Time Travel Possible?

SyddyKitty

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But according to a Eastern thought, time is likened to a river and human awareness to a man standing on its bank facing downstream. The future approaches him from behind and becomes the present only when it arrives alongside where he is standing and he is first conscious of it out of the corner of his eye. Thus, before he can assimilate the present, it is past already. The present washes away to become history in front of the observer. The recent past is nearer and it can be seen more clearly. The distant past is far away ahead of him, its features only dimly percievable. Instead of squarely facing the oncoming future as in the Western metaphor, this more accurate model acknowledges how the present, as we all know, continuously blindsides us from an angle of vision that assures we will be unprepared.


I love how this sounds. <3 So much more accurate.
 

HazelGod

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TThe problem is the distance that you have to go through space time and the speeds required (760,000,000 mph).

So technically possible but unlikely in what we see as physical space time.

Do I get a geek badge?

No. C is actually ~670,000,000 mph...and as no self-respecting geek would transpose the two most significant digits in such a figure, no badge for you. :biggrin1:


Most people think time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction; but I have seen the face of time, and I can tell you they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm.
 

camper joe

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Who knows if time travel is possible. What once was thought impossible now is very possible. The one thing we know is that ''time'' as we now understand it has always brought about changes.

On a side note, I am sure that in area 51 has development program working on as we speak.

Originally Posted by No Strings
Who wants ice cream?


I would love some ice cream.
 

Mem

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Yes, you are correct. Our notion of "time" is a man-made invention. I think you have it exactly right, "our definition of time" isn't correct. There is no forth dimension, no actual linear thing that guides us through "history," that is why we can't see it or physically measure it; time doesn't really exist people!

Good. I'll use that one next time I"m late for something.:wink:
 

jason_els

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Time travel is real and it happens.

The clocks on the GPS satellites have to be calibrated to take into account that the clocks on some satellites will tick more slowly than others because the slower ticking clocks are traveling through time more slowly than others.

Time is relative, not a constant. The speed of light isn't even constant although, as Einstein pointed out, we always measure the speed of light as a constant. Our measurements are wrong because we will always measure the speed of light relative to our position in time. It's like two cars traveling down the highway at 100mph in the same direction in parallel lanes. Relative to each other, the two cars aren't moving fast at all. In fact, if both were traveling at exactly 100mph, each car would see the other as standing still. Though they are both traveling very fast, we can only measure the relative speed between the two. That's why our measurements aren't accurate.

Astronauts in orbit around the earth actually age more slowly than if they were on earth because the mass of earth accelerates time. The closer you are to a massive object, the faster time moves. This means we all travel through time at an infinitesimally different speed than every one else. People who live and work in skyscrapers move through time more slowly than those on the ground!

If we were to gather enough mass or displace enough mass, we could either accelerate or decelerate our speed through time to the point that it would effect time travel. This introduces a number of classical paradoxes, however it is still theoretically possible.

The other possibilities of time travel rely on worm holes and black hole event horizons. At the event horizon of black hole, essentially the edge of its effect, time and space cease to proceed. If you were to enter the event horizon, time would essentially cease completely while time outside the black hole proceeded. The problem is getting out of the event horizon and living through the encounter!

Wormholes are theorized to exist based upon the idea that time is a wave. If you imagine a ribbon accordianed together, you see that it undulates up and down. Time is that ribbon. We and everything else, travel along that ribbon. Now, the shortest distance between two points on that compressed ribbon aren't found along the strip, but between the peaks. Imagine two roads traveling through a deep gorge. One road winds down from the peak of one side of the gorge, through its bottom, then up the other side to the peak. The other road is using a bridge that simply spans the gorge in a straight line from the peak on one side to the other. The shortest time to travel between the two peaks is gained by using the bridge, not the road through the gorge. Wormholes work on that same principle, that time can be bridged.

With enough mass, or energy capable of displacing mass, time in one place can be manipulated to move faster or slower relative to time further away from the generated mass. So yes, time travel is possible and we do effect it to occur, and humans experience it always even if in such minute differences that we don't notice it.

Find a way, by manipulating mass and energy, to increase or decrease the effects of each relative to your current place in time, and you have what we conventionally think of as time travel.
 

B_ScaredLittleBoy

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Quantum Leap's String Theory!!!

Behold

Life is a piece of string, at one end, your birth and at the other end, your death. If you ball the piece of string, the days of your life intertwine :tongue:

And apparently you can 'leap' between times in your own lifetime.

I don't know if the concept of time travel is actually more general and less personal. And I know Quantum Leap isn't very factual but its cool :cool:
 

HazelGod

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Time is relative, not a constant. The speed of light isn't even constant although, as Einstein pointed out, we always measure the speed of light as a constant. Our measurements are wrong because we will always measure the speed of light relative to our position in time. It's like two cars traveling down the highway at 100mph in the same direction in parallel lanes. Relative to each other, the two cars aren't moving fast at all. In fact, if both were traveling at exactly 100mph, each car would see the other as standing still. Though they are both traveling very fast, we can only measure the relative speed between the two. That's why our measurements aren't accurate.

You haven't actually studied physics, have you? :biggrin1:

The whole crux of Einstein's theory of special relativity is that the speed of any object in motion will never exceed the speed of light relative to any observer, regardless of the velocity of the observer. Many people have a difficult time wrapping their minds around this because they're so accustomed to thinking in the terms you mentioned above...such that two travelers headed toward one another, each moving 100mph relative to a stationary third observer, will each "see" the other moving with a relative speed of 200mph.

In reality, this apparent ability to add relative speeds is only true for velocities that are a small fraction of c.

If the two travelers were approaching one another, each moving at the speed of light relative to a stationary observer, then each traveler would see the other moving toward him at the speed of light, AND the stationary third observer would see each traveler moving at light speed with respect to himself.

Also, due to the law of conservation of momentum, as any object with rest mass > 0 approaches the speed of light, it's apparent mass approaches infinity. As such, the energy required to accelerate the object further also approaches infinity as its velocity approaches light speed.

The germane effect of such speed is the effect known as time dilation...as relative velocity approaches light speed, the Lorentz factor of two colocal events approaches infinity. For all intents and purposes, for an object moving at light speed, time stands still...so if you were able to accelerate to light speed for five years (as measured by people standing still) and then stop, the trip would have been instantaneous for you...you'd have essentially jumped ahead in time by five years.

You'd also be five light-years from home, but that's another worry altogether.
 

Not_Punny

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I would love to have a time machine. That way, I could manufacture more time. I would add ten hours to every day so I could be SuperMom.
 

Principessa

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I loved watching Quantum Leap, very cool show, and Scott Bakula was such a cutie. . . but no I do not believe in time travel.

Quantum Leap's String Theory!!!

Behold

Life is a piece of string, at one end, your birth and at the other end, your death. If you ball the piece of string, the days of your life intertwine :tongue:

And apparently you can 'leap' between times in your own lifetime.

I don't know if the concept of time travel is actually more general and less personal. And I know Quantum Leap isn't very factual but its cool :cool:
 

Mem

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I think traveling forward in time is probable. Backwards seems impossible.


I would think logically that you can travel back in time more likely than traveling into something that happens in the future. (and hasn't happened yet)
 

jason_els

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You haven't actually studied physics, have you? :biggrin1:

The whole crux of Einstein's theory of special relativity is that the speed of any object in motion will never exceed the speed of light relative to any observer, regardless of the velocity of the observer. Many people have a difficult time wrapping their minds around this because they're so accustomed to thinking in the terms you mentioned above...such that two travelers headed toward one another, each moving 100mph relative to a stationary third observer, will each "see" the other moving with a relative speed of 200mph.

In reality, this apparent ability to add relative speeds is only true for velocities that are a small fraction of c.

If the two travelers were approaching one another, each moving at the speed of light relative to a stationary observer, then each traveler would see the other moving toward him at the speed of light, AND the stationary third observer would see each traveler moving at light speed with respect to himself.

Also, due to the law of conservation of momentum, as any object with rest mass > 0 approaches the speed of light, it's apparent mass approaches infinity. As such, the energy required to accelerate the object further also approaches infinity as its velocity approaches light speed.

The germane effect of such speed is the effect known as time dilation...as relative velocity approaches light speed, the Lorentz factor of two colocal events approaches infinity. For all intents and purposes, for an object moving at light speed, time stands still...so if you were able to accelerate to light speed for five years (as measured by people standing still) and then stop, the trip would have been instantaneous for you...you'd have essentially jumped ahead in time by five years.

You'd also be five light-years from home, but that's another worry altogether.

Oh Hell no. I'm just going by what I understand which, it seems, is wrong. Thank you for correcting me :smile:.

What about the rest of what I said? Does that seem sensible to you?

I'm also curious about the teleportation of matter. As I understand it, in a lab, photons can be made to appear in a location before the photons have actually left their starting point. To me that says that there's something going on; if not actually exceeding the speed of light, then somehow cheating time by using interdimensional travel. I'm also curious about the 11 dimensions thing. If there really are 11 dimensions in the universe, could matter leave this dimension, drop into another, then reappear back in this one in non-linear time? Wouldn't the matter be subject to the relative time of the other dimension while it was in that dimension?

One other thing. Ages ago in Astronomy, I read an article about what I think are 'tychons' or 'tachyons.' These were light emissions that were traveling at several times the speed of light and were simultaneously approaching and receding from Earth. I've never heard about then since but the name stuck in my head and when Star Trek started talking about them I knew then that I wasn't imagining them.

I agree we can't cheat the speed of light, but maybe we can cheat mass, gravity, and the weak force to do make time do what we want.

This question may do better at Thunder's. I've run into some quantum physicists there who are into water pumping.