Time Travel?

[HCT]

I was bored so i started thinking if time travel were posible how would it be done?
for example: to go to the future would you have go at incredable speeds or what?

[tracydani]

I am not sure about traveling into the future, but to go into the past is just a state of mind. Read Time and Again by Jack Finney.

Time and Again

TD

[TheRealDave]

maybe like the butterfly effects

[lynx]

Time travel is impossible.

If it were possible to travel backwards in time, you would inevitably make changes. Those changes would have a widening effect (the butterfly effect) which would create a paradox between what happened without time travel and what happened with time travel. It would even be possible for those changes to make it impossible for you to take part in time travel. That would be an impossibility, so by consequence time travel to the past is impossible.

Some might say you would have to set up a system by which you could only observe the past, but not affect it. If that were the case, you would end up with knowledge which you would not otherwise have, and as such you would affect your future. This in turn would have consequences for future time travellers just as if they had come back and altered their past.

So what about time travel to the future? Well, that is a possibility, but since travel to the past is impossible it would be a one way trip. As you suggested, extremely high velocities cause time to pass more slowly, so you would not age. However, you would have to reach speeds approaching the speed of light for there to be any significant change.

In order to be able to reach such speeds and the acceleration would have to be relatively small, otherwise you could not carry the necessary fuel. So you would probably need some sort of suspended animation in order to survive the flight. And if you have suspended animation, why not just use that and wait it out, don't bother with the risks of near speed-of-light travel.

[tracydani]

Originally posted by lynx@11 July 2004 - 12:28
Time travel is impossible.

If it were possible to travel backwards in time, you would inevitably make changes. Those changes would have a widening effect (the butterfly effect) which would create a paradox between what happened without time travel and what happened with time travel. It would even be possible for those changes to make it impossible for you to take part in time travel. That would be an impossibility, so by consequence time travel to the past is impossible.

Couldn't those results be what others would refer to as alternate realities?

TD

[HCT]

i was doing some research and found this

The secret is to travel at speeds faster than the speed of light. The main text of the web site explains this in great detail. The obvious problem with traveling very near the speed of light is that as you approach C (the speed of light), time slows down until at C time stops. How can you go faster if time has stopped? The answer involves a complex process called quantum tunneling and is discussed at length in the main text of this web site.

Once the velocity becomes greater than C time moves backwards. We have entered into the realms of negative time.

[isitive]

i am from the school of thought ...who thinks nothing is impossible.

If fact all the greatest scientists who made great inventions.Because they belonged to the above school.

I think time travel is possible. I read the great Albert Einstien's theory of relativity.
(If any one wants i have the book in pdf format). Einstien never said that time travel is impossible.If we consider things into space-time co-ordinates.it makes things easier.If sometime in future we will be able to make or devise a lens or optical device that can fold the light so as to get the space time plane (say a paper for simplicity) into a cylinder,so that the distance between the two points can be made zero.Reaserch has been going on to device such an optical device.I hope they will succeed.

Even if they won't. we have seen striking discoveries being made in last century or two.I am positive about it!!!

Criticism invitied.

[Gemby!]

time travel is possible - into the future anyway

what you do is you go to sleep then magically when you wake up it will be hours later B)

gemby rules !

[Rat Faced]

Unlike Lynx, I would not say that its impossible.

Many things have been described as impossible and then have been achieved.

I find it highly unlikely and improbable, but the word impossible shouldnt be used.

Thats for the past.

As to the future, the same effects that going to all that crap with the speed of light can be achieved by a much simpler method.. Cryogenics.

We are quite capable of freezing a Body in a way whereby it will not "age" for an indefinate time.

The process however, is not reversable with todays technology.


I would say that its much more likely that "Time Travel" into the future (its not, but the effect is the same) is much more likely through a technology that we do at least have half the problems sorted, than through a technology that we start from scratch, and have nothing but theories to go on.

We havent even delivered a man to Mars yet, never mind achieved distances where the Speed of Light would even enter the equation.

[HCT]

i have another question about this "time traveling backward paradox"
lets say a time traveler went back in time and accidently kill his granma
since he killed his granma he was never born right
but in the future since he was never born he was not able to go back in time to kill his granma so his granma lives which means that he will be born then later goes back in time and kills his granma.

its like being stuck in a loop hole thus making time stand still forever

or

the time traveler went back in time and accidently kill his granma then he was never born but since he was never born he was not able to go back in time to kill his granma so he lives and the loop stops thus being back to square one.

wich means that he never change the past