Do you think time travel is possible?

F

fury

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I mean, outside of the ordinary sensation of going forward through what we call time.

Time doesn't exist, so I wholeheartedly believe traveling forward and backward at will through it is possible. If we just accept the fact that time is not a constant and derive any work we do on the fact that time has no hold on us, then anything is possible.
 
After watching a very interesting documentary on time travel on the PBS show Nova, then later reading an article about it in Popular Mechanics, I am swayed in the direction of yes, backward time travel is possible (it has already been proven that forward time travel is possible, if only we could go fast enough. It is said that one of the Russian cosmonauts aboard MIR traveled a few seconds into the future due to the high speed of travel onboard MIR).

However, Nova did bring up an interesting point:
If backward time travel is possible, why aren't we visited by time travelers from the future? There is of course the issue of creating a paradox, which Nova pointed out the possibility of there being some force that would prevent paradoxes.

For example, if you roll a billiard ball into a pocket (which contains a worm hole into the past) and the ball travels into the past to a point where it comes out another pocket, then hits itself before it is able to fall into the pocket containing the wormhole, then you have a paradox. How can the ball come out and hit itself, if it never enters the wormhole in the first place?

But the no-paradox theory (can't remember what it was actually called) dictates that something would have to happen that prevents the ball from hitting itself.

Anyway... interesting stuff.
 
Originally posted by StuTheWise
However, Nova did bring up an interesting point:
If backward time travel is possible, why aren't we visited by time travelers from the future?
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Very good point. You would think that if it's possible, future time travelers would be all around us. (Maybe that's what aliens are) ;)
 
Originally posted by Gato_Solo
Sorry. The Langoliers make SURE that going back in time is impossible... ;)
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ooohhh .. I loved that book .. and the movie ... I was so afraid to not fall asleep on a plane for the longest time after that! hehehe
 
By the time we figure out how to travel through time, we have established a temporal prime directive that explicitly denies us the pleasure of going back in time and making a fuss about it. In other words, there may already be some time travellers among us from the future, but they don't make it known.

If there are any here on earth right now, they are most likely here on a mission to prevent something bad from happening that seriously jeopardizes the future, and have found a way to evade the paradoxical situation that once they prevent that from happening, they were never sent back in time to prevent it from happening, thus it happened, which caused them to be sent back in time to keep it from happening, etc.

I doubt it, though. We are far from being advanced enough that anything we do now will have any effect on whether or when time travel technology is discovered, developed, and applied. There have been no hypotheses or blue prints or models of a time travel machine as of yet, so there is nothing about a time travel machine or the idea of a time travel machine to disturb, disrupt, or alter. So, coming this far back in time would be mostly pointless, unless this very thread, or even my post here is what causes the time travel machine never to be invented. *suspicious look* (I gotta get a smilie for that)
 
I would doubt that time travel "backwars" is possible.

Forward is possible because your time goes slower than the "external" time when you reach high speeds. Therefore you're not actually traveling thru time, you're reducing the speed at which your time runs, you don't make a "jump in time" you just accelerate the external time speed. (it sounds confusing...and it is :D )
 
I've only seen the movie... :(

As for the truth in travelling backwards in time, ask me about it yesterday... :D
 
If we travel fast enough and look back at earth we will see the past. (we all know this theory).
Maybe working on this concept, we can "see" the past but cant interact with it.
That would explain why we havent seen any travellers from the future.
And could also be another explanation for "ghosts".
 
Originally posted by T W
If we travel fast enough and look back at earth we will see the past. (we all know this theory).
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Yes, the way that works is you travel away from the Earth at faster than light speed. Let's say you get 100 light years away then look at the Earth through a telescope. Since it takes 100 years for the light to reach you, you would see Earth as it were 100 years ago. That's not a theory, since it has been proven.

Because of the way that works, I don't believe it has any relation to ghosts. If it did, then it means that our ghosts are appearing on the sun everytime we look at it (the sun is approximately 8 light minutes away), or Mars or Jupiter, or Alpha Centauri... or whatever.
 
I think the real question should be, what happens to people that travel in to the past? Do you age? If so which way? It would seem logical that if aging comes into play then you age reverses as you travel. But maybe it does the oppisite, ever notice most lottery winners are old as dirt.
 
I personally put stock in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory, and also believe that there is no "motion" of or through time, but that time is just a perceptual trait of any intelligent life observing the webbed structure of our space-time uinverse.

In this framework, I believe that there are no physical principles which exclude the possibility of backwards in time travel, nor would there be any paradox generated from such travel (including killing your grandpa... no problems there).

In reality, I think that the amounts and type of energy required for any significant travel of scale would be impractical if not impossible to acquire and apply at the specified location.

I predict however that we will someday acquire the technical means by which we can achieve small scale backwards in time travel, i.e. we can send an electromagnetic signal or perhaps even a particle based signal through time. I think that any such achievement will be based on artifically created time travel devices, and not naturally occuring physical phenomena, so that the range of possible backwards in travel time is limited to the lifespan of the time travel device.

This is also an explanation as to why we haven't received any signals (or visitors, in that unlikely case) from the future. Without the discovery and utilization of a naturally occurring "time gate," such signals and/or visitors could only visit times during which the time gate has existed. Naturally, if we haven't invented the device yet, then we are not yet in a time during which we can recieve such signals. I predict that as soon as the first time gate is constructed in a lab, it will receive signals from the future, even before the scientist use it for the first time to try and send such signals.

:headbang: :confuse3:
 
Time doesn't exist, so I wholeheartedly believe traveling forward and backward at will through it is possible. If we just accept the fact that time is not a constant and derive any work we do on the fact that time has no hold on us, then anything is possible.
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Sounds like something from a Warner Brothers cartoon. One doesn't become subject to gravity, until one actually knows what it is, and then has to face the consequences :D


I don't believe speed has any real relation to time, unless applied to light which isn't strictly time. As mentioned, if you travel fast enough away from an object, faster then the speed of light (not time!), then you can see into that objects past.

For example, a very loud rock concert is being played 5km away. The sound delay between the rock concert and yourself is about 20 seconds (if I did my maths right). You may be able to hear back in time, but it's simply an echo of an occurance, you are not experiencing the occurance itself.


If anything, I believe gravity caused by unimaginably dense mass may have an effect, but for one to make use of gravity for means of time travel, would first mean they'd have to stretch themselves into obvlivion, due to the effects of the incredible amount of gravity. Not to mention such a "device" would virtually consume any nearby solar system with it.
 
i thought the past does not exist and the future hasnt happened and therefore does not exist and right now is now the past and we are now in the furtue wich is the now, which has passed to the past and damn we dont exist :headbang:
 
ahhh but start from a point of view of time being but a parenthesis of eternity and the possibilities become more simple.

if indeed life is a hologram version of an existance beyond that we are actually experiencing the the hologram needs a surface upon which to appear. a 5th dimensional existance will allow 4 dimesnions of space time to be played out as a separate entity - and given that it is possible to imagine more than one entitties in that 5th dimension this would allow not only for space time via the 5th dimensional flux but also to transfer to, not alternative, but additional and coincident realities
 
Sorry. The Langoliers make SURE that going back in time is impossible...
Click to expand...
However, Nova did bring up an interesting point:
If backward time travel is possible, why aren't we visited by time travelers from the future? There is of course the issue of creating a paradox, which Nova pointed out the possibility of there being some force that would prevent paradoxes.
Click to expand...
For example, if you roll a billiard ball into a pocket (which contains a worm hole into the past) and the ball travels into the past to a point where it comes out another pocket, then hits itself before it is able to fall into the pocket containing the wormhole, then you have a paradox. How can the ball come out and hit itself, if it never enters the wormhole in the first place?
Click to expand...
If there are any here on earth right now, they are most likely here on a mission to prevent something bad from happening that seriously jeopardizes the future, and have found a way to evade the paradoxical situation that once they prevent that from happening, they were never sent back in time to prevent it from happening, thus it happened, which caused them to be sent back in time to keep it from happening, etc.
Click to expand...
I predict however that we will someday acquire the technical means by which we can achieve small scale backwards in time travel, i.e. we can send an electromagnetic signal or perhaps even a particle based signal through time. I think that any such achievement will be based on artifically created time travel devices, and not naturally occuring physical phenomena, so that the range of possible backwards in travel time is limited to the lifespan of the time travel device.
Click to expand...
For example, a very loud rock concert is being played 5km away. The sound delay between the rock concert and yourself is about 20 seconds (if I did my maths right). You may be able to hear back in time, but it's simply an echo of an occurance, you are not experiencing the occurance itself.
Click to expand...


nahh dont think thats right
 
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