If you went back in time and you watched a random event would the event occur the same way it did before you went back in time or would it occur differently the second time around? Just a strange thing I have always wondered about when watching movies like Back to the Future.
If you went back in time...
- Thread starter CallTheFBI
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Well it depends. If you went back in time to lets say when a car crash occurred. If all you did was watch it and not effect it any way Ie: yell to the drivers to get out of the way etc. then that event should still occur as if you hadn't gone back. But if you prevented the crash or something then obviously it would be different.
How do you know? If the event was truly random it isn't supposed to happen the same way twice. For instance if you set up one of those lottery machines that shoots out the winning lotto numbers and you arranged all the balls exactly the same and you applied the exact same wind to it and you left it on the exact same amount of time it would still spit out different numbers every time you turned it on.
I'd bet that chaos effect comes in to play here. If you went back in time, but remained completely outside space (impossible), you wouldn't change the universe, so every random event should happen just the same. However, if you went back in time, and actually existed in that time period, you would effectively change the universe, and the random event may or may not happen the same as it did.
I see what your talking about. but if even it was random it would still happen the same way. If you threw a baseball went back in time you would still be throwing a baseball because it already happened. Just because its a random event doesnt mean each time you go back its gonna be different.
EDIT: I'd bet that chaos effect comes in to play here. If you went back in time, but remained completely outside space (impossible), you wouldn't change the universe, so every random event should happen just the same. However, if you went back in time, and actually existed in that time period, you would effectively change the universe, and the random event may or may not happen the same as it did.
Thats exactly what i was trying to say.
EDIT: I'd bet that chaos effect comes in to play here. If you went back in time, but remained completely outside space (impossible), you wouldn't change the universe, so every random event should happen just the same. However, if you went back in time, and actually existed in that time period, you would effectively change the universe, and the random event may or may not happen the same as it did.
Thats exactly what i was trying to say.
Not at all. You're confusing randomness with unpredictability. If the conditions were truly exactly the same as before, so would be the results.
Not neccessarily. Read what this web site has to say about time travel.
http://freespace.virgin.net/steve.preston/time7.html
It basically says that if you went back in time and changed something you would just create a parallel universe. What's to say the random event couldn't turn out differently in the other universe that was just created even though the conditions were truly the same?
Well, I look at it as being like it is depicted on Star Trek and BTTF. Things only change if you change them. That being said, I don't believe that anyone would have the power to change history through time travel. Through the relatively miniscule things that have been observed, the universe has shown us that above all else, reactions occur based on a conservation of energy. What I mean by that is that everything that happens is a "least energy" solution.
Changing history would expend far more energy than making the relative past read-only IMHO.
Changing history would expend far more energy than making the relative past read-only IMHO.
how do you are not introducing a new force into the system by just observing it! the event and likely chance of change is relative to the size of the event.. for example, you want to go back in time and watch a star being born. the forces necessary to create are star are very large, and so as an observer present in the system, you will not likely change anything.
BUT, what if you went back to prove the beginnings of evolution.. you have determined the point at which the first proteins combined. you as an observer may be a large enough force for that event, that you could change the outcome.. a different protein, no protein, or it could still stay the same.
now, as for going back to an event where people or something besides just forces are involved, then u encounter new issues. i want to see who was really on the grassy knol... well, by me staring at the spot, the shooter worried and either doesn't show up, or goes somewhere else. by merely observing, i have changed the outcome.
if you believe in the theory/possiblity of infinite universes (parallel ones), then each observer/observation taken only travels a different path, since all possibilites are already occuring.
if there is a way to "view" the event without adding a new force to the system, then the outcome should be the same... though i don't think that is possible.. there would still be some small force added just by the viewing alone.
BUT, what if you went back to prove the beginnings of evolution.. you have determined the point at which the first proteins combined. you as an observer may be a large enough force for that event, that you could change the outcome.. a different protein, no protein, or it could still stay the same.
now, as for going back to an event where people or something besides just forces are involved, then u encounter new issues. i want to see who was really on the grassy knol... well, by me staring at the spot, the shooter worried and either doesn't show up, or goes somewhere else. by merely observing, i have changed the outcome.
if you believe in the theory/possiblity of infinite universes (parallel ones), then each observer/observation taken only travels a different path, since all possibilites are already occuring.
if there is a way to "view" the event without adding a new force to the system, then the outcome should be the same... though i don't think that is possible.. there would still be some small force added just by the viewing alone.
My point is that the "event" you describe is not random, it is unpredictable. It is a process, generating an outcome which is so critically dependent upon the initial conditions that it is impossible in practice to duplicate such conditions so exactly as to duplicate the outcome.
If you want to talk about something truly random, consider the time required for an isolated atom of, say, polonium-211 to undergo alpha-decay.
Ok now we are making headway. Sorry if I didn't understand before. Pick any truly random event then, subatomic or not I don't care. Witness it in the present, then go back in time and witness it again, would it or would it not have the same outcome as it did the first time?
Your mere existence (thermal energy, gravity, etc) would affect the event ever so slightly. In the distant future, the change would be dramatic.
You can't tavel back in time. Not to your own dimension. It's like reaching absolute zero.
You can't tavel back in time. Not to your own dimension. It's like reaching absolute zero.
One theory (my personal favorite) is that you could not possibly change it, no matter how hard you tried, because you are a part of the past for that event. From your point of view in the "current" time, whatever you would do during the past event, you already did it. The event already turned out the way it was going to turn out. Likewise, you cannot change the past because whatever you would go back and do, you already went back and did it, and as a result, the past turned out however it did.
But to answer your specific question, random is just a word that means we don't know enough about the event to explain why it happened, or that we lack the capability to figure it out. Nothing is random, everying happens according to some order, even if we don't know what that order is. But just because we do not understand it does not mean the universe won't still work the same time the second or the third time around.
But to answer your specific question, random is just a word that means we don't know enough about the event to explain why it happened, or that we lack the capability to figure it out. Nothing is random, everying happens according to some order, even if we don't know what that order is. But just because we do not understand it does not mean the universe won't still work the same time the second or the third time around.
Not true, time travel is possible, it just requires traveling through a worm hole or going faster than the speed of light. I read about it in Popular Science.
But you can't go faster than the speed of light. And there are many other factors preventing this.
You couldn't meet yourself. You'd not be able to change the past..
You couldn't meet yourself. You'd not be able to change the past..
You can't change anything that happens in your cone of light. You can't change the past. Doesn't work....
Look it up A brief history of time, chapter 3
-Stephen Hawking
~Bruce S.
Look it up A brief history of time, chapter 3
-Stephen Hawking
~Bruce S.
It depends if by you going back in time you were changing something, if you went back in 'Spectator Mode' then i doubt you would change anything, because you goig back in times hasnt happened when the event happens so the only it may effect is the future...does that make sense?
so....if i go back in time at the moment when the 1st sign of life appeared on Earth and change that , would i instantly die/vanish/etc ?
if no,what will be on Earth when i return from the time trip ?
if no,what will be on Earth when i return from the time trip ?
No one knows exactly when, where or how life first appeared so finding the exact location might be a bit difficult.
I don't think it would be possible to do anything that could cause you to not do what you did. (did that make sence? I think so) Ex: You could not go back in time and kill an ancestor before you are born, because if they died then you never could have killed them, thus you can't kill them can you? I mean if you do, you cease to exist in the timeline, and you never did that, but then if you never did that then you would exist!
I beg to differ. Your assertion essentially claims that there are "hidden variables" controlling processes like radioactive decay, but (with all due respect to Einstein) such theories require (according to Bell's Inequality) superluminal signals. By contrast, local realistic theories admit true randomness, eschew hidden variables, and do not depend upon "spooky action at a distance".
For more information, search on "EPR paradox" "Bell Inequality" "Alain Aspect" and "hidden variables".
steven hawking is a theoritical physicist. while he is very intelligent, and he presents plausible theories based upon what we know, it is still just a theory. either, to be proven true or untrue is why it remains a theory. i'm not saying your wrong, but you have to prove this.
if multiple universes exist, either infinite possibilites or possibilites based on their likely outcome (the more likely an outcome, the more solid that path) or even a limited number of possibilites, then the trip you made which stopped life may already be an existing parallel. although, if traveling back in time, only travels down the path to which you are a part of, then you would effectively destroy yourself. the further back in time you went, the greater the effect in your present time. killing 1 person who should have lived, could effectively wipe out or save a civilization...
as for traveling faster than light, most physicists think traveling faster than light is impossible, but that does not mean it is.. currently, no evidence suggests otherwise.
but humans are not wholly the objects of fate. if you could travel back in time, and either wanted to commit suicide or just spite fate/life, then you could make the decision to kill an ancestor. at that point, i think you would stop existing, or perhaps your anchor/position in time's flow may no longer exist. i don't know if you would just disappear from your current time/space location, but your existance as humans see time (linear progression from low to high) would cease to be. without an anchor, maybe you would be free to move about time without consequence... who knows.
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