Is Time Travel Possible?

[Southtown]

Conventional ideas of time travel kinda strike me as a causality transplant... yeah, I don't see it. I can conceptualize a causality reversal, maybe, but I can't convince myself that it's remotely possible.

[Thor]

HAS NO ONE EVEN CONSIDERED WORMHOLES YET???:doh:

man what a world we live in:lol:

no seriously, wormholes: a link between two periods in the 4th dimension - time- which can be travelled along at will.

unfortunately these only ever really exist for a fraction of a second and are only usually a few atoms big

so time-travel is theoretically possible

it's been done to a few atoms

unfortunately, a human going back in time would be extremely rare.

also, time has a certain grip on everything from that time, like the other 3 dimensions

therefore as soon as you get to the other time, you only really have a few minutes before you get sucked back to the real time!

but then, what would happen if you ate something in the future/past

:eek: ouch

 

but the bemuda triangle is an interesting exception

it is theorised to be a permenant wormhole big enough for a modern cruiser-class battleship.

something happened to an explorer there

i'll find out for you

[haloman]

The wormhole would not allow you to time travle its like you have two points on a paper fold the paper and line up the dots and poke a hole in it then you have an example of a wormhole. To create a wormhole it takes about the same amount of power as nine atomic bombs so that to me is not a valid theory.

To me time travle is not possible if you had to go back/foward in time you would have to split into atoms now it is ridiculous that you would reform at all and if you did chances are you would be dead. If they ever do (or would it be did) invent a "time machine" there would be people coming back or at least a written page in history. If you can god is not real because time would be repeating itself.

[Jay-qu]

The wormhole would not allow you to time travle its like you have two points on a paper fold the paper and line up the dots and poke a hole in it then you have an example of a wormhole. To create a wormhole it takes about the same amount of power as nine atomic bombs so that to me is not a valid theory.

 

only 9? what the hell are we waiting for :)

 

Im sure your calculations are incorrect or we are missing something (9 atomic bombs worth of power released in a nanosecond over one cubic yotameter :hihi: )

 

And if a wormhole can join to points in space, then why not also to points in time? go here for another take on wormhole time travel.

[udhitsharma]

i think it is possible if we r able to move fast. if we travel with the speed of light then we can go into the future.

[InfiniteNow]

if we travel with the speed of light then we can go into the future.

Don't we do this already travelling at subluminal velocities?

[Pyrotex]

Yep. Opinions and perspectives are grand, aren't they? :xparty:...Time is another dimension. Linked with the 3 commonly recognized dimensions of space. ...

InfiniteNow,

you have been a bad, bad puppy! Bad puppy!

There is NOTHING wrong with mental masturbation. It just doesn't accomplish anything, that's all. :friday:

 

I just picked up Jayne's "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" --a fantastic read, by the way-- and randomly flipped to a page and read a few paragraphs. Which ironically, pertain to this subject and to your post. Amazing, isn't it?? Almost enough to believe in a god??

 

Nah!!!

 

Anyway, Jayne spoke of the origin of consciousness as the point in our time/culture/evolution when we first learned to "spacialize" time.

Think about that for a second.

There "was a time" [an example of spacializing time] when for us, time was just the experience of successive events and that was all. Then, through an evolutionary spurt in our languaging and culture, we "spacialized" time, giving it the same properties as a spacial dimension. We invented the "past" and the "future". We invented the concept of "locations" within the dimension of time.

 

We have been spacializing time ever since. In fact, we have become so cavalier about our ability to do so, that most folks now confuse time with spacial dimensions. If there are "locations" in time, then what keeps us from "traveling" to those locations. Isn't Feb. 21, 1875 just a "location" like Main Street, Chicago, Illinois?

 

The answer is a resounding "NO". But the persistence of this invented myth that time is a "dimension" continues to beguile us with the bogus allure of machines that can take us "when" as well as "where".

 

Bad puppy! :hihi: :) :)

[Boerseun]

Mental masturbation is one thing, but have science fiction writers ever caught on to the little detail that time-travel is totally stupid - from a practical storyline point of view?

 

Think about it for a second:

 

Let's say time travel is possible, and I have a nifty little TimeMaster GTi (or a 1985 DeLorean, for that matter) in my garage, and I decide to take it for a spin 1,000 years into the past. So once I bring my DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour, and the flux capacitor sparks behind me and the whole thing goes boom and I go through time, where will I end up? You guessed it - I would end up floating in the deep, dark, cold void of interstellar space. I would experience this for a tiny fraction of a second, and then explode, wasting my DeLorean's upholstery which will very soon freeze solid. And this is only because 1,000 years ago the Earth simply wasn't here. Matter of fact, if you only go a few seconds back in time, you'll end up in space! Are there any SciFi stories out there that cater for this simple fact?

 

Regardless of whether time travel is possible or not, if you can build a time machine, it'll be totally useless because of this.

[pgrmdave]

I don't know that it would be possible to even take that into account, because there is no good frame of reference. We don't know where we're really moving, or how fast. In order to take that into account, we'd need to know exactly where the earth would be. Of course, that's assuming that time travel somehow keeps you in the 'same place' with respect to some cosmic reference frame. More likely, travelling through time would require some sort of travel through space.

[Boerseun]

That's true, Dave, it'll be very hard to say where you'll end up with any certainty. What you can be certain of, however, is that it won't be here.

[InfiniteNow]

What a thought provoking point B. My guess would be that the inseperability of time and space would avoid this little hiccup you've described (i.e. going back in time means going back in space), but it could lead to some fascinating stories if the spatial dimensions were relative to the present but the temporal ones were not...

 

Oh, and you'd be fine if you replaced the Delorean with a Scirocco. :xx:

[arkain101]

Energy can not be created or destroyed.

 

If you leave here, you've destroyed your energy, and created it somewhere else, if you appear there.

 

Time travel (as in warping to places) is a mental concept, that does not fit well with the laws of physics in my opinion.

 

To go somewhere else, you would need to create a second universe just to have it work.

And it would also go to say that no one dies because they are enternally imprinted in a memory. Each of the tiniest moments, frozen in time every minimum plank moment. However if this was true why is your concsciousness placed in one place but not another, if another is reachable. That requires intention and reason to be in a desinated section of time.

[Pyrotex]

...and I go through time, where will I end up? You guessed it - I would end up floating in the deep, dark, cold void of interstellar space...because 1,000 years ago the Earth simply wasn't here. ....

Excellent point! I would give you a big, greasy rep point if I could.

This raises a good question: If you COULD go back in time, would it be time relative to a particular point on Earth's surface, or to Earth's center, or to the center of mass of the Solar System, or the Milky Way Galaxy? Or stationary with respect to the Cosmic Background Radiation?

 

All the above, save one, are very arbitrary and untenable positions. Only the last one has any merit.

 

Only one SF novel addressed this, to my memory. It was Macroscope by Piers Anthony.

[Peter Parker]

In terms of time, Ive always believed there should be two sets. I know it sounds weird :Guns: ...but hear me out.

Lets assume that time travel is possible(which I think it is), then time is time

but we cannot inevitably stop true time.

I know its confusing in words, I cant find the right way to explain it :estrange:

[Jay-qu]

I do know what you mean, you are refering to a second time dimension that is in some way more 'universal' and ultimate than the everyday time that we experience. I ask you then, why not have a third that is even more ultimate than this second? :shrug:

[clapstyx]

I guess it depends on your definition of time travel. If you were to say that time travel was the movement from this exact moment into a moment in the future that you perfectly defined that you wished to be in then I think I would be prepared to contend that the answer is yes...but youy would have to construct it backwards then move forwards on the time path.

 

Lets take a hypothetical example. Lets say you wanted to exist in the day after there truly was something called a "saved the world concert". First you would have to create every element of that possibility..create the possibility of everything you thought would need to happen in order to reach the eaxct moment when the sun arose on that day. You would then have conceptually and physically moved through time to that moment. Doubtless most people would say that it was impossible to reach that moment..but of course I would disagree. First you would have to say "under what circumstances would such an event be held?" Well I would think that the first pre requisite would be for someone to actually come up with a way to eliminate atmospheric pollution build up..I mean that would be a good start in the right direction. Obviously there would need to be some sort of philosophical alignment of all of the religions that were designed to promote a perpetually more positve existence so on that front I guess you would have to get some sort of sense of agreement on at least one goal that all of humanity could collectively and happily pursue in concert with all other people ... so at least we had one thing in common. For my money the goal that had the best chance of being ultimately most agreeable would be something like "perfect harmony on all levels with the environment" since that would relate to our most present difficulty and remain relevent perpetually into the future. Now if by some fluke the UN got together with the Pope and the Muslim leader and the Jewish leader (in a bar with a prostitute!) and said "yep lets define all the things we actually do agree upon as our shared absolute ideals" then I think that would be worth having some sort of party and a decent band to celebrate...because it would be the first time in history...and by reaching that point the probability of uniting our collective imaginations behind the common goals of humanity to the degree where we could actually conceptualise theoretical pathways to those situations and pursue them as individuals or as groups to see where the next big gig was..would actually go up. effectively we would then have sped up time and travelled to that moment as fast as possible..taking us forward perhaps light years if we really thought about it.

[arkain101]

speaking of time.

 

I am going to be gone for around 3 weeks time.

 

So while I am gone that time, I hope you guys have a good time discussing time and the traveling of it. Maybe when I get back you will have built a time machine, or at least designed one.

 

See ya.