02 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Ontological paradox
Because of the possibility of influencing the past while time traveling, one way of explaining why history does not change is by saying that whatever has happened was meant to happen. A time traveler attempting to alter the past in this model, intentionally or not, would only be fulfilling his role in creating history, not changing it. The Novikov self-consistency principle proposes that contradictory causal loops cannot form, but that consistent ones can. This theory, however, only makes sen... 1 
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notesA paradox of time-travel. If a person takes information back in time and gives it to someone, who becomes the originator of that information, then where did the information originate?
22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Science Fiction and Science as a Two-Way Street
Science fiction like Star Trek is not only good fun but it also serves a serious purpose, that of expanding the
human imagination. We may not yet be able to boldly go where no man (or woman) has gone before, but at least we can do it in the mind. We can explore how the human spirit might respond to future developments in science and we can speculate on what those developments might be. There is a two-way trade between science fiction and science. Science fiction suggests ideas that scientists...
1 Hawking observes that SF inspires science, but science often turns up things that are stranger than fiction.
22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
The Picard Maneuver
Speaking of time, I think it is time to introduce the Picard Maneuver. Jean-Luc became famous for introducing this tactic while stationed aboard the Stargazer. Even though it involves warp travel, or super light speed, which I have argued is impossible in the context of special relativity alone, it does so for just an instant and it fits in nicely with the discussions here. In the Picard Maneuver, in order to confuse an attacking enemy vessel, one's own ship is accelerated to warp speed for a... 1 notes
notesThe captain of the Enterprise has the ship travel faster than light, leaving an image of itself traveling at the speed of light from its previous location; meaning Star Trek's universe would be filled with such apparitions.
