Do you think time travel is possible?

[outside looking in]

Originally posted by rangeral
Hi all,

Personally I don't think its possible, I was of the mind that you could but assessing articles I've read and personal opinion I find that most events in our universe are just pictures which go out and eventually come back which was spoken about decades ago and that its possible to see every moment as pictures come back. I haven't read anything that changes this whether speed or portals or dimensions.

I don't think I understand what you're saying here. There is a lot of discussion lately about the nature of time... and a popular opinion is that there is no flow of time, or motion through time. Instead, time is static, and by incorporating the multiverse explanation of quantum mechanics, you get a very nice (albeit very bizarre) description of reality.

Are you referring to this static nature of time, or something else?

 

[StuTheWise]

Here is a link to the NOVA website on the time travel episode:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/time/index.html

 

[outside looking in]

hey, good link.

 

[rangeral]

Damn these pages take too long to load.

Static could be the word, I figure everything in this plane is just pictures, every nano is a pic of the moment of just electrons. I suppose if you moved them fast enough you would have a film of what happened but you wouldn't be able to interact just see the past since its already happened, going forward is a different problem since the pic hasn't been made yet. The only kink with the future is that somebody can predict what will happen but is it a coincidence one out of millions of people could get it rite. The spirit world from what we know gets hung up on one scene of events never a hint throughout history that they've had any effect on the past only that there on another plane of existence, that I can believe. Quantum mechanics et al is all theory as quite a few philosphers or scientists have mentioned and not enough to explain it which I agree with so it makes me look for an alternative approach or one professor forgot his name is teaching that you must look at it from as many different aspects as you can learn besides mathemmatics.

I can accept the belief in different planes of existence but none of it effects change in the past but more a leakage as with the philadelphia experiment, seeing sailors in a bar then disappearing at the same time of the experiment but still nothing that adds up to manipulating time. Just because I can grow a slower beard in space doesn't mean I can interact with time to the ends that we'd like to think we could.

Its an endless problem to approach.

 

[Professur]

Anything new to add?

Personally, I think it is possible, but not in any form which could effect the past. That is to say, were we able to travel backwards, it would be within our own timeline. We therefore would regress, and our knowledge would decrease to the point of our own birth. That would pretty well nix travelling back to kill hitler, wouldn't it?

 

[rrfield]

All I know is that our new system peak was set this weekend.

1.21 gigawatts!

No kidding. Southern Indiana produced enough energy to travel through time. God Bless Air Conditioning.

 

[chcr]

Anything new to add?

Personally, I think it is possible, but not in any form which could effect the past. That is to say, were we able to travel backwards, it would be within our own timeline. We therefore would regress, and our knowledge would decrease to the point of our own birth. That would pretty well nix travelling back to kill hitler, wouldn't it?

Actually, I think there are several hypotheses whereby time travel is possible. My personal favorite is that if you were to change something, it would cause the creation of a parallel universe (where the change happened and everything subsequent was affected) and no one in the original universe would ever know.

 

[HomeLAN]

A-la Heinlein.

 

[Winky]

I travel time everyday.

 

[catocom]

I hear when people look at far away stars, they are actually looking back in time.
I don't think it is possible to "travel in time" so to speak, nor will it be in my lifetime,
but we may have been visited from someone in the future. I do believe it might be possible one day.
The parallel universe thing hurts my brain to think about though.

 

[Gato_Solo]

I hear when people look at far away stars, they are actually looking back in time.
I don't think it is possible to "travel in time" so to speak, nor will it be in my lifetime,
but we may have been visited from someone in the future. I do believe it might be possible one day.
The parallel universe thing hurts my brain to think about though.

Seeing a past effect is not the same as travelling back in time. The same way you see the lightning before you hear the thunder is a good analogy. They both occur closer together as you approach the point of impact.Whereas from 15 miles away there is a very distinct difference time-wise.

 

[catocom]

Seeing a past effect is not the same as travelling back in time.

I didn't mean to imply that they were the same, just both time related.
Nothing is the same a "traveling" in time that I know of.

 

[rrfield]

I saw a DMC today. It was shiney!

 

[HeXp£Øi±]

Without going to exasperating lengths to explain the physics behind it all let me point out what should be the obvious. If time travel were possible, that is, if you could travel back in time and meet the you from twenty years ago we would be forced to conclude that there are an infinite number of planes which our 'other selves' exist on. So if there are an infinite number of planes of existance at the bare minimum there would have to be a nonillion, nonillion, nonillion to the nonillionth power (realistically it would be another infinite number but we'll round things down to make it simple)planes of existance where they had discovered the science of time travel. Therfor there would be that many time travelers going in and out of our plane at any point in time. In fact there would be so many time travelers that we would all know about time travel already because they would be everywhere.
No there is absolutely no such thing as time travel. We live in second the dark age of science.

 

[chcr]

That's my take on it too, Hex. Been wrong before but rarely uncertain. How do you feel about visitors from alien civilizations? I feel pretty much the same way about that.

 

[Winky]

well now ain't you two prudy much
summed it up and put this issue to rest?

 

[HeXp£Øi±]

That's my take on it too, Hex. Been wrong before but rarely uncertain. How do you feel about visitors from alien civilizations? I feel pretty much the same way about that.

Well i'm pretty sure there are no alien life forms visiting earth(aside from a few otc members).
As far as life on other planets goes...imo odds of that are far less than popular scientific opinion would conclude.
In fact, from a purely scientific perspective, the fact that we are even here makes absolutely no sense at all whatsoever. The notion that a piece of inert matter can all of a sudden "have life" is Preposterous & absurd.

 

[chcr]

The notion that a piece of inert matter can all of a sudden "have life" is Preposterous & absurd.

Well, that isn't really how it works. In any case though, I feel like given the size of the universe other life, even other intelligent life is nearly inevitable. In fact, given the wildly varying environments under which life exists on earth, I wonder if we won't find that life is much more likely than we expect. If we don't discover warp drive or some other way to bypass the speed of light we'll never know though.

Are you familiar with Freeman Dyson?

 

[Gato_Solo]

Well, that isn't really how it works. In any case though, I feel like given the size of the universe other life, even other intelligent life is nearly inevitable. In fact, given the wildly varying environments under which life exists on earth, I wonder if we won't find that life is much more likely than we expect. If we don't discover warp drive or some other way to bypass the speed of light we'll never know though.

Are you familiar with Freeman Dyson?

Dyson was a quack. Most famous for his idea of using all the matter in the solar system to encase the sun in a shell, and live on the inside of said shell. Think about the episode of ST:TNG where Scottie appears...

 

[HeXp£Øi±]

Well, that isn't really how it works. In any case though, I feel like given the size of the universe other life, even other intelligent life is nearly inevitable. In fact, given the wildly varying environments under which life exists on earth, I wonder if we won't find that life is much more likely than we expect. If we don't discover warp drive or some other way to bypass the speed of light we'll never know though.

Are you familiar with Freeman Dyson?

As far as i understand science & physics something goes from inert to active. There's no way to minimize this absurdly profound conversion.

I'd be interested to know just how you think it works.

yes i am somewhat familear with Freeman Dyson.