Time travel.

Im not sure if this has been posted before but Im going to give you my theory on time travel since I have some extra time. At times it may be hard to understand what I'm talking about but at least try. Its hard to explain, but I'll try.

Lets say that I have a time machine. And I want to go back in time and make it so that something doesn't happen to me (lets say for example a car accident).

Well I get into my time machine and go back and make it so that I didn't get into a car accident.

Since I never got into a car accident there would be no reason for me to go back in time in the first place. So in the future I wouldn't have gone back to prevent something that never happend. So it actually would have happend but really didn't happen. Kinda weird huh? :eek:


I haven't found a good reason not to go to to future, but if anyone has a good reason I'd like to hear it.

Anyone have any opinions about this?

Technically, when you alter history you will still end up travelling back in time, for if you didn't/don't then history will not be changed.

One reason why not to go to the future: if you go to the future and decide to stay and never return, then you will not exist in the present.

Say you travel forward to the year 2010, if you never return to 2002, then you will not exist for 8 years. Also, if you travel to the future and stay for a week, and return to the exact time that you left, you will be a week older than you should be. Or if for some reason you were to die or get stranded in the future, then you wouldn't exist in the present either.

Time travel paradoxes make me brain hurt. The more you think about it, the less sense it makes and the more you realise that time travelling will not be possible. (Unless you believe in alternate realities that allow all possible timelines to occur)

This is related to what history is. It is us recording events. So if you went into the future and died, would it erase all books, documents and memories of what you had done and achieved before?

Heres one. Lets say you travel to the past, to a time before you were born, and lets say you cause the death of your mother in an accident. Now, you are not born so what happens? do you just vaporize?

Hehehehe...

I like to challenge concepts of time travel with the law of conservation of matter.

If you travel back in time, say from 2002 to 2000, you are moving matter (yourself, your time machine, other incedentals) from 2002 to 2000. That means there is suddenly less matter in 2002 and more matter in 2000. :eek:

So, you have just propagated the production of matter from nothing. All the matter that makes up "future you" now exists alongside the same matter as it was in 2000.

So let's say you don't go "back to the future" after your inevitable cliche adventures resolve themselves... ;) ...That means there is "extra" matter in the universe for 2 years, until the second (first?) you leaves 2002 headed for 2000.

Extra matter = impossible? So far, I think so... :coolguy:

but if time and space is a ribbon like some have proposed you would not be taking it from one singular entity and placing it in another


i would think it would still be able to be done. because you wouldnt be destroying then recreating in a new plane you would only be shifting it from one part to another. kinda like the energy concept, can be niether created nor destroyed only altered from one form to another. i believe that thinking about matter and time as slivers that sequentially follow itself would be to two dimensional to have any relevence to a universe we know allready exists in at least a 3 dimensional state. there at least has to be some interconnection of time and space in some way because if the year 2000 existed with its own given amount of matter and 2002 with its own given amount of matter there would have to be some type of void between the two in the transition from one to the other or a collison of time and space which would probably not be the best thing. also if we where to think about it as a measure of matter, i would believe it would be impossible to do so and say you have done it for a specific point in time since time is infinite so there would be no specific time you could actually capture the measure of matter.

Some other things that I wanted to add that I had thought of after I posted my last post.

The closest that we probibly ever will come to traveling back in time is recording video. Other than that time travel is basicly impossible with current technology.

As for traveling into the future, the only thing like that would be freezing your body and waking up at a later time. But then going back to your current time would be impossible.

To make a time machine you would need something that could change matter itself and transport it to a different location at a different time. It would be easier to build a machine that can teleport your body and other objects across long distances. If someone could do that then time travel would be closer than ever before.

Well permanent forward time travel is technically possible. It's all based on time dilation: objects travelling at or near the speed of light experience "slower" time relative to its surrounding (outside observer).

I subscribe to the "Many Worlds" interpretation of quantum theory and it offers a simple explination to this paradox. First of all for those who arn't familier with the many words view it is basicaly this. There are an infinate number of alternate dimentions and realities, in each one of these realities there is a version of you. There is one version for every possible choice you could have made throughout your entire life and there is a version of you that made every different choice. So right now there is a version of you who has become a docter when you chose to go the easy way and become a nurse, there is a version of you who is dead because they decided to drive home drunk that one night, there is a version who is married when you are not... You get the picture. Now the way that this explains the time travel paradox is this.

First of all, no known laws of physics rule out time travel. Now, lets say that you hop into your time machine, travel back to visit your grandfather before he married your brandmother, and kill him. As a result you may think that your father will never be born and neither will you, which means that you couldn't have traveled back in time to murder your grandfather. So he survives, your father will be born, and you will grow up to travel back in time to murder your grandfather. In short, if you kill your grandfather, you will be born.

Now if you subscribe to the many worlds interpretation when you make the fateful call on your grandfather, the past you visit -and change - is not the past of the universe you came from. In your home universe, the grandfather remains alive. The grandfather you murder belongs to the past of a parellel space and time, one in which you will never be born, but one in which you could remain if you so choose. In the many worlds view, time travel is no more paradoxical -although it may prove a bit more difficult- than any other form of transportation. If you got particularly angry with somthing yourself did, or might do, you could even travel to the past -or future- and murder the other you. (but you might be advised to be leery of any visits from another you :D )

Now, my second point. In a way, time travel DOES exist, but only to the future. We do it every day by simply moving. The theory of realitivity states that as we speed up and approch the speed of light, atoms move slower, and time slows down untill at the speed of light everything becomes infinatly small and has infinate mass and time comes to a stop. Now it has been proven that if you get two clocks (even atomic clocks) and syncronize them, take one clock, put it on a concord (or other fast jet) and fly it around the world, then compair the two, the one that made the global trip will be significantly slower then the one that stayed in one place on earth. I'm not sure exactialy what the time difference will be but it is several milliseconds I beleave. Sooo if you got in a spacevessle, and flew around the earth at 100 miles per second (lets just say) slower then the speed of light for what seemed to be a week to you, when you landed, every one you knew would probly be dead and a few hundred years would have passed on earth.
Now I'm not sure as to the exact time slowdown at certian speeds so you might not find every one dead, but you get my drift :) So what I'm getting at is, people who travel alot, will live a few hours longer then a person who never travels. Although the same amount of time has passed to each person, an outside observer could see the difference. Well, they wouldn't be able to see it, but it could be detected. Interesting huh? Good ol Al and his theories :D


Oh... now that I scroll down I see that jinshaun has snuck in a post that basicaly says the same thing as the last half of my post I just typed, cheers shaun :D

my head hurts:(


how do I get to become the alternate me that did win $3.2 million in Lotto and brought the R34 GTR VSPEC II?????:bandit:

Originally posted by Gonthrax
There are an infinate number of alternate dimentions and realities, in each one of these realities there is a version of you. There is one version for every possible choice you could have made throughout your entire life and there is a version of you that made every different choice.


That kinda seems a little far fetched. I have heard of a parrallel universe in which you have an twin that is doing the same thing you are doing. But I have never heard of this infinate realities with infinate versions of you. Interesting concept though.

jinushaun and Gonthrax you both make some very interesting new points about the slowing of time. I heard that before but it didn't make any sense about how it could be possible.

I have had enough thinking for the week. I think my head is also starting to hurt. All of these new ideas that I never thought of before is making my head spin faster and faster. I better go lay down.

NeoFreek

Originally posted by Gonthrax
First of all, no known laws of physics rule out time travel.Did you read my post about the law of conservation of matter?

Originally posted by jay@af
Did you read my post about the law of conservation of matter?

That could be true however, from what I've read, the law of conservation of matter is now considered to say this. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it simply changes form. The study of atomic physics and quarks is a good way to corroberate this. When nutrons are collided in a partical accelorator, there is a drop in energy and several quarks "appear" this could be interpreted to mean that matter and energy and one and the same, that these quarks are created from energy. These same quarks vanish a few milliseconds after they apear and once agian the level on energy released raises by the same amount it dropped. So perhaps if you time travel from 2002 to 2004 the matter that is you is changed into energy in 2002 and some form of energy in 2004 changes into matter to "rebuild" you.

Originally posted by NeoFreek


That kinda seems a little far fetched. I have heard of a parrallel universe in which you have an twin that is doing the same thing you are doing. But I have never heard of this infinate realities with infinate versions of you. Interesting concept though.

Well the idea that infinate versions of you is only a theory now, however the theory that there are infinate other dimensions has been all but proven. There are two quantum computers operating at some university (I forget were) that opperate on this principal. The processor is an electron, the electron is stimulated and it makes infinate copies of itself in infinate other dimensions, so far sence it can only do one 1 or 0 operation at a time, the only way they have found to put it to use is searching databases VERY VERY quickly :D I'll dig around and find a website talking about this in a sec.

time travel completely disproves the theory of chaos (yes the same one in jurassic park - it is a theory)

in one you have all matter infinantly in a system, always changing.... and a lot of other stuff but that was the important part.....

and in time travel you are moving yourself/something to a time that you are already in, or don't exist yet..... so, you could become yourself... or grrrrrrrrrrrrr............. i just killed my thought....... i need to go and find my notes.. i wrote a paper on this last semester....

Here's a sight with some FAQs about quantum computing and computers.

http://www.qubit.org/QuantumComputationFAQ.html

I think that if there was any type of time travel anytime in the future, why wouldn't people have come back in time? Think about it, if a time machine is successfully built in 2020 or something, why wouldn't anyone come back and stop the events from Sept. 11th from happening, or anyting else for that matter? If there was a time machine in the future, it seems like it would have been a pretty good date to come back to if it was at all possible. I just think that if it is ever possible in the future, someone would have come back by now.

Originally posted by thomas crown
I think that if there was any type of time travel anytime in the future, why wouldn't people have come back in time? Think about it, if a time machine is successfully built in 2020 or something, why wouldn't anyone come back and stop the events from Sept. 11th from happening, or anyting else for that matter? If there was a time machine in the future, it seems like it would have been a pretty good date to come back to if it was at all possible. I just think that if it is ever possible in the future, someone would have come back by now.

Perhaps, but suppose the only working time machine that has been build has been made by the government, and there are strict guidelines on its use. Such as if you travel into the past, you cannot reviel who you are, or change anything large. That sort of thing.

Originally posted by thomas crown
Think about it, if a time machine is successfully built in 2020 or something, why wouldn't anyone come back and stop the events from Sept. 11th from happening, or anyting else for that matter?
There was a show on PBS awhile back about the science behind time travel. Apparently, one of the limitations of time traveling is that you can't go farther back than when the machine was first invented. I don't remember the whole reasoning behind it.

Originally posted by thomas crown
Think about it, if a time machine is successfully built in 2020 or something, why wouldn't anyone come back and stop the events from Sept. 11th from happening, or anyting else for that matter? If there was a time machine in the future, it seems like it would have been a pretty good date to come back to if it was at all possible. I just think that if it is ever possible in the future, someone would have come back by now.

This all goes back to what I originally said. And I quote:

]Originally posted by Me (NeoFreek)

Lets say that I have a time machine. And I want to go back in time and make it so that something doesn't happen to me (lets say for example a car accident).

Well I get into my time machine and go back and make it so that I didn't get into a car accident.

Since I never got into a car accident there would be no reason for me to go back in time in the first place. So in the future I wouldn't have gone back to prevent something that never happend. So it actually would have happend but really didn't happen.

Originally posted by jinushaun
There was a show on PBS awhile back about the science behind time travel. Apparently, one of the limitations of time traveling is that you can't go farther back than when the machine was first invented. I don't remember the whole reasoning behind it. :huh: Okay, that part just broke my brain. :p

the problem with going back in time to change something is it would create a double memmory for you (supposedly) and you would change everything that happened between that time and the time that you are supposed to be in. the book The Lathe of Heaven deals with an issue that is a bit like this, the protagonist has the power to retroactively change reality through dreams..... it is a weird book, but is entertaining...

Originally posted by jay@af
:huh: Okay, that part just broke my brain. :p It was a very cool show. They talked about the odd-topics in modern science like extraterrestial life, time travel, worm holes, the theory of everything, and space travel, etc.

So if I created the world's FIRST time machine in 2091.03.19 10:52:06, any machines created thereafter can only go back as far as that date. Part of the reason is that if someone from the year 2158 went back to 2001.09.11, then they'd be stuck there cuz a time machine hasn't been invented yet that can take them back.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, since wouldn't your time machine travel with you? Or at least a portable device that can open some kind of temporal rift.

interesting. Did you know that something does travel faster then light. An electron of a light beam loopin back in to a black hole flings off a electron as it hits the apex of it loop back around. kind of like when a satilite slingshots around the moon. Read A Brief istory Of Time by Stephen Hawking, it's a good book nd he deals witth all this stuff.

the whole electron thing.... isn't that the idea (when if it was a gun), and you shot an electron at a wall, it would hit the wall before you pulled the trigger?

Originally posted by ac427cpe
the problem with going back in time to change something is it would create a double memmory for you (supposedly) and you would change everything that happened between that time and the time that you are supposed to be in. the book The Lathe of Heaven deals with an issue that is a bit like this, the protagonist has the power to retroactively change reality through dreams..... it is a weird book, but is entertaining...

This is why I like the Many Worlds view. Like I said before, if you went back in time and changed somthing, the timeline that YOU are aware in nothing would change, because the timeline that you made the change in is now an alternate timeline. Lemme quote the theory agian so you don't have to go searching for it :D

There are an infinate number of alternate dimentions and realities, in each one of these realities there is a version of you. There is one version for every possible choice you could have made throughout your entire life and there is a version of you that made every different choice. So right now there is a version of you who has become a docter when you chose to go the easy way and become a nurse, there is a version of you who is dead because they decided to drive home drunk that one night, there is a version who is married when you are not... You get the picture. Now the way that this explains the time travel paradox is this.

Originally posted by TheMan5952
interesting. Did you know that something does travel faster then light. An electron of a light beam loopin back in to a black hole flings off a electron as it hits the apex of it loop back around. kind of like when a satilite slingshots around the moon. Read A Brief istory Of Time by Stephen Hawking, it's a good book nd he deals witth all this stuff.

Ok... I haven't read the book but I will pick it up next time I'm at Barns & Noble but... I haven't quite formulated this in my mind yet but it confuses me...

Einstines Theory of Relitivity: At the speed of light the object traveling at the speed of light becomes infinatly small and has infinate mass and all molecular movement stops. And you get all the side affects of zero molecular movement, like absolute 0 and that good stuff.
Correct? So if this electron travels faster then the speed of light, shouldn't somthing happen to it? Like I said I haven't quite got it all sorted yet but somthing strange should happen no?

there is a fairly interesting article in the march issue of popular science abotu time travel you guys might be interested in. check it out.

Originally posted by NeoFreek
Im not sure if this has been posted before but Im going to give you my theory on time travel since I have some extra time. At times it may be hard to understand what I'm talking about but at least try. Its hard to explain, but I'll try.

Lets say that I have a time machine. And I want to go back in time and make it so that something doesn't happen to me (lets say for example a car accident).

Well I get into my time machine and go back and make it so that I didn't get into a car accident.

Since I never got into a car accident there would be no reason for me to go back in time in the first place. So in the future I wouldn't have gone back to prevent something that never happend. So it actually would have happend but really didn't happen. Kinda weird huh? :eek:


I haven't found a good reason not to go to to future, but if anyone has a good reason I'd like to hear it.

Anyone have any opinions about this?

the future and past don't exist if you were to do so you would collapse time looking at time in an analogue point of view if you changed the past you would arrive in a different dimension to the one where you crashed

so by changing something you are swapping tracks

time is infinite traveling thru time is probably the least possible thing in the world

NSX apparently knows what he's talking about

Originally posted by AEstud
NSX apparently knows what he's talking about

i've being watching to many sci fi shows and it shows

i mean you can back in time and change the past of your own . You go back to your present then it will be changed but then you will have a loop we an existance has been completely then it goes back how ever many years and starts again.

would it cease to exist or would it still be there but because you have done what you have done will you be travelling to that point.

Now if you look at it it is nightmare the only way you can travel across to a different future is to change something in the past if you do it in the present it is the future.

In other words time travel isn't a question of traveling through time its a question of overcoming a paradox. Can you get out of a paradox?

sure you can. but only if you change the rules that have to be followed.


anyone ever seen the movie The One ? (no real point here, just a question...)

the one is wierd that seems more theasable than time travel, but who really knows the laws governing time ?

you can only get out of a paradow if you change something but then it becomes something else

IE u change one side of the arguement

Originally posted by NSX-R-SSJ20K
the one is wierd that seems more theasable than time travel, but who really knows the laws governing time ?


I don't think the human brain can comprehend time as a 4th dimension because we cannot see/hear/feal it. Think of this, a place called Flatworld, it is two dimensional, everything is two dimensional and always has been. Now a sphere enters flatworld and sinks down through it what would the people in flatworld be able to comprehend? Many physisists (ug sp, to many si's, to lazy to change it :D ) beleave that they would see a circle that grows as the sphere's equator reaches flatworld, and shrinks as it nears the pole. We, like the people of flatworld, can see the effects of time, but we cannot comprehend IT. Not unlike our inability to truly grasp the concept of infinity.

Originally posted by Gonthrax
We, like the people of flatworld, can see the effects of time, but we cannot comprehend IT. Not unlike our inability to truly grasp the concept of infinity.
I take it you're referring to "Flatland" by Edwin A. Abbot ?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738205419/qid=1015972406/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_3_1/002-2278124-7453658

Interestingly enough, one point of this book is exactly opposite to your thesis. That we can, through careful inference, find and comprehend dimensions that we cannot see directly.

In fact, we've invented a special, formal language to help us do just that. It's called mathematics. :) Now, I'm not saying that it's easy or obvious or complete, but just that some people actually are able to truly grasp some concepts of infinity, and some concepts in higher dimensionality. Through the language of mathematics, they can explore those spaces just as you and I explore the three dimensional world around us.

In fact, space and time are inextricably linked. One simply does not exist without the other. When astronomers and cosmologists talk about "space" they're often referring to "Minkowskian space" where space itself has four dimensions, one of which we just happen to call time. Contrary to our 'typical' experience, time is not always linear, it does not always travel forward, and it is not independent of space.

In another interesting fact, Richard Feynman (the famous Nobel prize winning Caltech physicist) showed that anti-matter is exactly equivalent to normal matter moving backwards in time.
http://www.frerichs.net/feyn.html

Originally posted by fritz_269

I take it you're referring to "Flatland" by Edwin A. Abbot ?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738205419/qid=1015972406/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_3_1/002-2278124-7453658

Interestingly enough, one point of this book is exactly opposite to your thesis. That we can, through careful inference, find and comprehend dimensions that we cannot see directly.



I haven't read that book, I was recalling a discussion I had with my old high school physics teacher, he may have been refering to it though :)


I suppose that we could bring ourselves to understand time as a 4th dimension, I just wonder how we would go about doing it? And how many generations it would take before a child could comprehend it from an early age?