4 ms·

Although i don't agree that the article shouldn't be written the way it is.... Can someone tell me the point? Not sure if i should read it.

mtreis86 10y ago
I think the point of the article is summed up in one of the last paragraphs, "If time travel is possible, he submitted, then time itself is impossible. A past that can be revisited has not really passed. And the fact that the actual universe is expanding, rather than rotating, is irrelevant. Time, like God, is either necessary or nothing; if it disappears in one possible universe, it is undermined in every possible universe, including our own."
- ievahanordah 10y ago
  The meaning of the words time and pasts are that you can't travel into the past or it would no longer be the past. Or, to call something the past in the first place means it can't be "travelled" to. If there is some phenomena that lets you do something like "time travel". Find a new word for it. Your not talking about time, travel, or past.
gumby 10y ago
It's just a discussion of Gödel and Einstein written for the layperson. It has a little biographical detail and context of both, pretty reasonable brief explanations of their respective theories (incompleteness, photoelectric effect, brownian motion, special and general relativity) and then Gödel's contribution to General. A nice article In typical New Yorker fashion it assumes you have never heard of platonism, formal logic or 20th century physics but assumes you remember the future conjugations of regular latin verbs.
- bwanab 10y ago
  === In typical New Yorker fashion it assumes you have never heard of platonism, formal logic or 20th century physics but assumes you remember the future conjugations of regular latin verbs.=== So true and so well put - And I love the New Yorker. If I use this phrase in the future should I attribute it to you (although "according to gumby" might not fly so well with my other New Yorker aficionados).
  - gumby 10y ago
    Those callous sophisticates[+] should be more tolerant of names of others from different cultures (even if their name is funny in US English). [+] The referenced Kliban cartoon seems quintessentially New Yorker Magazine material but as far as I know he never appeared in it.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

mtreis86 10y ago

I think the point of the article is summed up in one of the last paragraphs, "If time travel is possible, he submitted, then time itself is impossible. A past that can be revisited has not really passed. And the fact that the actual universe is expanding, rather than rotating, is irrelevant. Time, like God, is either necessary or nothing; if it disappears in one possible universe, it is undermined in every possible universe, including our own."

ievahanordah 10y ago
The meaning of the words time and pasts are that you can't travel into the past or it would no longer be the past. Or, to call something the past in the first place means it can't be "travelled" to. If there is some phenomena that lets you do something like "time travel". Find a new word for it. Your not talking about time, travel, or past.

gumby 10y ago

It's just a discussion of Gödel and Einstein written for the layperson. It has a little biographical detail and context of both, pretty reasonable brief explanations of their respective theories (incompleteness, photoelectric effect, brownian motion, special and general relativity) and then Gödel's contribution to General. A nice article In typical New Yorker fashion it assumes you have never heard of platonism, formal logic or 20th century physics but assumes you remember the future conjugations of regular latin verbs.

bwanab 10y ago
=== In typical New Yorker fashion it assumes you have never heard of platonism, formal logic or 20th century physics but assumes you remember the future conjugations of regular latin verbs.=== So true and so well put - And I love the New Yorker. If I use this phrase in the future should I attribute it to you (although "according to gumby" might not fly so well with my other New Yorker aficionados).
- gumby 10y ago
  Those callous sophisticates[+] should be more tolerant of names of others from different cultures (even if their name is funny in US English). [+] The referenced Kliban cartoon seems quintessentially New Yorker Magazine material but as far as I know he never appeared in it.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]