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Measuring Measuring Rods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

John C. Graves  and
James E. Roper
John C. Graves
Affiliation:
Princeton University
James E. Roper
Affiliation:
Princeton University Now at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now at Michigan State University.
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Abstract

In this paper, we show that a restricted form of time travel both accords with special relativity kinematics and avoids several prima facie objections. We argue that such time travel provides a reasonable way to interpret certain phenomena which can readily be described, and the analogues of which have already been observed at the level of elementary particle reactions. We then describe how a time-traveling object could measure itself, and demonstrate how, in the appropriate circumstances, such an experiment could convince a theorist who insisted on a single criterion for length measurements that his standard had itself changed in length. The same experiment can shed light on the possibility of detecting a universal expansion; and we show that, given certain experimental results, one must conclude that every member of a class of time travelers has changed in length simultaneously, though perhaps only while going backwards in time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , January 1965 , pp. 39 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1965

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