Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

idlewords.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 81 posts

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#41

Post by radley »

voltagex_ wrote: post #27
eslaught wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steins;Gate[1] contains references to John Titor[2]. I actually thought they had made him up until I looked on Wikipedia and discovered he was a real ("real") conspiracy theory. An English version of the game is now up on Steam. Highly recommended. http://store.steampowered.com/app/412830/ [1]: Edit: the game. Not sure about the anime. [2]: Edit: In the game at least this is more in depth than just a password. Saying…

Thoroughly offtopic, would you recommend Steins Gate? I haven't watched any anime for a while but enjoyed Ergo Proxy and Eden of the East.

The anime is very good, however it starts really slow and builds up.

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#42

Post by thinkloop »

Mahn wrote: post #39
thinkloop wrote: post #26

There is no such thing as time, or time travel. There are only positions of particles. To go back in time by 1 minute, all particles in the universe have to be moved/changed back to their previous position. This is not time travel, but universe manipulation except for one subject. If there were parallel universes with every possible outcome and you traveled to one, this would also not be time travel, but a moving to…

OTOH time is relative to the observer and certain universe phenomena, such as black holes, can distort how time passes in different points of the space dimension. The general idea that a point in time is how we define a particular snapshot of particles is probably right, but time as a dimension also appears to be a bit more complex than how we perceive it from Earth, which we should also not forget.

"Time", aka chemical and physical reactions, can happen faster or slower depending on the environment. But this is only slightly different than putting food in the fridge. The food will mold slower, but it's not time travel.

The closest we can get to faking time travel is by manipulating the speed of a subset of reactions (like our body's aging) by going the speed of light or freezing ourselves, etc. But it's still fake, "time" continues, you just managed to manipulate specific reactions in a peculiar way.

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#43

Post by allemagne »

thinkloop wrote: post #26

There is no such thing as time, or time travel. There are only positions of particles. To go back in time by 1 minute, all particles in the universe have to be moved/changed back to their previous position. This is not time travel, but universe manipulation except for one subject. If there were parallel universes with every possible outcome and you traveled to one, this would also not be time travel, but a moving to…

Time travel is dubious, but in what useful sense is there no such thing as time? Define the phenomenon of time dilation or just the concept of motion without it. Particles go from position to position... but describing being at state X and then being at state Y seems to strongly imply the existence of what we understand as time.

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#44

Post by sandworm101 »

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/time_travel/johnti...

Interesting fiction. I'm not physicist, but anything pumping out enough gravity to bend a laser beam 45* over a couple feet (see pic in link) should also collapse that car into a sphere. I also laugh at seeing that while the laser seems bent, all the other light passing through the same area seems unperturbed.

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#45

Post by PeCaN »

eslaught wrote: post #35
PeCaN wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The visual novel is really fantastic, though fairly slow-moving if you're not used to the medium. (Visual novels in general tend to be very detailed and very slow-paced. Some, like Higurashi, use this to great effect, but it can also annoy people not used to them.) If you're not sure about reading it, the anime is also really good. It's obviously much less detailed than the visual novel (compressing ~40 hours of visu…

What would you recommend to try next for someone who liked Steins;Gate (the visual novel)?

For visual novels? Probably Root Double, Ever17, and Umineko. All have really great character development like Steins;Gate and are pretty thoughtful. Root Double has well-done sci-fi elements as well.

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#46

Post by nickpsecurity »

joshschreuder wrote: post #11
mirimir wrote: post #7

OK, I must point to http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Robert-A.-Hei...

Predestination, starring Ethan Hawke, is a great adaptation of Heinlein's story too.

It was a great movie. Slow for about the first half doing a lot of character development, then moving quick into all kinds of territory, and then mindbending finish. I didn't know it was adapted from Heinlein. Darnit. Scratch it off my list of "original" movies to put it on "risky but good."

Also, worth mentioning that the actor playing "John" had one of best presentations I've ever seen. Smart that they picked at "tomboy" for it as that fit most of the movie really well. Also, showed John's more straightforward acting took more talent than one would figure at first.

EDIT: "All You Zombies." Extra obvious now. Wish I read it sooner. :)

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#48

Post by itchyjunk »

voltagex_ wrote: post #27
eslaught wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steins;Gate[1] contains references to John Titor[2]. I actually thought they had made him up until I looked on Wikipedia and discovered he was a real ("real") conspiracy theory. An English version of the game is now up on Steam. Highly recommended. http://store.steampowered.com/app/412830/ [1]: Edit: the game. Not sure about the anime. [2]: Edit: In the game at least this is more in depth than just a password. Saying…

Thoroughly offtopic, would you recommend Steins Gate? I haven't watched any anime for a while but enjoyed Ergo Proxy and Eden of the East.

I really enjoyed it and I would highly recommend it. It had the deep philosophical aspects to it but has a decent amount of humor to go along with it as well. I have been recommended the visual novel which i haven't read though. There is also a movie to go along with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steins;Gate#Anime

Re: Best Practices for Time Travelers (2003)

#49

Post by itchyjunk »

PeCaN wrote: post #45
eslaught wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you recommend to try next for someone who liked Steins;Gate (the visual novel)?

For visual novels? Probably Root Double, Ever17, and Umineko. All have really great character development like Steins;Gate and are pretty thoughtful. Root Double has well-done sci-fi elements as well.

I haven't read the visual novel for either one but i've enjoyed the anime immensely. So I would recommend you give Haruhi Suzumiya [0] a shot.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruhi_Suzumiya

Post reply on HN