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James Fingas
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I won't tell you my thoughts about John Titor right now, but read this website and let me know what you think.
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towr
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #1 on: Nov 26th, 2003, 12:01pm » |
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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..
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Icarus
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #2 on: Nov 28th, 2003, 11:41am » |
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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.)
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James Fingas
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #3 on: Dec 10th, 2003, 5:18am » |
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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 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.
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towr
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #4 on: Dec 10th, 2003, 6:16am » |
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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)
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pair o' ducks
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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?
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James Fingas
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #6 on: Dec 10th, 2003, 7:59am » |
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on Dec 10th, 2003, 6:16am, towr wrote:| He describes his world as much less centralized. So large power stations are unlikely, that pretty much excludes nuclear energy. |
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not really
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. |
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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. |
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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) |
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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.
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towr
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #7 on: Dec 10th, 2003, 9:09am » |
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on Dec 10th, 2003, 7:59am, James Fingas wrote: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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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..
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| « Last Edit: Dec 10th, 2003, 9:33am by towr » |
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towr
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #8 on: Dec 10th, 2003, 9:49am » |
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on Dec 10th, 2003, 7:18am, 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. |
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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. |
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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)? |
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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? |
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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 |
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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)
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Icarus
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #9 on: Dec 10th, 2003, 9:16pm » |
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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.
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James Fingas
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #10 on: Dec 11th, 2003, 4:18am » |
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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.
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Icarus
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #11 on: Dec 11th, 2003, 1:45pm » |
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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.
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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.
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usdragonfly
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #13 on: Feb 2nd, 2004, 2:10am » |
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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>
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Icarus
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #14 on: Feb 2nd, 2004, 4:33pm » |
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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.
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John_Gaughan
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #15 on: Feb 2nd, 2004, 9:44pm » |
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on Feb 2nd, 2004, 4:33pm, 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. |
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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.
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Icarus
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #16 on: Feb 3rd, 2004, 8:41pm » |
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Here is good description of the Electoral College system - 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.)
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KenYonRuKu
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #17 on: Feb 16th, 2004, 5:18pm » |
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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).
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towr
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #18 on: Feb 17th, 2004, 12:29am » |
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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.
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KenYonRuKu
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #19 on: Feb 17th, 2004, 10:33am » |
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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?
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towr
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #20 on: Feb 17th, 2004, 10:55am » |
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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..
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KenYonRuKu
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #21 on: Feb 17th, 2004, 2:21pm » |
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I think you see it exactly as I do, Towr. What say you, Icarus?
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John_Gaughan
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #22 on: Feb 18th, 2004, 8:32pm » |
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on Feb 17th, 2004, 10:55am, 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.. |
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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?
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towr
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #23 on: Feb 19th, 2004, 1:01am » |
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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)
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John_Gaughan
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Re: John Titor
« Reply #24 on: Feb 19th, 2004, 6:08am » |
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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.
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