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Old 08-January-2006, 03:50 PM
Spherical Spherical is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2006
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Relmuis
One might get around the conservation laws by sending only a signal (which might be as weak as one pleases). However, this would not obviate the paradoxical nature of time travel.

Suppose I build an appliance which I will be able to use only once, receiving a signal next monday which I plan to send next tuesday. I also plan the signal to be a natural number: say, a sequence of N tiny blips. And I intend to send one blip more on tuesday than I received on monday, so if I received N, I will send N+1. (If I receive nothing at all, I will send just one blip.)

To accommodate this, a countable infinity of different "worlds" must come into existence between now and next wednesday.
We still fall afoul of conservation laws. First, the blip itself had to be a something, it otherwise would not be sensible at all, nor could it have an effect on events. Secondly, by creating whole new worlds, we've created large quantities of mass. I can't see how this is workable. Others may.