Tim I agree with you. Scientific American did not do a good job covering the issue of time. The days of Martin Gardner are over. Paul Davies' article on time travel making use of worm holes is just a rehash of "old science-fiction technology" of the fifties and sixties. Falling into a worm hole is identical to falling into a black hole and would completely destroy any (information carried by a) time traveler and would therefore make time travel pointless and unverifiable. I was disappointed by the absence of any mention of the MWI. The MWI, in my opinion, is essential in understanding time and has the potential to lead to "new science-fiction technology" for time travel and parallel universe travel "a la Roger Zelazny."
George Tim May wrote: > The September issue of "Scientific American" is usually/always devoted > to some special theme. This issue is ostensibly devoted to "Time" and > problems associated with it. Articles include some physics articles, > some perception/psychology articles, and one or two on clocks and > timepieces. > > Sad to say, "Sci Am" has fallen far from its once lofty perch. > Flipping through the issue at a boostore, I found the first _half_ of > the thin magazine devoted to advertising, general news, and a special > 20-plus-page insert devoted to Italy and its industries, blah blah. > > Once the articles started, they were of course no longer the meaty, > detailed dozen or so solid articles. (Used to be the special September > issues were thicker than usual!) The articles were short, filled with > colorful graphics (but with less content than the SciAm graphics of > the 1950s-recent), but carried little information. > > The articles may be of use in introducing people to notions like > "block time," but the entire idea is covered in just a few paragraphs. > Not much to go on. > > Paul Davies does one of the physics articles on time...nothing in his > article not covered in much more detail in the books by Huw Price, > Julian Barbour, Kip Thorne, and others. > > I didn't buy the issue. > > Meanwhile, my study of lattice and order continues. I'll say more in > the future (if it exists, that is). > > > --Tim May > (.sig for Everything list background) > Corralitos, CA. Born in 1951. Retired from Intel in 1986. > Current main interest: category and topos theory, math, quantum > reality, cosmology. > Background: physics, Intel, crypto, Cypherpunks > >
