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Time Travel

meh_meh_
edited March 2011 in General Banter
Time travel - possible or impossible?
I think that to say time travel would be possible in the future is to deny that time exists:
The arrow of time points only one way
To say that time travel would be possible in the future, means that people could come back to the present day.
Which would mean that the future was already happening? or predetermined?


Comments

  • mithrilmithril Veteran
    I don't see how this could be possible. Time is just us counting stuff: the sun rising, flowing of sand, oscillations... And those are really just part of energy and particles re-arranging themselves into new forms all the time. So time travel would basically mean you had to put all the particles and energy where they were at the moment you wanted to travel to.

    You could look at it in a way in which you called every position of particles and energy a state. Just like heads and the number would be the 2 states possible when throwing a coin. Just that here, every time any of the particles in the world moved it would be a different state. Then, a coin has 2 states, so the probability for it going to one state spontaneously is 1/2. The possibility of returning to a point in time would be 1/(sum of all particles and energy).

    You could also call a moment in time a very ordered state. Every next moment it is replaced by a more favorable state, or position of particles and energy. If you wanted to go back in time, entropy would get very unhappy about it.

    I wonder how this could be thought about in terms of relativity. Although i still don't think you could travel to the past in the usual sense, because if you were going around traveling at high speeds you might arrive in the 'past' but still weren't in the relevant 'future'. Umm dunno, maybe someone understands this better than i do^^
  • ShiftPlusOneShiftPlusOne Veteran
    No, time is a variable we have invented. You time travel for daylight savings! Yes, time can pass at different rates under different situations, so you can, theoretically, slow down time then come back and have the illusion that you have traveled into the future (when you really just fast forwarded through time). It would be a one way process, so you wouldn't be able to reverse time.

    So, it depends on what you mean by time travel. Don't mix up fiction with reality. 'Time travel', might be possible in the future, into the future, but not into the past.

    The 'future' is a theoretical concept, there is no 'future' happening simultaneously to the present and there is no future that has already happened. The only future there is only predetermined by the present and since the present is always changing, so is the future.

    What do you hope to get out of this?
  • CloudCloud Veteran
    Time isn't an actual thing, it's an abstract we apply to "change".
    24 hours of time is 24 hours of change, cause and effect.
  • taiyakitaiyaki Veteran
    think about a memory you have. then change how you relate to that memory.

    you just travelled time and you changed it. lol
  • ArjquadArjquad Veteran
    It is possible to time travel forward by going by a black holes gravity well. But it can never be instant and going backwards in time is impossible.
  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    ...going backwards in time is impossible.
    Dang it. I was counting on that.
  • ArjquadArjquad Veteran
    We all were
  • Inji-gyoInji-gyo
    Time travel is possible. If a spaceship is traveling at the speed of light the observation of time has ceased (which is to say time has stopped in the ship, you don't age and the clocks don't run.) Travel on that ship until 50 years have been observed on Earth. You will find you haven't been conscious of any time change and the people of Earth have seen 50. In theory going back in time is also possible to an extent. If you could travel further then light could in a shorter time (not faster then light but further quicker {point a to point b is a straight line, the path of light, you travel in a fold that instantly takes you to point A and point B}) If this distance was 100 light years you would in essence be 100 years in the past. you would be able to see the Earth unfold 100 years in the past. and when you finally went back to the Earth and 100 years has passed people will look up into the sky and see you 100 light years away (Thus in the past)
  • ZaylZayl Veteran
    edited March 2011
    Well technically, time travel is possible right now. The only thing is that it can only go forward in time. You need a vessel to go at nearly the speed of light and maintain that speed. the passage of time for the people on board is much different than the people who are left behind on Earth.

    It was explained by Carl Sagan, but I forget the exact words.

    EDIT - Inji beat me to the punch.
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    ''Time travel is possible. If a spaceship is traveling at the speed of light the observation of time has ceased (which is to say time has stopped in the ship, you don't age and the clocks don't run.) Travel on that ship until 50 years have been observed on Earth. You will find you haven't been conscious of any time change and the people of Earth have seen 50. In theory going back in time is also possible to an extent. If you could travel further then light could in a shorter time (not faster then light but further quicker {point a to point b is a straight line, the path of light, you travel in a fold that instantly takes you to point A and point B}) If this distance was 100 light years you would in essence be 100 years in the past. you would be able to see the Earth unfold 100 years in the past. and when you finally went back to the Earth and 100 years has passed people will look up into the sky and see you 100 light years away (Thus in the past)''

    Nothing with any degree of mass can travel at the speed of light, so that rules that idea out. Isn't time a distance....
  • ShiftPlusOneShiftPlusOne Veteran
    TT, you don't need to go at the speed of light, just close enough. The idea is ruled out for 100 other reasons though.
  • CloudCloud Veteran
    What is time? ;)
  • ShiftPlusOneShiftPlusOne Veteran
    "the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole" ;)
  • ArjquadArjquad Veteran
    It's impossible to travel at the speed of light, since the closer you get the speed of light the heavier your mass gets, which means you need more power to keep that speed and it's impossible to get enough power to do that unless you take all the energy from a supernova and that may not even be enough.
  • Inji-gyoInji-gyo
    edited March 2011
    Well the phenomenon has been observed with high speed aircraft and accurate clocks, so I suppose time travel has happened at lease minutely.


    If I'm ever caught by a traffic cop speeding I'll try to justify it by experiments in time travel.
  • taiyakitaiyaki Veteran
    travel speed of light then go down a hill.

    faster than the speed of light LOL.
  • ZaylZayl Veteran
    You don't need to go as fast or faster than the speed of light, 99.99999% the speed of light is just fine and still theoretically possible. Going as fast or faster than the speed of light though would require an infinite energy source.
  • tesstess
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