You Can't Travel Back in Time, Scientists Say

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Shakyamunison

General G
Wow, very interesting, thanks for posting that, I would never have found that

Shakyamunison
Originally posted by General G
Wow, very interesting, thanks for posting that, I would never have found that

You are welcome. LiveScience.com is a great site.

WrathfulDwarf
Science Fiction says otherwise. stick out tongue

Shakyamunison
Originally posted by WrathfulDwarf
Science Fiction says otherwise. stick out tongue

What I think is cool is when science fact and science fiction get together. So, how would you imagine time travel?

WrathfulDwarf
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
What I think is cool is when science fact and science fiction get together. So, how would you imagine time travel?

From a science fiction view...I can think of millions of ways to travel back in time. From gadgets to energy portals....we can go back all the way back to the big bang....wink

Shakyamunison
Originally posted by WrathfulDwarf
From a science fiction view...I can think of millions of ways to travel back in time. From gadgets to energy portals....we can go back all the way back to the big bang....wink

But to stay on topic, according to the article, what would be the best way to time travel?


OMG laughing I'm telling a MOD to stay on topic. laughing

WrathfulDwarf
I get what you saying Shaky. I was just pokin fun with ya.

On topic...well, what can you argue with? They're the law right now. Until some other theory or evidence pops up now or the future...you can change what they're saying at the moment.

Mindship
I can't help but agree with this point...
"The urge to hug a departed loved one again or prevent atrocities are among the compelling reasons that keep the notion of time travel alive in the minds of many."

But it's not just a matter of "Can it be done?" but also, "What would actually happen if it could be done?"

Our popular scifi notion of time travel is exceedingly simplistic and likely more a reflection of the Universe-as-Film-Reel idea (just rewind) than reality. We don't even know what Time is. Though on that count, if we do figure out one day what Time is and how to travel through it, my guess is we'll discover it is far more complex an agent of the physical universe than our scifi fairy tales suggest.

Time travel may very well be possible but useless insofar as using knowledge of the future to acquire wealth or prevent disasters, this due to the paradox barrier.

If time travel is possible / worthwhile, then to paraphrase the Fermi Paradox, with regard to travelers from the future: "Where are they?"

Shakyamunison

Lana
Okay, that article makes me want to go watch Doctor Who because yay time travel!

But anyway.

I was always under the impression that (from what I understood from my physics class) that due to the fact that time is not actually a constant, that time travel into the future actually IS possible, just not something we could do with our current technology, but it wouldn't be possible to do the reverse and travel into the past.

Not to mention that even if it were possible, damn would it open up a ton of paradoxes.

smoker4

Mindship

Shakyamunison
Originally posted by Mindship
This seems to concur with what I mentioned, that time / time travel may not be just a simple matter of rewinding some temporal filmstrip.

Also, the paradox barrier would prevent me from killing my father by depositing me in a parallel history, virtually identical to my timeline of origin, the difference being that I am in this second timeline's past, able to kill my parallel timeline father, but not my father from the same timeline as I.

In this manner, there are no paradoxes.

I once wrote a short story suggesting that, just as the main character could do damage to a parallel history (Timeline #1), but not her history of origin (Timeline #2), a parallel copy of her from Timeline #3 was able to affect Timeline #2...in effect, a transverse wave running perpendicular across all Timelines.
evil face

The only difference in my example is that the parallel universes coexist.

Mindship
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
The only difference in my example is that the parallel universes coexist.
Mine too (I think), though when one gets into time travel, the whole notion of cause-n-effect is up in the air: does the parallel timeline come into existence with the time traveler's actions, or does the traveler's actions simply fulfill the parameters defining that particular (pre-existing) parallel timeline?

I always liked what quantum cosmology suggests: the universe has a wavefunction, and this wavefunction posits an infinite number of universe-states ("parallel timelines"wink coexisting.

Shakyamunison
Originally posted by Mindship
Mine too (I think), though when one gets into time travel, the whole notion of cause-n-effect is up in the air: does the parallel timeline come into existence with the time traveler's actions, or does the traveler's actions simply fulfill the parameters defining that particular (pre-existing) parallel timeline?

I always liked what quantum cosmology suggests: the universe has a wavefunction, and this wavefunction posits an infinite number of universe-states ("parallel timelines"wink coexisting.

Does coexisting mean existing but separate or together? In other words, is the past as undetermined as the future?

smoker4
Originally posted by Mindship
I once wrote a short story suggesting that, just as the main character could do damage to a parallel history (Timeline #1), but not her history of origin (Timeline #2), a parallel copy of her from Timeline #3 was able to affect Timeline #2...in effect, a transverse wave running perpendicular across all Timelines.
evil face



Originally posted by Mindship
Mine too (I think), though when one gets into time travel, the whole notion of cause-n-effect is up in the air: does the parallel timeline come into existence with the time traveler's actions, or does the traveler's actions simply fulfill the parameters defining that particular (pre-existing) parallel timeline?

I always liked what quantum cosmology suggests: the universe has a wavefunction, and this wavefunction posits an infinite number of universe-states ("parallel timelines"wink coexisting. Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Does coexisting mean existing but separate or together? In other words, is the past as undetermined as the future?

They would exist seperately until such time as interaction took place?
Makes me wonder if something was changed in this timeline, would we even know? if that makes any sense?

Shakyamunison
Originally posted by smoker4
They would exist seperately until such time as interaction took place?
Makes me wonder if something was changed in this timeline, would we even know? if that makes any sense?

In order to be separate, these universes must be separated by something. What would that something be?

smoker4
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
In order to be separate, these universes must be separated by something. What would that something be?

Time and/or gravity?

Shakyamunison
Originally posted by smoker4
Time and/or gravity?

It couldn't be gravity or time because gravity is the curvature of space-time, and we are talking about separating space-time when we say separate universes.

Mindship
Originally posted by Shakyamunison
Does coexisting mean existing but separate or together? In other words, is the past as undetermined as the future?
Lad, if I knew that I'd have a Nobel Prize on my mantle...and I don't even have a mantle. But off-hand, I'm vaguely remembering some theory about the past possibly being indeterminate.

I'm also wondering if the terms "separate" or "together" would even have the same meanings as we generally use them. I mean, technically, if "All is One," then there are connections. But how? What?

In the context of my story, yes, though please note my question above.

Makes perfect sense, and that point is brought up by one of the secondary characters discussing using time as a weapon.

Shakyamunison
Originally posted by Mindship
Lad, if I knew that I'd have a Nobel Prize on my mantle...

It never hurts to ask. laughing

smoker4

Dreamscape
You know i was watching back to the future parts 1 2 & 3......and it made me wonder.....how did michael j. fox get Parkinsons disease?........Time Travel?

Tangible God
No, all that Plutonium coming out of the Flux Copacitor really f*cked him over.

Shakyamunison
Originally posted by Dreamscape
You know i was watching back to the future parts 1 2 & 3......and it made me wonder.....how did michael j. fox get Parkinsons disease?........Time Travel?

They didn't go back in time. They just went to a new set. erm

Vinny Valentine
This is a theory.

We can't know until we can actually obtain that much power. srug

Darth Jello
if your mass is imaginary, meaning you are a tachyon, then theoretically you travel faster than light and backwards through time.

Darth Macabre
Michio Kaku.....Great man, I respect his opinion a ton. Interesting read, is this the general consensus amongst the science field?

Mindship
Originally posted by smoker4
You mean in regards to following the laws of physics? Quantum mechanics? I remember reading something on Quantum theory and quantum interference but then my brain needed a reboot
Physics has all kinds of neat and wonderful little terms for how the universe seems to be all interconnected, eg, nonlocality, the implicate order, the universe-as-holograph, and as I mentioned in a prior post, the quantum-cosmological stance of assigning the universe as a whole a wavefunction. How are the different wavefunction-states of an electron connected? With the universe as a whole, perhaps it's the same sort of deal.

Y'all might find this interesting, too (copied from the Comics Forum):
http://www.tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php

allofyousuckkk
we learned about time travel last year in my science class. My teacher said pretty much all of this. Apparently, the first people to land on the moon aged .ooooooooooooooooooooooo(lots of 0's)00001 second less than the people on earth. Pretty cool. You should check wikipedia for the time travel twin theory, or something to that effect.

smoker4
Originally posted by Mindship
Physics has all kinds of neat and wonderful little terms for how the universe seems to be all interconnected, eg, nonlocality, the implicate order, the universe-as-holograph, and as I mentioned in a prior post, the quantum-cosmological stance of assigning the universe as a whole a wavefunction. How are the different wavefunction-states of an electron connected? With the universe as a whole, perhaps it's the same sort of deal.

Y'all might find this interesting, too (copied from the Comics Forum):
http://www.tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php

Excellent i'll check it out, i remember a good series in 2000AD called Zenith that dealt with the subject of the multiverse smokin'

Victor Von Doom
Originally posted by Lana
time travel into the future actually IS possible

It is, I'm going shortly.

smoker4
Originally posted by Victor Von Doom
It is, I'm going shortly.

Can you bring me back the new/old Playstation 10 or failing that a T-800 for home security

Victor Von Doom
I can't go back. You're here now anyway so it doesn't matter.

smoker4
Just leave them behind the wheely bin

BlackC@
That article brings us back to square one...

Some scientists say we can, others say we can't.

Atlantis001

Thundar
That's an interesting article. Kind of funny that some scientists believe that they can travel into the future, not really having an understanding of what time or the past is. I mean - for all they know we could be living in the past right now. Or perhaps there really is no past, present, or future, and time is just a limited and controllable quantity like any other that makes up this life.

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