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        general >> truth >> John Titor
        
(Message started by: James Fingas on Nov 26^th, 2003, 5:08am)

Title: John Titor
Post by James Fingas on Nov 26^th, 2003, 5:08am

I won't tell you my thoughts about John Titor right now, but read this website (http://www.johntitor.com/) and let me know what you think.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Nov 26^th, 2003, 12:01pm

An interesting story.. Not that I'm buying into..
But hey, if he's right, and didn't change our time-line we'll know by 2005..

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Nov 28^th, 2003, 11:41am

I would say this guy is a conservative christian from an independent church. He is a reader of science fiction with leanings towards the "back-to-basics" movement. He created this scam identity to express his views as a "warning from the future".

Discussions of the work of Kerr and Tipling to a greater sophistication than he delivers are available in the writings of several sci-fi authors, for example, Robert Forward and Isaac Asimov. Though he illustrates a familiarity with physics ideas, he says he is not a physicist, and in this I believe him. He description of time distortion around a singularity reveals a severe miscomprehension of the theory.

He starts writing at the end of a highly devisive election campaign, predicting the division would eventually deepen into civil war. Yet in his predictions, he never mentions the outcome of the election, even though he presumably would know it, and further it bears directly on the claims he is making. And even though this outcome is unknown for so long after the election itself. The only reason I can find for not mentioning the outcome is: he doesn't know it, and making the prediction carries a high risk of exposure. Instead, he only discusses things in the broadest generality, so that he can avoid contradicting events as they happen.

Psychics have for over a century practiced this sort of prediction - making dire warnings that cannot be pinned down to specific details. At least, not until well after the psychic has his or her money. "John" is applying the same techniques. Only his payment is attention and the chance to push his point of view.

As towr says though, we will have proof one way or another in 2005 (or at least, definite proof against, or strong but not definite proof for.)

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by James Fingas on Dec 10^th, 2003, 5:18am

The thing that made me really doubt his claims is when he says that "most power" in the future is generated from "really efficient solar cells".

This is ridiculous if you know the first thing about the power grid (and any voltage-based power grid, including a 12VDC grid, which he hints at). You connect as many devices as you want, and the power generation facility has to generate enough power for all of them, or the voltage drops.

Solar cells provide pretty much a fixed voltage (they can do so anyways, using "peak power trackers"). But when it is dark (winter evenings, thunderstorms), not even very efficient solar cells can produce any power. Solar cells right now range from zero to 30% efficiency. Solar cells you might use for power generation are around 8%. Super-efficient solar cells might be 80% efficient. But when it's dark, they will produce roughly zero power (it's just not there to collect).

So with solar cells providing most of your power, you don't have any reliability at all (barring some amazing energy storage device. Here's (http://www.wipp.carlsbad.nm.us/science/energy/powertower.htm) a cool technology, but it's definitely not "solar cells"). You're better off running a diesel generator and not even using the solar power, because you don't know when it'll be available.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Dec 10^th, 2003, 6:16am

He describes his world as much less centralized. So large power stations are unlikely, that pretty much excludes nuclear energy.
We're allready over nearing the top of fossil fuel production, and the reserves left in the ground won't last too long (though that's been exclaimed for the last fifty years or so). So I would bet they'd not choose to rely on that 30 years in the future.
Tidal and geothermal energy is only really available in certain areas, so the majority of people wouldn't rely on that. Which leaves wind and solar. Currently 50% efficient energy cells are allready being develloped, so I don't think that's an unlikely candidate.. (Also consider he describes live as much simpler, and less energy-dependant)

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by pair o' ducks on Dec 10^th, 2003, 7:18am

A few things that don't make sense in his story:
He goes back to '75 and then forward to 2000 to a world 2% different from his own. There he meets himself as a child. I don't think that's possible. If his presence in the past changed his parents lives and actions at all, when they had a child, a different sperm would have fertilized the ovum and a completely different child would be born. Every person younger than 25 would be a completely different person. How could that not change the world's history far more than 2%?

He claims to be a Christian, yet if there are an infinite number of universes and an infinite number of John Titors with an infinite number more being created every second, does he have an infinite number of souls that will go to an infinite number of heavens (and half of them go to an infinite number of hells)?

Take an infinite number of time travelers who all go back in time to the same place and date, but they do not go back to their own past but to a reasonably close one. There were infinitely fewer universes existing in the past, so shouldn't every world that receives a time traveler receive an infinite number of them?
When he returns to his own world, he can only get reasonably close to the one he left, so, since there are an infinite number of them to choose from, the probability that any world that sends out a time traveler will get him back is 0 (although they may get a different one back, or an infinite number of different ones). Or if he's continuing to diverge into every possible future, creating new universes even while he's time traveling, what universes are created while he's not in any worldline?

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by James Fingas on Dec 10^th, 2003, 7:59am

on 12/10/03 at 06:16:00, towr wrote:

He describes his world as much less centralized. So large power stations are unlikely, that pretty much excludes nuclear energy.

not really (http://www.adn.com/front/story/4214182p-4226215c.html)

Quote:

We're allready over nearing the top of fossil fuel production, and the reserves left in the ground won't last too long (though that's been exclaimed for the last fifty years or so). So I would bet they'd not choose to rely on that 30 years in the future.

I'd agree with you here, although the problem with fossil fuels is not that they'll be gone, it's just that they'll be harder to get out, so they'll cost more. They're never completely gone.

Quote:

Tidal and geothermal energy is only really available in certain areas, so the majority of people wouldn't rely on that.

You forgot hydroelectric energy, but I'll agree with you on these ones.

Quote:

Which leaves wind and solar. Currently 50% efficient energy cells are allready being develloped, so I don't think that's an unlikely candidate.. (Also consider he describes live as much simpler, and less energy-dependant)

The point about current solar cells is not that they're not efficient; it's that the efficient ones aren't economical. But you can't get around the fact that you will have REALLY REALLY unreliable power. You can't have a grid based off of just solar cells. To use just solar cells, you need a whole lot of batteries, in which case why bother with a grid? Just make each house power itself. Batteries don't have significant improvements with scale.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Dec 10^th, 2003, 9:09am

on 12/10/03 at 07:59:08, James Fingas wrote:

not really (http://www.adn.com/front/story/4214182p-4226215c.html)

I disagree.. Where are you gonna get the fuel?
It's undoable to mine it at a small scale, moreso because it's only available at few sites.. (not to mention there's only enough for a few decades anyway)

Quote:

The point about current solar cells is not that they're not efficient; it's that the efficient ones aren't economical.

Good point there.. someone has to make them, which must be viable..
I think the newer ones are though. They're starting to use less difficult materials than silicon (which needs to be relatively pure to start off with to be of use)

Quote:

But you can't get around the fact that you will have REALLY REALLY unreliable power.

I disagree. Even when it's cloudy they give enough energy if you have your roof covered in them. And at night people sleep (simple life again), so you don't need much electricity then anyway, the little you do need can easily be stored in batteries imo..

Quote:

You can't have a grid based off of just solar cells. To use just solar cells, you need a whole lot of batteries, in which case why bother with a grid? Just make each house power itself.

Perhaps each house is part of the grid, that'd solve where to put the solar cells. And it adds redundancy if any house needs more power every now and then. Chances are they don't need a lot of power all the time, only every once in a while, sharing resources would satisfy their requirements.
Note, my dad has a solar panel on his house, and a friend of his six or so. And any power they don't use goes right into the regular power grid (and they get money back for it of course). Hardly inconceivable..

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Dec 10^th, 2003, 9:49am

on 12/10/03 at 07:18:39, pair o' ducks wrote:

A few things that don't make sense in his story:
He goes back to '75 and then forward to 2000 to a world 2% different from his own.

the 200 world isn't the future of that '75 world though. Since he'd have to wait 25 years to reach that one.

Quote:

Every person younger than 25 would be a completely different person.

Not really, few people have that much influence. Certainly not a time traveller that keeps a low profile. Most people would do what they'd have done anyway. I'm partial to the view that most such interference would ripple out like a stone thrown in lake, it changes a little, but after a while it looks pretty much the same.

Quote:

He claims to be a Christian, yet if there are an infinite number of universes and an infinite number of John Titors with an infinite number more being created every second, does he have an infinite number of souls that will go to an infinite number of heavens (and half of them go to an infinite number of hells)?

That's hardly any different from dilemmas christians, or other faiths face in our world. It's called belief, it needn't be rational, though undoubtedly one can rationalize it.

Quote:

Take an infinite number of time travelers who all go back in time to the same place and date, but they do not go back to their own past but to a reasonably close one. There were infinitely fewer universes existing in the past, so shouldn't every world that receives a time traveler receive an infinite number of them?

No, though it would be likely one world might receive more and another less.
Even though there are an infinite number of universe, it might very well be that there's only a 1 in 100 (probably less) chance a universe has timetravelers going to other universe. And since there are an infinite number of universes to go to you might as well say that the chance is 0 that people from two universes go to the same one.

Quote:

When he returns to his own world, he can only get reasonably close to the one he left, so, since there are an infinite number of them to choose from

That really depends on how he returns. You could imagine he's attached to a sort of string, along which he finds his way back to the exact world he left. Rather than having to find it back himself.

And of course he's no temporal physicist, so he might not really understand how it works himself. Which would make it hard for him to correctly explain how time travel actually works (rather he just explains it as what he thinks makes sense)

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Dec 10^th, 2003, 9:16pm

One thing Johnny did get right is the UNIX bit. The Unix epoch ends in 2038. Though I don't know if problems similar to what was expected for Y2K will occur with it. (Of course, they really didn't occur for Y2K either - the main problem with all the hype was that they were assuming that every device that tracked a date would cease to function properly. The fact is, most of these dates were not critical to the tasks, so a miscalculation of the date was not a big deal.)

Does this mean Johnny really was from the future, because how else would he know about it? No - I know about it, and I'm not from the future. My guess is that he heard about the UNIX epoch in reference to Y2K (an explanation as to why UNIX based systems were safe from problems - at least in 2000). This provided him with his excuse for "why did I come back".

To me though, the most telling evidence against him is that he claims that time-travel, while not completely common, has significant usage. Further, there are no rules about hiding that you are from the future. Yet despite this, he is the only time-traveller we've heard of. If he was telling the truth, surely more such visits from the future would have occured, and been noticed.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by James Fingas on Dec 11^th, 2003, 4:18am

Yeah, I noticed that too. His claim is that there are so many timelines out there that the time travellers have lots of places to go.

However, if you examine it closely, and assuming that time travellers stay near to their own timeline, then we can estimate the number of time travellers that should be around right now by the following formula:

p(our time line leads to time travel)*n(time travellers that will travel if it is invented)*t(average length of stay)*i(interestingness of this time)/T(interest-normalized destination interval)

ti/T will likely be small (maybe 1/100)
p could reasonably be very small (especially if John is a hoax), although if it is as easy as he says, then it could be as high as 1% to 10%

The reason that there should be lots of time travellers is n. Once you invent time travel, there's no limit to the number of people who will do it. Therefore the total number of time travelers out there right now should be very very large. But there's no indication that it is. So therefore p must be much smaller than John would make us believe, indicating his story is false.

The only confounding factor I haven't explicitly put in is when the time travel is invented. If it is possible to travel for only a limited distance back in time, then that could affect the variable i implicitly.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Dec 11^th, 2003, 1:45pm

Also, he seems to misunderstand the Everett many-worlds model that he claims to work in.

The idea behind the many-worlds model is that whenever an event has multiple possible outcomes, all possible outcomes occur on differing world-lines. That is, our history splits with all possible futures each having its own line. Thus we are the past for many, many multitudes of futures. Instead of it being unlikely that a time-traveler would find our particular line, we should have billions upon billions of John Titors arriving from all the futures which differ in unimportant details from his own. Because we are the common past of all of these futures.

The truth is, I have never much cared for the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. When you consider all the multitudinous possibilities that could take place if all particles in an object should happen to tunnel at the same time, then alas for our many, many futures when we suddenly explode! And even weirder, those in which we suddenly reappear! These, and much weirder results, are all within the bounds of the possible by the laws of QM, but they are so fantastically improbable that one does not need to ever fear their occuring -- unless you believe the many-worlds model, which says that, fantastically improbable or not, they do occur for some unlucky futures.

Well, those of you in futures where the fantastically improbable becomes commonplace will know that I am wrong, and that in other unaccessible futures, other versions of you and me go on blissfully unaware of our happy fate.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by pair o' ducks on Dec 12^th, 2003, 9:18am

But if all possible futures occur, then not only does our world have an infinite number of futures in which there are time travelers, but every single one of those time travelers will diverge and visit every single past time and past universe that his time machine can reach. So every single time traveler will visit our own specific world line and our own specific time.
There is, of course, an answer to that. I suppose they don't actually change the past, they merely give the past a whole new set of divergent futures. So an inifite number of travelers could visit my worldline without any of them ever meeting another time traveler upon his arrival. But if one travler came right now and another came a split second later (and every single time traveler will do so, choosing every possible time to go back to), the second would also visit the first's new timeline. Consequently there would be an infinite number of timelines with 2 travelers, and an infinite number with 3 and with 100 and with 1,000,000. And if it's true, then we should expect that we live in an "average" universe, which would be, what, inifity/2 time travelers? Apparently the gravity sensor would avoid emerging where a time traveler's vehicle already exists, but if the emergings take place a nanosecond apart, I don't suppose they'd have a chance to abort the landing. So I'd expect to see exploding time machines all over the place.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by usdragonfly on Feb 2^nd, 2004, 2:10am

Are some areas of the United States safer than others?

(42) Take a close look at the county-by-county voting map from the last elections.

this is one of the quotes from the website i don't understand what he means by taking a closer look. <http://rosecity.net/al_gore/election_map.html>

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Feb 2^nd, 2004, 4:33pm

I can't get that link to work, but I remember seeing the map shortly after the election was finally settled. The map plotted counties that voted majority for Bush in blue and for Gore in red. If you could see it, it shows almost entirely blue, with major polulation centers almost entirely red.

What it tells you is that urbanites generally supported Gore, while ruralites generally supported Bush. I think this is what he is hinting at: this division of opinion that runs mostly by rural vs urban. This ties in well with some of his other views.

While Democrats howl about being cheated from the election, this situation is exactly why the Electoral college was created in the first place. At that time the large majority of Americans lived in rural settings, but they were already apprehensive about the voting power of large cities. Rural delegates feared that on matters of Rural vs Urban interest, they would have no power to have their concerns addressed at all, because the urban voting bloc could always overide them. To counteract this advantage, the senate and the Electoral college were created - to give rural states a slight advantage to counter the numeric advantage of more urban states. Those of us who live in these smaller states deeply appreciate it. Otherwise we would never have any choice but to go along if both coasts agree.

If informed of the result of the 2000 election, as well as the one or two previous elections in which the popular vote was overidden by the electoral college, the framers of the constitution would doubtless feel that these occurences justified their decision to create the Electoral college, rather than showing demonstrating against it.

Of course, the same problems occur with any minority, but the rural vs urban split was a part of the major division between Americans at the time, as the Northern states were generally much more populous than the Southern ones. Without the creation of the Senate and the Electoral college, it is unlikely that the South would have ever agreed to join with the North. Of course, the differences flared up into civil war anyway some ~70-75 years later.

Once again, though, note that dear old John only made reference to this AFTER the election was over. Before the election, he never hinted that such a narrow and hotly contested result would occur. It doesn't take much to predict the past. Predictions of the future are much more convincing, but John's are all safely several years away from the time of his writings.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by John_Gaughan on Feb 2^nd, 2004, 9:44pm

on 02/02/04 at 16:33:53, Icarus wrote:

If informed of the result of the 2000 election, as well as the one or two previous elections in which the popular vote was overidden by the electoral college, the framers of the constitution would doubtless feel that these occurences justified their decision to create the Electoral college, rather than showing demonstrating against it.

Actually, I thought part of the purpose (besides giving smaller states more voice) was not that popular vote would be overriden, but that rationality could prevail in case one candidate received an unfair advantage -- let's say the KKK was popular in one state and a racist pig won the popular vote in that state. Despite being chosen by the people, he would be a poor choice because his ideals go against everything we ostensibly stand for -- freedom and equality, to name two. The electoral college could override this and give the vote to another candidate.

Of course, I think there is one time in history (during reconstruction) when the electoral college did not go along with the popular vote. Even then it was split, two candidates each got about half of the state's electoral vote.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Feb 3^rd, 2004, 8:41pm

Here is good description of the Electoral College system (http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf) - though it apparently was written before November 2000, since it's history of Electoral college problems does not mention that election. The history of the whole thing is considerably more complex than I had heard before. They way the current system is set up, it is highly unlikely that any Elector would deviate from the popular vote in the Elector's state (or district, for Maine & Nebraska), though theoretically he could. The means of selecting Electors is not established in the constitution, but every state other than Maine & Nebraska use the same method: Parties submit a slate of electors committed to vote for their own candidates. When you vote you are actually selecting which party's slate is chosen.

There are some peculiarities in the process. For instance, electors are not allowed to vote for both a Presidential and a Vice-presidential candidate from their own state. Since the parties have been fairly good at not offering a ticket with both from the same state, this is not usually a problem. But I believe both Bush and Cheney are Texans, so did the Texas electors vote for a different VP in 2000? And if so, given that Texas is a large state and that the election was so closely divided, how did Cheney manage to stay on top? Or was that part of the election misconducted? (I doubt it, because the Democrats would have jumped all over it.)

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by KenYonRuKu on Feb 16^th, 2004, 5:18pm

As a non-physicist, non-mathematician I may need some clarification and help with this...

Am I right in thinking that a time traveller would only be able to travel back in time to a point that is AFTER THE FIRST TIME MACHINE HAS BEEN INVENTED?

If this is so, Mr Titor's claims of travelling back to 2000, let alone 1975, are completely blown out of the water (as to my limited knowledge, practical time travel is still not possible).

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Feb 17^th, 2004, 12:29am

That really depends on your notion of time travel. Titor travels to parallel timelines, not to the past of his own. As a result he can't change his own past either, thus avoiding any paradoxes.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by KenYonRuKu on Feb 17^th, 2004, 10:33am

Which is rather convenient for him... ;)

In all honesty, do any of you believe that he is a time traveller from the 2030s?... and not some admittedly intelligent but severely deluded individual?

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Feb 17^th, 2004, 10:55am

I doubt anyone here believes him..
I don't totally exclude the possibility of (backward) time travel (we're all travelling forward allready), but I very much doubt I will ever see any evidence of it..

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by KenYonRuKu on Feb 17^th, 2004, 2:21pm

I think you see it exactly as I do, Towr. What say you, Icarus?

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by John_Gaughan on Feb 18^th, 2004, 8:32pm

on 02/17/04 at 10:55:09, towr wrote:

I don't totally exclude the possibility of (backward) time travel (we're all travelling forward allready), but I very much doubt I will ever see any evidence of it..

How do you know we are not traveling backward through time already, and we are perfect and predicting the future but cannot remember the past?

I think backward time travel is possible, but not in a way we can manipulate. I'm thinking something along the line of the Big Crunch. Maybe. My point is it would take something catastrophic. Maybe the other side of a singularity?

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Feb 19^th, 2004, 1:01am

If you want time-travel, here's an idea I allways found interesting.
Take a wormhole, prefereably one you can travel through, then put one end somewhere one earth, the other on a spaceship. Then fly the spaceship near the speed of light for a couple of years or so. Since time passes slower for objects travelling near the speed of light (with respects to the rest of the universe), one end of the wormhole will be younger than the other when the spaceship returns. If you step through the wormhole you might expect the end you come out of is the same age as the one you stepped into, and the only way that can happen is if you travel through time.
Nothing catastrophic about it. Maybe bad physics though ;) (I really don't know enough about that, besides wormholes are tricky things to keep stable)

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by John_Gaughan on Feb 19^th, 2004, 6:08am

I am not convinced this would work. For example, let us say the spaceship goes on a two year trip, as observed on Earth. To them it is two hours (picked arbitrarily).

A year after the spaceship leaves, a man, on Earth, walks through the wormhole. He appears in the spaceship an hour after it left Earth, as observed by the spaceship. He does not travel through time any differently.

The spaceship lands. The astronauts are two hours older than when they left Earth, while the new guy is one year and one hour older.

Another man walks through the wormhole, either end. He winds up a few feet away at the other end, in the same time.

I do not think time "moves" faster or slower, it is just our perception. A wormhole is not a discrete object in the way a human or spaceship is, it is a quantum doorway. And we all know how quantum mechanics likes to break rules and warp our minds with its eccentricity as compared to traditional physics.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Feb 19^th, 2004, 6:38am

Okay then, suppose you put a rope through..
you feed it in at one feet per minute, and it comes out on the other side at one feet per minute. You start right after the rocketship takes off, and it lands a year later.
Now you've fed in a years worth of rope, and they only extracted, say, an hour's worth. If you tied anything to the rope, it would still take about a year to get out of the other end.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by John_Gaughan on Feb 19^th, 2004, 7:51am

I think the rope would come out at the same speed, relative to Earth. I.e. on Earth they would feed it in at one foot per minute, a lesiurly pace. On the spaceship, however, it would shoot out at 8,760 feet per minute, or 99.9 miles per hour.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by KenYonRuKu on Feb 19^th, 2004, 11:55am

??? ???

I think that the order of the day would be for me to sit down with a large drink and spend a careless evening with Lucy Liu...

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Feb 19^th, 2004, 6:22pm

First of all, in answer to KenYonRuKu's question to me: No. I think a reading of my responses already should make clear that I do not believe it in the slightest.

Concerning wormholes: A conceptual - but as yet unproven - idea which has sadly been twisted into something far removed from any factual basis by popular culture.

There are considerable unknowns about wormholes (in addition to whether or not such exist). These include the question of how one manages to move one end of worm-hole. What happens when something passes through a worm-hole is another question. Mathematically, it depends on how the worm-hole is formed. Without knowing that (and we can't know that without a full description of the situation), it is impossible to say what happens to anything that passes through.

Another consideration: travelling backwards in time is equivalent to travelling faster than light. If you can do one, you can also do the other. In fact, what one observer sees as travelling faster than light, another observer will see as travelling backwards in time, and vice versa.

And another: According to our best theoretical knowledge, going backwards in time is possible. According to theory, if you spin a super-massive object, it twists space-time around itself in such a way that travelling near it opposite the spin will take you back in time. The amount of mass needed and the spin rate required are beyond anything we have any hope currently of ever being able to do. But even if possible, this time machine still cannot take you back to a time before it's creation.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by John_Gaughan on Feb 19^th, 2004, 8:52pm

on 02/19/04 at 18:22:42, Icarus wrote:

There are considerable unknowns about wormholes (in addition to whether or not such exist).

I thought they were proven to exist, but only at a subatomic level. I do not have a link handy but I could swear I read this at one of the science news site.

on 02/19/04 at 18:22:42, Icarus wrote:

Another consideration: travelling backwards in time is equivalent to travelling faster than light. If you can do one, you can also do the other. In fact, what one observer sees as travelling faster than light, another observer will see as travelling backwards in time, and vice versa.

What about the infinite improbability drive? That travels faster than light but forward through time.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Speaker on Feb 19^th, 2004, 9:37pm

I have two points. First, I was going to mention the traveling at the speed of light is equal to time travel. (but didn't have anything worthwhile to mention along with my lonely factoid.)

Now, the idea of spinning a massive object and then traveling in the opposite direction of its spin to travel back in time, well. Well, well well, isn't this what Superman did (does)? He had to save Lois and so flew West at the speed of light or maybe faster but anyway really reallllly fast.

Did the comic book writers know about this theory when they wrote the story, or were they just really ahead of their time?

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by John_Gaughan on Feb 20^th, 2004, 5:42am

on 02/19/04 at 21:37:01, Speaker wrote:

Now, the idea of spinning a massive object and then traveling in the opposite direction of its spin to travel back in time, well. Well, well well, isn't this what Superman did (does)? He had to save Lois and so flew West at the speed of light or maybe faster but anyway really reallllly fast.

Did the comic book writers know about this theory when they wrote the story, or were they just really ahead of their time?

I doubt at the time the comic books were written that they knew about it, they probably thought "if Superman does something impossible, the improbable will happen, and people might accept it as plausible." That goes on quite a bit in books, movies, etc.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Feb 20^th, 2004, 9:58pm

The "fly westward around the earth to go back in time" idea is based on a very flawed concept of what actually happens when you travel west. (If you are catching up with the sun, then the time of day is decreasing - that means you are going back in time, right?) To get the effect I mentioned, you need considerably stronger gravitation than found about earth (or the sun or any other uncollapsed object). I've never studied the math of this enough to understand it myself, but have heard it from several sources.

And for an object with mass, traveling at the speed of light is not equivalent to traveling back in time. Instead it is equivalent to being impossible! It is traveling faster than light that is equivalent to traveling back in time.

The existance of wormholes on a subatomic scale is a prediction of some of our best attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. These generally expect spacetime to be quite foamy at this level. However, we are very far from having any hard evidence that this is so. So no, I would not say that the existance of wormholes has been proven.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by rmsgrey on Feb 21^st, 2004, 8:52am

A more charitable interpretation of the "fly round the earth very fast to go back in time" effect is that it's a whole lot easier to keep track of the earth's location if you stick near it than if you fly straight out into space for a while then try finding your way back... Also, while it's been a while since I had a good handle on these things, wouldn't the relativistic mass increase mean that, from the point of view of the rapidly orbiting individual, the earth would be super-massive. Of course, once you get significantly above light speed, the apparent mass reduces again.

As far as FTL being equivalent to time travel: under relativity, time is divided not just into "past", "future" and an infinitesimal boundary "now", but into "causal past", "causal future", past and future boundary "light cones", the space-time point "here and now" and "elsewhere" - the collection of events, x, for which there exists an inertial frame in which x is simultaneous with "here and now". Ordinary sub-light travel moves you from "here and now", "causal future" or "future light cone" into "causal future", or from "elsewhere" or "past light cone" into "elsewhere", "future light cone" or "causal future" or from "causal past" to anywhere. FTL travel, without changing direction, can take you from "future light cone" or "causal future" to "future light cone", "causal future" or "elsewhere", or from "past light cone" or "causal past" to "past light cone", "causal past" or "elsewhere" or from "here and now" to "elsewhere" or from "elsewhere" to anywhere. Following through the possibilities, the only way to get into your own "causal past" is by taking an FTL trip to "elsewhere" and then another FTL trip into "causal past" - the transition between FTL trips happens automatically as soon as you accelerate, though you need to accelerate the right way to end up where you want to go rather than, for example, some distance into the future rather than the past.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by KenYonRuKu on Feb 21^st, 2004, 8:52am

Icarus, I wish you had been my physics teacher at school. And Speaker: your factoid is lonely, but in its own way lovely.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Feb 21^st, 2004, 9:19am

rmsgrey - Your reasoning may be more charitable, but it is less accurate. I did not dream up my description. I have read it in those comic books! :P My comic book reading days were in the 70s. At that time, DC & Marvel were selling reprinted additions of their early comics, as well as new works. Whether this is so anymore, I don't know. I stopped reading comics when it became clear that there were other things to spend my limited funds on that I enjoyed more. Anyway, from those early comics, I got to see the origins of many concepts such as this, that have since become comic book conventions. (Did you know that originally Superman was not able to fly? He was able to take amazing leaps into the air, but they were only leaps. However, as time went on, they kept depicting him in the air so much, the idea that he was leaping was quietly forgotten.)

As for the FTL - time travel connection. If you travel FTL, some observers will see it as traveling from their causal future directly to their causal past.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by rmsgrey on Feb 22^nd, 2004, 9:35am

on 02/21/04 at 09:19:52, Icarus wrote:

My comic book reading days are admittedly more recent (I wasn't even born in the '70s) but I have read a fairly broad cross-section of time periods and second-hand comics (largely in anthologies). Ok, so my (hazy) recollection is that Superman travelled back in time in the story I remember simply by flying too fast in a straight line and found himself back on Krypton shortly before it exploded. I also have extremely hazy almost memories of Superman flying round the earth so fast that it reverses its rotation (under general relativity, a rapidly moving dense mass "drags" space time with it, causing nearby masses to get pulled along in the same direction). Besides, I suspect most people remember the flying westwards to reverse time from the movie rather than the comics, and we all know how reliable Hollywood is when it comes to making (comic) books into movies...

I not only remember Superman's original leaps (leap tall buildings in a single bound) but also an intermediate stage where he flew by kicking his legs at superspeed (a technique later adopted by the Flash) rather than the modern flying through sheer force of will.

Quote:

As for the FTL - time travel connection. If you travel FTL, some observers will see it as traveling from their causal future directly to their causal past.

I suppose it depends on your definition of FTL - I'm assuming that FTL only covers travel that goes into the "future" from someone's point of view rather than going directly into your own causal past without acceleration. For any event in my causal future, regardless of the inertial frame used by an observer at that event, his causal past is always a superset of my causal past, so any travel that appears to go directly (without acceleration) from my causal future to my causal past from my perspective must appear to the traveller to be pure time-travel not just FTL travel. If you consider a Feynman space-time diagram, then all inertial frames agree on the angle of a photon's line (traditionally 45 degrees) and on which side of that angle a straight line connecting two events would be, but there is no consensus on which pairs of events are simultaneous (would be connected by a horizontal line) or in the same place (would be connected by a vertical line). My definition of FTL travel is any travel which, when plotted on a (4-dimensional) Feynman diagram has a gradient shallower than that of light. I don't count the time-reversal of normal sub-light travel as FTL, but rather as flat out time travel since it can only take you into your causal past in much the same way as normal sub-light travel can only take you into your causal future.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Feb 22^nd, 2004, 1:01pm

on 02/22/04 at 09:35:52, rmsgrey wrote:

I suspect most people remember the flying westwards to reverse time from the movie rather than the comics, and we all know how reliable Hollywood is when it comes to making (comic) books into movies...

True, but then comic books are not exactly the best source for these ideas either. Generally, I rate various sources this way for scientific understanding (For the fictional sources, I do not require sticking to actual scientific theory - only that when current knowledge comes into play, they express matters in accordance to it):

Actual science
Hard science fiction (from writers such as Forward, Asimov, Brin, Niven, etc).
"Soft" science fiction (Writers such as McAffrey, Card, etc)
Comic books
The news media
The general public
Hollywood
Those who go ranting about "It's a proven scientific fact", or about "It's just a theory". Both show a horrendous misunderstanding of what science is.

Quote:

I not only remember Superman's original leaps (leap tall buildings in a single bound) but also an intermediate stage where he flew by kicking his legs at superspeed (a technique later adopted by the Flash) rather than the modern flying through sheer force of will.

That one I missed. And obviously, it is a rather late addition for the Flash too, because when I was reading, he was earth-bound (or sub-earth: he was already doing the vibrating molecules thing).

Quote:

If you can do FTL, as you defined it, you can also do time-travel as you defined it, and vice versa. That time-travel [bigto] FTL is fairly easy: You've planned a trip to Alpha Centauri, and announce before leaving that you will get there tomorrow. The crowd laughs at your stupid remark. Unbeknownst to them, as soon as you are behind the moon, you flip on your handy-dandy time machine and go back 4.3 years. Then you take off to nearly light-speed and make the 4.3 year trip in a single day of ship-time. Once there you send a radio signal back to earth. 4.3 years later, they receive your signal and are stunned when they calculate that you arrived at Alpha Centauri the day after you left earth.

So you made the 4.3 light-year trip in 1 day (both in your time & in their time). That definitely qualifies as FTL.

The converse is more technical, but it also holds true. I don't remember the specifics, though, and must consider it before proffering a description.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Feb 22^nd, 2004, 1:16pm

y'know.. I just don't buy the whole travelling faster than light [equiv] time travel
I suppose I'm just to dense to understand why v=x/t > 0 and x > 0 doesn't have to mean t > 0

as for comic book physics, there was an article on sciencblog about that recently:
Uncanny physics of comic book superheroes (http://www.scienceblog.com/community/article2312.html)

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Feb 22^nd, 2004, 1:50pm

on 02/22/04 at 13:16:38, towr wrote:

y'know.. I just don't buy the whole travelling faster than light [equiv] time travel
I suppose I'm just to dense to understand why v=x/t > 0 and x > 0 doesn't have to mean t > 0

Time travel and FTL are not equivalent because doing one IS doing the other, but rather they are equivalent because if you can do one, then you can also do the other. It simply a matter of arranging things right and making appropriate use of the theory of special relativity.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Feb 22^nd, 2004, 1:56pm

Ah.. that makes more sense.. Thanx for clearing that up..

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by rmsgrey on Feb 23^rd, 2004, 6:45am

Under special relativity, saying v>0 doesn't make a great deal of sense because v=0 is mostly a matter of opinion. The ones you can be sure of are v=c, v<c and v>c. For v<c, t>0 and t<0 are meaningful but for v>c, t is mostly a matter of opinion.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by D28_2012 on Mar 24^th, 2004, 8:09am

Hey If your interested in John Titor you might want to join my yahoo group: -

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/John_Titor_UK/

theres loads of links and pictures for you to check out and a message board.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Gavin_David on Mar 30^th, 2004, 8:54pm

i think if you look at the length of this thread, do a search on google and check out how many sites are devoted to this guy, he has more than succeded in what he obviously wanted out of this - attention

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by KenYonRuKu on Apr 7^th, 2004, 5:59pm

Precisely, Gavin_David.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Apr 7^th, 2004, 8:20pm

Definitely he has gotten far more attention than he deserves, but if you read through this thread, you will notice that really only about 1/4 of it deals with him and his claims.

The rest consists of discussions of time travel in general, and other topics suggested by his claims. But in these discussions, we generally have not dwelt much on his statements. Instead we have been discussing our own ideas.

So his bid for attention has not been completely successful here. We are more concerned with our own understandings than any claims of his.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by D28_2012 on Jun 3^rd, 2004, 6:11am

Hey If your interested in John Titor you might want to join my yahoo group: -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/John_Titor_UK/
theres loads of links and pictures for you to check out and a message board.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Jun 4^th, 2004, 11:40pm

Apparently this guy trolls for threads about Johnny boy, and posts his invitation without checking them or keeping track of whether or not he has posted before. This is the only explanation of I can think of for this exact repeat 2 months later.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by rmsgrey on Jun 5^th, 2004, 6:57am

That's not very imaginative of you then - I can think of several possibilities - all with negligible plausibility, admittedly, but still possible explanations...

For instance, he might have actually double-posted accidentally at the time, but one copy of the post just got lost in cyberspace, didn't time out for some reason, and arrived two months later. Or, by sheer coincidence, a very large number of charged particles all spontaneously moved in such a way as to generate a perfect duplicate of the post. Or the guy has got caught in a 2 month time loop, endlessly doomed to repeat the exact sequence of actions until something happens to break the loop (please ignore the problems of entropy and information exchange at the boundary of the effect). Or maybe it's someone else with the same online name, and claiming ownership of a Yahoo! club wiht the same name.

Of coure, the stupid troll (or maybe a robot troll) is much, much, much more plausible.

On the other hand, as we all know, a deja vu is a glitch in teh Matrix, caused when 'they' change something...

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by marycast on Aug 9^th, 2004, 11:37pm

IMPORTANT NEWSFLASH from the International Alien Research Group.

Is there possibly another TIME TRAVELER on the planet or is this person just a really good QUANTUM REMOTE VIEWING TELEPORTED. We have found another we believe to be a time-traveler like John Titor, and he goes by the nickname Michi. Which some think could refer to the renowned prophet Nostradamus (Michel de Nostradame) who lived in St. Remy, Provence, France in the Sixteenth Century.

Many people in the United State and around the world are starting believe this person most be a TIME TRAVELER sent back in time since he is clearly different then anyone else on the planet. What he is doing and the way he talks is out of this world. He is been on the radio challenging United States Government, the CIA, FBI and NASA officials to call in on radio shows and debate him scientifically about several very disturbing thing. When they do call in to the talk show in an attempt to proof him wrong, this Micki is making them look like fools with some unusual advanced scientific reasoning.

For instance on one radio talk show we heard this Michi single handling debating a team of 3 NASA engineers that had called in on the talk show. For almost an hour these NASA engineers were trying to crucify this guy Michi.

However, through the entire show Michi who we think may be a TIME TRAVELER seemed to clearly put NASA on the offensive. He even got NASA to admit they had launching over 1,000 nuclear booms in outer space by accident. Then they quickly claimed its radiation fall-out would not return to earth. After that things really heated up and NASA started accusing MICHI of distributing highly classified government evidence and demanded to know where he got it from, and who was founding him. This was on the David Glover show in Missouri, United States.

Doesn’t that sound very strange, MICHI know stuff even the United States Government has admitted publicly they don’t know how or where he got it. This is the kind of stuff that leads us to believe this guy must be a TIME TRAVELER or a genuine REMOTE VIEWING TELEPORTED.

While visiting Florida we heard this MICHI claimed on another talk-show that there has already been over 2,100 nuclear bomb tested in outer space and the fall-out is destroying Earth’s protective ozone layer. He claimed that the nuclear testing which started in the year 1957 is the major cause for the major expansion of the 2 large holes in the ozone layer. He claims pollution is just a small part of the problem. MICHI claimed if the nuclear bomb testing were not stopped, soon it would be to late. He says in the future creature including humans’ will started developing cancer in the most horrible ways imaginable. Starting with the most vulnerable creatures like the Sea Turtles, the fish, and frogs. He claims surface creature life forms on Earth will be forced to live underground for possibly millions of years.

LISTED BELOW ARE A FEW OF THE OTHER CLAIMS MADE BY THIS TIME-TRAVELER NAMED MICHI:

He claims soon we will discover there was once an ancient planet between Earth and Jupiter. Michi claims this ancient planet was a lot like Earth but much bigger and full of life before a massive explosion destroyed it. All that’s left is its moon we call Planet Mars. Michi has provided some very powerful scientific evidence included complex mathematical formulas related to the creation of Earths Solar System, which confirms the possibility of the planet previous existence.

Michi predicted the war in the Middle East (Iraq) and claimed it would be conducted under false pretences, which could easily be referenced to finding no Weapons of Mass destruction. He predicted Billionaire George Soros would step forward to defeat George Bushes in the 2004 presidential election. Although George Soros is not running for president, he has mysteriously stepped forwards financially with an independent smear campaign to help defeat President Bush. And like many people in the scientific community these days, he also claims the United State Government faked the Apollo 11 moon landing back in the 1969’s. Hoping they could convince the Soviets Union they had much more powerful technology, which would in turn discourage any nuclear attack attempt. Michi has provides a great deal of advanced scientific evidence suggesting it is certainly possible the United States could have faked the moon landing and of they did their plan worked.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by BNC on Aug 10^th, 2004, 12:46am

on 08/09/04 at 23:37:14, marycast wrote:

IMPORTANT NEWSFLASH from the International Alien Research Group.

.... And like many people in the scientific community these days, he also claims the United State Government faked the Apollo 11 moon landing back in the 1969’s. Hoping they could convince the Soviets Union they had much more powerful technology, which would in turn discourage any nuclear attack attempt. Michi has provides a great deal of advanced scientific evidence suggesting it is certainly possible the United States could have faked the moon landing and of they did their plan worked....

Darn! I thought I knew quite a few scientists. I thought I was quite well-read with the major (and some not-so-major) sciense magazines. But I must be wrong... didn't meet any of those "many people"...

Unless, offcourse, the USA government is on the lookout for these people, and are making them "disappear" when they reveal what they really know.

Hold on, there's a guy in official uniform at my front door. I'm sure it won't be a minute....

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Speaker on Aug 10^th, 2004, 1:55am

Now, with BNC out of the way, I move up in the rankings... Just goes to show that a little patience and a world wide conspiracy is all it takes to get ahead in the forum.

Besides, the time travelers are really aliens flying around in black helicopters kidnapping domestic animals and dunking them in tomato sauce and cooking them on a grill in the Rose Garden.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by rmsgrey on Aug 10^th, 2004, 5:50am

The thing I love about the moon landing is that it's all but impossible to prove it isn't a hoax - if it wasn't a hoax, then the only people who could know for sure are those who actually walked on the moon (assuming there's no other environment that could account for their experiences) and who's going to trust their word on it? Any other evidence could have been faked (if not at the time, then by a robot probe since) and there's no way for anyone else to be sure they weren't being hoaxed by some mysterious conspiracy...

Of course, if it was a hoax, then those responsible would know, but they're hardly likely to tell anyone either.

And isn't it interesting how so few people who know "the truth" and are willing to share it are capable of simple things like correct spelling and grammar?

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Three Hands on Aug 10^th, 2004, 6:18am

Well, the Soviets were pretty much desperate to prove that the moon landings were a hoax at the time, since they wanted to remain ahead in the space race. Given that they couldn't falsify them at the time, and this was after going over the evidence thoroughly, the more modern claims that the moon landings were fake seem less credible. Of course, there are going to be those who remain sceptical, and it cannot be proved conclusively to anyone who did not actually walk on the moon, but I would guess that it comes down to whether you feel the evidence is sufficient to convince you either for or against.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Speaker on Aug 10^th, 2004, 6:01pm

There are artifacts left on the moon by the alleged moonwalkers (Jackson was an astronaut wasn't he?). If we can produce a telescope that is powerful enough, then we could see the base of the luner lander and other stuff. How powerful would the telescope have to be to see something so small so far away. Assuming we are looking from earth. If we pointed the hubble telescope at the moon, could it produce an image of the famous footprint?

If the lunar landing is a deceit played on the world by US scientists, then what about the mars rovers? And, how about Cassini, currently flying around Saturn? What about the robot submarine that examined the wreck of the Titanic? What about the Titanic for that matter? What about my great grandfather, who I never met, did he actually couple with my great grandmother? What about me? Is this all a dream. Do I exist?

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by BNC on Aug 11^th, 2004, 12:05am

on 08/10/04 at 18:01:50, Speaker wrote:

Interesting...
Ignorion diffraction for a moment, the HST has angular resolution of 0.05 arcseconds. The mean distance between Earth and the Moon is ~384,400km

Therefore, the minimal feature size on the moon should be ~185m -- not nearly sharp enough to see the moon artifacts (that is, off course, unless I made a mistake in my "napkin calculations").

That limitation was naturally imposed by NASA to ensure their hoax won't be found... <BZZZ...OUCH!!!>... that-is-off-course-just-a-coincidense. :P

Quote:

What about me? Is this all a dream. Do I exist?

Don't be silly. Off course you don't. Only I exist. Everything else is just a fragmant of my imagination.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Speaker on Aug 11^th, 2004, 12:14am

Oh, okay. I don't mind being a fragment of your imagination, but could you put a little more effort into the good looking chick-magnet part. And, I could use a new car, and a raise. Otherwise, not too bad.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by rmsgrey on Aug 11^th, 2004, 4:44am

And besides, just because there are artifacts on the moon now that doesn't mean they were there in the early '70s - hence my earlier comment about robot probes...

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Speaker on Aug 11^th, 2004, 7:57pm

Yes, the robot probes. It was proven in 1974 by a congressional commission that robot probes launched and controlled by the U.S.S.R. removed the artifacts in an effort to discredit the USA. These robot probes were equipped with several branches torn off of trees along the Volga river. These branches were used to wipe away the foot prints and and marks from any equipment left by the Apollo missions.

In response to this, both houses of the US Congress voted to send NASA robot probes to replace the footprints and other marks and equipment. It should be noted that these probes carried the actual boot worn by Neil Armstrong when he filmed the lunar landing in a remote studio located in the desert of the American Southwest. ::)

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Grimbal on Aug 17^th, 2004, 1:06pm

Now, do you really believe the moon exists?

Actually it is just a huge cardboard disk that is made to look like a moon. If it were a real moon, it would certainly turn. But no, you always see the same face.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Speaker on Aug 17^th, 2004, 5:09pm

That reminds me of a fairy tale. I think it is Chinese. The emperor, wanting to give his daughter the most wonderful present in the world, commissions the imperial artisans to create a beautiful single pearl necklace. It is a large round pearl on a silver chain.

He gives it to his daughter. She is delighted, and declares that it is so beautiful, that surely her father has captured the moon on a chain. The father at first agrees, telling her that, "Yes, even the moon is within his mighty reach, and he would give anything to please his daughter."

However, now the father realizes that when night falls, his daughter will discover the lie. So, he devises to hang a black curtain to block the sight of the moon from his daughter's chambers. This goes on for several months. When next he visits his daughter, he discovers that she is filled with grief and sadness.

He asks her, "Why are you so sad? I have given you everything any girl could ever hope for, including the moon."
She tells her father, "Your presents are indeed wonderful, but now the moon no longer shines."

The father is distraught. He wants to make his daughter happy again, but cannot admit he has lied. Anyway, he removes the curtains.

When the daughter sees the moon again, she is very happy. Her father asks her, "How can the moon be hanging around your neck, yet still shine in the sky?" She tells him that, "The moon, grows like a fingernail, so even if you cut it off, it will grow back."
<<The End>>
Anyway, something like that.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by rmsgrey on Aug 18^th, 2004, 4:18am

I remember a slightly different version of the story - the young princess in my story was promised whatever she wanted, and requested the moon. All the wisest men of the kingdom were completely baffled by this request and declared it impossible, but one uncommonly sensible young man went to talk to the princess, and asked her both what she thought the moon was like ("a small silver disk about the size of my fingernail") and how she thought someone could get it for her ("every night it gets caught in the branches of the tree outside my window") and promptly obtained a small silver disk about the size of the princess' fingernail and presented it to her. For a little while, all was well, but the thick curtains when she was inside and constant fireworks when she was outside began making the princess ill. The same young man went to her again, and expressed his concern that the rest of the people were now deprived of the moon, at which the princess laughed and told him that the moon was like a tooth - when you lose your tooth (as a child) a new one grows in its place, and it's the same with the moon.

If anyone's interested, I came across the tale in one book of a series "Stories for [X] Year Olds" here in the UK - I think either Eight or Ten specifically.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Speaker on Aug 18^th, 2004, 5:21pm

Yes, that sounds more like it. Thanks for the references too. But, to keep things on track. The moon has obviously fallen out of the sky and grown back several times since the Apollo landings. Therefore, even if we go back to the moon again, there will be no evidence.

What we need to do is find the old moon. And, for that we need a map, and someone like Baron Von Munchousen.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Craig on Aug 18^th, 2004, 6:23pm

Whether or not this guy is a time traveler has to be left up to speculation. As far as I am concerned he could be and he might not be. But I can't discard either side simply because I am not as well informed about physics as some are.

But there are some things that he has valid points about when we fail to even consider. It's funny in that entire web page that was posted as well as this forum posting I see no one asking whether or not it's plausible that some of the things he mentions are possible in our world today. See that's the problem with most people, especially Americans (of which I am one); they're more obsessed with proving or disproving the messenger then looking at the message.

But again, John has some valid points. In American we are obsessed with obtaining stuff. We don't care about anyone but ourselves. How many people out there can actually say that they know all of their neighbors personally? How many people here would stop to help someone out, how many have? Yet, how many people know when their neighbor gets a new SUV. How many of those people want one better?

In our security we've become selfish, lazy, and undereducated. How many people here can, off the top of their head name off more then three amendments to the constitution from the bill of rights, much less the rest of the amendments? How many people here know anything about what was taken away from us in the patriot act?

Not that I am saying we are headed to a civil war but if freedoms keep being taken away at the rate they are more and more people are going to become dissatisfied with the government. I think at this point people are still mesmerized by the whole 9/11 thing and the patriotism phenomenon. But, people are starting to wake up.

I'll tell you this much, I am defiantly considering having a few bicycle tires, and other provisions on hand for the future.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Aug 19^th, 2004, 1:55am

on 08/18/04 at 18:23:23, Craig wrote:

It's funny in that entire web page that was posted as well as this forum posting I see no one asking whether or not it's plausible that some of the things he mentions are possible in our world today.

Euhm.. We did discussed several of the things he mentioned on the first page, like power generation, physics of timetravel etc..

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by rmsgrey on Aug 19^th, 2004, 5:04am

I'd be a lot more impressed by predictions that were short-term, easily verifiable, and hard to predict. Quoting a load of SF cliches or making vague sweeping statements about future trends that any astute social observer could come up with don't count. For instance, Robert A Heinlein predicted that the US would vote in a religious fanatic as president sometime in the first few decades of this century. As far as I know, he never claimed that this prediction arose from time-travel, or anything more than direct observation of the trends at the time, and acute concern over the future of his country.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Craig on Aug 19^th, 2004, 7:14am

on 08/19/04 at 01:55:10, towr wrote:

Euhm.. We did discussed several of the things he mentioned on the first page, like power generation, physics of timetravel etc..

I'm not talking about the physics bull sh*t. Cause if he is a fake, as you all say then all that crap is just that, bull sh*t. I am talking about the real social problems we have in the world right now that he hit right on the head. Or is he right; we're to happy accumulating stuff, trusting the evening news, and eating our McDonalds double cheese burger to worry about the serious problems at hand?

-Craig

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Aug 19^th, 2004, 8:24am

Well that part of his message is terribly old news.. We knew that decades before he showed up on the net..
You don't exactly have to be from the future to see what is rather plainly in front of us..

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Speaker on Aug 19^th, 2004, 5:52pm

Yes, the points he makes seem to be already established problems, with as rmsgrey says, some astute interpolation. For predictions, it is hard to beat Heinlein. He also pegged the Internet back in 1950 or something. Describing it with details that have come true.

Further to the prediction (story) about the US relegious fanatic president. Heinlein tells of how that trend closed off the US from the rest of the world (like before WWII, but moreso). And, that this isolationism prevented the US from entering into a nuclear war in Europe and Asia. Which saved planet Earth (because only half the planet was destroyed) on that timeline.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by rmsgrey on Aug 20^th, 2004, 10:41am

Or even, since it goes beyond the range of known data rather than filling in gaps, some extrapolation....

Anyway, as I said, predictions that SF authors have already made aren't that impressive. Even if his predictions turn out 100% accurate, that would be only mildly impressive since it could be explained equally well be lucky guesses combined with solid observation and intuition.

To convince someone came from the future, I'd need either long-term association, or some truly surprising predictions that turn out to be entirely correct - for instance, predicting the whole kerfuffle over the German horse rider in the Olympics (whose disqualification, penalisation or exoneration determines the awarding of six medals), or even the winning lottery numbers for the next draw (which suggests that I regard time-travel as being less unlikely than 14 million to 1 odds). Of course, two or three draws worth of winning numbers (so I get the chance to "win") would be even better :D but I don't want to get too greedy. The key thing is that the prediction is a) sufficiently clear and detailed to be easily proven wrong, b) sufficiently hard to fake (something that would require a government conspiracy to create probably qualifies) and c) sufficiently hard to "guess" in advance (this also applies to scenarios where the purported traveller claims to know me in the future, though there it's just a matter of coming up with a secret message that I don't believe anyone could guess...

Anyway, the simplest way for someone to convince people he's from the near future would be to look up lottery results (as a good set of random numbers generated live and widely known so easily verifiable but hard to guess) and bring them back with him. Of course, since he claims that his presence changes the future anyway, even if his story is true, his predictions may well not pan out, which means it is effectively impossible to prove him wrong - at least short of the development of a mature science of sociology capable of assessing the possible futures of our present (as of the time he was making predictions at least) - if the future he describes turns out not to be a plausible outcome when analysed by a mature science of sociology, then he's either lying, mad or from a timeline that got seriously messed up by some outside intervention. The only other ways I can think of to prove him wrong are direct (divine) revelation or the development of real time machines (or at least time viewers) and their use to establish where he really came from.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by geoff on Jan 15^th, 2005, 10:38pm

John Titor !!!!

give me a break sounds like Dr WHO the TERMINATOR and BACK TO THE FUTURE all rolled into one and add something that looks like a ghostbuster ghost trap and call it a Time Machine ,surely theres a copywright infringement
also looking at the photo of the laser in car it's funny how only laser light was bent
how can anyone believe in this rubbish
rule of thumb if it sounds unbelievible it usually is

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by PM Larsson on Aug 26^th, 2005, 8:40pm

Umm yeah, lets get this straight, this nutjob proposes to use an IBM 5100 to debug legacy code and re-engineer it for use on a unix system.

*cough*

uh-huh a machine with can only execute 360 instructions out of ROM would be able to read most IBM legacy code... dont think so.

Besides which the cheap quick solution would be grabbing the code as is and stuffing it on a lovely spanking new 64-bit unix box running an emulator.
No time travel or real effort required.

But no, lets invent time travel, go back in time and grab a useless 5100 box which cant read most IBM legacy code or communicate with a unix box.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by kiwi2000 on Nov 16^th, 2005, 2:27am

No doubt John's story makes interesting reading.
Has anyone thought of suggesting it would make a great movie ?. Should send Peter Jackson an e mail , as he's always open to ideas.

I agree with Pair "o" Ducks when he raises a theological question of multiple souls.
Example:

John's aunty Betty died 10yrs ago and her soul went to hell, John goes back say 2 yrs before she dies and she accepts Christ as her personal saviour. The next day John takes her to the future ,say 14 yrs.
Question:
If aunt Betty is still alive now, is her soul still in Hell from when she died before Titor came in contact with her? The word of God tells me once you die you're in a place waiting for the Judgement day , and only Christ has the power to raise our soul from the dead. Once it's done it's done, and I don't believe there can be multiple souls of the same person in either hell or heaven.
For me personally, my Christian theology tells me that what this guy is saying is not logically possible, and I agree with Icarus conclusion to who "John Titor" actually is. :D

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by towr on Nov 16^th, 2005, 3:47am

Aunt Betty won't have died before after John saved her before she did. Her soul will never have been in Hell in the first place.
Unless you work with multiple time lines, but then the one aunt Betty isn't the other; even though they're identical with respect to everything except the timeline they occupy.

Also I have to take issue with theology having anything to say on what is and isn't logical. It may have something to say on what is and isn't the case, but that's something different.

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Dec 31^st, 2005, 1:25pm

Well, the deadline is almost here. John's U.S. Civil war has less than a day to start (less than half a day unless it starts in Hawaii) to meet his 2005 prediction. I guess I better grab my rifle (I hope the gun store is still open) and head to the streets to get the ball rolling, since surely Johnny must be the real thing! ::)

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by jackvogt on Mar 7^th, 2008, 12:50am

JOHN TITOR FIGURED OUT - READ ON

John Titor stated that following in regards to his time machine:

"It cannot travel out of the 60-year range into the past or future"

John Titor stated he was from the year 2036

He also stated he went to the year 1975 to recuperate an IBM model 5100 computer in 2036.

Simple math says:
01 January 2036
- 60
_______________
01 January 1976

This means that it would have been impossible for John Titor to travel to 1975, because it would be out of the 60-year range.

Information gathered from:
http://www.time-travel-portal.org/st-001.htm

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Icarus on Mar 7^th, 2008, 5:20pm

If anyone hasn't figured out that John Titor was a fake by now - after many of his predictions, safely years in the future when he made them, have failed to come true - then a simple 1 year mistake in his calculations is hardly going to be convincing!

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Grimbal on Mar 9^th, 2008, 6:59am

Maybe he had a stock of old 5100's that he wanted to get rid of at a good price...

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by TheSpamDetective on Apr 24^th, 2008, 4:24pm

LOL
thread liched

Title: Re: John Titor
Post by Mamu_18 on Jan 2^nd, 2009, 6:27am

Tell me this

John Titor came from 2036..

Maya tells us the World will end in 2012

How could John Titor got past 2012

I'm not saying i don't believe.. cause i believe him.

And how can i talk to the real John Titor?