1051
General Discussion / WEIRD FF8 ENDING?
« on: 2001-04-15 19:31:00 »
Division by infinity is nothing you'd want in your equations, that's the key issue.
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1052
General Discussion / WEIRD FF8 ENDING?
« on: 2001-04-15 19:11:00 »
I don't quite follow your logic here... I'm comparing time to space. Space has inifite resolution, othewise theories based on waves wouldn't work. We humans have invented units to measure space, but no matter how small a unit we pick, a point can still exist between two of our unit marks. The same, I argue, is true with time. Division by infinity is no problem, as we calculate using our units, not the resolution of time/space itself.
1053
General Discussion / WEIRD FF8 ENDING?
« on: 2001-04-15 18:45:00 »
Very valid point on the total mass of the universe being altered. Time traveling using Einstein's theories doesn't have this problem since your mass has already been "separated" from the rest of the universe when you started your journey, thus the total mass remains unchanged. Your time machine, after all, still exists in the "outside world" during the entire trip. Going back in time, let's say to a time before you were born, would be troublesome, because your mass wouldn't have existed in that time frame. More specifically, it wouldn't exist in your shape. You would introduce new matter, increasing the total mass of the universe. And that can't be good. ^^
This could be solved though, for example we could think of time as two-directional, like the spatial dimensions. This is part of the explanation for theoretical phenomena like effect before cause. However, since time only seems to move in one direction in our universe, we instantly run into trouble.
So, in a universe where time only flows one way (our universe), you'd run into trouble traveling to the past, introducing duplicate matter. Then again, maybe it is perfectly acceptable to alter the mass of the universe? I mean, lots of matter gets dumped into black holes all the time.
And finally, a correction. Time, just as space, has infinite resolution; meaning there's no such thing as a smallest unit of time. If there were, things like waveforms could not exist. A sine wave, for example, would consist of small steps instead of a smooth curve, thus breaking physics theories by the hundreds.
1054
General Discussion / WEIRD FF8 ENDING?
« on: 2001-04-15 18:04:00 »
Final point: Humans will never find a way to travel back in time. If we were to discover a way, where are all the time travelers?
1055
General Discussion / WEIRD FF8 ENDING?
« on: 2001-04-15 17:06:00 »
Bah, I was gonna make a smart-ass reply to all this, but that page already covered most of it... it also went a bit over my head at times. ^^
This discussion has appeared before, I'm afraid. The people I was arguing with at the time had a theory of two similar, yet distinct time lines. These would have intersected when Squall was killed by Edea's ice magic. Yes, the theory was based on the assumption that he was killed. This way, when disc 2 started, we had entered another time line. This somehow explained most of the paradoxes found in the game, but I can't remember the details. However, the theory had some major flaws that I pointed out; the main flaw being the fact that the party remembers the earlier events when starting disc 2. My point of view was basically the same as Terence's, and could be presented in a single sentence. "Every change to the past that will happen, has already happened". Thus implying a strong sense of fate, and a heavy lock-down regarding future events.
The question immediately arises; if Squall is fated to defeat Ultimecia (since she has died by his hand in the past), how much of Squall's future has already been decided? Is it completely unchangeable, or...? Lets visualize the theory of quantum universes (every possibility in a given situation does happen, but in separate, new "copies" of the universe). In this situation, "fate" would mean removing every "time thread" except those leading to the determined situation.
Of course, all this becomes void if we follow the rule that the past cannot be changed. The future would be completely decided up till the point of the last time travel to the past. Or even completely decided to the end of time itself. What a sad concept.
"Every change to the past that will happen, has already happened", consequence before cause. Entirely possible in temporal mechanics, but only theories. Let's take a look on our own universe. Using the current theories for describing it, things are as in Terence's example #1 (Past cannot be changed, but future *can* be changed). At least, it seems so. A simple addition though; time travel is not only possible, it is happening all around us. It's just that the effects are usually much too small to measure. Einstein's theories predicts that the time of a moving object moves slower than the surrounding time. Meaning, if you move fast, you will begin travelling into the future. The past is safe thanks to the mechanics of it all; you can't use this theory to travel back in time, thus you can't change anything.
There are, of course, other theories in which time travel is possible. Black holes, for example, could be connected to another black hole at another point in space-time (wormholes). There are obvious problems to this theory... ^^
While looking through the link Terence gave us, I noticed the current theories of using the energy of black holes to power time travel. This may be very possible, but I didn't quite agree with their way of travelling backwards in time. The basic concept I found was travelling above the speed of light, relying heavily on quantum tunneling. This itself is a nice concept, but hard to make anything practical of.
The problem lies in the assumption that moving at super-light speed would mean reverse time-travel. I'm going to use an image to make my point:
http://qhimm.3dstream.net/time.gif" border=0>
(If nothing appears, I might still be working on it. My PC is breaking down, so I'll post this while I can)
1056
General Discussion / Final Fantasy X Media Released!
« on: 2001-01-13 16:45:00 »
I'm not too fond of the new big-assed logo, it'll be tricky to fit into any kind of web design...
Come to think of it, the colors in the logo are nearly identical to the ones I used for my win98 title bars a while ago... It's a small color-space after all 
[This message has been edited by Qhimm (edited January 13, 2001).]
1057
General Discussion / How old is everyone?
« on: 2001-02-19 23:54:00 »
No, really, I wasn't kidding. I'm closing this thread, please start a new one.
1058
General Discussion / How old is everyone?
« on: 2001-02-19 02:21:00 »
My god, this thread is huge... better prepare to start a new one, I'm going to close this one in a day or two (it's just too huge).
1059
General Discussion / How old is everyone?
« on: 2001-01-29 03:28:00 »
dag: Yep, pretty much so.
And about my age... gave me a good laugh to look through some of your comments Late 70's was close, with May 1982 being the correct answer. Sorry to disappoint some of you, although I'm a bit flattered being seen as older, being "wise" and "mature". I never did care a lot for childish style (y dont u try it?), I've found it's much easier to have a decent conversation when you keep things professional. Am I right?
By the way, I cannot believe such a silly topic has gotten 200 posts...
1060
General Discussion / How old is everyone?
« on: 2001-01-06 22:06:00 »
You simply don't get it, do you? (sorry, but this is a question that just keeps on coming)
EA and Eidos have nothing to do with the programming, they simply publish the game. FF8 was ported to PC by a team of Square programmers.
1061
General Discussion / How old is everyone?
« on: 2001-01-04 01:35:00 »
I don't really remember alot from the old days, but I remember stuff like Chernobyl and the assassination of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. Mid-80s, those are my only early memories of notable events.
1062
General Discussion / How old is everyone?
« on: 2001-01-03 22:40:00 »
Let's just say I'm old enough to do a lot of things legally.
And yes, the times are completely screwed up, seems to be GMT-1 instead of GMT as it says.