Quantum Physics 123: Monday 10 October

[ten-and-chips.livejournal.com]

[The Doctor doesn't look rumpled today, nor unprofessional, but if you look at his face long enough, you can see every single year of his life in his eyes.]

Right, I trust you had a pleasant Homecoming weekend. But it's time to get back to work. We had another great discussion last Wednesday, other than the descent into toasters. I'll hope for something half as good today, when you're exhausted.

[He passes back homework. Everyone got at least a C.]

Let's talk about divergence today, and the concept of alternate universes. Many people believe that at certain points in history--focal points--the timeline splits, diverges, and continues in two places where there are different outcomes to the focal event.
Of course, this concept is dependent on time existing in a line, when, at least in my experience, time travellers make it into a tangled, vaguely knot-like mass. But alternate lines do seem to exist, despite how much sense it seems to make.

Have you heard about or experienced alternate timelines? What do you think about the way timespace is set up? Let's discuss this in class. Then I want you to write a short synopsis of your personal ideas as compared to others in the room, for Wednesday.

Comments

[bluemanoncampus.livejournal.com]

As I said in an earlier class period, I am not personally aware of time travel in my reality. However, there was a reasonably popular movie that came out in the 1980s called Back to the Future that explored the concept of a self-correcting timeline that tried to "erase" a time traveler who accidentally disrupted the courtship of his parents before they were married and had him.

Now, according to the reading I've done, I believe that the "space" that contains realities could be best described by analogy. If we theoretically collapse the three spatial dimensions into a single point and represent the mono-flow of time as a straight line, branching timelines could be easily accomodated in a larger 3-dimensional timevolume. Mathematically speaking, a 3 dimensional fractal created with a 1-dimensional object could fit inside such a timevolume without any of the branches intersecting each other. An infinite number of rays can extend from a single point, after all.

This only works with regards to universes that share a common history and physics set, of course. Universes where the laws of physics are radically different or void with regards to each other cannot, obviously, be branched alternates.