THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
207-780-4249   www.usm,maine.edu/planet
70 Falmouth Street  Portland, Maine 04103
43.6667° N,                    70.2667° W
Founded January 1970
            "I used to believe in yesterday."




                              THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
                                  December 18, 2015
                                    Time Travel Quiz



******************************************
Mid Winter's Eve at Stonehenge
Sunday,  December 20, 2015
7:00 p.m.
Our Stonehenge tradition continues.
Celebrate the mysteries of Stonehenge as we approach the
Winter Solstice!

Call 207-780-4249 or e-mail edward.gleason  for more
information.
Admission by donation.
*********************************************

Obviously, as next Friday is Christmas, we'll be offering a holiday
quiz next week,  Now, we're offering a  quirky quiz about causality
violation.   We don't yet know if it's possible, though we're
conducting an experiment to send this quiz careening into the past:
we're aiming for Friday, October 10, 2014.    Obviously, we should
know if it worked by now, but oddly, we haven't done the experiment
yet, so it hasn't happened yet, although, it already has, if it was
successful, and we'd know about it and therefore the  success was a
foregone conclusion, so we shouldn't have any doubts.

ANYWAY....moving parabolically along, we hope this time travel quiz
will provide some light entertainment for you to enjoy this holiday
season!   We'll blend science theory with science fiction, so parts of
this quiz are based on possibilities; others on pure fantasies.


1.   Which theory introduced the concept of time dilation, the tendency
of time to dilate on vessels traveling at high speed.
          a. Special Relativity
          b. General Relativity
          c. The Temporal Dilation Theory as pertaining to
hyperluminal travel
          d. Schrondinger's Theory of Causality.


2.  Some theorists believe that black holes could be used as time
travel portals.  Which of the following statements about black holes
is/are false. (Could be more than one; could be less than one.)
          a.  The Sun will become a black hole at the end of its life
          b.  Black holes bend light
          c.  Black holes do not rotate
          d.  We actually have no evidence that black holes exist

3. It is thought that cosmic strings might permit people to travel
through time.   Of course, one problem is____________
             a.  Nobody has ever found any
             b. They consist only of anti-matter and therefore will
annihilate a human on first contact.
             c. The closest known string is at the far edge of the
Andromeda Galaxy
             d. None of the above.

4,   What is the "Grandfather Paradox?"
           a.  A time traveler going to the past couldn't occupy the
same space as his grandfather as they're DNA will be the same.
           b. If a time traveler went into the the past and killed his
grandfather before the latter sired the former's father, the time
traveler wouldn't exist in the first place and would have been unable to
kill him.
           c. A time traveler could theoretically travel into the past
and become his  own grandfather.
           d. A time traveler could meet his grandfather in the past
and tell him about his future, which would alter his grandfather's
decisions.

5.  True or false: The Fermi Paradox refutes the notion of time travel
as it asks, "If time travel is possible, why haven't we encountered in
future time travelers?"

6.  "The Time Machine," one of the first science fiction novels, was
written by_________________.
            a. Jules Verne
            b. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
            c. H.G. Wells
            d. William Thackeray

7.  Dr. Who's vessel is the TARDIS.  What do those letters stand for?


8.  According to modern physics, is time travel possible?

9.  True or false: an atomic clock in Colorado has to be calibrated
differently than an atomic clock at the Greenwich Royal Observatory due
to gravitational time dilation.

10.  According to the Movie web-site  Rottentomatoes. com, which time
travel movie is the best. (Received the highest ranking by movie
critics).
        a. Back to the Future
        b. Groundhog Day
        c.  The Terminator
        d.  Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

ANSWERS

1.    a. Special Relativity
The Special Theory of Relativity (1905).    This theory was the first
to assert that time could dilate: an astonishing idea, as time had
previously been considered immutable.

2.        b.  Black holes bend light
The Sun is not nearly massive enough to become a black hole at the end
of its life.

3.  Strings are immensely energetic "fragments" around which galaxies
were theorized to have taken form in the Universe's early days.   At
this time, however, they are only hypothetical.  We have no direction
evidence of their existence.

4.     b. If a time traveler went into the the past and killed his
grandfather before the latter sired the former's father, the time
traveler wouldn't exist in the first place and would have been unable to
kill him.
So far, this paradox has not been resolved.

5.  False!
The Fermi Paradox relates to extraterrestrials.  It asks, 'If aliens
exist, where are they?'

6.   c. H.G. Wells

7.  Time And Relative Dimension In Space

8.  Yes!
We are all traveling through time...at the rate of one second every
second.

9. True!
The Greenwich and Colorado clocks run at a very slightly different rate
as the Greenwich clock, being closer to Earth's core, experiences a
different time frame,

10.      c.  The Terminator
Ahhnold's signature flick earned 100% on Rottentomatoes.com.
Mathematically, you can't have a higher score than that.


Happy Holidays everyone!