Re: dinosaur cloning and time travel

["Jonathan R. Wagner" <znc14@TTACS.TTU.EDU>]

        As we REALLY stray from dinos...

Brandon Haist wrote:
>In the 1960's the U.S. Navy experimented with time travel.  No they did not
>make any ships disapper, but they did make two sycronized atomic clocks
>change, the one in an air plane was 1/100,000 of a sec. slower, or some
>small amount like that.
        I think we're getting just a little confused here. The atomic clock
anecdote you mention was probably taken out of context. It probably referred
originally to a relativity experiment, in which the aircraft with the atomic
clock was going sufficiently faster than the clock on the surface that the
time difference due to time compression (as predicted by Einstein) was
observable. This is not time travel, in the conventional sense.

>Today my Physics teacher said that you could not ever make a 100% perfect
>heat engine, it would defy the laws of Thermo Dynamics (you couldn't convert
>100% of your heat into 100% work), it was impossible.  I asked him "wasn't
>that what people said about flying?  Or Visiting the bottom of the ocean?
>Or men on the moon?  
        Ok, there's "can't" because you don't believe it is possible, and
"can't" because the nature of space/time forbids it. Two different
phenomena. Granted, our understanding of the universe may change at some
later time, and if it doesn't maybe we can cheat (I know of some very
enthusiastic physics grad students who think we can bend the rules on
relativity by bending the universe... cool!). But, remember, there was no
rule that demonstrated we couldn't fly, just like there was never a rule
that you couldn't have 100 ton sauropods.
        "Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
        :)
        Wagner
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     Jonathan R. Wagner, Dept. of Geosciences, TTU, Lubbock, TX 79409-1053
 "Only those whose life is short can truly believe that love is forever"-Lorien