technology Time Travel Discussion

[Linguz 136]

Is time travel possible? And if it is possible, can it change anything?

 

Here are my thoughts:

 

I believe that time travel, while possible, cannot change anything that happens. Why? You already did the thing you go back in time to do. I'll use an example: You're 25 and you go back 20 years. At that point, there are two of you in that time, a 5 year old and a 25 year old. When you were 5, your 25 year old self went back in time and did what he was going to do. Therefore, before you even time travel, what you are going to do in the past has already happened. If you choose not to go back in time, then what you did in the past didn't occur and has already been factored into the equation of life.

 

What are your thoughts?

[Heartstrings 102]

Is time travel possible? And if it is possible, can it change anything?

 

Here are my thoughts:

 

I believe that time travel, while possible, cannot change anything that happens. Why? You already did the thing you go back in time to do. I'll use an example: You're 25 and you go back 20 years. At that point, there are two of you in that time, a 5 year old and a 25 year old. When you were 5, your 25 year old self went back in time and did what he was going to do. Therefore, before you even time travel, what you are going to do in the past has already happened. If you choose not to go back in time, then what you did in the past didn't occur and has already been factored into the equation of life.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

 

 

I've always thought this theory made the most sense. That does means however that no one will ever invent time travel, because we'd see people from the future appearing throughout history. Since we haven't seen them, no one will go back in time.

 

Travelling to the future would work though, because we're already doing it. The me of 20 hours ago went 20 hours into the future to be the me of now. We're always going into the future, it's just how fast we go is manipulate easily by gravity. According to Einstein's theory of relativity, gravity is a curve in space-time, which causes manipulates time. This means that time moves differently for each individual person. Someone in space is going through time much slower than someone on earth. If you were somehow on the surface of the sun, a minute there would be a year here because of how intense the suns gravity is. So, how do you really judge travelling to the future if some people are going through time faster than others?

[Linguz 136]

I've always thought this theory made the most sense. That does means however that no one will ever invent time travel, because we'd see people from the future appearing throughout history. Since we haven't seen them, no one will go back in time.

 

For now, I'll respond to this seeing as I have to go quickly.

 

The way we wouldn't see them is because...

1) We do see them, every day. They just look like ordinary people.

2) Restrictions are placed to stop people from going back into a crowd or such.

[Demi 545]

Ahh, I believe time travel is just something worth never messing with. That's why we have the past, to learn from mistakes and the future to better ourselves with that we've learned.

 

But in the same way teleportation works, I imagine your own personal atoms are broken up and remade somewhere else (or in this case, a different time), which makes me think if you'd even still be you after you were remade up? That alone would scare me too much to try it. Then imagine going back in time (future sounds somewhat unplausible as it hasn't happened yet) and getting lost back in that time era forever.

 

All too scary. :\

[Nico 790]

Two things about Time Travel that make it impossible to do (as seen in movies):

 

1) Travelling to the past would result in you being in the same plane of space as a younger version of yourself, which would be impossible in itself. Even if this were possible, you wouldn't be changing anything, as your future would always comprise of you going into the past to do whatever it is you're doing back there, thus resulting in an endless loop and at the same time proving the theory of destiny as opposed to dynamic decision.

 

2) Using a machine to travel to the future would not make you come out in the future as you would should you have proceeded in life without using the machine. Rather, you would simply be exactly as you were when you used the device while life around you would have developed. Example: If you use a time-travel machine to venture 20 years into the future to see what you're doing in 20 years, then those 20 years are spent in the machine and therefore you have made no progress in your life. Also, without either special enhancements to keep you fed and such or somehow actually teleporting you into the future without using the passage of time (which would require a rip in the space-time continuum), you would die.

 

BONUS REASON:

 

3) Due to the fact that a theory of destiny is most likely not true, there are multiple possibilities for a future and therefore 'the' future is not a destination which could be reached using a device. This also plays back to my previous reasoning; if it were possible to travel to a possible future, then the only actions you would have taken for yourself in the time between the 'present' and the 'future' would have been to use the time machine. Basically, due to dynamic decision making (and thus dynamic future possibilities), even if future time travel were possible, the results would be lackluster at best unless your only goal was to advance life around you (with absolutely no care for anyone you love not seeing you for the time you are travelling through).

[Linguz 136]

1) Travelling to the past would result in you being in the same plane of space as a younger version of yourself, which would be impossible in itself. Even if this were possible, you wouldn't be changing anything, as your future would always comprise of you going into the past to do whatever it is you're doing back there, thus resulting in an endless loop and at the same time proving the theory of destiny as opposed to dynamic decision.

 

But if you were to go back in time, the present would be different than what it would be if you didn't. You will not see a change upon returning, just that the entire time span would change.

 

2) Using a machine to travel to the future would not make you come out in the future as you would should you have proceeded in life without using the machine. Rather, you would simply be exactly as you were when you used the device while life around you would have developed. Example: If you use a time-travel machine to venture 20 years into the future to see what you're doing in 20 years, then those 20 years are spent in the machine and therefore you have made no progress in your life. Also, without either special enhancements to keep you fed and such or somehow actually teleporting you into the future without using the passage of time (which would require a rip in the space-time continuum), you would die.

 

Unless you go back in time eventually to any amount of time. So if you go forward 20 years, spend a year there, then go back 20 years, you'll have been missing for only a single year. And for that year in the future, you could meet up with a 19 year older version of yourself.

 

3) Due to the fact that a theory of destiny is most likely not true, there are multiple possibilities for a future and therefore 'the' future is not a destination which could be reached using a device. This also plays back to my previous reasoning; if it were possible to travel to a possible future, then the only actions you would have taken for yourself in the time between the 'present' and the 'future' would have been to use the time machine. Basically, due to dynamic decision making (and thus dynamic future possibilities), even if future time travel were possible, the results would be lackluster at best unless your only goal was to advance life around you (with absolutely no care for anyone you love not seeing you for the time you are travelling through).

 

The 'future' is an unknown factor that could come out in many ways. Is the world set on a certain path, can you make choices to make said path, or is there a path for each individual choice? My thoughts are the latter, at which point future time travel would be impossible due to being unable to tell which path you will take.

 

If I have said anything that can scientifically be proven incorrect, please show me the science. I have no idea what is and isn't possible when it comes to nearly everything.

[Fghik 360]

I always believed that when the time machine was invented, there would be something special added to the code.

You could only go back in time to the day AFTER the time machine was created.

 

This way, the time machine would never have 'been stopped from being created.' To avoid intense paradox and possibly creating a black hole.

 

 

And also, my version of time travel doesn't involve running into your past selves. I think time travel would work much better if you became your past self (so there will always only be one of you.) It'd be more like Majora's Mask time travel. You become your past self, but lose everything you gained (although with the real time-travel...you don't get to keep masks ).

 

 

Just some preventative matters to keep things like this to happen:

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=682pneYoP0c&feature=related

 

 

Oh, and to stop people from stepping on butterflies.

[Mr. Shoe 20]

 

 

These guys did it...

 

 

 

Meh, Time travel is just SCI-FI, nothing more. Though If somehow humanity would be able to create a time machine, It would be biggest catastrofy in human history. I remember reading a book about time travel. The theme was that some scientists created a time machine. They decided to go back to the past, the dinosaur age. And they did it. They traveled back to the dinosaur age and were amazed by the scenes. Though, one of the scientists steped on a butterfly. Then when they came back, the world was REALLY different. It changed into something bad.

 

I would continue on telling the story, but I can't remember what happened next.

 

My point is that It's imposibble to create a time machine, let alone time travel to the future and past. BUT if it was made, and it would work, humanity as we know it, would not be the same again (in the bad way).

Edited December 13, 2011 by Mr. Shoe

[Linguz 136]

The two latest post use the traditional "going back in time will change the present" while I, and some others I'm sure, go by the "it's in the past and therefore already happened at that point in time" thought. I've seen a few others also, but for you two above: we have no idea how time travel works because we do not have the technology yet.

[Doctor XFizzle 8,651]

 

Time travel would be awesome. Then I could really be The Doctor! But it won't be achieved in our lifetime or possibly ever so yeah.

[Linguz 136]

Time travel would be awesome. Then I could really be The Doctor! But it won't be achieved in our lifetime or possibly ever so yeah.

 

With the rate of technology going as it's going, I would not be impressed if we did reach it in our lifetime.

[Doctor XFizzle 8,651]

I think we're closer to invisibility than we are time travel. Even if we can eventually manipulate time, I rather slow time than travel through it.

 

But I wouldn't be surprised if there's some sort of invisibility cloak in the next 20 years.

[Sunnymilk 40]

My view on the subject

I have already stated in another topic that I go by a philosophy that absolutely anything a mind can think of is possible. so yes, I think Time travel is possible. at least forwards in time, backwards, im not so sure.

I do belive I heard somewhere that rockets going with really high velocity actually do skip forwards in time, not by much or anything, but you have to atomic clocks, on on earth, and one on the rocket, perfectly synchronized, when arriving back home, the one on the rocket will have skipped like 1 nanosecond or something. Im quite sure I heard of this, but entirely. but this makes me believe that Veolocity is a necessity.

and since relative velocity do not change if you go forward or backwards, its only possible forwards.

but not to contradict myself. I do belive there are other ways, and its then possible to travel backwards.

I like to think the way of Doctor who here, time is in a constant flux, maybe with a few fixed points. like major events.

so it is possible to change a few things, while other things will just happen no matter what you do.

 

On the subject of meeting yourself. lets say you travel back in time and kill yourself, this will cause a paradox that most likely will fix itself; if you kill yourself, you will die, therefore you wont be able to travel back in time to kill yourself, therefore you wont be killed at all.

I kinda doubt Star Trek got it right, they say time travelers are safe from the changes made in the past, while the rest of world is not. I believe, if you change something in the past, you will instantly adapt to the changes made i the present. but again, and thus again could result in a self fixing paradox.

what I am saying, while it might be possible to travel back in time, you probably would not be able to do any changes in the community.

another possiblity is that traveling to the past is just the exception that proves my rule

at least I am 99% sure traveling forwards is possible.

 

Oh and one other thing, I think it was the OP saying that what has happened has happened, lets say, you travel back in time, meet yourself, and tell you something. the past you can then decide not to do that. say you travel pack in time, meet yourself, empty a trash can and tell yourself not to do that. the past you can then decide not to empty that trash can

 

 

Some theories of mine

lets say you travel hundred and fifty thousand years into the past, and kill one man, it is then very safe to assume you will never be born, I then belive it will fix itself.

 

you travel back five years, kill your best friend, there is then a chanse that change will make you never travel back in time, it will fix itself.

Or, you will in five years not think about finding your best friend and kill him, and thus never kill him.

Or, you will travel back to save him, discover that no one is killing him, realize it might have been you time traveling, neglect to kill him, he will then not be killed, and a you will then again have a timeline where you travel back and kill him, endless loop.

 

say you travel back one year and kill a random stranger in a D-country, a hermit or just some plain unimportant person that you have no relations to. it will happen, no problem, he dies, life goes on.

 

I kinda doubt stepping on a butterfly will change much tho. but lets say you travel back in time and pick a certain apple...

 

Well, I do belive the time is in flux, but for an individ, there is a limited amount of changes possible to do, and thenumber of possibl things is shrinking the further back you go.

 

Sorry for my sentence structure in this post, sometimes I get ideas in a listlike form and have problems putting it together as a coherent text.

[Mr. Shoe 20]

The two latest post use the traditional "going back in time will change the present" while I, and some others I'm sure, go by the "it's in the past and therefore already happened at that point in time" thought. I've seen a few others also, but for you two above: we have no idea how time travel works because we do not have the technology yet.

 

For each theyr own as I say. And as you said, we don't have an idea how it works, there for we both might be right or wrong. Though I tend to beleve that sometimes the simplyest speculation/theory is right. And I bet that there will be more that beleve that time travel is the worst thing that humankind would create.

Edited December 13, 2011 by Mr. Shoe

[Linguz 136]

@Flutterfry

 

But if you told yourself not to empty the trash can, then in the first run (when your conscious is not in the time travelers spot) of that time you will have heard your second run tell you not to do it also. Therefore, if you empty the trash or not is something that can't be changed because that time already was done.

[Slendermane 474]

 

 

These guys did it...

 

 

 

Meh, Time travel is just SCI-FI, nothing more. Though If somehow humanity would be able to create a time machine, It would be biggest catastrofy in human history. I remember reading a book about time travel. The theme was that some scientists created a time machine. They decided to go back to the past, the dinosaur age. And they did it. They traveled back to the dinosaur age and were amazed by the scenes. Though, one of the scientists steped on a butterfly. Then when they came back, the world was REALLY different. It changed into something bad.

 

I would continue on telling the story, but I can't remember what happened next.

 

My point is that It's imposibble to create a time machine, let alone time travel to the future and past. BUT if it was made, and it would work, humanity as we know it, would not be the same again (in the bad way).

 

The story about a scientist stepping on a butterfly is a short story written by Ray Bradbury called "A Sound of Thunder."

 

The way I see it, there are two possibilities about time travel. It is possible to change the past, or it is impossible.

 

1. There are more than one universe. There always have been, and they always will be. Instead of a universe, we have a multiple of universes, the Multiverse.

 

Say you go back in time, and you step on a butterfly. If there are multiple universes, then this action will cause the timeline to split into the timeline where you did step on a butterfly, where you are now, and the universe you came from, where you didn't step on a butterfly. So now you are in an alternate timeline. Question is, is it possible to return to your original universe? If you go back in time again, you are already there, stepping on a butterfly. If you try to stop yourself, you aren't fixing the past, you are just causing more changes.

 

2. There is only one reality. If you go back in time, you can't change anything because you were destined to be there.

 

 

"Great Scott!"

"I know. It's heavy."

[Tom The Diamond 1,828]

Lets check if Time Travel will happen within our lifetime. I will write a note to remind myself that the moment time travel becomes possible, meet me in five minutes 2:00 PM EST 12/13/11 and give me all the lottery numbers. I'll update this if I do get those numbers from my future self.

[Doctor XFizzle 8,651]

Lets check if Time Travel will happen within our lifetime. I will write a note to remind myself that the moment time travel becomes possible, meet me in five minutes 2:00 PM EST 12/13/11 and give me all the lottery numbers. I'll update this if I do get those numbers from my future self.

 

BS, you'll just talk to yourself about how much you love Trixie and you'll both squeal and be giddy fanboys.

[Linguz 136]

Lets check if Time Travel will happen within our lifetime. I will write a note to remind myself that the moment time travel becomes possible, meet me in five minutes 2:00 PM EST 12/13/11 and give me all the lottery numbers. I'll update this if I do get those numbers from my future self.

 

Ah, but you forgot 'cause you don't think it'll happen so you didn't remember to go back in time.

[Lady Rarity Pony 4,892]

Of course we can time travel, don't you just have to reach 88 mph or something?

[Tom The Diamond 1,828]

Well, its been well over an hour (I gave my future self the benefit of the doubt since I'm usually bad with deadlines) So one of three things has happened.

 

1) Time Travel shall not be achieved in this lifetime.

 

2)I have found the portal to Equestria and have no need for time travel or lottery numbers. (I really hope this is what happened)

 

3) My future self is a jackass.

 

 

BS, you'll just talk to yourself about how much you love Trixie and you'll both squeal and be giddy fanboys.

 

True, which is why I really hope option two is what happened.

 

Ah, but you forgot 'cause you don't think it'll happen so you didn't remember to go back in time.

 

 

 

Psht, the only time I ever forget things is when it involves reluctantly doing a favor for somepony else. When it involves me I don't forget.

[Klopp 2,050]

Alrighty, time to whip out my debunker and set you guys straight!

 

Time Travel is something many people have been wanting to do for centuries (Maybe even millenia0 So there has been quite a large amount of research done on the topic. Everything from a one-man experiment in the basement, to full scientific theories and tests. These many years of testing have yet to uncover anything great on the subject.

 

There is only one theory that is currently accepted as maybe possible, but probably not by most scientists. And that is that the faster an object moves through space, the faster an object moves through time as well. In fact there is one man who has recieved a Guiness World Record for time travel, his name is Sergey Avdeyev. But this is only assuming the theory is true, which of course has not yet been confirmed.

 

I personally have many problems with this theory. One thing with this theory is that the highest possible speed is the speed of light, and that nothing can match it, stating that the speed of light is constant, no matter what your rate of "Time Travel" is. If you were to come closer to the speed of light, you would be moving through time at a faster rate. Therefor the speed of light would increase as well, and if you were to travel through time at near the speed of light, you would still not be anywhere near the speed of light anyways, because the speed of light remains constant no matter how fast through time you are going. So if something were to actually increase their rate of "Time Travel" to twice that of what we are at today, they might actually seem as if they were actually going FASTER than the speed of light. But in their own rate of "Time Travel" they would still appear to be the same in comparison to the speed of light. So you are breaking the speed of light even though you aren't breaking the speed of light, basically... Yeah that's just ridiculous. Not to mention that if you were moving twice as fast though time, you would also be deteriorating your own body twice as fast. Sounds like loads of fun doesn't it?

 

That's just moving forward in time though, moving backward in time is an absolute impossibility. The passed is stuff that has happened, and cannot be changed. Theres just nothing that can send you backwards in time, and if you have evidence that states otherwise, I would really like to see it please (I enjoy being proved wrong, especially on matters such as this )

 

I hope I didn't lose anybody in that wall of text I just placed up there, it can certainly be confusing. But that's how things currently stand on what I believe. Now if you want to go start a thread on teleportation, I can give you another wall of text that is equally confusing

[FLARE 951]

I heaven't read through the thread yet, but the way I think of it as is, there are many sorta timelines, we are on timeline 1 or A the first one, by the time we invent time travel we get put in timeline 2 or B everything stays the same in timeline A, but if you change something in timeline B it only effects that one.

so because we haven't/don't think we/aliens have invented time travel yet we are all in A.

 

this makes less sense as I read it.

[cuteycindyhoney 13,283]

I'd go back in time and visit me and my husband right after we got married. Now that would be a wedding present we'd both enjoy!

 

 

 

Hey, if Amy Pond can flirt with herself, so could I!

 

BS, you'll just talk to yourself about how much you love Trixie and you'll both squeal and be giddy fanboys.

 

[Swoop 2,276]

Caution! Simplified physics talk ahead. You've been warned.

 

Of course we can time travel, don't you just have to reach 88 mph or something?

 

Oh if only the DeLorean time machine was real

 

Here's a fun fact: funnily enough, the way that car operates was actually based upon (albeit loosely) a relative theory known as time dilation, which has a lot to do with the speculation behind the workings of black holes, wormholes, and subsequently time travel.

 

So what is time dilation? You've probably experienced aspects of it; When an ambulance passes you, you've probably noticed the sound of the siren shifts to a lower sounding tone as it drives off into the distance. That's called the Doppler Effect, but since we're only talking about slow speeds here, It's not related to time travel.

 

While time travel deals with the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner comparable to moving between different points in space, time dilation is concerned with the observed difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers. For example, say we had two DeLorean's traveling across a flat surface hurtling straight towards each other, one going almost at the speed of light (you can get close to the speed of light, but you can't reach it, otherwise shit starts getting freaky), the other traveling at half the speed of light. If you were to observe the two cars colliding, you'd see the faster car seemingly crash into nothing first, then seconds later observe the slower car arrive at the crash, even though both cars did collide at exactly the same time. Now, this sounds like one big optical illusion, but the strangest part is that both observed impacts did in fact occur at different times, not because of our eyes not being able to take in a crash at such a speed, but because the nature of space-time itself.

 

Now, I'll stop myself here before I TL;DR everyone to death, and write a wall of text explaining everything, so here's my theory summed up: The theory of general relativity (Ie: Time dilation plus a whole bunch of other components) does suggest a scientific basis for the possibility of backwards time travel in certain unusual scenarios, there are so many contradictory sequences of events (the Grandfather Paradox anyone?), that it makes it impossible for me to see how it could function efficiently.

 

For the world to be logically consistent, there simply has to be some boundaries.

 

 

 

One thing with this theory is that the highest possible speed is the speed of light, and that nothing can match it, stating that the speed of light is constant, no matter what your rate of "Time Travel" is.

 

I've read that theory too, and have the same issues with it. Light, (E=mc²) travels at around about 300,000km per second (or 186,282 miles for all you wacky Americans). To state that such a speed is dynamic and relative to our own speed challenges all that I've learnt concerning special relativity; when you bring in all the other laws of relativity, it just dosen't add up.

 

As for going at superluminal speeds (above the speed of light), well, honestly I can't really get my head around it, but scientists have hypothesised a subatomic particle called a Tachyon, but that's a bit over my head

Edited December 14, 2011 by Swoop