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Time travel - Is it really possible?

Ummmm.....this is true. There is also believed to exist particles that travel so fast that they travel BACK in time, called tachyons. But their existance is yet to be proven. I just remembered a nice tidbit from Bill and Ted which illustrates my previous point.

Bill and Ted need the key to something (i forget what), and they say that what they can do is later on, travel back in time and place the key where they can find it, and then it will be there when they go to ge it. They then proceed to look where they agreed theyt would place it...and the key is there. They say somehting along the lines of "now we have to remember to go back and put the key there or it won't be there"
"but it was there"

So basically...they have no choice. They HAVE to go back in time later on to place the key, because the key was there. Therefore, they are not free, not autonomous. So you can see the difficulty in backwards time travel. There is also the simple case of returning to kill yourself as a baby. Because obviosuly it can't happen, you can't kill yourself or else you wouldn't have been able to come back to kill yourself.

As for forwards time travel...i'll have to think for a bit about that.
 
The wheelchair guy (Stephen Hawking) said that time only exists as a measure of entropy, thus in a localised area, such as a black hole where matter is considered to become more ordered instead of more disordered in real space, "time" travels backwards.

What does this mean for time travel? Fuck all really, cause if relativistic physics still stands, time will seem to travel backwards in the black hole, but time would still be travelling "forwards" to every one outside.

Also, the amount of energy required to leave to black hole would require the person to leave in a more disordered state than before (that is, if you could leave it...), so you're back to square one.

The relativity theory can not be expolited for time travel cause of the fact that it IS all relative. I think some very interesting physics has to be discovered before time travel becomes a possiblity.

That said, you could easily travel forward in time via the use of stasis. If you are somehow able to keep an object in an anti-entropic field, time will stop while its in it, and the moment it is reintroduced to the universe, time will start again. Problem is, what happens to the object the moment it is reintroduced into the universe as a quantum event.

And that, my friends is why I'm doing Journalism and not physics.

Please note that all of the above should be taken with a grain or two of salt.
 
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OceanBoy - did you copy and paste what you said from some website, or where you seriously out of it/high?

Fetish Jester - Baby, after just reading what you wrote i think i'm gunna finaly do some serious reading on the 2nd law of thermodynamics. I think we spoke about this once ages ago.

Anyhoo, i've pondered over time travel many times, all i've come up with so far is that time is a series of movements and a perception of where one is. I unfortunetly lack the scientific knowledge to come up with a decent hypothesis.

Though, after reading all your posts.... if you could travel forward in time, would it just be YOURSELF travelling forward and not the rest of the world? The rest of the world is still living in 2003 and your in 2203 lets just say, which would mean your perception of time is different to everyone elses. Wouldn't you have to some how speed up the earth's rotational spin to an extremly infinant high point to make the rest of the world catch up and create everything that would happen between 2003 and 2203? because how can you travel forward in time when nothing has taken place yet in that span of time of when you leave the present day to the future date???? I think i've just confussed myself 8( I've watched too many superman movies.
 
^^^

Well, from relativistic physics point of view, travelling forward in time can be done by making time around you stop, but the time everywhere outside go on. For you, no time would pass, but outside time would keep on going. It would be like going to sleep and waking up 100 years in the future.

Think of it kinda like a "deep freeze", or Futurama.
 
Fetish Jester said:
That said, you could easily travel forward in time via the use of stasis. If you are somehow able to keep an object in an anti-entropic field, time will stop while its in it, and the moment it is reintroduced to the universe, time will start again. Problem is, what happens to the object the moment it is reintroduced into the universe as a quantum event..[/I]
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Is that not what is claimed to have been achieved during project rainbow on the u.s.s eldridge in 1943? While partly an investigation into how Albert Einsteins "unified field theory for gravitation and electricity" might be used to advantage in the development of electronic camouflage.The research was aimed at using intense electromagnetic fields to mask the ship from incoming projectiles ,mainly torpedoes.This was later extended to include a study of creating radar invisability.

What is said to have been achieved was not only radar invisibility,but total invisibility,de-materialization and the teleportation of the ship over 600kms and back.


Which can also be taken with a grain of salt =D
 
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^^^ well, *actually* that just rules out travelling backwards in time.

most time-travel theories focus on heading into the future - and that time travel is only possible between point a (being the time that the person departed) and point b (any time in the future). theoretically (obviously it hasn't been done yet, but the theory is there) once you have travelled forward in time, you can then travel back to any time in between point a and point b, but never back any further than a.

the best book that i've ever read for these kind of ideas in an easy-to-read format is "how to build a time machine" by paul davies.

btw, sorry, i haven't read the rest of this thread (just the post above), so i hope i haven't just repeated what others have said :) anyway, time travel rules, i love shit like that :D
 
But what makes *now* so special? If time travel forward is possible, it assumes again that our entire future is mapped out (which i refuse to believe). Why do you believe that we are in the "present"? For time travel to be possible, it means that every moment in time from beginning to end is being lived simultaneously. This 4 Dimensionalist view (the 4th demension being placement in time), assumes that there must be somewhere for a time traveller to travel TO. Therefore, the people in this time would believ, just as we do, that they are living in the present.

My favourite example that is completely irrelivant to the conversation at this point but i think should be brought up anyway:
The Logic Bomb - Imagine there is a bomb, with a detonator which sends a message back in time (by use of tachyons, which are perfectly feasible). so suppose you can send this detonation back in time to blow up the bomb. Sounds ok so far. But what if the detonator is in the blast radius of the bomb? Then the detonator must fail to work. CONTRADICTION!

blah.
 
relativity would say that time travel IS possible, but unfortunately you need to be travelling near the speed of light to do it. this is bloody hard, as thoth explained, because a) it requires a shitload of energy and b) it'll be a while before we can accelerate matter to anything like the necessary speeds. wormholes may be an answer, IF the exist or can be opened. Paul Davies wrote a book published a couple of years ago called "How To Build a Time Machine" which goes through step-by-step what would be needed to build a working time-machine {edit: sorry onetwothreefour didn't see you mentioned it the first time i read the thread ;) }. Davies is a physicist so his ideas seem plausible based on current physics knowledge, and the book is pretty easy to understand even for someone who isn't a physics PhD student.

now, Hardicus said....
if time travel is possible, then it is not possible that we are in any way free to do what we want.
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This is a view in philosophical circles (ie mine) known as Determinism. Some philosophers argue that even if time travel is true, and hence the the future is pre-determined, it does not necessarily mean that we lack freedom of choice and action. these guys are called compatibilists. if you want to read a good article explaining how it is that freedom and determinism are compatible, check out an article by Harry Frankfurt, called "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility" in the Journal of Philosophy , Vol 66, No21, Nov 1969 (get it and photocopy from your local uni library) {edit: or email me and i can email you a copy in pdf format}. it's not explicitly about time travel, but the points he makes apply here. he basically argues that the claim that we don't have alternative possibilities (because the future is predetermined) doesn't mean we're not responsible for our actions, and he uses a few different examples to show why he thinks so. read it if you care. or just trust me that time travel doesn't prevent free will from being possible :D

and as Time-travel stories, Back to the Future and Terminator/T2 are abhorrent stains on time-travel's name! they are incoherent because they present basic paradoxes. If John Connor survived into adulthood to lead a rebellion, then OF COURSE arnie's mission to protect him succeeded! it's the Grandfather paradox again! hollywood is fucked.

i've said enough.
 
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^^ Anything on the internet about that article "Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility"... sounds like a very good read. I doubt my library would have something like that.

This is one of the most interesting posts i have read so far.
 
time travel is indeed a very interesting concept full of many theorams. so are some what outrages and some are feesable.

i beleive that time travel is possible.

but here is some interseting problems to play with.

say u are in the year 2010 and u go to 2000to warn urself of something thentraveled back to 2010 again.
u wood know that u came back to talk to urself so in the coming years do u still have to go back in time in the year 2010 to tell urself again.

so if u then didnt go back intime after ur future self warned u then wood u forget what was said or wood u still know.

and if u did go back to warn urself wood u get stuck in a time hole, or wood time conmtinue to travel forward.

here is how i think time travel is possible

as to black holes they have time that is slower to its centre so if u were to fly towards the gravitational pull of a black hole then time wood appear to continue normaly to u, But if u were then able to fly back out of the black holes gravitaional pull then hence leave the time disstortion effects then u wood indeed be in terms as u wood see it be in the future, as the rest of the universe has traveled at its normal speed and u have slowed down ur own time.

so in theorm travel forward is poosible. u just have to overcome a few things such as finding a black hole and then having a ship that wood be able to fly out of the gravity that it has

and travel backwards is just an incredibly stupid idea cause one small insignifacant event wood cause chaos theory to start and when u traveled back to ur time some major events may have happened that are worse then the original problem u went to fix.
if u went back in time and did something it could cause u not to be born and hence not be able to travel backwards in time.

well thats my say and i hope ppl can actually understand my ideas
 
Donny Don't said:
If time travel *was* possible, than somebody would have come back from the future already, and we'd all know about it.
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It also proves that it was done more than once... someone went back to stop them. ;)
 
Donny Don't said:
If time travel *was* possible, than somebody would have come back from the future already, and we'd all know about it.
Click to expand...

Thats actually pretty logical... isnt it?
 
If time travel is possible, then it is not possible that we are in any way free to do what we want. Think about it, if somebody can travel into the future and make something happen, then that implies that whatever they do in the future MUST happen, regardless of anything else. So is that saying that we therefore could not act in any way that would contradict what is set to happen in the future. Put simply, you can either believe in time travel, or you can believe in autonomy...personally i'd prefer to stick to autonomy.
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This is entirely true Hardicus, IF (and a big if) you base your beliefs of time travel on 4-dimensionalism. DQ is on the money here, to do this invites all sorts of Deterministic issues and logical conundrums. A good well worn example is the "Grandfather Paradox" which basically maps out the many brain melting causation issues if you were to go back in time and attempt to murder your grandfather before your fathers conception. If you succeed, then you negate your own existance thefore you could not have suceeded... Ad infinitum. This then casts into doubt how anyone can actually be a "free agent" if time travel scenarios support hard determinism. However, as usual, real physicists are a step ahed of phisophical metaphysicists in this regard and quantum "many worlds" theory loosely dictates that each action we make creates another branched universe, hence actions do not need to be logically compossible with the past or the future. So if we adhere to this one, going back in time and killing ones grandfather does not negate one's existance, it instead creates another universe where grandfather is dead and grandson still lives. Apparently. Complicated? Yes. Do I fully understand? No.

DQ is also right, those movies are really shitty examples of logically consistant time travel scenarios. If anyone wants the most effective, consistant, brain bending example which includes all manner of freaky stuff like closed-causal loops etc. I suggest you seek out a short story written by Robert Heinlein called "By his bootstraps"
 
DQ - Actually, Bill and Ted (Both of them) were a rather good stab at it by hollywood, they presented very few inconsistencies. Minority Report also did a rather good job.

-Thoth, I musta read "By His Bootstraps" about 30 times trying to get my head around it. But it's an awesome read, I highly encourage anyone who's not afraid of a bit of thinking to give it a go.

As for this idea of creating new universes with every action, I find this view unacceptable. I find it hard to believe that by the simple act of, well, anything, an entire new universe cna be created. All that is needed is one time traveller to cause a disturbance everywhere he goes, and hundreds, thousands of new universes are just created? The logistics of this are just insane IMO.

Argh...brain, hurting.
 
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dont you think thats just a cop out answer though, to keep the question of time travel open?
 
i tend to beleive that all 'time' is occuring simultaneously at the same time. But then again time is an arbitary thing, so yeah..

i thought i'd say something in this thread cause i've been a bit quiet.

has anyone mentioned string theory yet? that goes a long way to explaining why we haven't seen any conspicuous time travellers walking down the street
 
The girl that I sued to live with believed that 'Aliens', like our Roswell friends, were actually people travelling back in time, they just fucked up. She thought that the Aliens are what we have evolved into by time we mastered time travel.
Then again, she finds 'sex and the city' entertaining, so she has no credibility.
Fetish Jester: I think you'll find the wheelchair guys name is Larry flint ;)
 
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