Time Travel

[Paradox]

I've been informed that time travel into the future is possible... hypothetically. It has something to do with one of Einstien's theories of relativity, which one I don't recall. Anyway, I was told that if we could travel at or very close to the speed of light, time would slow down, and what seemed to us to be 4 years, would be like 40 years in reality. Like if we traveled into space for 4 years and came back, on earth 40 years would have elapsed. You would still look pretty much the same, whereas everyone would have aged dramatically, or in some cases, passed away. I don't remember much else about this idea, so I want to know what you think. Do any of you know anything else about this theory? Oh, one other thing I do recall is that apparently, time travel into the past would be impossible. Like if you made a mistake in your past that you wanted to fix and you went back and told yourself (or sent someone else to tell you) not make that mistake, when you came back to the present, you'd have to have a memory of you (or someone else) going back to yourself not to do whatever you did. What? :huh: Can anyone help me understand this? If possible without too much technical stuff or elaborate equations, I'm not too keen on Physics, I'm just getting started. Thanks. ;)

[ComradeChris]

That version of the Theory of Relativity will have to be practiced before we are certain of it's effects. Is it even possible to travel at light speed without actually being made of light? Isn't matter just too dense and heavy, and energy is much more free therefore less friction and restriction? I don't know those are just my thoughts.

I don't think time travel into the past is possible. If the Theory of Relativity is proven in the sense in which we are speaking about then I'll obviously believe travelling into the future is possible.

And even if one were able to travel into the past, it would be like all those sci-fi movies that could have dire consequences. And wouldn't you enter a sort of time loop then? I mean you get to a certain time, someone invents a time machine and then goes back in time. Then when you reach that time again (assuming no dire consequences) they'll create the time machine and do it all over again. Would everyone else feel the effects of the time reversing? I guess my reasoning is a tad pragmatic. I'll stop.

[Latifa]

I heard something on the radio, that Back to the Future actually demonstrated an effective ( if slightly uncontrolable ) method of time travel. Don't have any details though.

[Dyst]

Travelling in time is a mathematical paradox (no pun intended) and is IMPOSSIBLE. Anything else you may hear will soon be proven incorrect.

Just a fun little question: If people ever learn how to travel (back) in time; why have we never heard about, nor seen, anyone who has travelled from the future to our time (or past time?)

[h&s]

Isn't time travel to the recent past theroetically possible by travleing through a certain type of black hole? Or was I not listening to the TV programme properly? :P

[Roses in the Hospital]

Just a fun little question: If people ever learn how to travel (back) in time; why have we never heard about, nor seen, anyone who has travelled from the future to our time (or past time?)

We have, shortly before we chuck them into an asylum... :P People would soon realise that the early 21st century isn't a very tolerant place to travel back to, either that or they're just going somewhere more interesting...


I've been informed that time travel into the future is possible... hypothetically. It has something to do with one of Einstien's theories of relativity, which one I don't recall. Anyway, I was told that if we could travel at or very close to the speed of light, time would slow down, and what seemed to us to be 4 years, would be like 40 years in reality. Like if we traveled into space for 4 years and came back, on earth 40 years would have elapsed. You would still look pretty much the same, whereas everyone would have aged dramatically, or in some cases, passed away. I don't remember much else about this idea, so I want to know what you think. Do any of you know anything else about this theory? Oh, one other thing I do recall is that apparently, time travel into the past would be impossible. Like if you made a mistake in your past that you wanted to fix and you went back and told yourself (or sent someone else to tell you) not make that mistake, when you came back to the present, you'd have to have a memory of you (or someone else) going back to yourself not to do whatever you did. What? Can anyone help me understand this? If possible without too much technical stuff or elaborate equations, I'm not too keen on Physics, I'm just getting started. Thanks

Let's not start on this, I'm getting a headache...

[truthaddict11]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2005, 01:27 AM
I heard something on the radio, that Back to the Future actually demonstrated an effective ( if slightly uncontrolable ) method of time travel. Don't have any details though.
lol i should get my Flux Capasitor out then!

[Dyst]

Haha thats a classic.

[Zingu]

Travelling back in time has many paradoxes to it, but its best to understand the idea correctly.


Think of time travel being going down a river; the river, flowing south, this is space-time. Now you go off to a branch (A wormhole) that turns around and brings you back to an earlier part of the river; you are still ageing when you take this route back to a earlier place earlier in time (Or later in time and place!), but eventually you will travel down to where you entered the branch off from the river, this is where the problem comes.


Time DOES NOT go in a universal clock, this is what the theory of relativity is about, it turns out time actually goes at a slower pace around neutron stars, meaning if you took a wormhole ride from a neutron star to earth, you would be doing time travel.

But the main paradox about time travel is that you would be trapping yourself in something called a "infinite space time curve" (would take me a few graphs and explaining to tell you what exactly that is).

Once you go back in space-time, you must travel back to the point when you entered the wormhole, correct?
Well, according to physics, you MUST go into that wormhole when you return to that point in time, meaning you would be trapped in a endless cycle of a space-time curve. Your free-will would violate the laws of physics if you chose not to.


Isn't time travel to the recent past theroetically possible by travleing through a certain type of black hole? Or was I not listening to the TV programme properly?

Wormholes are thought to make warpages in space-time creating 4-dimensional space-time. Think of it like if you put a rock on some stretch elastic sheet, it would create depth as it dips in, making 2 dimensions into 3.

[seraphim]

time travel into the past has been achieved but only by radio waves not by matter an experiment conducted by scientists sending a radio wave signal through a proton barrier threw up the suprising result in that the message arrived a fraction of a second before it had been sent. I'm trying to find sources for this bear with me.
I also have a friend who believes that the Roswell crash was humans first experiments with time travel and not little men from another planet his theory not mine but interesting all the same.

[Dyst]

I have also considered that "green men" or supposed contact with extra-terrestrial lifeforms are in fact people from the future travelling in time. But, it is a very vague idea, and as said before, I still believe just the idea of travelling in time is contradictory. Especially backwards.

Consider this, if I ever will travel back in time, I know that I will not travel further back than current time, this date. This is because I would have remembered seing myself (or probably heard about myself if I travelled far back in time.)

Some things does not make sense, and if it were tried I am scared of what might happen.

[Ramshaw is all]

They have proved that time slows down (relative to the current rate of time) the faster you are travelling. if you travel on an aeroplane for a long time (12 hours), you will arrive slightly younger than if you'd stood still (to get confusing-less time will have passed in the same amount of 'time'). Sorry, this is turning into a terrible description.

[RedStarOverChina]

Yes. Since we have proved that time is not absolute, there is a big chance that time is not necessarily in a chronological order either.

[RedLenin]

Wow I just had a very interesting idea. What if, somehow, I traveled back in time to my bedroom. When I arrived would I see myself sleeping? Would that be possible since I am me? Ahhh this is confusing! If I did see myself from the past, There would be two of me! I don't think thats Possible! Wow this is very confusing! This makes no sense so I'm guessing traveling back in time is impossible.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

If we Consider time as a dimension in which things exist, rather than as a flow, time paradox simply can not and will not happen. That is, even if one found a way "to go back in time," one simply won't create a paradox, since ones going back in time "already " happened.

Oh no, strict determinism! Run!

[Dyst]

This is what I mean:

If you travel back in time, and get back (to normal time again) something will be changed, and most probably will something have changed you (back in that time.) So therefore, you (in normal time) would also be changed, but this you would already have to know since you changed a long time ago...

See, it is impossible in theory. I do not know what would happen in reality if anyone tried it, but I'm pretty sure it would not work the way it should.

[Ramshaw is all]

Its lucky travelling back in time is impossible, or else we'd all die of confusion.

[Ramshaw is all]

Travelling in time is always going to be impossible because time is always relative to you. :huh:

[Don't Change Your Name]

If time travel to the past is possible, then maybe we should have seen visitors from the future or something...unless those "little green men" were actually a mix of humans and frogs or something like that travelling to the past. :huh:
No, wait...I'm not sure if time is a "line". Whatever. Time is weird.

[Livetrueordie]

I've been informed that time travel into the future is possible... hypothetically.

I don't know about you but i've been traveling into the future my whole life, i am a genuine time traveler. Its said you can look into the past and move into the future, if u look at the stars your seeing the past.
Actually though if you move faster then the speed of light, lots of time traveling windows open up. Say you could move 1.5 times the speed of light. 1 Light year is how far light will travel in one earth year. so if your travel two light years at 1.5 times the speed of light, the earth would have experienced 2 years of life when you arrived, yet you would only have experienced one year of lif to get there, on the trip back another two years of earth life would pass while you would only live 1 year. So while you were gone for 2 years yourself, your were gone for 4 earth years. so while your not exactly moving backwards in time because you never expeienced thos extra two years your are somewhat slowing it down, which is pretty cool.

[Zingu]

Originally posted by Ramshaw is [email protected] 10 2005, 03:03 PM
Its lucky travelling back in time is impossible, or else we'd all die of confusion.
Its possible, but effectivily impossible by the odds, thanks to Quantum Physics, nothing is impossible! ;)

[Roses in the Hospital]

Its lucky travelling back in time is impossible, or else we'd all die of confusion.

Some of us already have...

[Ramshaw is all]

Look, time travel isn't going to happen in our lifetime, unless somebody travelled back in time, but then we'd already know about it, but then time travel would be possible, but then errrrrrrrrrrr BANG!!!