Time travel.

chicken

chicken

Active member
Do you think humans will ever achieve time travel?

I am really certain that one day we will be able to send people to different stars and maybe even different galaxies in a single lifetime. like travel thousands of light years in a pretty short time. all we need to do is find a way to get a spaceship going fast enough.

So like sending someone into the future is theoretically pretty simple. What is even crazier though is if you think about it, it really is even possible to travel back in time.

That would be so crazy but like what if humans in the future have this technology but just don't want to use it because they don't know what changing stuff would do to them?

Man usually I am so baked when i think about this kinda stuff, but not right now.
 
i don't think anyone on NS can intelligently speak on the possibilities of time travel

go read stephen hawking lecture = mind blown
 
I almost went as far as trying to think up some creative way to disprove this and you just earned yourself the well-thought-out-comment-of-the-day award. Congrats.
 
Well that doesn't mean it isn't possible. It could be that we don't ever develop the technology to, or we do, but do not use it for whatever reason. Or maybe there are future people here now not saying anything lol.

 
There are a lot of interesting books on the topic.

Technically you time travel every time you get in a car or an airplane. Its called relativistic travel, if you travel at a greater velocity than someone or something else time passes at a much slower rate for you (in very simple terms). For example if you put a very accurate stopwatch on an airplane and then flew around the world, it would be slightly (nanoseconds) off from a stopwatch left at the airport. GPS satellites have to be routinely adjusted because they are traveling at high speed and need very accurate time keeping.

So traveling forward in time is possible. If it were possible to travel near light speed you could fly away from the planet to the nearest star and back. In your time frame one year would have passed, however on earth time hundreds of years have passed.

Traveling back in time is not currently possible, even in theoretical physics. We don't know enough about black holes, neutrinos, antimatter, and space time to even say if it is possible.

Faster than light travel also breaks rules, its the cosmic speed limit and nothing goes faster than light. Perhaps in the future it will be possible to bend space time and literally expand space behind a craft. If you were to draw two points on a balloon, and then squeeze the balloon you could change the distance between the points with out actually moving them.

Another interesting concept is being able to put two particles in phase, I read about this a while ago so I probably am leaving out a lot. But, when you put two particles in phase they stay in phase no matter what. You could move one particle millions of miles away and the particles would still be in phase. This indicates a physical relationship that moves faster than light. So it might one day be possible to send signals with no delay instantly across the universe.

Anyway good books to read:

Non-Fiction-

Anything by Kaku to start off. He has a simple way of explaining complicated physics.

Hawkings, I haven't read his new book but when I do I will let you know how it is, his other books are very interesting but if you are new to this stuff start with Kaku.

The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil. Single best book on the future of humanity I have ever read. Very impressive in its depth. You will need a basic knowledge in calc and physics at the university level to understand most of this book. I was lost on some stuff, it took me a year to read it because I had to have my laptop so I could look shit up.

Bill Brysons a history of everything. Just started this one and so far it is pretty good, might be a better way to start than Kaku because he is not a scientist.

Fiction

Enders game and the Ender series. Enders game is really good, the other books get crazy and are not as good but have some great concepts.

1984

Brave New World

Slaughterhouse 5

Cats Cradle

Dune (terrible movie, good book)

There are a bunch more but I wish you well, godspeed.
 
I think ordinary time travel as referred to in fiction is a passé. Multiverse theory is where it's at.

Other than that, if time itself can be seen as a straight line, or "worm" it would be possible to see into the past or the future qualified as a 4th dimension. But then, it is as said, a line, to do something that would differ from that single line would not be able to change the route of time or affect it, just perceive it. Tampering with anything would either result in separated timelines or if one believes in the fate-time structure, all attempts to change things would result in them being fated to come to be in any scenario.

I'm a very skeptical person, but I would love for the notion to become reality. Then again, how would it be regulated? Would it be a chance of few selected individuals and how would their agendas be chosen? Who would control the aspects and would there be a possibility for time warfare?

For any sci-fi lovers, check out the Hyperion books by Dan Simmons, amazing novels.
 
if time travel is ever invented, the economy would be fucked. people would just go back and see buy whatever stocks were about to improve
 
Time does not progress in space. Here on earth we can perceive time with relation to where the sun is in the sky. So we must think of time, not as a physical property, but a calculation property. Time moves at different rates through the universe. So time is a variable.

Moving time forward in acceleration is possible. it is possible by travelling at the speed of light. The faster you move, more time slows on your side, but time accelerates. It was shown that the Russian that spent the most time in space, in fact traveled 1/3 of a second into the future, by this formula:

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Traveling backwards is theoretically possible, but only for photons. Turning mass back in time will create a black hole. But still if it is possible, there are too many paradoxes.
 
the fuck would happen to me if i travelled back in time and triggered an event that caused me to die at a younger age than my current time travelling self? cannot divide by 0..

the only logical postulation is that we could travel into the past simply as observers, unable to interact or change anything that has happened.
 
Technically we see back in time every time we look at the stars. Also there is a lot of progress being made in studying background radiation in the universe, some of which might predate the big bang. In this way we can see back in time to the big bang.

So by taking that logic maybe there is some way to roll back time. For example maybe particles have a memory of the light that hit them. So you could take a particle and see everything that particle has seen. I have never read anything that backs this up but could be interesting.

 
If traveling back in time was possible we'd know already derp. If traveling into the future was possible, every time you got to would be fucking empty because motherfuckers would all want to see the future.
 
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super-lunar travel is possible through a wormhole. copied from wikipedia:

Faster-than-light travel

The impossibility of faster-than-light relative speed only applies locally. Wormholes allow superluminal (faster-than-light) travel by ensuring that the speed of light is not exceeded locally at any time. While traveling through a wormhole, subluminal (slower-than-light) speeds are used. If two points are connected by a wormhole, the time taken to traverse it would be less than the time it would take a light beam to make the journey if it took a path through the space outside the wormhole. However, a light beam traveling through the wormhole would always beat the traveler. As an analogy, running around to the opposite side of a mountain at maximum speed may take longer than walking through a tunnel crossing it.

[edit]Time travel

The theory of general relativity predicts that if traversable wormholes exist, they could allow time travel.[13] This would be accomplished by accelerating one end of the wormhole to a high velocity relative to the other, and then sometime later bringing it back; relativistic time dilation would result in the accelerated wormhole mouth aging less than the stationary one as seen by an external observer, similar to what is seen in the twin paradox. However, time connects differently through the wormhole than outside it, so that synchronized clocks at each mouth will remain synchronized to someone traveling through the wormhole itself, no matter how the mouths move around.[18] This means that anything which entered the accelerated wormhole mouth would exit the stationary one at a point in time prior to its entry.

For example, consider two clocks at both mouths both showing the date as 2000. After being taken on a trip at relativistic velocities, the accelerated mouth is brought back to the same region as the stationary mouth with the accelerated mouth's clock reading 2005 while the stationary mouth's clock read 2010. A traveler who entered the accelerated mouth at this moment would exit the stationary mouth when its clock also read 2005, in the same region but now five years in the past. Such a configuration of wormholes would allow for a particle's world line to form a closed loop in spacetime, known as a closed timelike curve.

To solve all of the paradoxes that are present in movies these days (ex: oh shit, marty mcflys mom has a thing for him and now she will never marry his father and never have marty, but then he will have never existed so how does he ever travel back in time to prevent his existence in the first place) we must submit to the idea of whenever backwards time travel takes place, we are in an alternate universe, identical but separate to our own. Marty could have ran over george, biff, and elaine with the delorian and still stuck around to play johnny be good.
 
you might be the worst aguer on NS...it can't happen because it already would have? really??

One of Hawking's major points about the possbility of time travel is that the human race isn't intelligent enough right now to ascertain technology powerful enough, but given the way our science/engineering knowledge is growing at an exponential rate he believes its a high possibility in our future
 
Maybe forward in time but backwards in time no. I honestly think we'd know if someone came from the future. But maybe the government is hiding them. If there is time travel I doubt the public would ever know about it
 
I'm pretty sure he has never claimed traveling into the past will be possible. I could be wrong though..
 
I think you're right..he's a big advocate of future time travel, can't say i've read much about him supporting time travel into the past
 
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Also, the fact that people have not time travelled in the past already is not really proof that it will never happen. We clearly don't know enough about the consequences etc. Perhaps it would be Back to the Future style, with parallel dimensions etc. I read a Brief History of Time this summer and I'm pretty sure it said a bunch of shit about how backwards time travel isn't very likely... Honestly, i have no idea what im talking about...
 
I knew you would have something to say in this thread.
A more important question. How do we store mass amounts of energy or power?
 
why are you treating traveling to the future and traveling to the past as the same? Past and future time travel are very different....read up on time dilation and time relativity before spewing your garbage dismissing time travel as a simple subject that can be summed up into one bonehead internet post
 
einsteins theory is the faster you go, the slower time gets...though im sure you all probably know that
 
well I have read countless books as well. I keep them at my house which smells of rich mahogany. I am very important.

Anyway you are wrong bro, one of the things they teach you about in physics III is the possibility of traveling back in time and alternate universes, stings, all that "theoretical" stuff. Every one of the books I listed above talks about it. They all come to the same conclusion, we don't know enough about it or are able to create the type of energy necessary. So instead of raining on the parade, take a second to entertain the possibility that besides your extensive knowledge, there might be some shit you don't know.

 
I understand that if time traveling were possible, we would see time travelers all around us.

But maybe these travelers are smart enough that they know better than to fuck with things because maybe it completely change the outcome of the future. Maybe this is why we just don't know they are around us..
 
Well I am not a theoretical physicist, so that limits my scientific discussion on the topic to things I have read by other people. I am not saying we cant have a discussion on it, that is what you are saying. Perhaps you could travel back in time if you could travel faster than the speed of light by expanding space behind your craft. Or entering a black hole (if you were able to some how survive being spaghettified as it is called haha).

So you look through a telescope at the moon, then travel faster than light to that point, so you can see yourself on the moon, then you travel faster than light back to your current location and you will be back in time.

And I am out of school brohaus, so no more semesters for me. Although it would be tight to go back, school is awesome. Nice try on the Good Will Hunting style cut down you non-contributing zero.
 
Stephen Hawking says time travel into the past is impossible because it creates a paradox. Time travel into the furture is however, possible
 
Took a final on relativity and quantum mechanics this morning at 9:30. Time travel into the future is a possibility; time dilation and length contraction are real and measurable. It takes massive amounts of energy to propel even single atoms near the speed of light, hence why we are not traveling into the future just yet. Find a way to manufacture the energy needed to propel a spacecraft close to c and you have a way of traveling into the future. The twin paradox is an adequate example.

Can't make any arguments for traveling back into the past; conventional physics simply does not agree with it as of right now. Straight from my professors mouth last Wednesday; I'm gonna go ahead and side with him on this one.
 
oh god I don't even wanna look at this formula right now. how many combinations of space ships and lasers and death stars can physics teachers come up with
 
You should watch this documentary about time travel called Land of the Lost. It really shows how fun and treacherous time travel can be.
 
Considering the smartest people in the world can't answer this question, I can assure the the stupidest boys in the world wont have much to say.
 
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