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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Time Travel
Casebook Message Boards: General Discussion: Miscellaneous:
Time Travel
Author: Diana
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 12:20 am |        | | Paul Harvey said on the radio that there is a physicist working on it. Exciting! One of our biggest problems is the lack of extant evidence. If he succeeds we will finally find out the truth. Of course then the chase would be over. Sigh. If interactive it could be dangerous. Which crime scene would we visit? How could it be set up so the traveller wouldn't have his/her throat slit by JTR? Would we attempt a rescue or should history be left unchanged? |
Author: Graham Jay
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 04:26 am | | Unless of course it DOES get invented, and the Ripper is a time traveller, in which case he could slip back a day earlier and do it.
Anyway, it's obvious that this physicist is not going to succeed because, by it's very nature, time travel will be discovered at all periods in history simultaneously. One day we would wake up and it would have always existed. Possibly.
And, if anyone can follow that, can they also answer me this: if a vehicle can travel faster than the speed of light, would it's headlights light up where it was going or where it had been? |
Author: Jim Leen
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 06:24 am | | Hello Diana and Graham,
Remember the movie Time After Time? Well, I don't quite recall all the details but for some reason JTR ended up in modern San Francisco.
Now if only Dirty Harry or Frank Drebbin were avilable to the Victorian Met!
Thanking you
Jim Leen |
Author: Graham Jay
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 07:03 am | | What about that TV series, "Goodnight Sweetheart"? JTR got brought to 90's London, and then was knocked down by a bus.
Well, it DOES explain why the killings stopped.... |
Author: Eduardo Zinna
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 09:40 am | | Hi all,
Robert Bloch's 'A Toy for Juliette.' Harlan Ellison's 'The Prowler in the City at the End of the World.' Ripper. Time travel.
Graham,
Do other passengers hear you when you are travelling by plane faster than sound?
Cheers,
E. |
Author: David Radka
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 11:21 am | | | The time machine is in your own minds already. |
Author: LeatherApron
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 04:46 pm | | Diana,
Physicists and other inventors have been trying to discover time travel for a long time now. Instead of going into the problems with time travel straight away, let's just take your most excellent JtR-related questions...
<Which crime scene would we visit?>
I would be standing in the shadows where the piece of Annie Chapman's apron was found, for one. Another good place might be outside of MJK's in Miller's Court. One could check in on Mary after each (if there were several that night) "customer" had "paid her a visit".
<How could it be set up so the traveller wouldn't have his/her throat slit by JTR?>
It probably couldn't. A further explanation of this is included in my response to your next question.
<Would we attempt a rescue or should history be left unchanged?>
No matter how much we would like to rescue these poor women, it wouldn't be possible. History has already happened as it is written, or more accurately, as it has occurred. In other words, to go back in time and attempt to save Annie Chapman would be futile. Before one attempted such a dangerous feat, one must realize that he/she had already gone back and must have failed; otherwise, history would have recorded the event differently. So if I tried to confront the Ripper after a murder, he must have gotten the upper hand and disposed of me. The papers might have eventually reported that the body of some poor "John Doe" had been found in the Thames. Make sense?
Time travel... first off there's no way to travel BACK in time. You can travel forward in time and "fast forward" in time, but you can never go back. What's happened has happened. One obvious difficulty is the position quandary. If there were a machine that could travel through space-time (note: it would have to be a machine that could control gravity and would require incredible amounts of power) then it could not simply sit in someone's basement and travel back to the days of the caesars unless the traveler had computed the exact position of the earth in space at the desired time. Another way of saying that is this... the earth's position in space can be represented on a 3 dimensional grid (x,y,z) with a fourth dimension of time (t); however, because the earth was at a completely different set of coordinates, or position, in space at a time (t) in the past than it is now, it is a very arduous task, if not literally impossible, to mathematically calculate where to place our time machine so as to land softly on the earth's surface.
I'd like to continue, especially regarding the aspects of time travel that are possible, but someone's calling me to a meeting.
All,
Quickly... the most recent movie (non-JtR related) that I've seen that has time travel in it was KATE & LEOPOLD. I recommend it, but be warned, I'm a sucker for romantic comedies, haha.
Regards,
Jack |
Author: David O'Flaherty
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 05:04 pm | | Jack,
Very interesting post! Although some physicists theorize that you could change the past (if you were able to return) and that any changes you make would create an alternate universe. Really. I know it sounds like a comic book, but that's one of the theories. Another is that, like you said, you could never change history, no matter what. If you went back and tried to shoot your great-grandfather, something will always prevent you. The gun will misfire, your great-grandfather will duck at the last second, your pants will fall down, etc.
I think you're right, though. You could never return. I read a book by Kip Thorne and he comes up with a pretty interesting exercise involving an imaginary wormhole. The catch is that you can never go to a time where the wormhole didn't exist (perhaps this is how the Ripper got away, thru his wormhole--that's a joke, btw). I think someone else thought that the machinery needed to generate such a wormhole would be huge, as you said--approximately the size of the solar system. Not very practical!
Fun stuff to discuss, although I don't understand most of it 
Cheers,
Dave |
Author: Rosemary O'Ryan
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 05:25 pm | | David,
Like a lone voice crying in the wilderness...
Welcome back! I hope your absence was fruitful.
Rosey :-) |
Author: Timsta
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 06:27 pm | | A good (and recent) introduction to the ideas of Thorne and others is "Time Travel in Einstein's Universe" by J. Richard Gott (Houghton Mifflin, 2001) , if anyone's interested.
Alternatively you could go straight to the horse's mouth: "Black Holes and Time Warps", by Kip S. Thorne (Norton, 1994) but it can be heavy going and omits a lot of recent thinking.
Regards
Timsta (famously, I am the guy who doesn't believe in inertia) |
Author: David Radka
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 09:14 pm | | Thanks, Rosie. I've been looking into the abyss.
The murderer, whomever he was, was not transcendent with respect to time. "JACK NOW!" might have been the limit of his awareness.
David |
Author: Dan Norder
Tuesday, 27 August 2002 - 11:05 pm | | All the theories about time travel these days are quite up in the air, as there are multiple competing hypotheses and no way to test them out. Anyone stating "facts" about time travel therefore does so from massive untested assumptions and not from a scientific standpoint.
But to answer Diana's questions hypothetically:
"Which crime scene would we visit?"
Assuming we can't just watch them all, Mary Jane Kelly seems like the most suitable one to observe. But then you'd have the people who seem to think she was killed by someone else somehow, so then it'd have to be Eddowes. And then you'd have to check on Stride to see who did that. Some people even claim the killer of the first victims was different than the one who killed the last victims, so you might have to watch all of them before some people would believe the case was truly solved. Even then I think the Royal Conspiracy folks would just claim another coverup anyway.
"How could it be set up so the traveller wouldn't have his/her throat slit by JTR?"
It'd be fairly simple to set up mini cameras to observe the scenes from a distance. An actual physical presence would be problematic, but then if you presuppose a technlogy that could travel through time there are likely to be new methods to permit up close personal observation.
"Would we attempt a rescue or should history be left unchanged?"
Honestly, I think they'd have to set up a noninterference rule to prevent interfering from other historical events that various modern people would like to change, especially since the results of those changes could be highly unpredictable.
But then another way to look at it is to make a change but not so that anyone of that time period notices... perhaps cloned bodies could be switched in for the victims and then the originals get sent to the future or just somewhere else in the world where they can't let people in London know they're still alive. All sorts of things should be possible with the technology level we're talking about.
Though I'm not sure why someone would want to save them just for the sake of saving them if it meant they'd have to continue living in Whitechapel in such unfortunate circumstances. It seems like a heck of a lot of effort just to prop them back up into a miserable existence. Certainly there have been many more people who have died under equally violent circumstances all throughout human history.
Messy, messy, messy.
Dan |
Author: Divia deBrevier
Wednesday, 28 August 2002 - 01:13 am | | Greetings all:
I just started reading Caleb Carr's Killing Time. I wonder if the Ripper ends up being in this one?
Warm regards,
Divia
PS: If you know, don't tell me, okay? I want to finally finish it after all the time it has spent lying around my house, thank you very much. |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Wednesday, 28 August 2002 - 06:01 am | | As a person who likes to term himself,-logical,in mind, this talk of time-travel makes me smile. You all know it's impossible, yet some of you talk about it as if it could be possible .
Logically, it's not a case of "something MIGHT happen", it's a case of "something WILL/WILL NOT happen",-- it's GOT to be one or the other,---no might!.
The only way to time travel, is if you believe in ghosts,--another logical impossibility,-- you may get a sighting of the past. I've stood on numerous historical battle fields and willed myself to see something I maybe shouldn't see, "Never Any Bloody Thing", but maybe you time -travellers are more receptive than me, perhaps you should set up camp in that street that used to be Dorset St outside one of those roller doors, one of these nights you may see something to your advantage Rick |
Author: Graham Jay
Wednesday, 28 August 2002 - 06:17 am | | Hi Warwick,
I don't believe in ghosts any more than you do, but I do feel that some places have more of an "atmosphere" than others.... many's the hour I've spent on Senlac Hill...... |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Wednesday, 28 August 2002 - 07:51 am | | | I agree Graham,I suppose my way of thinking is due to the fact that I've never seen anything that can't be explained, BUT--- there are places, usually buildings, never open air,-- that I would not spend the night there. BUT thats not belief, thats being afraid of myself and my imagination) Rick |
Author: Jim Leen
Wednesday, 28 August 2002 - 08:33 am | | Hello Everybody,
The question of time travel certainly generates some lovely paradoxes, not least, were it possible to visit the dim and distant past this board may cease to exist!
Timsta, you don't believe in inertia? Ever tried pushing a dodgy shopping trolley around Asda?
Thanking you
Jim Leen |
Author: LeatherApron
Wednesday, 28 August 2002 - 06:22 pm | | All,
Dan brings up a good point and I certainly didn't mean to imply that my views on time travel are proven "facts". I am simply giving my opinion with all of the available information that I have at this, um, er, time.  Like others in the past whose predictions and hypotheses were later proven, maybe someday mine will be found to have been accurate, but until then, everyone's allowed to indulge in any fantasies regarding time travel that they wish. In fact, look at all the great entertainment we would have missed if others hadn't already done so. BACK TO THE FUTURE comes to mind as well as that Jackologist's classic titled TIME AFTER TIME.
I am, my fellow Ripperologists, your most humble and irreverent servant,
Jack |
Author: Warwick Parminter
Wednesday, 28 August 2002 - 07:45 pm | | Jack, you know me, we used to get quite a conversation going now and again about 18 months ago, then you went off scene for a while, but it's nice to talk to you again, don't forget that drink in the Ten Bells we promised each other, one of these summers. No, I was only gaming with you time-travellers you know, I like the time travel stories as much as anybody, and a good film like "The Haunting" is just my cup of tea.
I thought your explanation of time-travel was excellent, but Jackie, you would be hard pushed to stand where part of Annie Chapmans apron was found, even with a time machine standing by
NICE TO TALK TO YOU AGAIN, (thats emphasizing, not shouting) All the Best,Rick . |
Author: Diana
Thursday, 29 August 2002 - 12:42 am | | | My daughter, a wise young woman of 26 years, has informed me that she is very glad that time travel is impossible. She is quite convinced (and probably rightly so) that she would be unable to keep me from going back to check on Jack. Then she says I would probably get myself killed. Probably right again. Do you suppose a can of MACE would be sufficient protection? Why does my family think I'm a nut? |
Author: John Dow
Thursday, 29 August 2002 - 11:06 am | | Well, I have a head full of visions of all you eminent ripperologists wandering around victorian Whitechapel with mobile phones and synthetic fibre clothing. Gah - you'd all get lynched! "Look! A Weirdo! Must be Jack the Ripper!"
Seriously, though - if Time Travel were "invented" 1,000 years from now we'd already know about it unless a strict policy of non intervention was imposed. On the other hand, maybe in 5,000 years time we'll have evolved into "Greys" and will be travelling back in time to Roswell to scare the sh*t out of the primitives
J |
Author: Divia deBrevier
Thursday, 29 August 2002 - 01:31 pm | | Dear J:
On the other hand, maybe in 5,000 years time we'll have evolved into "Greys" and will be travelling back in time to Roswell to scare the sh*t out of the primitives
That has been my theory for years!
Warm regards,
Divia |
Author: Andy & Sue Parlour
Thursday, 29 August 2002 - 02:46 pm | | Hi All,
Strange you should start a thread on time travel.
While we were researching for our book, Sue and I, came across a reference to H.G.Wells visiting the Black Museum with G. Sims and, I believe Conan Doyle. Together they saw the exhibits relating to the Whitechapel Murders. He was at this time writing the 'Time Machine'. He did think of Jack the Ripper escaping justice in a time machine but dropped that theme and wrote the novel as we read it today.
So it was H.G.Wells, whose idea, it was, that the 1970s film 'Time after Time' starring David Warner as JTR is based. Where Jack the Ripper escapes to New York.
A&S |
Author: Divia deBrevier
Thursday, 29 August 2002 - 02:53 pm | | Dear A & S:
So it was H.G.Wells, whose idea, it was, that the 1970s film 'Time after Time' starring David Warner as JTR is based. Where Jack the Ripper escapes to New York.
Small point, but it was San Francisco, not New York.
Gosh, I love that movie! Pure fiction, never meant to be a plausible theory on the Ripper's disappearance. Gotta love Warner as the heavy.
Warm regards,
Divia |
Author: Graham Jay
Thursday, 29 August 2002 - 06:05 pm | | | HG Wells - another Bromley boy like me... and Sid Vicious! |
Author: Timsta
Thursday, 29 August 2002 - 06:35 pm | | Graham:
Not to mention Sue Catwoman. Or maybe she is from Sidcup, I forget.
Local resident and towering sci-fi great Michael Moorcock used HG Wells as a character in several of his novels, to somewhat amusing effect. Forget which ones exactly, though I think one of them is from the Dancers at the End of Time trilogy. Something featuring the Guild of Temporal Adventurers, at any rate.
Regards
TI Msta |
Author: Timsta
Thursday, 29 August 2002 - 06:38 pm | | Graham:
Uh, wasn't our boy Sidney from Finsbury Park? Surely he was one of the infamous 'Johns' (Lydon, Ritchie, Grey and some guy whose last name I've forgotten)?
Regards
Timsta |
Author: LeatherApron
Thursday, 29 August 2002 - 07:48 pm | | Rick old buddy!
Hahahaaaaa. You nailed me. I was hoping someone didn't catch my mistake. Realized it yesterday. AC should have been CE. Duh. 
Hope you and your wife are doing well. And the first round at the pub is on me (please, don't pour it over my head). 
One thing you mentioned yesterday I'd like to comment on...
<The only way to time travel, is if you believe in ghosts,--another logical impossibility,-- you may get a sighting of the past>
The really cool thing about the nature of light is that every time we look into the night sky we're looking into the past. The sun for example... the distance from the earth to the sun is so great that we're actually looking at the sun as it was in the past; therefore, if the sun's fire were to suddenly burn out, we wouldn't know it for about 8.5 minutes. I always thought it would be awesome if we could distance ourselves from the earth by any number of light years that we wanted, say several hundred million, and then peered through a telescope and watched the old dinosaurs tromping around.
I'll let you know when I've got plans firmed up to return to jolly old England. Last time I was there was Princess Di's funeral.
Diana,
<Why does my family think I'm a nut?>
Well, to quote from BRAVEHEART (modified), "You've come to the right place then."
dh;oafio;j;kla Oops. Sorry. Sometimes I get an itch I can't scratch. It's hard typing with my nose in this bloody straitjacket.
Best Regards,
Jack |
Author: Graham Jay
Thursday, 29 August 2002 - 10:23 pm | | Timsta,
Mr Vicious was one of the so called "Bromley contingent" along with Siouxsie Sue, Billy Idol et al.
Great days - talking about them has inspired me to dig out "Never Mind the Dangly Bits" and give it a spin............ |
Author: Divia deBrevier
Friday, 30 August 2002 - 12:42 am | | Dear Graham:
It's funny you mentioned that... I got out my Siouxsie Sioux stuff to listen to tonight!
Dear Jack:
dh;oafio;j;kla Oops. Sorry. Sometimes I get an itch I can't scratch. It's hard typing with my nose in this bloody straitjacket.
Try holding a pen in your mouth. It's much easier than using your nose.
Warm regards,
Divia |
Author: Graham Jay
Friday, 30 August 2002 - 04:07 am | | Hi Divia,
"Spellbound" was always my favourite |
Author: Andy & Sue Parlour
Friday, 30 August 2002 - 04:36 am | | Divia,
Oops! Sorry San Francisco, its been so long since I have watched the film.
A&S. |
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