James Faville 4/20/10
Time travel is a fantastic notion that is embedded in modern culture and literature. This question is, is it possible? And if it isn’t, why not? Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist and research professor at CIT (California Institute of Technology) who tries to find the answers to questions such as these. He recently published a book, From Eternity to Here, in which he discusses how time can only progress forward, not backward, and time travel to the past would be impossible. This is because of the law of entropy, which states that the universe began highly organized and becomes increasingly chaotic. Entropy is a measure of how organized something is - as a system’s entropy increases, it becomes more chaotic and disorganized. The reason we have memories of the past and not the future is because the past has lower entropy. It is also the reason why we cannot change the past, according to Carroll.
For centuries, scientists have speculated about the possibility of traveling into the past. Any science fiction isle in a bookstore will demonstrate that the speculation is just as rampant today. But according to some physicists such as Carroll, it is likely that the dream of time-travel into the past will never be realized. But does the theory of entropy mean that scientists will stop investigating new methods of trying to achieve time travel? Definitely not. As long as humanity endures, we will likely continue to push the boundaries of Mother Nature’s rules. The idea of artificial lighting was probably as unlikely to Benjamin Franklin as time travel is to us today. So while entropy explains much of how time works, never say never when it comes to time travel.
I enjoyed reading this article, as it offered a definitive explanation of why time behaves the way it does. However, I’m sure there are plenty of other theorists out with different opinions on the issue of time travel, and the article might have benefited from offering some alternative theories (although it was an interview of Carroll). Carroll also didn’t explain specifically why entropy would make time-travel impossible, other than simply blaming it.
Dreifus, Claudia. "Sean Carroll Talks School Science and Time Travel." The New York Times 19 Apr. 2010.
Time travel is a fantastic notion that is embedded in modern culture and literature. This question is, is it possible? And if it isn’t, why not? Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist and research professor at CIT (California Institute of Technology) who tries to find the answers to questions such as these. He recently published a book, From Eternity to Here, in which he discusses how time can only progress forward, not backward, and time travel to the past would be impossible. This is because of the law of entropy, which states that the universe began highly organized and becomes increasingly chaotic. Entropy is a measure of how organized something is - as a system’s entropy increases, it becomes more chaotic and disorganized. The reason we have memories of the past and not the future is because the past has lower entropy. It is also the reason why we cannot change the past, according to Carroll.
For centuries, scientists have speculated about the possibility of traveling into the past. Any science fiction isle in a bookstore will demonstrate that the speculation is just as rampant today. But according to some physicists such as Carroll, it is likely that the dream of time-travel into the past will never be realized. But does the theory of entropy mean that scientists will stop investigating new methods of trying to achieve time travel? Definitely not. As long as humanity endures, we will likely continue to push the boundaries of Mother Nature’s rules. The idea of artificial lighting was probably as unlikely to Benjamin Franklin as time travel is to us today. So while entropy explains much of how time works, never say never when it comes to time travel.
I enjoyed reading this article, as it offered a definitive explanation of why time behaves the way it does. However, I’m sure there are plenty of other theorists out with different opinions on the issue of time travel, and the article might have benefited from offering some alternative theories (although it was an interview of Carroll). Carroll also didn’t explain specifically why entropy would make time-travel impossible, other than simply blaming it.
Dreifus, Claudia. "Sean Carroll Talks School Science and Time Travel." The New York Times 19 Apr. 2010.
jamies arcticle was explained very well in the fact that he talks on how scientist are trying to work on these questions on like why we cant time travel. he says that there is a law of entomy that says how the universe was completley organzided and now its chaos.
ReplyDeletewhat jamie could have explained more was how the scientist discovered that we cant time travel and if htere are anymore questions speculating that they are wrong.
the thing that i found completely new is the fact that there is a law that says how the universe use to be and how it is considered today overall jamies explanation was superb.
The review that Jamie wrote was very interesting, which was about why people cannot go into the past, and why time only moves in one direction. The review presented well on why time only moves forward, not backward and why we cannot change the past, but can change the future. Also, the review stated well on what entropy is, which the chaos of the universe and how more chaos occurs in the future. Also, the review also explains on why people cannot see into the future, but remember the past, which is all due to the less chaotic past and the more chaotic future.
ReplyDeleteThe review could have stated more on what entropy would appear as, or how the concept would have been modeled. It is hard to imagine more entropy appearing if there is nothing to back it up. Also, the review could have explained on what would happen if the universe was about to end, and how that can relate to the beginning of the universe.
Before reading this article, I did not understand why time has only one direction and why people cannot change the past. This topic is quite interesting because many people wish that time travel was possible, even though right now it’s impossible. Hopefully, with more understanding of time and how it moves, we can one day travel through time and space.
I enjoyed reading Jamie’s review of “Sean Carroll talks school science and time travel." Jamie did a great job reviewing what the article was about. He clearly explained the law of entropy which would have been confusing if he did not explain it clearly. Jamie also did a good job giving background information about Sean Carroll and who he is. Also Jamie did a great job explaining Carroll’s theory and why time travel to the past is impossible. I probably would have gotten bored of Jamie explaining the article but he did it in such a clear and easy way that it was easy and not boring to read. Finally Jamie wrote the article in a way that everyone can understand what the article is talking about.
ReplyDeleteOne part that I think Jamie’s review could improve on is that he did not explain how Carroll proved that time travel to the past is impossible. I also thought Jamie could have talked about the projects that Carroll is working on now.
After reading Jamie’s review I learned that time travel is possible but into the future. I always thought time travel was never possible but Carroll said only time travel to the past is impossible. I also learned that there are people working on time travel now. Maybe in the near future we will be able to travel to the future. Overall Jamie did a great job in reviewing the article.
Robert petrasovits
ReplyDeleteThere were several thing that I liked about this review. The first thing that I liked about this review is that Jamie wrote this article very well. Since this article was very well written it allowed the reader to follow what was going on in the article. Another ting that I thought that Jamie did well was that he provided a lot of description and he defined his descriptive terms. There were several scientific terms in this article like the law of entropy, if Jamie did not describe what terms like this meant the review would have been difficult and hard to follow. The final thing that I though that Jamie did well was that he kept the article interesting. It is very easy to bore people with to much detail but Jamie balanced the review perfectly making it even better.
Although Jamie’s article was very well written I though that Jamie could have provided detail on how Carroll and other scientists proved that people can not travel back in time. A second thing that I thought that Jamie could have improved on would have been to state the more fact although he provided detail about Carrol’s theory it would have been nice if Jamie included facts to back up the review.
I learned a lot from Jamie’s review the first thing that I learned is that scientists have been seriously contemplating time travel. I always thought that time travel was just something that you would see in movies not science labs. The second thing that ii learned is that there is actually a law saying that time cannot be changed.
Jamie did a very nice job reviewing this article. The first thing that was well done was how he connected the topic to our lives today, mentioning science fiction books and other things that we all know of. He reminded us of a fascinating topic that tempted people’s curiosity for hundreds of years. His article was very detailed, listing laws and reasons for Sean Carroll’s theory. Lastly, his grammar structure was fantastic.
ReplyDeleteThough Jamie did many things well, there were some things he could’ve done better. For instance, he could’ve talked about any experiments Carroll did. Also, there was some extra facts that I don’t believe were very relevant to the article that simply prolonged the review.
This article informed me about some possible reasons why time travel is not possible (or so we think): before, I just took it for granted that it was just a thing out of mankind’s reach.
Jamie’s review on “Sean Carroll Talks School Science and Time Travel” was fascinating and mind boggling. Jamie present his review of the article very well, first, he described in depth the ideas of the article and what was being explained which was very helpful in understanding what Jamie was talking about. If had not explained some of the ideas it would have been very difficult to understand the review. Another thing he presented well was his opinion, it was deep and you could really understand where he was coming from. The last thing that I thought Jamie presented well was his background of the story, he explained where the scientist worked and he gave insight onto where you can find the theory of time travel. Jamie presents his review fantastically and it made me more inclined to read the article he was discussing.
ReplyDeleteJamie’s summary of “Sean Carroll Talks School Science and Time Travel” was very well written, but I do believe there are a few areas that need improving. First of all, I believe that Jamie explained a little too much during his review, giving away most of the story and you don’t want to read anything that you already know about. The second thing that I believed Jamie could have done a little better were in his explanations of some of the important terms used. I thought Jamie did not simplify the meanings of some of the words in the article where someone reading about science for the first time could understand them. He should have been simpler and taken a little more time explaining the words like entropy.
I found Jamie’s article very interesting, because time travel is a dream of many and is displayed in many movies, books, and television shows. Time travel is fantasized about all the time which makes this review interesting to read although I was not very happy with the conclusion. This review explained very well why some scientists believed time travel is impossible and am in somewhat agreeing with what was said about the intricacies of time travel and the universe.