What if things had happened differently?

I'm very skeptical about the concept of time travel...at least in the traditional sense.  If someone in the future had actually developed a working time travel system, then where are they?  Should we not expect them to randomly show up at different points in time?   Some people think some UFO sightings may actually be time travelers from the future instead of aliens or classified modern technology.  But if so, why have they never revealed themselves?  Are we to assume that they are a part of some closely guarded organization of time travelers with some sort of prime directive that states they can never reveal their identities to people from the past?  And are we to further assume that none of them ever go rogue and take an unauthorized ride to the past and reveal themselves?

You know, maybe we could just set aside an international time travelers day in the not too distant future and publicly announce it and make sure the media covers it well so that it will be well recorded so that if at any future point in time someone figures out how to physically travel through time, they would have a record of a time and place to visit to announce their discovery.  Just pick a location and date.  If someone shows up and can confirm they are a time traveler, then we know it's possible to do so.  If no one shows, then maybe no one ever figures it out or it just isn't possible.

But anyways, what if it were possible and someone did figure it out?  And what if someone who had access to time travel then looked at the history of the world and thought that maybe they could make things better if they just went back and changed a few things?  Say, for instance (just to pick a random mythological event), Prometheus had not taught man how to build a fire.  What if Prometheus was not a 'god', but a man from the future who thought if he just went back in time and taught men how to build a fire earlier than we would have figured it out on our own, that maybe the progression of technology could get a jump start?  Or what if the assassination of Emperor Caligula had actually been instigated by a time traveler who knew what would happen if Caligula had lived longer?  What if things had once happened differently than history now records simply because future time travelers thought they could make things better by making a few changes?

And if so, could they still be actively changing events?  Could something be one way today, but another way tomorrow, and we would never know that it had ever happened the other way?  Or what if the future time travelers saw their manipulations weren't really helping or had made things worse and then banned time travel, simply leaving things the way they were at the time?  What if some ancient prophecies of the future were actually from time travelers who knew the future and left the stories of the future in the past so people would know what to expect?

Personally, I doubt that any of those scenarios is the case.  As I mentioned in the beginning of the post, I'm skeptical that physical time travel is even possible.  I think if we set aside a day for a future time traveler to officially come visit us, no one would show up (although some crackpots posing as time travelers might make an appearance).  And I think the history of the world is what it is and has always been what it is.  But sometimes you just can't help but wonder...what if?

Hotel made of ice

Imagine you decided to open a hotel and then built it...only to have to build it again the next year...and the year after that, and the year after that, and so on.

Well that's what the builders of the ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden do. Jukkasjärvi is 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) north of the arctic circle, so the winters are quite cold. Around the beginning of winter, a team of snow builders, architects, designers, artists from all over the world gather in Jukkasjärvi to begin construction on a new ICEHOTEL. Think of an igloo, only much larger with multiple rooms capable of accomodating many guests. According to the hotel's website, ICEHOTEL #22 will have 1 Deluxe suite, 16 Art suites, 20 ice rooms, 8 snow rooms and 2 group rooms. There will be 47 rooms in total during the winter season of 2011/2012. The various rooms are sculpted by artists from different countries. Guests will sleep in rooms made of ice and snow and some may even exchange wedding vows in the Ice church. People who want to visit Northern Sweden and stay in the ICEHOTEL will have the opportunity to do so until the Spring time when the sun starts to melt the walls away and the hotel returns to the Torne River. After that, they will have to wait until the next hotel is built.

Check out some pictures of the ICEHOTEL.

Entrance (2011)

Bar (2011)

Main Hall (2011)

Retro Drive suite (2011)

Royal Deluxe Suite (2011)

Legacy of the River suite -- Inspired by the legacy of the Torne River and Tron (2011) 

Ice Church (2011)

You don't get ice in your drink at ICEHOTEL.  You get drink in your ice.

It's not just a building.  It's a work of art.

Visit the ICEHOTEL website here.

Check out an article about the ICEHOTEL and some other hotels made of ice here.

Watch a video here.

Do the 'laws' of physics need to be rewritten?

Laws can be rewritten.  And the government seems to like writing new ones.  But the laws of physics are generally thought to be immutable, are they not?  But what if they are not?  Or what if we've just been wrong about what some of those laws are?

The speed of light is thought the universe's ultimate speed limit at 186,000 miles per second.  Supposedly nothing can go faster than that.

But it was recently reported that a group of researchers measured neutrinos pumped from CERN had arrived 60 nanoseconds faster than light would have.

That's a pretty bold claim, considering that Einstein's theory of special relativity states that the speed of light is the cosmic constant.

Could it be an error though?

Well, the Washington Post has reported a second experiment has reached the same result.  The article suggests more tests are needed and on other experiment setups, but if the two completed experiments are correct, then the result could shake up the world of physics.  What would that mean for Einstein's theory of special relativity and study of physics in general?  Would physicists have to rewrite many years of research and the 'laws' of physics?  Would new models have to be formed?

And if neutrinos can travel faster than light, is there anything else that could go faster also?  And what would the cosmic speed limit be -- or would there even be a cosmic speed limit?