Time Travel

[Shrek]

NOTE: This thread was inspired by this thread (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20660). ;)

http://science.howstuffworks.com/time-travel.htm (http://science.howstuffworks.com/time-travel.htm)

There may be no other concept that captures the imagination more than the idea of time travel -- the ability to travel to any point in the past or future. What could be cooler? You could jump into your time machine to go back and see major events in history and talk to the people who were there! Who would you travel back to see? Julius Caesar? Leonardo da Vinci? Elvis? You could go back and meet yourself at an earlier age, go forward and see how you look in the future... It's these possibilities that have made time travel the subject of so many science fiction books and movies.

It turns out that, in some sense, we are all time travelers. As you sit at your desk, doing nothing more than clicking your mouse, time is traveling around you. The future is constantly being transformed into the past with the present only lasting for a fleeting moment. Everything that you are doing right now is quickly moving into the past, which means we continue to move through time.

http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/time-travel-wormhole1.jpg

Ideas of time travel have existed for centuries, but when Albert Einstein released his theory of special relativity, he laid the foundation for the theoretical possibility of time travel. As we all know, no one has successfully demonstrated time travel, but no one has been able to rule it out either.

Does anyone here think that time travel will ever be possible? If so, what might it entail? What can we expect traveling into the unknown future? If we travel to the future, can we get back to the present? Has the future even been written yet? Can we change the past? If so, what consequences might that entail? Will humans be able to survive a trip through time? These and other questions may boggle your brain! :eek: But hey, they're really good for discussion! :D

[MacFan25]

I just read that article on that site. Very interesting.

I'm not sure if time travel is possible, but it seems like there are some problems associated with it, such as the parallel universes, which from what I understand, means that if you travel in time, you may not be able to get back to your original universe that you originally came from.

[medea]

well, I don't think you wouldnt be able to change the past, the past is just that, it has already happened. Say for instance if you went back and accidently kept your great grandfather from meeting your great grandmother, that would negate your existance, but if you never existed you would not have been able to go into the past in the first place. It might be beyond me, but I do not think time travel is possible, but travel to other parallel worlds might be, if parallel worlds exist that is.

[Les Kern]

Cause and Effect would be hosed. Well, actually everything would be hosed. Wasting time dreaming about time travel is a waste of time.
Hey, I met my younger self the other day. Tomorrow I'm going back to give G. H. W. Bush a vasectomy. Silliness. TT at a sub-atomic level with nano-meter wormholes? Scientific American (for one) says "Perhaps".

[MacFan25]

This all reminds me of the movie, "Back to the Future". I wonder why. ;) :D

[Shrek]

Imagine how much different the world would be if could go back and make September 11 never happen. Well, of course we couldn't do that, but we could at least make the events of September 11 never happen. LoL. :D

[Shrek]

If what this article says is how time travel works, and extraterrestrials do exist and come from galaxies far far away to visit us, then they probably travel at very fast speeds (faster-than-light) through both time and space to come and see us! :D Ever think about that? Maybe that's how we'll explore the universe someday. :rolleyes:

[MacFan25]

That would be great if we could go back to the early hours of Sept. 11 and arrest the hijakers before they got on the airplanes.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by Shrek
Imagine how much different the world would be if could go back and make September 11 never happen. Well, of course we couldn't do that, but we could at least make the events of September 11 never happen. LoL. :D
As great as that would be, I think there are far more important events in recent history that would deserve a *slightly* higher priority on the list; like maybe stopping a couple of world wars which cost MILLIONS of lives.

[MacFan25]

yes, that's true edesignuk, except stopping the events of Sept. 11 should also be high on a priority list, if there was time travel.

[Shrek]

Originally posted by edesignuk
As great as that would be, I think there are far more important events in recent history that would deserve a *slightly* higher priority on the list; like maybe stopping a couple of world wars which cost MILLIONS of lives.

The only problem is if all those millions of lives were saved that means things might be very different today because those people who are now living but were supposed to be dead would change the course of history. Hmmm. :rolleyes: You might just stop World War II and September 11 altogether by stopping World War I. That is if they are somehow linked in the "pages" of time. Well, we know WWI and WWII are linked. It's a cause and effect thing. ;)

[krossfyter]

good subject guys.






"Flight into the Future
In 1935, Air Marshal Sir Victor Goddard of the British Royal Air Force had a harrowing experience in his Hawker Hart biplane. Goddard was a Wing Commander at the time and while on a flight from Edinburgh, Scotland to his home base in Andover, England, he decided to fly over an abandoned airfield at Drem, not far from Edinburgh. The useless airfield was overgrown with foliage, the hangers were falling apart and cows grazed where planes were once parked. Goddard then continued his flight to Andover, but encountered a bizarre storm. In the high winds of the storm's strange brown-yellow clouds, he lost control of his plane, which began to spiral toward the ground. Narrowly averting a crash, Goddard found that his plane was heading back toward Drem. As he approached the old airfield, the storm suddenly vanished and Goddard's plane was now flying in brilliant sunshine. This time, as he flew over the Drem airfield, it looked completely different. The hangers looked like new. There were four airplanes on the ground: three were familiar biplanes, but painted in an unfamiliar yellow; the fourth was a monoplane, which the RAF had none of in 1935. The mechanics were dressed in blue overalls, which Goddard thought odd since all RAF mechanics dressed in brown overalls. Strange, too, that none of the mechanics seemed to notice him fly over. Leaving the area, he again encountered the storm, but managed to make his way back to Andover. It wasn't until 1939 that that the RAF began to paint their planes yellow, enlisted a monoplane of the type that Goddard saw, and the mechanics uniforms were switched to blue. Had Goddard somehow flown four years into the future, then returned to his own time?"

(See Fate magazine's "The Air Marshal and the Unexplained" for more details on this story.)





"Caught in a Temporal Vortex
Dr. Raul Rios Centeno, a medical doctor and an investigator of the paranormal, recounted to author Scott Corrales a story told to him by one of his patients, a 30-year-old woman, who came to him with a serious case of hemiplegia - the total paralysis of one side of her body. "I was at a campground in the vicinity of Markahuasi," she told him. Markahuasi is the famous stone forest located about 35 miles east of Lima, Peru. "I went out exploring late at night with some friends. Oddly enough, we heard the strains of music and noticed a small torch-lit stone cabin. I was able to see people dancing inside, but upon getting closer I felt a sudden sensation of cold which I paid little attention to, and I stuck my head through an open door. It was then that I saw the occupants were clad in 17th century fashion. I tried to enter the room, but one of my girlfriends pulled me out." It was at that moment that half of the woman's body became paralyzed. Was it because the woman's friend pulled her out of the stone cabin when she was half entered into it? Was half her body caught in some temporal vortex or dimensional doorway? Dr. Centeno reported that "an EEG was able to show that the left hemisphere of the brain did not show signs of normal functioning, as well as an abnormal amount of electric waves."


(See "Dimensions Beyond Our Own" for more details on this story.)





A good link on the subject. (http://paranormal.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://freespace.virgin.net/steve.preston/time1.html)

[3777]

Originally posted by Shrek
NOTE: This thread was inspired by this thread (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20660). ;)

http://science.howstuffworks.com/time-travel.htm (http://science.howstuffworks.com/time-travel.htm)



Does anyone here think that time travel will ever be possible? If so, what might it entail? What can we expect traveling into the unknown future? If we travel to the future, can we get back to the present? Has the future even been written yet? Can we change the past? If so, what consequences might that entail? Will humans be able to survive a trip through time? These and other questions may boggle your brain! :eek: But hey, they're really good for discussion! :D

Time travel will never be possible because if it were then people would have already gone back in time and we would have encountered them by now.:o

[Shrek]

Originally posted by 3777
Time travel will never be possible because if it were then people would have already gone back in time and we would have encountered them by now.:o

Oh really, well what if the people that come back have technology to make themselves invisible, that the only thing they do is observe the past and nothing more; no interaction whatsoever. Hmmm. :rolleyes:

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by MacFan25
yes, that's true edesignuk, except stopping the events of Sept. 11 should also be high on a priority list, if there was time travel.
I didn't say it shouldn't be, I just said that there are (sadly) bigger events/tragedies in history that would come higher on the list. But don't get me wrong, stopping 9/11 would be right up there to :(

[vniow]

Of course this brings up all kinds of morality questions as well, suppose we were able to go back in time and prevent the 9-11 attacks, should we?

Would it be our place to interrupt the natural course of things or is interrupting the natural course of things the way things were supposed to be?

I watch too much Star Trek.http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=251202

[MacFan25]

Originally posted by edesignuk
I didn't say it shouldn't be, I just said that there are (sadly) bigger events/tragedies in history that would come higher on the list. But don't get me wrong, stopping 9/11 would be right up there to :(

Yes, I understand what you are saying, and I also think that 9/11 should also be up there too.

[MacFan25]

Originally posted by vniow
Would it be our place to interrupt the natural course of things or is interrupting the natural course of things the way things were supposed to be?

I'm not really sure, that is an interesting question.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by vniow
Of course this brings up all kinds of morality questions as well, suppose we were able to go back in time and prevent the 9-11 attacks, should we?

Would it be our place to interrupt the natural course of things or is interrupting the natural course of things the way things were supposed to be?

I watch too much Star Trek.http://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=251202
lol, yeah, too much star trek! :D But the point is valid, what's happened has happened, what right do we have to go back and try to change things? We might only end up making them worse :(

...but then again...it's still be cool to go back in time...or forward for that matter...bring on the flux-capacitor! :D ;)

[MacFan25]

"The flux-capacitor is what makes time travel possible" - Dr. Emmit Brown, in Back to the Future

:D

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by MacFan25
"The flux-capacitor is what makes time travel possible" - Dr. Emmit Brown, in Back to the Future

:D
hehehe, glad you knew what I was referring too, I would hope everyone does, they're great films! I bought the trilogy on DVD :D ;)

[beatle888]

what do you think it is that travels? our mind,
soul whole body? what part makes this
transition into a new time space? do we leave
the NOW when we travel to the future? if so,
then why? if the past future and the present
is all happening at once then we would be in
all three at the same time. i dont know. this
subject is too slippery.

[beatle888]

hmmmm

[Shrek]

Originally posted by edesignuk
But the point is valid, what's happened has happened, what right do we have to go back and try to change things? We might only end up making them worse :(

Good point. And you guys must understand that if you go back and change the past, say for example if some idiot goes back and stops Columbus from discovering America, then that would affect the entire spacetime continuum from that point on. That could have dire consequences. If we ever do go back in time, we must make ourselves invisible and be very careful not to interact with anything. We must only observe and study. ;)

[Ifeelbloated]

There is a way to experience time travel. Drink a whole bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey and then spin around a hundred times.

[MacFan25]

Originally posted by beatle888
what do you think it is that travels? our mind,soul whole body? what part makes this
transition into a new time space?

I don't really know. And also, say someone left to travel back in time at 12:00 p.m. Then say that they were in the past for 3 hours, whenever they came back, would it be 12:00 or 3:00?

[beatle888]

Originally posted by Shrek
The only problem is if all those millions of lives were saved that means things might be very different today because those people who are now living but were supposed to be dead would change the course of history. Hmmm. :rolleyes: You might just stop World War II and September 11 altogether by stopping World War I. That is if they are somehow linked in the "pages" of time. Well, we know WWI and WWII are linked. It's a cause and effect thing. ;)


wait, from my understanding, everything has
an affect on everything else...what about the
fact that a butterfly flapping its wings in japan
has affects on weather patterns (for instance).
soooo us just being an added dynamic to a time
space would be changing the past right there.


so lets say i sneezed while back in time...adding
to all the dynamics that led to a monsoon that
wiped out half of japan...we couldnt walk light
enough to not change the past.


i dont think changing the past is that scarey.
i would if i had absolute faith that our current
road is on track with a positive outcome.


i dont really think the outcome of life is really
that important....im not sure it matters which
way the pieces fall...so what if theres five red
marbles over here and two or three green ones
over there. the material world is what happens
when you lose your connection to god. if your
connected....then nothing else matters.
that monk who set him self on fire during an
anti-war demonstration proved that. sitting in
a ball of flames he didnt even flinch....just sat
there connected with god (creative force whatever).

[krossfyter]

Existing time travel...actually, currently we can go back in time. when the astronauts return to Earth, less time has passed for them (as they went faster than we on Earth, and thus, time went slower), so in a sense, they went backwards in time, although, only a few moments....As you approach the speed of light...time slows down.
a watch worn by an astronaut, and one worn by a ground observer could be synchronized before launch. when the astronaut returned, his watch would be a little off from his ground friend's... not sure about the exact time dilation, but it's pretty scarce, even at the speed travelled by the astronauts, but it was at least like a couple minutes or so...strictly has to do with acceleration. the faster you go, the more time slows down. The watch and bullet train illustration works best. man A is at the station. man B gets on the train. both of their watches are synchronized to the second. man B goes a few miles away, at a really high speed, then comes back, again at high speed. They then compare watches. man B's watch will be behind that of Man A's, albeit only by seconds.... the greater the speed (and thus, closer to light speed), the greater the time dilation. length contradiction is also a postulate of the theory. on the newer Star Trek's, when a ship goes into warp, you'll see it "stretch". this is an illustration of the length contradiction postulate. advanced physics isn't my bag, so I'll spare us both the math, hehe....time is just a measurement. the examples I gave are all "relative" to an observer, as for our astronaut, nothing seemed amiss, while he was travelling slower in time...just that an observer can notice it. hence the name "Theory of Relativity" (as I understand it...like I said, I'm no physics major, just a curious person that's into wierd *****, hehe...) So some of you others who live on the math of physics feel free to jump in here...

[MacFan25]

Time Travel is so strange. I wonder if it will ever become a reality.

[Vector]

There is nothing that outlaws time travel, but I expect that time travel would be very limited. One of the best sources on time travel is Steven Hawking. Hawking discusses the possibility of time travel in several of his books. If it is possible to travel into the past, it is probably not possible to change anything that will happen in the future from which you travled back. If you can change events in the past, they will probably not result in a change of your future but of an alternate future (Back To The Future flashback). Any change no matter how seemingly trivial, even your very presence in the past, would create a tangent future (anyone remember this on the Simpsons?). Some believe that it would be impossible to evben do this because the past cannot be changed. An example is often given that you could not go back in time and kill your father or grandfather because then you would not be born to be able to go back and kill that person. Something would always prevent you from doing this.

[MacFan25]

I saw a TV show about Time Travel on TechTV one night, and I believe that Steven Hawking was on there discussing Time Travel.

[beez7777]

Originally posted by Vector
There is nothing that outlaws time travel, but I expect that time travel would be very limited. One of the best sources on time travel is Steven Hawking. Hawking discusses the possibility of time travel in several of his books. If it is possible to travel into the past, it is probably not possible to change anything that will happen in the future from which you travled back. If you can change events in the past, they will probably not result in a change of your future but of an alternate future (Back To The Future flashback). Any change no matter how seemingly trivial, even your very presence in the past, would create a tangent future (anyone remember this on the Simpsons?). Some believe that it would be impossible to evben do this because the past cannot be changed. An example is often given that you could not go back in time and kill your father or grandfather because then you would not be born to be able to go back and kill that person. Something would always prevent you from doing this.

from howstuffworks:

Another theory regarding time travel brings up the idea of parallel universes, or alternative histories. Let's say that you do travel back to meet your grandfather when he was a boy. In the theory of parallel universes, you may have traveled to another universe, one that is similar to ours, but has a different succession of events. For instance, if you were to travel back in time and kill one of your ancestors, you've only killed that person in one universe, which is no longer the universe that you exist in. And if you then try to travel back to your own time, you may end up in another parallel universe and never be able to get back to the universe you started in.

The idea here is that every action causes the creation of a new universe, and that there are an infinite number of universes that exist. When you killed your ancestor, you created a new universe, a universe that was identical to your own up until the time you changed the original succession of events.

[Shrek]

Parallel universes may not even exist; I mean it's only a theory. :rolleyes:

[topicolo]

I believe in the parallel universes theory: If you do go back and change time, it would only create a parallel universe where their present would be different from our present. That way, if you killed your grandparents, you would only cease to exist in the parallel universe that you created, not in the universe that you travelled back in time from.

Krossfyter: the astronauts wouldn't really be going BACK in time, they'd just go forward at a slower rate relative to us. The only way to actually go back in time is if you travelled faster than the speed of light, which isn't really possible unless you create a wormhole by spinning a massive ring (a couple of thousand kilometers in diameter) at an extremely fast rate, warping space-time enough to create such an anomaly.

I did read an article on www.newscientist.com a couple of years ago about some scientists who were hoping to create a time machine by slowing down the speed of light to only a few meters/second (technologically possible), which somehow warps space time in such a massive way that the 4th dimension, time, becomes a part of the 3rd dimension (so you can go forward in time by going in one direction, and backwards in time by going in the opposite direction). They were trying to detect photons that would appear to come from nowhere, but they would actually be particles coming back in time from the future. Never heard how it turned out though, but it's really interesting.

[topicolo]

Darn! You guys beat me to the punch with the parallel universes theory.:D

[MacFan25]

If you were to go into the future what would you do, and how far in the future would you go?

I think that I would probably go about 15-20 years into the future, and see what I am doing then. It would also be neat to see what the world would be like then. I would look to see if Apple would still be around, too. :D

[mymemory]

There is no way to travel back in time as far I can think in a way.

If there is people from the future amoung us thay may feel necesary our actual experiences for us to learn to coexist in this world.

I'm sure that if such people are between us they well know they can not do anything to change anything because of their future existance stuff.

[Shrek]

Originally posted by MacFan25
...and see what I am doing then.

Probably not a good idea to know anything about your own future. :eek:

[MacFan25]

Do you think that the future is written yet?

[Shrek]

No. And that's for religious reasons. :p

[MacFan25]

Originally posted by Shrek
Probably not a good idea to know anything about your own future. :eek:

Yep, you are right, because if some people saw their futures, and they don't like the looks of the future, then they might get mad and they wouldn't know what to do or how to change it.

[iWantAMac]

http://www.christopherlloyd.net/bttfdoc_sm.jpg








(Sorry, couldn't resist it :D )

[beatle888]

Originally posted by MacFan25
Do you think that the future is written yet?

i would say it is to a degree, but not every
action or thought. we know we will die. so thats
a solid factor, but we dont know how, which
may be a variable.

im not sure what we do is so much a script.
but i do think the stages in and after life are
set. however i wouldnt know.

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by krossfyter
a watch worn by an astronaut, and one worn by a ground observer could be synchronized before launch. when the astronaut returned, his watch would be a little off from his ground friend's... not sure about the exact time dilation, but it's pretty scarce, even at the speed travelled by the astronauts, but it was at least like a couple minutes or so...strictly has to do with acceleration. the faster you go, the more time slows down.

I'm familair w/what you are saying, but I thought that once the aircraft returned to Earth the clocks synched up again. There was only a difference in time when aircraft was traveling at speed.

Lethal

[MacFan25]

I like the pic iWantaMac. :D

[Les Kern]

[QUOTE]I believe in the parallel universes theory: If you do go back and change time, it would only create a parallel universe where their present would be different from our present.

Bleh blah bleh blah blah.

That way, if you killed your grandparents, you would only cease to exist in the parallel universe that you created, not in the universe that you travelled back in time from.

Blah, bleh, blah-blah

The only way to actually go back in time is if you travelled faster than the speed of light, which isn't really possible unless you create a wormhole by spinning a massive ring (a couple of thousand kilometers in diameter) at an extremely fast rate, warping space-time enough to create such an anomaly.

Bleh, bleh, blah, blah.

Some scientists who were hoping to create a time machine by slowing down the speed of light to only a few meters/second (technologically possible), which somehow warps space time in such a massive way that the 4th dimension, time, becomes a part of the 3rd dimension.

Blah, BLAH!

but it's really interesting.

I'll give you that one.

There is nothing that outlaws time travel, but I expect that time travel would be very limited.

(!) BLLLAAAAAHHH! Blech!

On the newer Star Trek's, when a ship goes into warp, you'll see it "stretch". this is an illustration of the length contradiction postulate.

Blah-ha-ha-HA-HA!

I have a doctorate in physics. It's impossible, I say. Surely this counts more than Star Trek special effects, eh?

Okay, I had my fun, but I don't want anyone to think I'm a complete jerk and not open to strange and wonderful possibilities. I know all too well that humans don't know everything, and that there are near-infinite things to discover. Saying that, know there are indisputable laws in our own universe when added together preclude even a remote chance of time travel, BACKWARD time travel that is.

We now return you to your regular programming...

[Gus]

I thought that what Einstein really was saying was that the reason that we could not reach the speed of light was not because it was "just too fast" or anything like that, it has to do with what happens to the mass of the object that is approaching near-light speeds. The object(s), as I understand it) basically begins to try an invert itself-this is a bad explanation, but I think I understand it better than I explain it. It would be like getting closer and closer to a mirror-far away you look normal and three-dimensional, but the closer you get, the flatter you appear. The object would contract. Oh yeah, and he never said we couldn't go faster than light speed, just not at light speed. :)

I don't know. Ask the blah, blah, blah physicist. ;)

Regards,
Gus

[sinclairZX81]

Originally posted by Shrek
Good point. And you guys must understand that if you go back and change the past, say for example if some idiot goes back and stops Columbus from discovering America, then that would affect the entire spacetime continuum from that point on. That could have dire consequences.

hmmmm... dire consequences like the native americans wouldn't have had their land stolen, their culture destroyed and their peoples massacred by racist white invaders?

:eek:

and if you want the skinny on some of the latest thinking on time travel...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2612time.html

[krossfyter]

Originally posted by Les Kern
[QUOTE]I believe in the parallel universes theory: If you do go back and change time, it would only create a parallel universe where their present would be different from our present.

Bleh blah bleh blah blah.

That way, if you killed your grandparents, you would only cease to exist in the parallel universe that you created, not in the universe that you travelled back in time from.

Blah, bleh, blah-blah

The only way to actually go back in time is if you travelled faster than the speed of light, which isn't really possible unless you create a wormhole by spinning a massive ring (a couple of thousand kilometers in diameter) at an extremely fast rate, warping space-time enough to create such an anomaly.

Bleh, bleh, blah, blah.

Some scientists who were hoping to create a time machine by slowing down the speed of light to only a few meters/second (technologically possible), which somehow warps space time in such a massive way that the 4th dimension, time, becomes a part of the 3rd dimension.

Blah, BLAH!

but it's really interesting.

I'll give you that one.

There is nothing that outlaws time travel, but I expect that time travel would be very limited.

(!) BLLLAAAAAHHH! Blech!

On the newer Star Trek's, when a ship goes into warp, you'll see it "stretch". this is an illustration of the length contradiction postulate.

Blah-ha-ha-HA-HA!

I have a doctorate in physics. It's impossible, I say. Surely this counts more than Star Trek special effects, eh?

Okay, I had my fun, but I don't want anyone to think I'm a complete jerk and not open to strange and wonderful possibilities. I know all too well that humans don't know everything, and that there are near-infinite things to discover. Saying that, know there are indisputable laws in our own universe when added together preclude even a remote chance of time travel, BACKWARD time travel that is.

We now return you to your regular programming...


lol

so okay is there any person out there who has a doctorate in physics and actually believes time travel is possible?

[748s]

time expands in a non linear fashion, so we can't get there from here.

[Shrek]

Originally posted by sinclairZX81
hmmmm... dire consequences like the native americans wouldn't have had their land stolen, their culture destroyed and their peoples massacred by racist white invaders?

That would happen eventually because if Columbus doesn't discover America, then someone else will later on. :p

[elfin buddy]

OK, let's suppose for a minute here that time travel (backwards) is possible. What would you do? Do you really think you would travel back to change history and prevent events like WWI/WWII and 9/11 from happening? Why would you want to? :confused:

Personally, I don't think it is possible to change anything major in the past, but I think it *might* be possible just to travel back. However, I don't know much of the physics behind it all, so I stand to be corrected. I'm sure Les Kern could do an excellent job of proving me wrong, if he so desired :)

Anyone ever played any of the Journeyman Projects? Those games give a fair bit of insight into the consequences of time travel. It's a pity that they aren't being made any more....

[MacBandit]

My personal belief is that you can only go forwards. As you reach the speed of light time will slow down for you in affect speeding everything up around you. This in affect will allow you to travel into the future. It doesn't work in reverse though.

[WinterMute]

Robert Heinlien often dealt with the
multi-dimensional theory of time travel and it's consequences.

See "The number of the beast", "The cat who walked through walls", "Time enough for love" and the rather soppy "To sail beyond the sunset".

There were others as well I think.

[sinclairZX81]

Originally posted by MacBandit
My personal belief is that you can only go forwards. As you reach the speed of light time will slow down for you in affect speeding everything up around you. This in affect will allow you to travel into the future. It doesn't work in reverse though.

unless you can go faster than the speed of light, at which point you will appear to move backwards in time. in a phenomena called photon tunneling, photons have been shown to travel at up to 4 times the speed of light.

einstein's general theory of relativity breaks at the subatomic level.

[sinclairZX81]

Originally posted by Shrek
That would happen eventually because if Columbus doesn't discover America, then someone else will later on. :p

yes, but it could have happened much later on, any number of factors could have been different. cristoforo coumbi's failure to find the continent (and it was amerigo who actually found it I believe) could have been because his ship was sunk by a spanish war galley and italy and spain get dragged into a protracted naval war that pulls in the english,dutch and portugese, putting paid to the age of discovery for a century. by which time the native american culture has flourished, ceased to be nomadic and when the europeans eventually arrive they get a severe ass kicking and go back where they belong.:D

[Les Kern]

Originally posted by krossfyter
lol

so okay is there any person out there who has a doctorate in physics and actually believes time travel is possible?

I know one, but he also believes in ET's. (See, "smart" people can be idiots too!) And THAT'S another waste of time. Don't EVEN get me started on THAT crap.
See, it's avery human trait: See something that by all accounts is impossible, then start making up things to make it so, like wormholes and super string theories or phlogiston. I'd admit that it helps eliminate all else and it exercises the mind, but sooner or later you have to scream "ENOUGH!".
PS: Ghosts are crap too. I await many flames.

[Shrek]

Originally posted by Les Kern
I await many flames.

I'll spare you the wrath of my pet dragon! :o

:D

[sinclairZX81]

Originally posted by Les Kern
I know one, but he also believes in ET's. (See, "smart" people can be idiots too!) And THAT'S another waste of time. Don't EVEN get me started on THAT crap.
See, it's avery human trait: See something that by all accounts is impossible, then start making up things to make it so, like wormholes and super string theories or phlogiston. I'd admit that it helps eliminate all else and it exercises the mind, but sooner or later you have to scream "ENOUGH!".
PS: Ghosts are crap too. I await many flames.

OK. lets get some things straight here.

time travel into the future is possible right now. a trip around the world on 747 will take you an infitessimaly small 'distance' into the future. like 30 nanoseconds or something. only a lack of big enough engines stops us travelling years into the future.

the tricky one is travelling back in time. one of the reasons travelling faster than the speed of light is forbidden by Einstein is that moving beyond it would make time stand still. remember, the faster you move the slower time passes, approaching zero as you approach the speed of light. so if you could go faster than light...

german physicist Gunter Nimtz, has transmitted Mozart's 40th Symphony across his lab at 4.7 times the speed of light. oops.

Igor Novikov, the russian astrophysicist who solved the 'going back in time and killing your grandfather paradox'. believes that travel into the past will be possible in about 200 years.

even Steven Hawking will not categorically say that travel into the past is impossible.

Kip Thorne, Professor of Theoretical
Physics at California Institute of Technology, realised that worm holes and exotic matter make a time machine theoretically possible ( http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hall/5803/tim.html ), although he suspects that... "The laws of quantum fields in curved space-time (QFCST for short) report to us that, no matter what method I might think of to make a time machine, at the moment I activate the machine, an intense beam of radiation (vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields) will fry the machine and probably fry me as well. Unfortunately, just before the machine is fully destroyed, the laws of QFCST fail and are replaced by the laws of quantum gravity, which we don't understand at all well. Quantum gravity holds clutched tightly to its breast the secret of the ultimate fates both of the time machine and of my parents--along with the secrets of the origin of the universe, the nature of the singularity at the core of a black hole, and the final fate of an evaporating black hole. If I must speculate, I would guess that quantum gravity does not change the story reported by the laws of QFCST: the time machine and I would both get fried for trying to tamper with history."

Steve Lamoreaux, makes exotic matter (anti-matter) in his lab at los alamos.

so in summation, no one really knows is travel back in time is possible. one thing they are pretty sure of is that it would not be possible to travel back to before you made the time machine... so no dinosaur safaris :(

[sinclairZX81]

oh and another thing, David Deutsch believes "When one travels back in time one does not in general reach the same universe that one starts from. One reaches the past of a different universe". so no killing you grandfather problems there either.

he reckons photons do the weird things they are observed to do because they are interacting with photons in a nearby parallel universe.

here's a good link to paralell universe stuff < http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/paralleluni.shtml >.

[Les Kern]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by sinclairZX81
OK. lets get some things straight here.

time travel into the future is possible right now. a trip around the world on 747 will take you an infitessimaly small 'distance' into the future. like 30 nanoseconds or something. only a lack of big enough engines stops us travelling years into the future.
Now we get silly. Relative time is NOT time travel.

the tricky one is travelling back in time. one of the reasons travelling faster than the speed of light is forbidden by Einstein is that moving beyond it would make time stand still. remember, the faster you move the slower time passes, approaching zero as you approach the speed of light. so if you could go faster than light...

But you cannot go faster. Your mass would be infinite, and infinite mass, well, would almost as bad as my rather cramped house. Silly.

german physicist Gunter Nimtz, has transmitted Mozart's 40th Symphony across his lab at 4.7 times the speed of light. oops.

Bad stopwatch.

Igor Novikov, the russian astrophysicist who solved the 'going back in time and killing your grandfather paradox'. believes that travel into the past will be possible in about 200 years.

Isn't that the same guy who still studies Kirellian energy? YES!

even Steven Hawking will not categorically say that travel into the past is impossible.

And turns out he just might be very wrong about the Big Bang theory.

Kip Thorne, Professor of Theoretical
Physics at California Institute of Technology, realised that worm holes and exotic matter make a time machine theoretically possible ( http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hall/5803/tim.html ), although he suspects that...

Another speculation to try to answer the impossible. That's how they get Federal grants. Hey, a guy's gotta eat, and, hey, let me spout wild ideas and see if I can rustle me up some scratch!

Steve Lamoreaux, makes exotic matter (anti-matter) in his lab at los alamos.

And I make damned good shooters using KoolAid. Anti-matter is within the boundaries of this space-time, and have no relation to anything except energy properties. (It's hard to try to explain "spin", or rather, how something has to be turned around two full revolutions to be back to looking the same. Strange stuff, but certainly not indicative of possible time travel)

so in summation, no one really knows is travel back in time is possible.

I do, it ain't :P

[Les Kern]

oh and another thing, David Deutsch believes "When one travels back in time one does not in general reach the same universe that one starts from. One reaches the past of a different universe".

There is a very cool science fiction book by David Gerrold called "The Man Who Folded Himself". He inherits a belt from his grandfather that makes time travel possible. He goes back, meets himself, comes back, meets himself again, and on and on. Well, turns out he inherited the belt from, you guessed it: himself. This thread reminds me of that book: entertaining but quite useless. Now pardon me while I meet me later and go back in time to meet me and the other me and take me out to dinner. Three of me want steak, but me, me and me want seafood. :)

[sinclairZX81]

Originally posted by Les Kern
so in summation, no one really knows is travel back in time is possible.

I do, it ain't :P

well gosh, you cetainly know a lot Les. and oh so witty too. shame you didn't have any real arguments.

[Rower_CPU]

Originally posted by sinclairZX81
well gosh, you cetainly know a lot Les. and oh so witty too. shame you didn't have any real arguments.

Seems to me he did.

Maybe some bizarre space-time paradox prevented you from seeing them. ;)

[Les Kern]

Originally posted by sinclairZX81
well gosh, you cetainly know a lot Les. and oh so witty too. shame you didn't have any real arguments.

Now you're attacking me personally. Why? A long time ago folks believed that pi would eventually start repeating the same pattern. We now know that it won't but people still keep calculating it to it's trillionth digit. Why do they do this? Well, the main reason is to advance computing. Another is they want to have the record. No SANE person is looking for the pattern repeat because they believe there IS one. Take tachyons. Some say they actually exist in a faster-than-light space-time. Hogwash. There are no serious scientists that actually believe this. So why do scientists continue looking? Sometimes people imagine that such FTL particles would be impossible to detect but there is no reason to think so. The shadows and spotlights 9The observation that says shadows seem to move faster than light) suffice to show that there is no logic in the suggestion because they can go FTL and still be seen. No tachyons have been definitely found and most physicists would doubt their existence. There was a claim that experiments to measure neutrino mass in Tritium beta decay indicated that they were tachyonic. It is very doubtful but not entirely ruled out. Tachyon theories have problems because, apart from the possibility of causality violations, they destabilise the vacuum. It may be possible to get round such difficulties but then we would not be able to use tachyons for the kind of FTL communication that we might like to see ala "sub-space communications" on Star Trek. The truth is that most physicists consider tachyons to be a sign of pathological behaviour in field theories, and the interest in them among the wider public stems mostly from the fact that they are used so often in science fiction.
And causality violations is where most all the problems lay with any discussion on FLT (time machines) There are some undeniable truths all around you, and us, that preclude the existence of such esoterica. I make light of the discussion (which you attacked me for) because, well, it's not really worthy of discussion. Faster than light travel is impossible, that's all. Time travel is impossible, and that's all. We can continue to invent more and more fantasies to explain what we want to be true, but it doesn't necessarily make it possible. See?
And thanks Rower, at last somebody "gets it". :)

[sinclairZX81]

Originally posted by Les Kern
Now you're attacking me personally. Why?

i dislike your arrogance. saying 'that's silly' to everything is no way to get your point across.

I do not know whether or not time travel is possible, I certainly wouldn't take a bet on it. but unlike you I am not so arrogant as to state I know for certain something which I cannot prove.

its theoretical physics not car mechanics. the interest is in thinking about these astonishingly weird ideas. and you're dead wrong about 'relative time not being travel into the future'. if I get in a super-fast spaceship, travel for an hour, return and a century has passed on earth--as far as I am concerned I have travelled into the future.

just remember,we lived in euclidian space for 2000 years.

[scem0]

I have a friend who is a genius, and she used to always try to
explain time travel, and advanced space things to me. It went in
one ear and out the other ;).

And this girl was actually a genius. Not just smart. She read a
300 page book in a 48 minute lunch period, so she could "speed-
read", and she wasn't even interested in this space stuff, but she
knew all about it, and she knew 6 (I think) languages. The funny
thing is that she didn't get the best grades. But that is how most
geniuses are :o ;) .

[Les Kern]

i dislike your arrogance. saying 'that's silly' to everything is no way to get your point across.
Then you missed my point, zeroing in on the word "silly" instead of the other 200 words. Perhaps you should bone up on relativity, causality, and paradox theory. There are universal truths, like 1+1=2. Folks that say they can prove, by way of unneccessarily complicated and flawed mathmatics that it doesn't, are mistaken. It's like squaring a circle. Why bother looking at computations that purport to prove it can be done? My point was, in case you missed it, is that people INVENT theories to prove something they believe in. "Time travel is possible" is the beginning. Then they take all the obvious proof that it's impossible, toss it out, then make new theories. There is an end. You have to truly believe that 1+1=2, and just leave it at that.


remember,we lived in euclidian space for 2000 years.
Good point, almost. (See , I'm not arrogant) Time travel is still silly though. Just like super strings, and phlogiston.

[ArieL_8]

blue Hi I'm new to this forum and I had a question for anyone who might want to give their views on this. I was wondering if *time could be all dimentional-yesterday, today , tomorrow running concurrently in ceaseless repetition? Thanks , Ariel_:)

[GeneR]

I like this subject!

RE: Time Travel
I think it's possible. However, I think we need to redefine our understanding of energy, matter, consciousness and time lines. I think our ideas of science are still based on beliefs about linear time lines proceeding at a constant speed... two dimensional thought to a three dimentional world, thus rendering at least a four dimensional perspective.

I think we take for granted that one unit of time, such as a second is always going to be a constant duration and thus equal in duration to a second that happens tomorrow, or next year, or next century. But what if that was not true? What if what we consider the universe is actually more relative and malleable than we considered?

If there was such a thing as a "ripple" in the fabric of space and time and consciousness that originated from a "Big Bang" sort of explosion(s) (God creating the world?) then perhaps our reality is far more flexible and malleable than we give it credit.

Hence, if we are part of the fabric of space, time, energy and consciousnessness, we may not see the ripples happening because we are the ripple. But they may still be happening. And as the fabric folds, differing experiences and points in time may become closer and father from each other at any moment. When these differing moments of time are brought together due to a second ripple created by electrical storms, etc. then a collision may happen between different parts of the ripple: like two ocean waves crashing against each other. At that point we have arrived at possible, temporary junction points. Does that make sense?

:confused:

[Foxer]

I think someone already made this observation, but it has always sealed the deal for, limited, non-science brain.

If time travel were possible, at least into the past, we'd have encountered some evidence of time-travellers coming to visit us.

Sort of like my theory on life in space, which is a story for another thread...