h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Interesting thoughts.
Unfortunately, I'm an undergrad Physicist so I have the pleasure of actually having to study this stuff.
Governments round the world are spending millions on research on this and "closed timelike curves" (ahem!) and they can't afford to give us student grants!! Nice.
We'll have advanced space travel one day but it won't be in our lifetime and, I agree, I think I'd rather have a cuppa and a nice biscuit than travel around up there.It's all a bit dangerous what with those wormholes and pulsars everywhere.
What do you cyberpeople think about time travel?

As for time-travel: Yesterday I have been at I friend's in Aachen and today I have been there, too. So I travelled through time and space as well...
O.k. I think, that is not just what you want to hear. I believe that you won't be able to travel through time when you're consequently avoiding wormholes and all the other wild and wonderful things of which no man knows what happens to him when he encounters them.

Time travel is a very reall possibilty, perhaps. The basic principle of the Einstien-Rossen bridge (wormhole to the normal people) states that aswell as creating a 'hole' in space-time allowing you to travel from any (and I mean any) point in the universe, it also allows you to travel backwards, and forwards, through time. The trouble is that some theories have predicted that the actual process of passing through a wormhole could destroy any normal matter passing through it. Which is a bit of a draw back. But hey they did it in Star Trek so it must be possible.

I dont think speed is the issue, we will find ways to reach speed of light ( s.o.l is not a constant anyway it is a local variable, it is affected by gravity for instance ) the limiting factor will be providing water for the astronauts - we wont be seeing men on mars for quite a while

Speed is the option. Incase you hadn't heard it is 'impossible' to travel 'at' the speed of light. A clever bloke called Einstien established that. Extracting water from matian rocks is not as difficult as you may think. All you need to make water is Hydrogen and Oxygen. Both of which are present of Mars. (And the vast majority of planetiods in the solar system).

I think that one day we will be able to manipulate the universe to travel
great distances without having to use super-luminal velocities,
but I don't think I will see it

If its impossible to travel at the speed of light someone should tell the light.

I'm all for the "deep freeze, take the night train" option myself. We have a couple of billion years before the universe goes pop (or gets eaten by a dog or whatever), so what are we going to lose by spending a few thousand years in a cryogenic state, and waking up when we reach Epsilon Eridani or Alpha Centauri or where-ever? You would travel a vast distance in what seems like an instant to you (and the universe) but is very long by human standards. Kinda puts time travel in a different light...

Comment: According to the Vogons extracting water from other lifeforms is very easy and much easier, you just squeeze them very, very hard.

Comment: According to the Vogons extracting water from other lifeforms is much easier, you just squeeze them very, very hard.

I hear that the Earth is about to be eaten by a giant space goat, or was it killer space bees, anyway if you like I can get you on board a ship I hear NASA and ESA are building in orbit, it called the 'B' Ark or something like that, one of a fleet of three don't you know...

Aren't we all travelling at a reasonably high percentage of light speed right now, both around our galaxy and away from the centre of the big bang? If there ever was a big bang. Personally I'd like to expound my Big Bong theory that has a supreme being emit our universe after one huge lungful of thirteen-dimensional homegrown. As for time travel, I don't understand how you can isolate yourself from all the superfast relative motion of things and their gravities in order to project yourself to the same place at a different time. If you travel forward in time a split second you may well find yourself encased in magma or dropping towards the ground from a few miles up. Still what do I know, it does sound like fun. Invisibility, anyone?

Don't be too sad. There are so many things to do on this planet that it does really not matter if you see how some mad scientits tie up the galaxy and pass from one end to the other just to find out that they have taken the wrong crossing.
You can for example search the guide for the craziest, most beautiful or dirtiest town and go there to have a great time. I would so much like to see the world from above, let's say from the space-shuttle, but I know that I stand almost no chance, so I do not really bother. Sometimes I lie in my bed and dream about how great this would be, but I know that it is all illusory.

I think I'd like to stop travelling in space and time for a few moments and see what happens, but how in great Zarg's name would I ever catch you lot up again.

Didn't some clever chap called Einstein figure out that the speed of light IS constant, I thikn he mentioned something about relative frames of reference....

None of you realy understand the real issues hear. You see, that clever chap or bloke or what ever you want to call him invented all that reletivaty stuff while siting on the john. He was scrawling some graphiti professing his love for Martha Chapman so he wrote E=MC the squared part was merely a stray mark that looked like a 2. After he came out, his physics teacher suspected that he was the one responcable for all the schools graphiti.(partialy true) He saw it and dragged Einstein in to the bathroom. To avoid getting in trouble he lied and told a story about how it meant Energy equals matter and all of that stuff. The teacher brought the "formula" to the attention of others and Einstein had to come up with more fake formulas to cover his original lie.

Of course, all the talk about light being the limit of how fast you can go is garbage. While you can go faster then light, it will be too dark and you will get lost.

I think that I might be invisibile right now. That is to say i'm pretty sure that noone can see me. And if noone can see me how do I know if I'm invisibile or not? I may simply not exist and that is the reason you cannot see me. For example I may not be typing this right now, and maybe you are not reading it either. Maybe you just think that you are reading it. Perhaps you do not exist and that is why you cannot see me.

Oh, I see.

Do you? Or do you just think that you do?

I question, therefor I am