Time travel/machine? Is it possible?

[neomits]

Seeing how Pop Sci's main article this month was on Time travel and how the movie "The Time Machine" is about to come out (which I think will suck(the movie that is)) Time travel has been brought to my mind. What are your thoughts. Do you think it is possible?

I for one don't think Time Travel will ever happen... and if it does you'll only be able to go forward in time but not back.

 

[fatbaby]

Its quite easy actually:

To travel to the future:
1. Set out in a very fast spaceship traveling 87% of the speed of light -- 161,000 miles per second <---> Time will pass twice as quickly for the rest of the world as it does for you

TO travel to the past takes a little more work:

To create a wormhole (and travel back to a random place in time) in 5 steps:
1. use a particle collider to heat a speck of matter to 10 trillion degrees
2. compress the hot spot by a factor of a billion billion (making a wormhole smaller than a subatomic particle)
3. Blast that opening of the hole with a million 1 terawatt laser beams until it's large enough for one passenger
4. Whip one end of the wormhole around like a lasso at nearly the speed of light to create a time differential between the entrance and exit
5. Hop in and enjoy the ride

 

[Ionizer86]

Hmm, this is extremely intriguing. Us humans are limited to our third dimension; we can't fully grasp the concept of time. I personally have no idea what to say...I don't know if it's possible or not.

It's intriguing enough that short-span time seems to go so slow when one is bored (ie in French class), but long-span time flies. Every time a year comes around (or a school year ends, or some holiday comes, etc), I am surprised that a year is extremely short...this part of time is scary enough, let alone time travel.

 

[Zim Hosein]

neomits, I would suppose that time travel is possible, Just look at the numerous advances in science the world has already come up with. So, yes, possible, but most likely not in our lifetime. As for going forward or back, that's a much harder question.

 

[singh]

I think that it's possible - but at particle-level only. Even that's very interesting.

 

[LordMaul]

I don't think it is possible. 'Course, that is only the opinion of a totally clueless geek, as far as these things go, so you won't be getting anywhere asking me.

 

[Imdmn04]

i dont think backward time travelling can be done

here is a simple logic behind it:

if this was possible, then how come we dont have any records showing people who claim that they are from the future in the history of mankind? i mean, if they invented time travelling in the future, they would have to travel back and tell us about it right? yet since the time when men developled writing, we dont have any written records indicating any occurence regarding to that subject.

 

[StageLeft]

In a word no. It simply is weird for various reasons. If you go back in time and kill your mom then you couldn't have been born, but then she wouldn't have been killed by you, in which case you wouold have been born, but they couldn't have been cause you killed her. This is one example.

As fatboy said speed can change things. An atomic clock at the top of a high building after time loses sync with one on ground level. Although time here changes and goes either faster or slower relative, I don't think that you can actually go backwards or forwards per se. I don't know really, but don't count on it happening in your life time such that you can play back to the future games !

 

[Cattlegod]

one thing people need to understand.

time is NOT linear.

you can't go backward, only forward and variable rates. the faster you move, the slower time goes.

 

[Sluggo]

Obviously you guys never listen to Art Bell, he has many "guests" who travel time on a regular basis.

Art is still looking for one that will make his Y2k scare come true

 

[neomits]

<< i dont think backward time travelling can be done

here is a simple logic behind it:

if this was possible, then how come we dont have any records showing people who claim that they are from the future in the history of mankind? i mean, if they invented time travelling in the future, they would have to travel back and tell us about it right? yet since the time when men developled writing, we dont have any written records indicating any occurence regarding to that subject. >>




Exactly why thats one of the reasons I don't think you could go back in time. Now I do think that you could go forward and then back to where you originally began. I found it interesting though... In the Pop Sci article it said that we are all moving forward in time at 1/50th of a second

 

[fatbaby]

<< one thing people need to understand.

time is NOT linear.

you can't go backward, only forward and variable rates. the faster you move, the slower time goes. >>



Please prove this to me in a two column proof

 

[Elledan]

Provided that the universe is event-symmetric, so that there will be almost an infinite number of possible 'time-lines', traveling back in time might have as disadvantage that it would 'destroy' your own time-line, i.e. from the point you enter the time-line (which might even be another time-line, not the one you're familiar with), different events take place, which would practically desintegrate the time-line.

In other words: it's possible that IF one manages to travel back in time, that person will never be able to return to the exact 'time-line' (string of events) as s/he came from (very small chance).

 

[pulse8]

This thread should be moved to the Highly Technical forum.

 

[peto]

This reminds me of Sunday's Simpsons.

Homer: But if Marge marries Artie I'll never have been born.

 

[Cattlegod]

<< Please prove this to me in a two column proof >>



well, i'm not going to do that but here are some things to concider.


what i meant by time is not linear is two things.


all time exists right now. in other words, if a guy travels 100 years into the future, he will exist in the same place with the same people as before, he will not disappear and reappear 100 years later, he will just age more slowly.

time is not constant around you either, the monitor you are looking at infront of you is not aging at the identical speed you are, the plane flying overhead, that is going through time at a slower rate than you currently are.

all of "time" exists right now, it is hard to conceptualize, and i'm probably not doing the best job of explaining it either. but there is no "future" and there is no "past" there is only a "now" and things age at different rates. these rates are dependant on the velocity you are currently moving and other external forces.

 

[RSI]

<<

<< Please prove this to me in a two column proof >>



well, i'm not going to do that but here are some things to concider.


what i meant by time is not linear is two things.


all time exists right now. in other words, if a guy travels 100 years into the future, he will exist in the same place with the same people as before, he will not disappear and reappear 100 years later, he will just age more slowly.

time is not constant around you either, the monitor you are looking at infront of you is not aging at the identical speed you are, the plane flying overhead, that is going through time at a slower rate than you currently are.

all of "time" exists right now, it is hard to conceptualize, and i'm probably not doing the best job of explaining it either. but there is no "future" and there is no "past" there is only a "now" and things age at different rates. these rates are dependant on the velocity you are currently moving and other external forces. >>

As jarbbled as you think you sound, that was the most logical/sensical-sounding (I say this because i have absolutely no idea of the validity of it) explanation I've ever heard.

I love these threads, very interesting.

-RSI

 

[cchen]

<<

<< Please prove this to me in a two column proof >>



well, i'm not going to do that but here are some things to concider.


what i meant by time is not linear is two things.


all time exists right now. in other words, if a guy travels 100 years into the future, he will exist in the same place with the same people as before, he will not disappear and reappear 100 years later, he will just age more slowly.

time is not constant around you either, the monitor you are looking at infront of you is not aging at the identical speed you are, the plane flying overhead, that is going through time at a slower rate than you currently are.

all of "time" exists right now, it is hard to conceptualize, and i'm probably not doing the best job of explaining it either. but there is no "future" and there is no "past" there is only a "now" and things age at different rates. these rates are dependant on the velocity you are currently moving and other external forces. >>



I believe that you're referring to the different reference frames that we all are in. ( ME took a quantum physics class )
Time travel is not really posible yet because we have not made any craft capable at moving at such a high velocity. But when we do, we can experiment then

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

Einstienian time travel is possible.
Science Fiction time travel is not.

Think about it, if backwards time travel were possible, there would be people from the future all over the place.

 

[FrontlineWarrior]

<< Einstienian time travel is possible.
Science Fiction time travel is not.

Think about it, if backwards time travel were possible, there would be people from the future all over the place. >>



maybe there are! :Q

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

And you think nobody would notice?

Hah..

 

[CrackRabbit]

I think backwards time travel is possible, but its highly improbible that we will ever acheive it, The way to do it is to accelerate yourself past lightspeed in real space. If i remember correctly Time stops at lightspeed,(correct me if im wrong here) if you were some how able to get yourself faster than that wouldnt it make sense that time could possibly reverse its flow? Just a thought....


CrackRabbit

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

of course time travel is possible, it happens all the time, just at rates that are unnoticeable. the space shuttle, when it lands from an orbit, is not sync'ed to the clocks on earth. the people in it age a bit slower than their counterparts on the earth.

as was mentioned, a clock on top of a building will de-sync from one on the ground, your brain ages slower then your feet, all these things just happen at such minute rates that we dont notice them.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<< And you think nobody would notice?

Hah.. >>


aliens. do YOU know what aliens are and/or where they comefrom? neither do i, its a possibility.

 

[AnthraX101]

<< <snip>

Please prove this to me in a two column proof >>



Well this whole argument is quite easily debunked. Your first example involved einsteinian motion. You claimed



<< To travel to the future:
1. Set out in a very fast spaceship traveling 87% of the speed of light -- 161,000 miles per second <---> Time will pass twice as quickly for the rest of the world as it does for you >>



Well, this is true. However, you are still moving forward in time. Therefore no meaningfull "time travel" took place.

Your second argument was as follows:



<< To create a wormhole (and travel back to a random place in time) in 5 steps:
1. use a particle collider to heat a speck of matter to 10 trillion degrees
2. compress the hot spot by a factor of a billion billion (making a wormhole smaller than a subatomic particle)
3. Blast that opening of the hole with a million 1 terawatt laser beams until it's large enough for one passenger
4. Whip one end of the wormhole around like a lasso at nearly the speed of light to create a time differential between the entrance and exit
5. Hop in and enjoy the ride >>



You said it with this statement

<< making a wormhole smaller than a subatomic particle >>



It is imposible to make one that is as large as a normal matter particle. Because of the Heisenburg uncertnty principle, no information was ever transmited, only a raw speck of matter. IMHO, This also does not count as time travel. In these arguments, you always have to keep in mind that causality must be preserved.

Armani