Time Travel!!

[thedeadlyassassin]

Okay, here's what's the deal. Tayeke here is still in highschool on his senior year and is doing a research project and asked me to help (or I've offered to help). He's doing it on Time Travel, and it's a persuasive paper on whether or not Time Travel is possible, and he's trying to disprove it.


So, let me here your ideas that are *FACTS*, and thanks in advance. Or if you could send a good site that'd be awesome too.


EDIT: and if you want to state your opinions that'd be cool too. Get a little debate or discussion here would be quite interesting in my opinion. But most importantly I'd love some facts to help tayeke.

[Trooper110]

Not sure how much is facts but, here goes.

Depends on how you look at it. Due to conservation of mass you can't just replace mass or energy and have it disappear and reappear. Therefor if you look at time as a straight line with each moment on it appearing as a different point, you can't move mass and/or energy from one moment to the next due to those laws. On the other hand, if we look at time as a giant plain, then you could move mass and energy around on it, just as you would on say, a road. We just don't know how to manipulate mass and energy to do it yet, as 200 years ago they didn't have combustion engines to move vehicles, they used horses. Then we start looking at paradoxes. If there's a multiverse where every time anything happens the exact opposite happens in another universe, then really you'd be traveling multiverses instead of time traveling. Sure, you could go back to another multiverse and kill your grandfather, and then never be born, but your "original" multiverse you'd just be gone, and your grandfather would still be alive with you still coming along. Otherwise I just don't see how it would work. At that point we have to ask...how do we do that? So then...is time a fourth dimension as quantum physics seems to say, with space and time interacting together to form space/time that can somehow be manipulated as an entity? Do we rip a hole in space/time to access other mulitverses? Or do we rip a hole in space/time and destroy everything, where the entirety of everything just cease to exist? Do we somehow use the quantum foam that quantum physics says exits through string theory at the base of everything, to somehow pop us through in to other multiverses, or to a point outside "reality" where we can access other multiverses?

Honestly, I'd say until and if a "time machine" actually exists, there's entirely too much supposition and theory to really go about giving a concrete solution or idea about it at all.

Is traveling close to the speed of light time travel? Theoretically, as you approach the speed of light, time slows down for you relatively. Subjectively you might pass say, 500 years traveling, while relatively, you've only spent say, 20 years on a starship. So does that mean that you've traveled to the future? How do we define time travel?

Wikipedia as usual has a pretty good article on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel

Personally I like the reference to the Fermi paradox, that states if a civilization were technic enough to go to the stars, even with not passing the C barrier, they could still colonize the entire galaxy in a few million years. Thus the absence of extra-terrestial intelligent life goes on to prove that there is none unless something is being done to destroy it. In this case, we can say that since we don't see any travelers from the future....and I don't care how regulated it was, someone would still get through who would do something idiotic to show us that it's possible.....that means that there is no time travel. That does nothing to the multiverse theory, but it means that time travel in the strictest definition of the idea is not possible.

Probably more I could ramble on about, but it's 1am and I don't feel like it right now Feel free to point out flaws in my arguments and argue with me :P

[tayeke]

It was really nice to see something persuasive. It seems when you put anything into the internet about time travel all you get is excentric ideas of why it may be possible! Every time I found something against time travel (even special relativity), I got 10 other articles which say how I can get around that. For example I didn't know what to believe in anymore when I read about the train in the tunnel paradox for Einstein's relativity.
Also could someone maybe explain why I can only go back to when my time machine was created. All the explanations of time travel I have seen do not include a "MACHINE". In this case I couldn't go back past when I was born cause I didn't exist!

[Apache Warrior]

Welcome to the world of Science theory. The only provable fact right now about time travel is: We all travel through time. Unfortunately it is one way.
Apache

[Rand{CLR}]

Tayeke, just an FYI if you didn't already know: Wikipedia is not going to be an acceptable source for any academic paper in the future (i.e. College). If they take it in high school, that's nice, but no college will. However, it does provide a lot of good information for background, and it will often have sources that in and of themselves can be cited.

There's another school of thought that time travel is possible, but you cannot change the flow of time. You would be more of an observer if anything. Related to this is the argument that even if you did go back, anything you did would simply spin off a new alternate universe, leaving the original time flow untouched.

Good luck on the paper. I think of time travel and paradoxes from time to time, and it makes my head hurt--and I'm a fairly smart guy who is a futurist and likes to think about "what ifs". Time travel is just too confusing when you start to get into it. The Fermi Paradox is much easier to consider--you just figure out that a) there pretty much has to be life out there given the number of possible planets and conditions, and b) that probably means one of the older races is actively wiping out anything that comes along that it sees as a possible threat. Then you hope that humanity doesn't reach that point in our life-times.

-Rand

[freak93]

yeah my librarian would probably rip my spine out and whipme with it if i used wikipedia

ok what i think. I believe that you could go back in time because it has already happened. If you went forward in time you would be going somewhere that hasn't happened yet and i just don't think it would work.

now what trooper said about energy is true. i think maybe you could travel back in time maybe if you brought the exact same amount of energy to the time you left. i don't think they guy you brought forward would be too happy about being forced forward in time. thats my

[Rovey Wade]

Here are some books you may want to look at:

How to Build a Time Machine by Paul Davies
A quick read about some basic principles behind space-time and time travel

A Shortcut Through Time by George Johnson
Ties in quantum computing with time travel. Also a pretty quick read.

Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku and Hyperspace by Michio Kaku
These are a bit lengthier but still full of information. Parallel Worlds discusses the multiverse theory and also applies it to time travel. Hyperspace discusses the possible 10-12 dimensions in the universe and also applies that to time travel.



If you have time, I'd recommend atleast looking into the first two. They aren't very long and they are better sources than anything you'll find on the internet barring scholarly journal databases.

[th3st1ck]

This is a bit off topic, but I just felt like pointing out that this thread has made me do some good reading.
I started off reading about Time Travel on Wikipedia, went to the Fermi Paradox, then the Grandfather Paradox, the Rare Earth Hypothesis, and finally to the Malthusian Catastrophe.
But now my head hurts :3

[tayeke]

Rovey Wade brought up some good reading from Michio Kaku, he is really cool and has lots of appearances in videos on youtube.

[Jeffro]

this is about time travel but a lil bit off topic... ever heard of a guy named john titor? very very interesting stuff, most definilty a hoax, but very entertaining... check this out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Titor

[Hammy]

There were a few presentations in 2007 via the National Geographic Channel and Discovery Channel on this topic.

I suggest going to their site and doing a search on this as well.

[freak93]

that john titor thing is pretty interesting

btw i think i remember seeing a thing on traveling forward slowly in time. the faster you are moving ina certain direction the faster you travel thru time
i'm not exactly sure how it works though. I can't quite remember


btw i like you pic hamster

[Trooper110]

As you approach the speed of light, time "moves faster" for you. Hence what I put in above. Not sure about the exact formulas, but basically, the faster you approach the speed of light, the slower things move for you. So while you may spend 20 years on a spaceship moving at say, 90% the speed of light, everyone moving at a "regular" time dilation would have aged, say, 1 million years in "regular" time. Hence you are moving more slowly through time, at least compared to anyone who is living at "regular" time dilations. This could be construed as time traveling to the future, although all that is really happening is that your subjective time is moving faster than the relative time of the universe around you.

[freak93]

ah ok. i get most of what you are saying

[mapes]

Welcome to the world of Science theory. The only provable fact right now about time travel is: We all travel through time. Unfortunately it is one way.
Apache

Not true....fly from the UK to the USA and you gain a day back.