Time Travel
BaconTheory
Join Date: 2003-09-06 Member: 20615Members
Join Date: 2003-09-06 Member: 20615Members
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">Possible?</div> Well the other day I was thinking about if time travel was really possible. I read some websites and reasoned that it is indeed possible. Let me explain.
If we were to travel back in time, let's say, we might possibly encounter paradoxes. In case you don't know what a pradox is, I'll explain in n00b terms. An example of a paradox could be a time traveler goes back in time and kills his grandmother. In doing this, he would have caused himself not to be born, and consequently making the trip impossible in the first place. However, paradoxes can be resolved in two ways. Firstly, the past is defined and cannot be changed. Secondly, the time travler would run into endless mishaps which would prevent him from killing his grandmother. OK, now that paradoxes have been covered, I shall move on.
Ok, now that we've overcome the paradoxes of time travel, how does one actually travel through time? We would have to somehow travel faster than the speed of light and therefore overome time itself. This involves quantum tunneling. If you somehow reach a velocity greater than the speed of light, you enter negative time and thus have time travel.
What are all of your thoughts on this? Is it possible? Will we do it in the far future. Discuss f00s.
If we were to travel back in time, let's say, we might possibly encounter paradoxes. In case you don't know what a pradox is, I'll explain in n00b terms. An example of a paradox could be a time traveler goes back in time and kills his grandmother. In doing this, he would have caused himself not to be born, and consequently making the trip impossible in the first place. However, paradoxes can be resolved in two ways. Firstly, the past is defined and cannot be changed. Secondly, the time travler would run into endless mishaps which would prevent him from killing his grandmother. OK, now that paradoxes have been covered, I shall move on.
Ok, now that we've overcome the paradoxes of time travel, how does one actually travel through time? We would have to somehow travel faster than the speed of light and therefore overome time itself. This involves quantum tunneling. If you somehow reach a velocity greater than the speed of light, you enter negative time and thus have time travel.
What are all of your thoughts on this? Is it possible? Will we do it in the far future. Discuss f00s.
Comments
1. If the past is defined and cannot be changed, then time travel is impossible. Period. End of story. If you go back in time things <b>will</b> change. Maybe not something as profound/obvious as killing your own parents thus creating a paradox, but simply by existing, occupying space in previous time will change things. Chaos theory dictates that any change, no matter how small, can have tremendous effects.
2. Endless mishaps? Somehow the universe at large conspires to prevent you from doing anything that will create a paradox? That would require the universe to not only be sentient/omniscient, but be capable of changing anything at any point it so desires. So time travel requires the existence of God? But if the universe prevents you from killing your parents, doesn't that meant the past is now different?
The only ways I can see time 'travel' working are as follows. I have travel in quotes there because neither actually involve travelling through time.
1. The extent of time 'travel' is limited to simply observing the past. This way there is no interaction, so the past cant get all messed up. Problem is that even this probably wont work because of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (cant observe something without affecting it).
2. When time 'travel' occurs, you aren't actually going back in time. You are actually moving to another dimension that up until the point when you traveled was identical to the history of your home dimension. This isn't really time travel since you aren't travelling to the past of your own universe, you're travelling to one that was identical to yours up until that point. But it serves the same purpose and gets around the paradoxes since if you screw something up like kill your parents in that other dimension it wont actually affect your parents from your dimension, so no paradox.
This man makes it possible.
First of all: a paradox is an occurance that seems to have two conflicting references but both are true. Like: "You're dieing all your life" or "The brewers can win the world series" (okay, maybe that one's blatantly false <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> ).
Well, I can't find a way to express this adequately, but I'll just say: The best you could do is go slower forward in time than everyone else by going a sizable fraction of c. You can't go the speed of light, however, because it would take an infinite amount of energy (and it wouldn't really help you, it would just seem like time is stopped, and it's impossible to go faster than the speed of light - as you approach c , c+c doesn't = 2c, you need a complex equation that I don't have with me at the moment to figure it out (but the error is so small with basic speed calculations it's not required, which is why it wasn't noticed until the early 1900's)).
Basically the only hope we have of going back in time isn't really going back in time, it's utilizing the theorized multiverse and going to an alternate universe that is virtually the same as the past of our universe now. Then again, plenty of people don't believe the universe is spliting into an infinite number of new universe every infinitely small unit of time.
<!--c1--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->
Timeline
------------------0--------------------------1---------------------------2--------------
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Lets say 1 is present.
0 is past.
2 is future.
You go to 0. You change some stuff. You go back to 1. By the time 1 hits the 2 stage, and the 0 has gone to the 1 stage, you go back to the 1 stage. It has changed from what you last remember, but nothing in your time has altered at all.
I tend to think of time travel as an infinate amount of alternate universes that are identical to our own, and changing one will do nothing to alter another.
I think you mean, when ever you go back in time, if you change something it will create an alternate time-line. Therfore you go back in time and kill your granddad, it will make too time-lines.
1. Where you Grandad died and you never existed.
2. Where you Grandad lived and you do exist.
You cannot have Time Travel without having control over time itself, wether directly or indirectly.
And of course, you need to cause a ripple, and eventually, a 'hole' in time itself, to travel through it.
However, it could be a different story once we get through with control of Time. Will we travel back to a place in <b>our</b> timeline, or will we end up in some other universe where everyone has 3 eyes? This sure as heck beats me too.
I always wanted to know about Time Travel too, but the possibilities of pretty much NOT returning is very much scary indeed.
Plus, if I time travelled right now, right into the past, there's a possibility that I could fall into the sea and drown (I'm standing on reclaimed land, and I can't swim)
/me gets watch turns the little knob EUREKA! I have went back one hour :o
I remember hearing about other methods but this is the only one I can recall offhand.
Just throwing in my little idea here but what if matter doesn't move but instead your consciousness moves through snapshots, made from matter, providing the animated reality. It's kind of an unusual idea but it's always been an idea that interested me.
Flight of philosophy aside, does anyone have a linky to a detailed scientific description of what time is actually supposed to be though? It'd be interesting to see what we've been basing our physics calculations off for once XD
Timeline: Your frame of referance
-------------------------------2---------3----40-1---5----
Timeline: The rest of the universe's frame of referance.
--------0-1-5-----------------2---------3----4-------6----
0-Arrive in past
1-You attempt to kill your grandfather
2-Your is father born
3-You are born
4-You travel back in time
5-Travel to the present.
6-Arrive in present
another is a 'trousers of time'/'many worlds' one. Each descion splits off a new timeline. When you time travel, you jump to a different time line.
Timeline A
----1-----2------3--------4---
Timeline B
----1--5-6---------------------
1-Grandfather born
2-Father born
3-You born
4-'Travel' back in time
5-'Arrive' in past
6-Kill Grandfather in alternate timeline
What happens if you try to go forwards is anyones guess. Either you drop into A and nothing has changed, step forwards into B, or into a new timeline, C.
Or you get the timetravel that causes all sorts off paradoxes. I don't think about that kind too much, as it gives me a headache
Or timetravel doesn't work.
As for real life, I hope that its either the first or the last situation. The second is just about bareable. As for the last:
<a href='http://enphilistor.users4.50megs.com/hero.htm' target='_blank'>The Things I Will Do If Im ever The Hero</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->104:<b>If I find myself born or drafted into a universe wherein the laws of nature do not obey consistent principles, I will depart for an alternate universe created by a more reasonable author.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just throwing in my little idea here but what if matter doesn't move but instead your consciousness moves through snapshots, made from matter, providing the animated reality. It's kind of an unusual idea but it's always been an idea that interested me.
Flight of philosophy aside, does anyone have a linky to a detailed scientific description of what time is actually supposed to be though? It'd be interesting to see what we've been basing our physics calculations off for once XD <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Gem has it nailed on the head here. Time needs to be defined before you start talking about time travel. Its quite possible that time doesn't actually exist, thats its a human invention to explain things that happen over time, and that your just experience events that have already happened in a series. As time is relative to the observer, time is also not constant. I hate time travel when philosophy comes into it. Oh and quantum physics.
Anyway, I've always seen it was the alternate reality theory of time travel. If somehow time travel affects our dimension, then we simply can't do it without potentially screwing up our world. Imagine you went back to stop the dinosaurs becoming extinct, but end up causing it in the first place. Causality loop complete. The precise ramifications of your time travel can never be predicted.
Think about it. If man is to be able to time travel in the future, then in our history, there would be recordings of visitors. This right here tells us either a) Time travel is simply impossible for physical beings, or b) Time travel would NOT affect the past, thus paradoxes are not a problem.
Think about it. If man is to be able to time travel in the future, then in our history, there would be recordings of visitors. This right here tells us either a) Time travel is simply impossible for physical beings, or b) Time travel would NOT affect the past, thus paradoxes are not a problem. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
or c) it DOES happen, but we pass off the real time travelers as cray.
Assuming we werent able to tell them apart from ourselves, the chances of them creating a paradox is still very high. If paradoxes are to affect us somehow, it would already have happened, since there his yet to be a problem caused by paradoxes, paradoxes are not a problem. We can thus explore time travel without fear of paradoxes.
1) no flux capicator
2) lack of delorians
Going back to the more standard 'physical' time travel, think about it... you're heading back to a time where you don't exist; the matter you're made of either doesn't exist yet or already exists within your family line meaning there's two sets of the same thing. Would you continue to exist once you stepped into the past or would time assert itself and dissapate you meaning that you either vanish completely or end up back where you started before you tried to travel? o.O
because, the main types of time travel that could work only premit you to go backwards up until the point when those methods existed. In the same way that you cannot look at real photos of people before photography existed, you could not (if it were possible) go back in time before time travel existed.
If that were possible, and time travel did exist, we would already have it. they invent timetravel 1000 years in the future, then travel back to this time and tell us how.
Besides, time travel is impossible, you cannot do anything about the past and the future doesn't exist yet. The closest we can get to it it long distance observers. when you look at planets and stars you are looking back in time, you are seeing how they existed hours or years ago. If somebody on Proxima Centauri looked at earth with a very powerful telescope, he would see everybody partying for the new "millenium" (4.3 years ago).
because, the main types of time travel that could work only premit you to go backwards up until the point when those methods existed. In the same way that you cannot look at real photos of people before photography existed, you could not (if it were possible) go back in time before time travel existed.
If that were possible, and time travel did exist, we would already have it. they invent timetravel 1000 years in the future, then travel back to this time and tell us how.
Besides, time travel is impossible, you cannot do anything about the past and the future doesn't exist yet. The closest we can get to it it long distance observers. when you look at planets and stars you are looking back in time, you are seeing how they existed hours or years ago. If somebody on Proxima Centauri looked at earth with a very powerful telescope, he would see everybody partying for the new "millenium" (4.3 years ago). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Im not getting the photo analogy. We dont have photos of people before the invention of photography because it has yet to be invented. However, if someone took a camera along with them during a time travel session, Im sure they can take pictures of 'em.
You are looking at this question like my answer 'a'. Its entirely possible (edit: from observation. If you can whip out some equations that prove its impossibility, go get yourself a nobel prize <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->) that time travel is possible, yet for some reason, one cannot affect the past. If they cannot affect the past, then they cant travel back and give us tech.
Umm... no.
Quantum tunnelling is something very weird that happens on very small scales. The theory goes that if you fire a large number of particles at a thin piece of something, some of the particles will come out of the other side. Tests have been done and it's sort of proven. The only problem is that the particle doesn't seem to exist inside the film. It disappears from one side and reappears on the other without passing in-between.
Nothing to do with time travel.
And yes, it is possible to travel in time. Just get a wormhole and swing one around a black hole for a couple thousand years. The increased gravity will distort the time around the one and it will end up in the past compared to the other end. Go in the black hole end and hey-presto, you're in the future.
There's a coffee-table book called "How to build a time machine". It's pretty good and outlines the technical details of creating a few different time machines. The idea of the book is to prove that it is possible, just not with today's technology.
One mind-hurting parodox:
You have one of those two-ended time displaced wormholes OK? You have them set up in such a way that if something came out of one of the holes it would pass in front of the other end of the wormhole. Now suppose you shot a billiard ball into the first hole. The ball would come out in the past and knock the ball off course so it would never have entered the hole in the first place and therefore would never have come out in the past and knocked the ball out of the way…
Ow.
People interested in the perception point moving idea should read Douglas Adam’s (May he rest in peace) “Mostly Harmless” . It describes the universe as a Whole Sort Of General Mish-Mash (WSOGMM). An infinite space in which every point describes a different arrangement of every possibility in an infinite number of variations of everything…
Ow again.
He used the analogy of falling rain. You don’t see anything in the rain, you just see rain. But if a laser beam was shining though that rain you would think you were seeing a rod. But all that’s happening is that the beam is bringing the intersecting raindrops to your attention as they pass by. Think of your perception as this beam. You’re drifting though this WSOGMM becoming aware of all you can see in your little universe that’s actually an infinitesimal speck in the WSOGMM. When an iota of time passes, you pop from one spot in the WSOGMM to another, witnessing a minutely different universe.
Ow a third time.
--Scythe--
Think about it. If man is to be able to time travel in the future, then in our history, there would be recordings of visitors. This right here tells us either a) Time travel is simply impossible for physical beings, or b) Time travel would NOT affect the past, thus paradoxes are not a problem. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Because you cannot travel backward in time before the point where you made your time machine (assuming one can be made at all). I'm pretty sure you can't travel back to before you were born, either. In either case, paradox would destroy you and possible the universe with it.
I don't remember who said it, but the universe only still exists because there is some mechanism that prevents paradoxs from happening. Like if you tried to force a paradox with an experiment, it would just fizzle. Otherwise, it is extremely likely we'd have already been destroyed. That's a real rough summary, so if anyone can really set it straight I'd appreciate it.
Otherwise, it is very unlikely that we will ever do anything other than slow time, which we do constantly. Even just flying a few hundred miles an hour in a jet slows it down a little bit, or even walking for that matter. On the more extreme side of the spectrum, we can play with the transmission of light (making a photon effectively travel faster than the speed of light), and accelerate massive particles to almost the speed of light.
But no speed will ever make time go in reverse.
You have one of those two-ended time displaced wormholes OK? You have them set up in such a way that if something came out of one of the holes it would pass in front of the other end of the wormhole. Now suppose you shot a billiard ball into the first hole. The ball would come out in the past and knock the ball off course so it would never have entered the hole in the first place and therefore would never have come out in the past and knocked the ball out of the way…
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The same matter cannot occupy the same point in space-time. If the billiard ball did collide with itself, it would annihilate it.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Im not getting the photo analogy. We dont have photos of people before the invention of photography because it has yet to be invented. However, if someone took a camera along with them during a time travel session, Im sure they can take pictures of 'em.
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Thats my point. You dont have photographs because photography wasnt invented. There is no way of getting a photograph of a time period before photography was invented. I cannot get a photo of my great great great gandmother because she died before photography existed. In the same way you could not travel back beyond the point time travel started to exist. With the wormhole idea, you would only be able to go back to the point when the wormhole begins, no further
Umm.... no.
You've watche that movie with those time travelers in it and the cops that are supposed to regulate it. Time cops or something.
The baddie at the end touches his past self and "annihilate" eachother.
Total bull-sh*t.
Matter is matter, no matter when it is.
--Scythe--