To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 20:32:49 -0500
Subject: [WSFA] Waste of "Time Machine"
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

On Fri, 15 Mar 2002 16:41:41 -0500 (EST) "Keith F. Lynch"
<kfl at keithlynch.net> writes:

> Soon after his first trip back through time, the time traveler
> incorrectly concludes that it's impossible to change the past.
> Even
> though he had just done exactly that!  It's true that the altered
> past
> also contained the death of his fiance, but the mode of death was
> different.  Small consolation, except that it proves that it IS
> possible to change the past.

Time travel poses a major philosophical stumbling block, in the
implications of changing the past, which, presumably, could change the
present.  But suppose we ask whether it is possible to simply _look_ into
the past, without actually 'being there', since 'being there' raises the
issue of changing the past.  Being able to look into the past would be of
practical value in solving crimes, for example.

Suppose there were a webcam on a planet orbiting a nearby star, say, 5
light years away.  The camera and the computer to which it is connected
would record events as they happen, and, assuming we had an internet
connection to that computer, we could watch those events, but we would
see them 5 years after they actually happened, because the internet
transfers data at roughly the speed of light.

But suppose we had an internet connection which was many times faster
than the speed of light, say, more than 100 times faster, so the signal
from the webcam takes only 2 weeks to get to us, rather than 5 years.
Then, when we view the scene recorded by the webcam, are we looking
nearly 5 years back into the past?

Ron Kean

.

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