fun at internet search analyzers.…

How would you explain it, though?

What is there to explain? They found nothing, which does not necessarily explain anything.

Re: What Happened When We Tried to Publish a Real Paper Investigating Time Travel

#179
post #25
post #17

"In the response, the editor said that (s)he has now sent the article out to another editor, one who is quite famous in this area, but who also agreed that this paper should be rejected without being sent out for peer review. In this reply, the famous editor said: "I should point out that most stock markets around the planet devote considerable resources to looking for temporally anomalous market behavior --- unusual…

> the tweeter could have a uncle who is involved in vatican politics and the tweeter read some of his uncle's notes That wouldn't explain knowing about the name. Of course it is possible that someone would have guessed at possible names for a pope. Since the name is inspired from the name of Francis of Assisi, it is not inconceivable, so a search would still not be proof. But the name "Pope Francis" did not exist unt…

This point is quite immaterial. If they did find a mention of "pope Francis", then yes, they would have to consider alternative explanations before jumping to the conclusion of time travel. However, they didn't, so it's perfectly reasonably to report that there is no evidence of time travelers talking of pope Francis.

Re: What Happened When We Tried to Publish a Real Paper Investigating Time Travel

#180
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. His attempts to get his type of paper being published in established physics journals are sort of explained in his last paragraph though. He thinks that there's "room in the world of publishing for science motivated primarily BY public interest, instead of IN THE public interest". Certainly there's no reason why such a journal to exist--free speech and all. I'm not a physicist, but certainly saying that such…

>> motivated primarily BY public interest, instead of IN THE public interest Isn't this what the Discovery Channel or a show like Myth Buster's does?

This is a good question, although if that is the case, it appears that public interest mainly involves fire, guns, explosions, and a risk of self-harm.
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