Time travel(what do you think)

[ianthestampede]

Ever since i was little i always wondered about goin back in time. It wasn't till i was 12 when i realized the simple formula.
My brother was driving me somewhere, and it was gonna take awhile so i decided to see how long it would take. it was like 50 miles or so, so i was like well where traveling 50 mph, that means we'll get to the destination in one hour. if we travel up to 100mph we could cut the time in half.so i kept on increasing the speed and thought well, if we were able to travel 300 mph would we be able to get there before we actually started?
This made me wonder for awhile. Even though its not possible to travel 300mph(in a car, you wouldn't be actually getting there before you started(which i thought would happen...hey i was 12!) You'd be cutting your time into fractions of a secound. you could keep on doin this untill you get the special number! And this is supposedly when you go into minus time. The special number of course is the speed of light!(if you didn't know, its 186000 mps).
But even if this is possible wouldn't it cause some paradox's? like what would happen if you did get into minus time. does that mean you would go back before you actually went back into time. causing you to not actually go back in time?:therock:
tell me what you think about time travel... cause it gets confusing sometimes!

[Braidless Baka]

Well... I don't claim to be any kind of scientist... But if you keep halving numbers like that you will [i]never[/i] get below zero. This is simply because the only numbers you can half to gain a minus number are minus numbers themselves. 0.5 halved is 0.25 - that halved is 0.125 - that halved again is 0.0625... see where I'm going with this? No matter what you half, you will come up with another number (smaller, granted, but still being a positive number -- even if you half zero, you still get zero.)

If you travelled at 400mph, you would cut your journey to an 1/8 of the travel time... 800mph would cut it to 1/16 - 1600mph would cut it to 1/32 etc etc etc

So in that way the theory is flawed. But I heard that there's an area of space where time travels backwards or something... Theoretically anyway... so I figure it's possible, you just need someone far brainier than me to actually explain it ^_^;;

[DarK DeatH]

I don't think it is possible to go back in time... I believe in one simple thing: What was, was. Period.
But even scientifically, I don't think there can be a way... It would just be not right, to go back in time? I mean, whoa!

[ianthestampede]

:babble: well i also find there being no point to go back in time. it's an interesting topic. I did this weird study and found if there was a rocket that can withstand the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) The fuel it would need would be about the same density as our earth, which would leave you nowhere to return home to.:rolleyes: . The topic of time travel is very trite and used too often as i can see. i guess i just needed something to talk about :D .

[conpiracymonki]

[b][size=1]
Well, say if everytime you go back in time, a parallel universe is created.. then all the paradox stuff wouldn't happen.

See, you could go back in time and kill your grandfather or whatever. And then you wouldn't be born in that universe. But you yourself would still exist. Only then you wouldn't be able to get back to your own universe. And that sounds scientifical enough to me.
o_o[/b]

Just look at the attachment to see what I mean >.>[/size]
[img]http://otakuboards.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=404792[/img]
[size=1]EDIT: Excuse the page stretching, if there is any >.>; (Just thought I might as well image-tag it..)[/size]

[Break]

[size=1][color=CC0000]Love the diagrams AJ. ~_^

Time Travel, in my opinion is simply not possible. To go back into a specific era in time, say Renaissance time is just... impossible. I can't explain how to do it, yet I also can't explain why you can't. oO

But, I think it could be possible to go back a few minutes, or hours [i]maybe[/i]. This could be done by travelling so fast that you instantly get somewhere, or even faster so that you get there before you left.

If something goes faster than sound, it breaks the sound barrier and produces a sonic boom, right? So, what would happen if something travelled faster than light, no one knows for sure, but I'm think it'd be something to do with time and a very loud noise. ^^;[/size][/color]

[Doukeshi]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by AJeh [/i]
[B][b][size=1]
Well, say if everytime you go back in time, a parallel universe is created.. then all the paradox stuff wouldn't happen.

See, you could go back in time and kill your grandfather or whatever. And then you wouldn't be born in that universe. But you yourself would still exist. Only then you wouldn't be able to get back to your own universe. And that sounds scientifical enough to me.
o_o[/b]
[/size] [/B][/QUOTE]

Oh my God

Dude!! That's the exact same conversation that my brother an I had just a few days ago...it's actually the same diagram he drew out for me too. This all came about when watching Enterprise (the episode where they encounter the Borg left behind by the movei first contact) Anyway, my argument was since Enterprise went back in time in First Contact to stop the Borg, wouldn't that then alter the timeline and make them aware of it in the first place..the Borg I mean.

I'm making it sound confusing, and it probably was, but my point is he explained to me that if you went back in time then you would create a parallel universe where the events in the timeline you originated would continue, only without you. You would then be taken back to the point you came from, only in a different timeline..where the effects of your interference had taken place.

So technically speaking you have a pivot, or many pivots, along a single line and from these pivots many offshoots occur whether it's because of outside interference or because of possibility outcomes.

[XeEmO]

I believe that time would go by slower if you were going light speed. I however don't think that it would be possible to go back in time and have it really be back in time. In other words I think that if it were possible to go back in time it wouldn't be the time that was already there but a time just like it.

[Corey]

Hmmmm....

< theory >
Time is like a river. It flows. What happens when you throw something into the river? River goes around it. The object might stay put for a while, but eventually it will move.

Same thing with time. Say that somehow one does end up going back in time. He tries his damndest to screw with the world, i.e. assasinating Hitler. He succeeds. But because time flows, someone just like Hitler would rise up. It may be a few years later, but it would still happen. Just like a river isn't the same once a rock is chucked in, but it does continue to flow.

On the subject of faster than light travel, I refer you to one theory. I'm not sure what it is officially called, but I've always called it the Bend Theory. When one breaks the light barrier, there will be one of two results. One, the vehicle will be destroyed from the cross-over. Two, the vehicle survives but creates an abnormality in it's time line. Because the vehicle is traveling faster than light, it moves faster than the flow of time (to help, most of our time measurements are in accordance to light. Light year, day, night, etc). When it re-enters normal time, sub-light, the vehicle has jumped forward in time.

I think I need to take physics in order to fully understand this kind of thing.
< /theory >

[RPGchick]

You all think too much...all of the scientifical words are hurting my brain. I think time travel would be possible if we had the right equipment. Going faster than time itself would probably kill the person. Maybe if we went back only a few minutes they would be okay, but if your going back far enough to try to kill hitler or what ever you are doing, you would be going so fast that you would die, wouldnt you?

[DarK DeatH]

Yeah, you would need Colossus' body to resist it :P
I think it would be too weird if there was a way of going back in time... I mean, lightspeed maybe would be like teleporting... You are one place, then you are on another... But I don't believe there would be any returning in time...
Also, teleport is cool :P Scientists are working on it already... They could move a particle to 2 centimeters long already if i remember correctly...

[BlackDragon465]

I think it may be possible but is very confusing to understand how it would work. I am like this:therock: when I read some stuff on this topic. Is all very confusing. Is late also. I think I am going to sleep instead of trying to figure out if time travel is possible.

[Guest Crimson Spider]

Going at the speed of light is impossible because as you travel faster and faster, your body mass is actually increasing at a certain percentage. That exact number I don't know. Anyway, at speeds nearing light would cause you to swell up so badly that you would explode. Or it would cause you to expand at such a rate that the molecules inside of you began not to process correctly and then you die from some unknown condition. Elsewise you would just become really huge (and I mean as in the size of a skyscraper) and probably never return to your original state. Then you wouldn't be able to do anything in your time period.

Einstien theorised that there is no way to go faster than the speed of light. Light is traveling at such a high velocity that only energy coul possibly reach that speed without breaking the laws of physics.

Then it formes a paradox that you are not actually traveling back in time, but moreover staying in the same place. Check out this experoment:

An atomic clock that was perfectly attuned to another on earth was sent along with several astronauts into a space shuttle that was orbiting the earth.

As you know, objects orbit the earth at speeds of 20,000 miles per hour.

When the clock was returned after some time in space, they were compared to find that the clock that was on the space shuttle was a few millionths of a second behind.

This is not a quote, by the way.

The thing that is bending time is that according to both clocks, they had been up there for the same amount of time. And yet one clock is younger than the other one after the returned clock. If they were up there for the same amount of time, then how come one clock is off?

Now, if we were to travel the speed of light without swelling up like a balloon, we would have the same effect except extreamorised. Traveling at 669,600,000 miles an hour, which is 33,480 times faster than the space shuttle, would age the world around us so quickly that when we land, we may meet several new people to the staff of nasa, and I mean the whole staff.

As an example, if a man is traveling at light speed for one hour, the rest of the world would age about 50 year ballpark area. And yet according to this world that has become much older, he was only up their for one hour! Bends the physics, don't it?

Now, if we ever were to make a time traveling machine, the theory's on what would happen are so numerious it is ludicress. There is the one with the picture above of course. Then their is the one that no matter what you do in that dimension you traveled back in time to, you will always return to the one you left from, meaning that time travels parallel.

Then their is messing with the past will change the future without going into an alternate dimension.

[Pressure]

[color=purple][size=1]-yawns and cracks knuckles-

It's 10:12 in the morning on a weekend.. I went to bed last night at 1.. So.. Excuse me if this post may end up sounding completely ludicrous.. I'm not in the most stable mind set right now..

Anyways.. I don't believe time travel is, or ever will be possible. Time exists, but it's a phenomena we will never fully understand, with a four letter word attached to it.

It takes the Earth 365.25 days to circle the sun. Every four years that .25 adds up to extend the rotation by one more day. This is the way it is. This is the way it has been for what we believe to be 4,500,000,000 years, which is the relative age of the Earth.

Unless we knock the Earth completely out of orbit, which would be by far the stupidest things humans could ever do, we will not be able to rupture the Earth's rotation. The Earth's orbit around the sun, is what makes Time possible on Earth.

So if my theory, notice I said [i]theory[/i], is correct, then we'd never be able to travel through time on Earth, because to do so, would involve doing something so stupid, we'd kill everyone on the planet before we even had a chance to travel through time.[/color][/size]

[DarK DeatH]

Good point Pressure... Time is just a state of mind... I mean, what is time? We created what we call "time", classifying it to hours, minutes, seconds, and so on... So yeah, it is only the fact that Earth spins around the Sun and keeps doing that on and on... That is the real "time"... So yeah, to change it you would have to make Earth stop spinning or spin slower or faster... And to do that I don't know or even imagine what would be needed... So yeah, I don't believe in time travel... It is much of a pointless idea to me...

[Desbreko]

[color=indigo]The thing is, I don't think the earth oribiting the sun creates time. If the earth were to stop orbiting the sun, time wouldn't suddenly freeze, it'd go on; the earth just wouldn't be moving anymore. As you mentioned, this would kill everyone on the earth, but that doesn't mean time stops. I mean, why would stopping one thing in the universe also stop everything else? So yeah, I don't think the earth orbiting the sun makes time possible here on earth, we just measure time by that orbit.

I think it's the other way around. Instead of causing the earth to orbit slower or faster to make time travel slower or faster, you'd have to slow down or speed up time to make the earth spin slower or faster. How do you do this? Well, I don't think it's possible for us to manipulate time, so I don't think we'll ever find out.

And I also never got why traveling faster than the speed of light would affect time. I mean, light is the fastest moving thing in the universe that we know of. Say we make something that travels faster; then that becomes the fastest moving thing. Why does this affect time? I don't see any connection. As mentioned before, traveling faster is going to make it so you get somewhere sooner, but you can't get a negative number from a posative number by dividing it (which is what you're doing to the amount of time it takes to get somewhere by traveling faster). It's always going to take [i]some[/i] time to get there, and that means you're definitely not going to get there before you left.

So yeah, I basically think time travel is impossible. I don't think time is something that humans can alter.[/color]

[klinanime1]

If the earth stopped orbiting around the sun, all organisms will die except two narrow strips that live in reasonable temperatures, I think...
If someone could go back in time, no one would probably know, including that person unless he/she could manipulate his/her body matter so he/she couldn't go back also. If we could harness and determine what thought is, I'm sure we could figure out exactly what sort of matter time is to be manipulated.

[ianthestampede]

I think the point is clear that time is a figment of our imaginations. Time travel is basicly goin to a destination before a curtain event took place(that of course already took place). This is believed to happend by traveling a fast speed right. i think some people in this discussion believes that mankind would try to use time travel on earth. Which is possibly the dumbest idea, everyone knows that earth has gravity which would create force and all that stuff.
The smartest and effective way to travel at a great speed is of course in an enviroment that has little limitations. Which of course is space. I don't believe that time travel would be used to actually minupulate earth time. I feel it would be used to travel great distances in space, which would be the only way to travel to another galaxy.
I feel time travel is very real, not only for our advantage but for our interests, and to further our knowledge.
I'm just gonna wait for another reply to continue what i'm gonna say. And I know i'm not a scientist haha. But someone who is interested.

[Dan L]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by ianthestampede [/i]
[B]And this is supposedly when you go into minus time. The special number of course is the speed of light!(if you didn't know, its 186000 mps)[/B][/QUOTE]

Except there's one problem.

E=m (c squared)

where "E" is the energy of the object in question.

when travelling at a certain speed, kinetic energy is 1/2 m (V squared)

hence you could also say E = m (c squared) + 1/2 m (V squared)

except E still equals m (c squared), hence as more kinetic energy is gained (due to higher speed) the mass of the object increases, because according to what I've just said,

m ([i]observable mass[/i]) (c squared) = M ([i]stationary mass[/i]) (c squared) + m (V squared)
Thus, by a few more calculations it can be conclusively shown that [i]nothing[/i] with any mass whatsoever, can ever reach the speed of light.

Only light, and other particles with no mass, only energy, can ever reach the speed of light. Everything else needs an [i]infinite[/i] amount of kinetic energy to do so, and that's not possible by any engine.

[Guest cloricus]

^*Ignores Tachyons*

-eps-

[(<AA>)]

Thank you Dan, for totally crushing my dreams of time travel, what are you gonna tell us next? There's no Santa??? :(
Heh, well anyway, that's not possible by any modern day engine, but who knows? maybe in the future. But still, the most outstanding piece of evidence remains, If in the future people invented a time machine, how come they haven't went back in time yet???

[Roxie Faye]

[color=#9933ff]I do believe time travel, some how, is possible. But I think whoever invents it should use it to go back in time and destroy it. Anyone who's ever read the third book of Harry Potter, our actions of the past and future are too complicated to understand and know. I would NOT support going back in time, as much as I want it. You've just got to live with what happens, even if it means something unpleasant like loosing a loved one, suffering through tradgedys like 9-11 (Please do NOT start an argument about it in this thread; MAKE A NEW ONE if you want to do that. I'm ONLY using it for example purposes here). To me, you've got to live with that's happened, not change it.


What AJ said on page 1 makes perfect sense, and infact, there's a series of fantasy stories by an author called Dianna Wynne Jones. She's written many books, and this one particular series is called the Chronicles of Chrestomancy, and they demonstrate a theory SIMILAR AJ's. Instead of just going back in time, every second, every world choice, creates a new world. And in all four, there's one character that can travel through worlds, and they're all different. For instance, in a tutored lesson, a character failed to answer, correctly, a question about some European war between England and France, because she had been from another world where France had won this war, instead of England. So there [i]is[/i] that possibility that by every decision, new worlds and universes are being formed.[/color]


[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by ianthestampede [/i]
[B]I think the point is clear that time is a figment of our imaginations.[/B][/QUOTE]

[color=#9933ff]Time is not a figment of our imaginations, silly. Time is real, and it is one of the few things we can't back. Whether we categorize it with year, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds and even smaller, or if we DON'T categorize it, it is still there, and it will always be moving forward. Okay, not always (read below for how that makes sense), but you get the idea. All those [b]units[/b] of time, and even the word [i]time[/i] its self are there to help humans communicate thoughts about time more efficiently. If we did not have those words, time still moves on. We just can't categorize it, you see? Every nanosecond (ah hah! Another time unit to communicate my thoughts) is a new nanosecond, it keeps going and going, and we can't go back (until you see below). That's just the way it is.


On to the next thing, the reason I keep saying is that it will go backwards at one time, is because Einstein developed this theory that supposedly only one other living man on the planet understand (cant remember his name). The theory is that, well the fact ARE that out universe is constantly expanding. The THEORY part is that it will continue to expand until a point when time will freeze for the smallest about on time there is (which has to be REALLY small), and then universe will contract, and everything will be going backwards, although the people will be THINKING it's forward, and then, eventually, the universe will collapse upon its self. Then time as WE know it, will disappear. Spiffing theory, isn't it? There's a book on it, and I have the title written down somewhere, and if you want to read the book, I can give you the title and author. Just PM me.

As a random fact about time, gravity is actually a rip/ warp in the time space continuum. Scary, once you think about it. Aren?t you glad I made your day all the more morbid? ;P[/color]

[Baron Samedi]

my famous trousers of time theory- really cool and its REAL!!!

[klinanime1]

We need to figure out exactly what sort of matter time is before we can alter it, and since there is no straight definition, I don't think we'll be messing around with it. I mean, is it electricity, particles of hyperspace? Something humans have named, but they have no idea of? I suppose it could just be atoms moving constantly and frequently, but we all know what happens when you split an atom.

[Dan L]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by cloricus [/i]
[B]^*Ignores Tachyons*

-eps- [/B][/QUOTE]

Technically that's a different story. It's not possible to travel [i]at[/i] the speed of light, however it is possible to travel faster or slower. However due to the complex mathematics involved in the case of travelling faster (which is actually not that complex- it just involves "complex" or "imaginary" numbers) it's pretty much just theoretical stuff.

The point is that nothing can [i]reach[/i] the speed of light, unless it has [i]no mass[/i]. Tachyons must necessarily go faster, but they can't slow down to the speed of light any more than we can speed up to it. The speed of light is more like a hill, where you can either be on one side, slower than it, or on the other, faster than it, but the hill's too steep for anyone to climb up to the top in order to get to the other side.

[i]Note to Aaron:[/i]

I don't think it'll ever be possible. simply cos you need an [i]infinite[/i] amount of energy to reach the speed of light. Which I suppose you [b]may[/b] be able to do, except where would you get the energy from? you'd probably end up draining every bit of energy in the universe. Note that mass can be converted to enrgy, so you'd end up completely emptying the universe, and you probably [i]still[/i] wouldn't be at the speed of light :p