Re: Researching an Idea

MackTuesday wrote: 
Some of those people in sci.physics are mean.  Maybe the people here
will be nicer...


  "Insistent that my idea is impossible" = mean?

  "Willing to handwave" = nicer?

I hang out in sci.physics too, but I saw this here first, so let me roll up my sleeves (so they don't burn off from the air friction):

This is a kind of cross-time communication idea.  It's fairly original
but needs refinement.  It's based on the notion that in virtual
particle pair production, the antimatter particle can be thought of as
moving backward in time, loosely speaking.  What if this is true in the
strictest sense?  Furthermore, what if the antimatter particle is
actually the one and the same particle as its matter counterpart?  In
other words, what if this pair is actually a causal loop? (Please
forgive me if I'm butchering known physics here!)

It's bleeding freely but will survive. You might do better with advanced waves (Google for that term).

Let's take it even further and imagine that more complex causal loops
exist, although less commonly.  My story idea has a scientist
attempting to "amplify" these naturally occuring causal loops in order
to bootstrap the creation of a "temporal transceiver" (I know, cheesy
name).  This device is actually a pair of devices, one that receives
signals from the future and another that transmits into the past.

Okay, how?  The scientist (named Pat) has devised a code specifically
for the purpose of representing electronic circuits.  Pat begins with
an ordinary radio receiver tuned between stations, waiting for the
static to temporarily resemble a signal with moderate information
content. Perhaps Pat has some specialized hardware that can search the
noise at high speed and automatically generate and test the encoded
signals it receives, because the experiment fails a multitude of times
before finally achieving some limited success.

The software scans noise to see if it encodes the design for a circuit, then makes some comparison of the decoded circuit against some standard? If you have the "standard", you already have the desired design.

Why limited success?  If such a device is possible, presumably there
are very few designs that work perfectly, and very many designs that
work less well.  The good designs are noise-free while the suboptimal
designs are less so.  But because suboptimal designs are greater in
number and thus likelier to appear in the noise, the first device to
bootstrap itself transmits and receives noisily.  So first Pat figures
out the likelier scenario of the following two: 1. Pat sends back the
exact design, and by pure chance it was received uncorrupted. 2. Pat
sends back a corrupted signal, and by pure chance the system noise
uncorrupted it.  Then Pat consummates the causal loop by doing the
likelier thing.

No, it's because Pat had the "range" (distance into the future) set wrong.

Using this device, Pat is now in a position to search for a superior
design.  This also requires numerous trials before succeeding, but not
nearly as many as would have been necessary when starting from scratch.
(Here I make the *wild* assumption that the number of designs increases
geometrically as the signal to noise ratio decreases.)  Pat repeats the
procedure until an optimal or near-optimal design is found.

Nah, just use an automatic sweep tuner with signal lock. That way it'll lock onto the "best" signal.

So what happens if Pat doesn't send a signal back after receiving it?
All that means is that the signal will be sent *somehow*, not
necessarily by Pat.  This opens up a number of fun plot possibilities.
Maybe Pat never gets the chance to send the final design back!  So who
will send it?

Whoever built (will build) the transmitter. Many people have similar ideas at nearly the same time, and things are re-invented constantly.

I also had the idea that most of the noise received in the earlier
designs is not system noise, but the sum of all the attempts to contact
Pat made throughout the future.  After all, Pat's the original
inventor.  In the optimal designs, the receiver is simply better tuned
to that particular transmitter.

Sum-over-histories in series (looped single timeline) or parallel (many worlds hypothesis)?

So does anyone have any ideas about how to make my idea more
scientifically solid?  I'm not too concerned about story ideas because
I probably will never write this story -- I'm not an author.  I just
want to develop the idea and give someone else the chance to use it.


  I say again, look into advanced waves.


  Mark L. Fergerson

.

Relevant Pages

  • Researching an Idea
    ... signals from the future and another that transmits into the past. ... The scientist (named Pat) has devised a code specifically ... are very few designs that work perfectly, ... number and thus likelier to appear in the noise, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: STS51L Accident Questions
    ... > Pat, didn't we go through that whole thread 2 years ago? ... because we haven't made enough progress on new TPS designs. ... And that means bettering the cost of the expendables for commercial ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • Re: Whats the latest with Pat Lawlor?
    ... talke with Pat about this? ... Pat is/was an artist,not a hack who could just be content to spit out ... Like it or not Pat Lawlor designs drove most of the innovation and YES ...
    (rec.games.pinball)
  • Re: Whats the latest with Pat Lawlor?
    ... Pinball Basics DVD ... Pat is/was an artist,not a hack who could just be content to spit out ... Like it or not Pat Lawlor designs drove most of the innovation and YES ...
    (rec.games.pinball)
  • Re: Vehicle groundplane - theory question. Mobile phone-slightly OT.
    ... The issues for me with most ground independent designs are physical ... Most are not suitable for roof mounting as the feedline usually ... voltage from the coax outer conductor to Ground. ... You and I probably also agree that there are lots of AC noise conducted ...
    (rec.radio.amateur.antenna)
Loading