Why Time Travel Totally Sucks

[flexy]

Back in 2167, when they finally found a way to build a time machine, the scientific community, the entire world really, was very excited. Time Travel was hyped up as the best thing ever, like that it would be the best way to learn about history or simply as a new form of entertainment.

However, with all the hype about time travel and then how easy it really was to build a "time machine", scientists and everyone really just didn't think over things. It was a little too late tho since this new multi-million dollar industry was blooming in full force and everyone wanted a piece of the lucrative pie. All the major retailers started to carry time machines and the ads for them were all over VR.

The thing that people did NOT consider was that time travel really totally sucked.

Joe got his time machine right the day when they came out. Like so many, he lined up at the local store at 4:00am in the morning. He made it home in time, exhausted and said to himself he wants to sleep over it first before trying the machine out. He wanted to make the first trip really special and didn't want to rush anything.

When he woke up later that day, he got his coffee and started to read the manual. The machine was really effing easy to use, not much different as to what you know from movies etc. Basically, there was a dial where you entered a desired time where you want to travel to and then a button "Start" and that would take care of everything. Easy as pie, really.

Joe plugged the machine in. He figured he wanted to go back in time first since he'd always been interested in history and besides, things were always better in the past anyway. For his trip, he set the dial 30 years back to a time from where he had particular good memories from, basically just as a test before he would travel further. He planned to see all kinds of things, from how they built the Pyramids in Egypt, visiting ancient Rome and other cool things, basically the entire history book up and down.

So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start". So he set the dial and pressed "Start"...

What happened is that the machine did indeed work but the great miscalculation there was what would actually happen, especially if someone goes "back in time" The instant he pressed the button, the machine ran about a split second until Joe was back right there where he was about to press the button. So he once again found himself about to press the button to start the machine, pressed it, the machine started, and the entire thing repeats itself and this for a very long time, forever actually. And "forever" is really an effing long time, it is even longer than 800 billion trillion years multiplied with 9000. Joe is now stuck in a darn loop where his entire existence is the nano second between where he pressed the button and when the machine kicked in to send him back to this very moment.

What followed was a gigantic lawsuit by the families of thousands of people who, like Joe, got the machine and are now stuck in this loop for all eternity.

And this is the reason that we here in the past have never seen one single traveler from the future, besides that the odds that someone would at some point in the future use one and visit us are actually very big!
Because time travel (at least traveling back in time) totally sucks!

** Notes: The interesting aspect here, isn't it that even if time travel WOULD be possible (and there are indeed speculations it would be, eg. when a space ship that traverses through a black hole etc. would EXCEED light speed so to that time "flows backwards"), how would someone prevent this from happening?

So yes, maybe we figure at some point out how to exceed light speed, or bend gravity or whatever, time starts to "flow backwards", but it would flow back right up to the moment before the ship reaches the critical speed, again trapping the ship in an endless, never ending loop. A time machine would have to "protect" the one who uses it from the altered time, but how should that look in practice? So, to the other well-known paradoxes of time travel (like your nasty grandmother who'd like to kill you or vice versa) comes the paradox that a time machine may well work, but time travel still won't. I think people would just "disappear" for an outside observer, since for an observer time would continue as normal, with the time traveler stuck in this moment. Unpleasant, to say the least...

** More notes: There would be some potential for a nice short story. For example, a spin on the story could be that "the government" very well would knows that time travel "back in time" doesn't work. They would promote the machines, nevertheless, but it is a giant scam which is essentially nothing but a new, cheap and convenient form of corporate punishment.

(Mind you that the time traveler "stuck" in the moment would not even know this, he would simply relive this moment indefinitely and not even realize that he is "stuck".)

"The government" or whoever would use the machines to get rid of criminals and whatever "undesirables" by luring them with exciting travels etc...and they would simply "pop out" of existence. No requirement for prisons etc..

 

[TheELF]

You do realise that "turning back time" and "time traveling" are different things right?
And why would this time effect stop right before you started it?
In your example joe would end up 30 years junger and 30 years earlier in time.

 

[flexy]

But how should Joe "end up" 30 years younger...but the machine skip the moment where he activates the machine? If he gets younger, means the (hypothetical) backwards flowing time has an effect on him, with all the consequences, including of course other paradoxes.

 

[TheELF]

But how should Joe "end up" 30 years younger...but the machine skip the moment where he activates the machine?

Because for the machine to work it has to keep moving forward in time once you push the start button,either you push the button and nothing happens because the machine only "jumped back" a few nanosecond (the time it takes for the signals from the button to be accepted by the machine) so you don't realise it did anything (you will still be depressing on that button) ,or it will keep going forward in time and all the while pushing you back in time.

 

[ElFenix]

iirc there is some thought out there that if time travel is possible, you could only go back to the invention of the machine itself and no earlier.

 

[SMOGZINN]

What followed was a gigantic lawsuit by the families of thousands of people who, like Joe, got the machine and are now stuck in this loop for all eternity.

There could be no lawsuit. This is a small infinity. It must be resolved, one what or another, instantly. Either the machine somehow resolves the loop and Joe goes back in time, pushes the button and nothing happens, or pushes the button gets an instant memory of pushing the button over and over again for every nanosecond of 4 trillion years, and then decides never to push it again. But something must happen to Joe and his machine for time to move on to the next second.

It would appear to be a version of one of Zeno's Paradoxes.

 

[MrDudeMan]

iirc there is some thought out there that if time travel is possible, you could only go back to the invention of the machine itself and no earlier.

First of all, time travel is already possible and it happens all the time. GPS only works because the effects of 'time travel' are factored into the data streams coming out of each satellite. Secondly, there's no logic whatsoever to being constrained by when a 'time machine' is invented. Third, time travel backward is currently thought to be impossible, but never say never. Time travel forward, however, is very easy. All you have to do is go much faster than the people around you. Go fast enough and your reference frame will slow down significantly, thus allowing you to travel forward in time.

 

[flexy]

There could be no lawsuit. This is a small infinity. It must be resolved, one what or another, instantly. Either the machine somehow resolves the loop and Joe goes back in time, pushes the button and nothing happens, or pushes the button gets an instant memory of pushing the button over and over again for every nanosecond of 4 trillion years, and then decides never to push it again. But something must happen to Joe and his machine for time to move on to the next second.

It would appear to be a version of one of Zeno's Paradoxes.

The lawsuits are by the families which are left behind, suing for having lost their loved ones in time.
Because I don't see a way how Joe or anyone else could ever get out of this loop - UNLESS we speculate that Everett/Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) would apply.

In this case, every repeat of the moment (and then time travel in general) would not merely repeat the exact identical moment with no way to change it, but instead, each and every time create an alternative world/scenario that is not 100% the same.

So the guy would still face the situation over and over where he is pressing/wants to press the button, but now there is a slight chance that at any of the (myriad) times where he is (entirely unbeknownst to him) repeating the scenario, he could for whatever reason decide not to. So this would be the only way for him to get out of the loop, imho, and then continue a "normal life" although on a different time-lime.

Let's assume the machine requires a 1/10th of a second from the pushing of the button to have him go back, so he'd press the button 36,000 times per hour, 864,000 times per day. So there is actually a good chance that at some point he does NOT go through with his intention to press since MWI would allow this I assume. Unfortunately he would (even with MWI) not know that something went wrong (this is only apparent for an observer), so he could as well just do what he intended to do (go ahead w/ pressing the button) for the next trillions of years.

We could also speculate that it takes a rather long time, say 10,000, 100,000 or 1 million years until he made the one critical decision not to press the button.

And now, an entire new can of worms is opened if we assume he stopped pressing the button and "exits" the time machine. Would he be "in his own" time bubblee, say that he experiences a reality that merely is a second or so further progressed? Or would he realize that "the outside" has indeed progressed 1 million years, the time he was stuck in the loop for the outside observers.

Lol: This would mean he actually planned to travel" back in time" for 30 years (lik, but then at some point DECIDED NOT TO. (The moment where he didn't press the button for some reason). So he exits or stops the machine and instead gets a shock since now he is 1 million years in the future! He would not have an idea why!

 

[John Connor]

iirc there is some thought out there that if time travel is possible, you could only go back to the invention of the machine itself and no earlier.

What if I sent a time machine before the time machine was invented?

J/K Same crap different story.

Personally, I think time travel will happen when we learn how to get to light year distant planets.

 

[sandorski]

If I had a Time Machine, I think I would use it to get Groceries. I'd save so much money.

 

[SMOGZINN]

The lawsuits are by the families which are left behind, suing for having lost their loved ones in time.

But his loved ones never know that they lost him in time because time does not move forward until that loop is concluded.
We start at time point 0. He pushes the button at time point 0.5. Time rewinds to point 0. He pushes the button at time point 0.5. Time point 2 never comes. He has effectively ended the universe.

Because I don't see a way how Joe or anyone else could ever get out of this loop - UNLESS we speculate that Everett/Many Worlds Interpretation (MWI) would apply.

This would make for an interesting question. Yes, with the MWI you would have an infinite number of universes in which the machine does not rewinding time, either because he didn't push the button, or the machine didn't work, or for any number of reasons that we can't conceive of but are possible to exist. But each case is not generating its own universe, all those universes, and Joes, have always existed. So, what happens to our Joe? I think time stops moving forward and we still get the end of the universe scenario.

And now, an entire new can of worms is opened if we assume he stopped pressing the button and "exits" the time machine. Would he be "in his own" time bubblee, say that he experiences a reality that merely is a second or so further progressed? Or would he realize that "the outside" has indeed progressed 1 million years, the time he was stuck in the loop for the outside observers.

If he actually traveled in time then no matter how much subjective time he spent pushing that button no time passed for the rest of the universe at all. In fact I think the most likely outcome is that the machine goes back to the millisecond before Joe pushes the button, and Joe being unable to stop the motion has to live the horror of him keeping on pushing that button until he dies of dehydration. The rest of the universe sees him push the button, his finger instantly becomes a bloody pulp, and he withers and dies.

 

[flexy]

Ah now I see where the confusion comes from.

I do of course assume that only the time "for the guy in the machine" changes, not the time "for the entire universe".
So when the guy presses the button, he is stuck in his loop but the time is "flowing" normally for any outside observers.
They see the guy pressing the button, and likely disappear, because for the outsiders time continues as normal, and the time loop, which for him, say happens from 12:36:12.100 to 12:36:12.102, for them quickly becomes the past. They never see the guy proceeding beyond 12:36:12.102, he is stuck in the past.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

iirc there is some thought out there that if time travel is possible, you could only go back to the invention of the machine itself and no earlier.

I've heard this too but never understood the reasoning behind it.

 

[Pantoot]

I've heard this too but never understood the reasoning behind it.

Not sure if this helps, but this is an example of that from the movie Primer.

https://qntm.org/coffin

 

[Ken g6]

iirc there is some thought out there that if time travel is possible, you could only go back to the invention of the machine itself and no earlier.

Depends on the design of your time machine. If there's wormholes involved that's probably correct. A ship with warp drive and sufficient acceleration by another drive system could go back further.

 

[MongGrel]

Tardis FTW.

It's a timey whimey thing.

You just have to fit that collapsing sun into the drive system and keep it frozen there for power just right...

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

The problem with time travel is that there is no time to travel.