I’m not a big fan of movies that use time travel as a key component of the plot. It makes my brain hurt, a simple process, going through all the options and considering the results, if, if, if…… With time travel part of the equation you can justify anything and yet at the same time prove it can’t be so. Aargh.
Now I come across this article on quantum mechanics which is doing the same thing. The article says that ‘we may live in a world in which windows un-break and cold cups of coffee spontaneously heat up’ It is explained by quantum entanglement but goes against every bit of logic and science that I now of. It even has a nice little twist of erasing your memory so you never remember the episodes. Now I’m sure that if a cold cup of coffee heated upon a regular basis, even if our memories are wiped we would have a big queue at hospitals where people were in for scalding or if windows repaired themselves we would have a lot of pissed off glaziers who had been called out for nothing. I just find it too far fetched to believe. Like God we are expected to take a leap of faith and accept this as fact.
Apparently this has been proved mathematically but when you get down to this level very few understand the math and it is easy to prove anything. Luckily though his maths managed to erase your memory as well so you don’t remember it. I think this guy is in the wrong field, there must be room in the climate change camp for someone like this. He can mathematically prove that the temperatures at the monitoring stations spontaneously increased, our memories have been erased but the readings were recorded electronically and quantum entanglement is not yet aware it needs to erase computer memory as well.
I think I need a job like this guy. I have theories on many things. Where can I apply?
Now wouldn’t it be embarrassing if the theory works out to be true and I read, understood and was happy with it but had simply had my memory erased. Oh wait. My brain is hurting again.
That business of erasure of memory is always the key problem with time travel. When I returned last Sunday, four days before I left, I couldn’t remember a thing but that could have been put down to the drink.
I had the same problem. I paid my taxes and then the taxmans memory was erased so he didn’t believe me. He put it down to the drin also. Lucky for this theory that drink can also be blamed.
“Apparently this has been proved mathematically but when you get down to this level very few understand the math and it is easy to prove anything”
Really? Then please tell me how to prove the statement that I have worked on for 26 years of my professional life.
Timothy,
LOL. OK. I give up on that one. You know I meant that when you are down to proving things with mathematics alone then it can get so complicated only a few people can understand it and so they could say the Earth is flat and provide several hundred pages of mathematics to prove it and people like me would be unable to check it. Few could.
Some things you know but can’t prove mathematically. Doesn’t make them less true.
So, someone who is not me, could provide you with the proof you need. Although from my understanding of earlier work on the subject the answer is 42. I seem to have lost the working out.
Lord T – some things you know aren’t true as well. Just take the example of different religions.
The longer that I study, the more convinced I am that mathematical models, properly done, are more ‘true’ than any other means of looking at reality.
As for your answer, it has changed since Adam’s death, to 12. I did prove that in class one day. However, the problem that I am working on is a yes/no answer, so that doesn’t help.
Timothy,
Some things you now are not true but you can have difficulty in actually proving it. So true. How do you disprove something like a religion?
IMO Mathematical models can prove a lot of things and we need to rely on them more and more however they are only as good as the data you feed into them and the algorithms can be wrong. They need to have both the data and the algorithms open for review.
Changed to 12? I must have missed that meeting but it does explain why I keep losing all the bets.
Isn’t Yes/No simply a binary problem. We solve them all the time. Should I get up? Shall I have an extra five mins? She looks nice I wonder if she……. You get the idea.