Has it been established whether time turners can return someone to before the time turner was created? If they cannot, then it is simple to postulate that the time turner brings into existence a perfect copy of the user at the time and location of arrival, and then destroys the user at the time of departure. The time turner itself would have to contain enough energy to create the user to conserve energy.
That would also mean that a mass/energy conserving time turner has less stored magic during the periods of time when a duplicate exists.
Timeline, from the point of view of the two time turners, referencing the time on the clocks: Time turner is created and becomes fully charged. (Long time ago) Copy of user and new depleted time turner created, depleting charge on time turner. (1200 noon) User and time turner destroyed by use, recharging new time turner. (1300)
From the point of view of the new time turner: Magically created in a depleted state along with copy of user. (1200 noon) Recharged by the destruction of the original time turner and user (1300)
This might not mean that one cannot acquire a time turner, trade it with one’s future self’s time turner, then use that time turner to travel back and trade with one’s past self. The timelines would look like: Manufactured Created duplicate user and duplicate time turner. (Exchanged) Recharged by destruction of user and duplicate time turner. and: Created along with duplicate user (Exchanged) Destroyed along with original user to recharge original turner
A slightly more complex variation allows the time-tuner to contain multiple charges and behave in the same manner as !Harry uses it. An additional factor is required to explain the 8-hour limitation of multiple time turners.
It’s 6 hours, i think, regardless of the chain of time-turners)
And given the 6-hour limitation, all you have to posit is a 6-hour ritual for creating the time turner before it’s useable. presto, no going back to before the time-turner was created.
...but the BIG time machine in the ministry may or may not comply with the constraints of the smaller time turners.
lastly, the 6-hour limitation itself… seems more like a way to premptively prevent a harry vs. quirremort TIME WAR than anything else.
Has it been established that, in addition to never being able to retreat more than 6 hours using any combination of !time turners, you cannot use more than one !time turner to travel back to the same hour repeatedly? I see many munchkin ways to abuse either possibility (one being to use multiple time-turners to be in an arbitrary number of places at the same time, and the other to take a tick back multiple times and then plant it on the opponent.
yes, it has. when harry was trying to stun Moody, moody asked harry if “are you going to give up, or do you think you’re going to win?”
Harry replied that he was on his last copy because he had used up his remaining hours studying. although...hang on, is it 6 or 7?
Anyways. Eliezer nerfed the time-turner precicely to prevent Harry from utterly totally munckinning it. “prevent or limit timetravel-based gamibt SPAM” and all that.
come to think of it, it might not be a full-blown limitation…
But “time does not like being stretched”. Even if it IS possible to squeeze one extra hour in by using a second time turner, it’s not a good idea. (side effects may include insanity, extremely-rapid aging (more so than living 8 extra hours in a day would lead you to expect), and dizziness.)
Ok, I went and found Where the quote came from. chapter 17...
“Because it’s pretty impressive if you’re doing all that on just thirty hours a day.”
There was another slight pause, [snip]
“I’m afraid Time doesn’t like being stretched out too much”
I think this is more a case of Dumbledore using anthropic shorthand than actual anthropic reasoning. He seems to have...(ooh, here’s a randomish theory: Dumbledore accidentally(?) performed a ritual that sacrificed a few pieces of his overall sanity in order to protect himself against dangerous time-travel related phenomena..)
Now where was I?...
Oh yeah. So that very much looks like extra time-clones MIGHT be possible with standard time-turners, but it is NOT a good idea.
Now, the Big Time Turner in the ministry (The one which had the ever hatching/un-hatching egg) probably COULD give you time-clone armies, laser-guided peggy-sues, and possibly even “change time” (whatever that means), but it is probably even more dangerous to use-you’d basically have to create your own reference frame, or else understand the real rules of Time.
But...maybe, just maybe: The BTT+philosophers stone+resurrection stone...
To create a user from nothing, the time turner would have to acquire negative mass equal to that of the transported user. To destroy the user at the moment of transport, the time turner would have to have had negative mass prior to the use. In short, user mass + time-turner mass = 0 at all times. Which would mean that a time turner is much more useful as a levitation aid.
In general, negative mass behaves weirdly. The Newton’s laws still apply, so the gravitational force acting on the negative-mass time turner is mg (upwards if m < 0). However, if you let it go, it will fall down, not up (F=ma, so a=g, since m cancels). If you push on a negative-mass object, it tends to accelerate toward you. This makes carrying one quite hazardous: you can only pull it (in which case it gets pushed). If you even touch it, it will snap your hand.
Given the above, I think it is safe to say that time turners have positive (and small) mass and don’t change their mass when activated.
To create a user from nothing, the time turner would have to acquire negative mass equal to that of the transported user. To destroy the user at the moment of transport, the time turner would have to have had negative mass prior to the use.
No it doesn’t.
The time-turner just has to contain more mass-energy than the user at all times. Pretty simple, really. See it as a magical container and beamer for all that mass that gets displaced (and while creating the user-copy or deleting it, it also removes/generates an appropriate amount of air to equalize the pressure effects).
The process would, by the clock, look like this:
Time-turner is created, has a mass of 5000 (the mass is not apparent for the same reasons that wingardium leviosa makes objects float / less heavy, whichever reasons those might be).
Time-turner removes some air (mass 5000 + 2) and simultaneously generates a copy of the user (mass 5002 − 80)
Time-turner later removes the “old” / time-turned user (mass 4922 + 80) and generates some air to fill in the space (mass back to 5000).
As for how the time-turner itself moves places, well, it presumably either shares the mass among copies somehow (entanglement? wormholes? exotic space geometries?) or just teleports the mass reserve where appropriate, or perhaps the “enchantment” is contained in a separate “server” of sorts (which would be most coherent with the Atlantis hypothesis).
This explanation conserves mass—the mass is just taken from a big rock or something at the creation of the time-turner, and then redistributed/refilled as appropriate to create the apparent effect of creation-from-nothing.
I agree that if you allowed to screen a fixed amount of energy from GR by magic, you don’t have to have negative energy, as you can add an arbitrary and undetectable amount of it to whatever object you want. But then why stop there, GR is already broken.
GR was (apparently) broken by changes in mass; suppose instead that animagi convert between magic, energy, and mass in an analogous manner: When in a smaller form, they are more magical, and vice versa. Brooms convert magic to a combination of energy and/or something which is anti-mass but not anti-inertia, and/or something else which is not directly analogous to anything in GR.
The time turner then remains no harder than apparation combined with future prediction; future prediction is easy enough that it’s provided in novelty drinks.
or perhaps the “enchantment” is contained in a separate “server” of sorts (which would be most coherent with the Atlantis hypothesis)
This also provides a possible mechanism for the 8-hour limit on multiple time turners; the servers can predict up to eight hours in the future, except they cannot accurately predict their own future prediction. Things which do not depend on their future prediction can mostly still be predicted “Do not mess with time” could have originated from there as well.
Has it been established whether time turners can return someone to before the time turner was created? If they cannot, then it is simple to postulate that the time turner brings into existence a perfect copy of the user at the time and location of arrival, and then destroys the user at the time of departure. The time turner itself would have to contain enough energy to create the user to conserve energy.
That would also mean that a mass/energy conserving time turner has less stored magic during the periods of time when a duplicate exists.
Timeline, from the point of view of the two time turners, referencing the time on the clocks:
Time turner is created and becomes fully charged. (Long time ago)
Copy of user and new depleted time turner created, depleting charge on time turner. (1200 noon)
User and time turner destroyed by use, recharging new time turner. (1300)
From the point of view of the new time turner:
Magically created in a depleted state along with copy of user. (1200 noon)
Recharged by the destruction of the original time turner and user (1300)
This might not mean that one cannot acquire a time turner, trade it with one’s future self’s time turner, then use that time turner to travel back and trade with one’s past self. The timelines would look like:
Manufactured
Created duplicate user and duplicate time turner.
(Exchanged)
Recharged by destruction of user and duplicate time turner.
and:
Created along with duplicate user
(Exchanged)
Destroyed along with original user to recharge original turner
A slightly more complex variation allows the time-tuner to contain multiple charges and behave in the same manner as !Harry uses it. An additional factor is required to explain the 8-hour limitation of multiple time turners.
It’s 6 hours, i think, regardless of the chain of time-turners)
And given the 6-hour limitation, all you have to posit is a 6-hour ritual for creating the time turner before it’s useable. presto, no going back to before the time-turner was created.
...but the BIG time machine in the ministry may or may not comply with the constraints of the smaller time turners. lastly, the 6-hour limitation itself… seems more like a way to premptively prevent a harry vs. quirremort TIME WAR than anything else.
Has it been established that, in addition to never being able to retreat more than 6 hours using any combination of !time turners, you cannot use more than one !time turner to travel back to the same hour repeatedly? I see many munchkin ways to abuse either possibility (one being to use multiple time-turners to be in an arbitrary number of places at the same time, and the other to take a tick back multiple times and then plant it on the opponent.
yes, it has. when harry was trying to stun Moody, moody asked harry if “are you going to give up, or do you think you’re going to win?” Harry replied that he was on his last copy because he had used up his remaining hours studying.
although...hang on, is it 6 or 7?
Anyways. Eliezer nerfed the time-turner precicely to prevent Harry from utterly totally munckinning it. “prevent or limit timetravel-based gamibt SPAM” and all that.
Is that an inherent limit, or simply the result of !Harry having access to only one time turner?
come to think of it, it might not be a full-blown limitation… But “time does not like being stretched”. Even if it IS possible to squeeze one extra hour in by using a second time turner, it’s not a good idea. (side effects may include insanity, extremely-rapid aging (more so than living 8 extra hours in a day would lead you to expect), and dizziness.)
If time is anthopic enough to like things in a literal sense, it can be bargained with. That might be the principle of operation of the time-turners.
If time can be bargained with, a rationalist who embraces a decision theory that one-boxes when the boxes are transparent has a lot of leverage.
Ok, I went and found Where the quote came from. chapter 17...
“Because it’s pretty impressive if you’re doing all that on just thirty hours a day.” There was another slight pause, [snip] “I’m afraid Time doesn’t like being stretched out too much”
I think this is more a case of Dumbledore using anthropic shorthand than actual anthropic reasoning. He seems to have...(ooh, here’s a randomish theory: Dumbledore accidentally(?) performed a ritual that sacrificed a few pieces of his overall sanity in order to protect himself against dangerous time-travel related phenomena..)
Now where was I?...
Oh yeah. So that very much looks like extra time-clones MIGHT be possible with standard time-turners, but it is NOT a good idea.
Now, the Big Time Turner in the ministry (The one which had the ever hatching/un-hatching egg) probably COULD give you time-clone armies, laser-guided peggy-sues, and possibly even “change time” (whatever that means), but it is probably even more dangerous to use-you’d basically have to create your own reference frame, or else understand the real rules of Time.
But...maybe, just maybe: The BTT+philosophers stone+resurrection stone...
To create a user from nothing, the time turner would have to acquire negative mass equal to that of the transported user. To destroy the user at the moment of transport, the time turner would have to have had negative mass prior to the use. In short, user mass + time-turner mass = 0 at all times. Which would mean that a time turner is much more useful as a levitation aid.
In general, negative mass behaves weirdly. The Newton’s laws still apply, so the gravitational force acting on the negative-mass time turner is mg (upwards if m < 0). However, if you let it go, it will fall down, not up (F=ma, so a=g, since m cancels). If you push on a negative-mass object, it tends to accelerate toward you. This makes carrying one quite hazardous: you can only pull it (in which case it gets pushed). If you even touch it, it will snap your hand.
Given the above, I think it is safe to say that time turners have positive (and small) mass and don’t change their mass when activated.
No it doesn’t.
The time-turner just has to contain more mass-energy than the user at all times. Pretty simple, really. See it as a magical container and beamer for all that mass that gets displaced (and while creating the user-copy or deleting it, it also removes/generates an appropriate amount of air to equalize the pressure effects).
The process would, by the clock, look like this:
Time-turner is created, has a mass of 5000 (the mass is not apparent for the same reasons that wingardium leviosa makes objects float / less heavy, whichever reasons those might be).
Time-turner removes some air (mass 5000 + 2) and simultaneously generates a copy of the user (mass 5002 − 80)
Time-turner later removes the “old” / time-turned user (mass 4922 + 80) and generates some air to fill in the space (mass back to 5000).
As for how the time-turner itself moves places, well, it presumably either shares the mass among copies somehow (entanglement? wormholes? exotic space geometries?) or just teleports the mass reserve where appropriate, or perhaps the “enchantment” is contained in a separate “server” of sorts (which would be most coherent with the Atlantis hypothesis).
This explanation conserves mass—the mass is just taken from a big rock or something at the creation of the time-turner, and then redistributed/refilled as appropriate to create the apparent effect of creation-from-nothing.
I agree that if you allowed to screen a fixed amount of energy from GR by magic, you don’t have to have negative energy, as you can add an arbitrary and undetectable amount of it to whatever object you want. But then why stop there, GR is already broken.
GR was (apparently) broken by changes in mass; suppose instead that animagi convert between magic, energy, and mass in an analogous manner: When in a smaller form, they are more magical, and vice versa. Brooms convert magic to a combination of energy and/or something which is anti-mass but not anti-inertia, and/or something else which is not directly analogous to anything in GR.
The time turner then remains no harder than apparation combined with future prediction; future prediction is easy enough that it’s provided in novelty drinks.
This also provides a possible mechanism for the 8-hour limit on multiple time turners; the servers can predict up to eight hours in the future, except they cannot accurately predict their own future prediction. Things which do not depend on their future prediction can mostly still be predicted “Do not mess with time” could have originated from there as well.