11–20 of 195 posts
It could be worse. You could have published a paper on gravity shielding, and be shunned for the rest of time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Podkletnov
As unlikely as these findings are, has anyone actually replicated the experiment?
Perhaps no evidence was found because people from the future have seen this paper and therefore know not to reveal themselves this way!
Really, this is good science; it has a low probability of working, but the cost is very low too (literally a hobby-time expenditure), it asks a lot of interesting questions, and has a reasonable method for finding answers. It could also shine light on the question of how time travel works, if it does. Science should include a healthy portfolio of such experiments. (As opposed to low-probability, very expensive experiments, such as I occasionally wonder about our fusion experiments.)
Perhaps no evidence was found because people from the future have seen this paper and therefore know not to reveal themselves this way!
I like to think that we're all time travellers, collectively collapsing the universe's wavefunction through will alone... And now I'm onto determinism so I'll shut up.
Perhaps no evidence was found because people from the future have seen this paper and therefore know not to reveal themselves this way!
It depends on which model exactly time travel works on. Really, this is good science; it has a low probability of working, but the cost is very low too (literally a hobby-time expenditure), it asks a lot of interesting questions, and has a reasonable method for finding answers. It could also shine light on the question of how time travel works, if it does. Science should include a healthy portfolio of such experiment…
- Time travel as a phenomenon is not known to exist, while fusion is known to exist.
- Fusion experiments are trying to create human-controlled, energy-generating fusion reactions. We know that energy-generating fusion reactions are possible, we just don't know if we can create them under controlled conditions.
- Fusion-generated energy has the possibility to transform that world. Time travel will transform our understanding of the universe, but seems like playing with fire. Were we to discover time travel, we would now have to 'protect time' from 'evil' time travelers.
And if that paper had landed on my desk for review in a top journal, I would have rejected it too! Just because it has the top "Almetric score" means nothing other than it was popular in the social media circles. Where was the tangible scientific contribution in this manuscript? This paper did do a wonderful job of gaining attention, though.
"I should point out that most stock markets around the planet devote considerable resources to looking for temporally anomalous market behavior --- unusual trading patterns before significant news events. When found, such signals are not typically attributed to time travelers, but more prosaically to insider trading."
I agree! This is one reason why we did not look for evidence of time travel in stock market trading. Early on, our group had discussed (briefly) this idea. On one hand, I was glad that finally we had a real criticism to address, but on the other hand, this famous editor's comment indicated to me, once again, that the journal editors did not fully appreciate the novelty, power, simplicity, and falsifiability of our approach. Instead, they gave straw-man criticisms that really meant, in my view, that they did not want to consider a manuscript so unconventional. In my reply, I argued in detail against this criticism and again asked that the manuscript at least be sent out for formal peer review"
I think what the response meant may be - even if a tweet about Pope Francis before Pope Francis was pope was found, it isn't sufficient to prove time travel exist - the tweeter could have a uncle who is involved in vatican politics and the tweeter read some of his uncle's notes. The stock market example was an analogy.
It could be worse. You could have published a paper on gravity shielding, and be shunned for the rest of time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Podkletnov
The former is a reasonable result, and although expected the research provides evidence to support the hypothesis. The latter is an extraordinary result and wise scientific practice would require extraordinary evidence.
(It also helps if you don't get disavowed by your own co-author and by other labs you say confirmed your results.)
It could be worse. You could have published a paper on gravity shielding, and be shunned for the rest of time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Podkletnov
Perhaps no evidence was found because people from the future have seen this paper and therefore know not to reveal themselves this way!
It depends on which model exactly time travel works on. Really, this is good science; it has a low probability of working, but the cost is very low too (literally a hobby-time expenditure), it asks a lot of interesting questions, and has a reasonable method for finding answers. It could also shine light on the question of how time travel works, if it does. Science should include a healthy portfolio of such experiment…