Time Travel: Scientific Plausibility / Theories / Research

[ruffready]

re:synthwerk

Yes, Its so weird..like,say you get out a 8 inch reflector telescope and look at the andromeda galaxy..it shows up on a good clear night as a twin of our milky way spirel galaxy--just hanging there in the black void..but your looking at it as it excisted 2.2 million years ago. Mind blowing.

 

[Anonymous]

if you think about it, is time travelling actually going anywhere?

if our globe is constantly spinning while rotating around the sun while our galaxy is expanding while the universe is constantly contracting and expanding...is anything we are doing actually motion? is time travel just inserting one's self in a different layer of the mesh that is existance?

 

[ruffready]

re:synthwerk

speed is time I guest-if you build a time machine and use it -it must be calibrated to all of those Items you said --or else everything would leave you behind when you stoped your time machine,

 

[Cult_of_Mana]

Maybe time travel is possible but the travelling through space part makes the voyage too difficult. Think about it. The Earth, our solar system, the galaxy, is constantly moving. If you wanted to travel a million years into Earth's past, how would you work out where the Earth was a million years ago? What can you use as a point of reference? Astronomers can only reliably predict a star or planet's position in relation to Earth a few thousand years in the future, maybe less. This is because the calculations can't take into account all the minute changes in movement over time.

 

[ruffready]

Yes..

it is assumed that all matter is linked no-matter how far or when--its just gathering all the information at the precise time..scientist ask" if there is time travel,where are all the time travelers"? could it be that they are indeed out and about, but with technology so far in advanced that they have it figured to an infinite degree of possibilities as of not to make an error?

 

[river_styx]

What an exceptionally well-observed point. If you think of the universe as a matrix with individual instances being co-ordinates in time and space, then how indeed would you go about trying to pinpoint an instance, even if you had a technology that allowed you to travel to anywhere in time and space.

Is this the nail in the coffin for functioning time travel?

The only thing I could envisage that would allow you to time travel accurately given this point is a supremely powerfully computer that could use information about the universe and the things we perceive around us now to extrapolate exactly what physically events had taken place throughout the history of the universe, even down to the quantum level.

A macro-example of how this would work is to say, if I am sat at my laptop writing this statement at exactly this time and place, a set chain of events must have conspired to bring that situation about: I have a hangover so I'm here on my own rather than out in Hammersmith where I am supposed, and for me to have been getting drunk with exactly the people I was with at exactly the venue I was last night, certain things must have occurred. A super-powerful computer could extrapolated from this information and work out what happened in the past

You'd need to know the exact size of the universe now, it's rate of expansion..assuming that it's still expanding at the same rate now as it was then..and our location within that area.
Maybe I've watched Cube one too many times, although I still can't recall the name of the calculation you have to use but it's all to do with using 3D coordinates.
Also if the Earth has cooled down internally it has therefore contracted in size, whose to say that our intrepid chronological explorer won't materialise beneath the surface of the planet?
Exactly why the first time travel experiments will be unmanned or using chimps.....eek, Plant of the Apes anyone?
Or how about a possible explanation of UFOs?

 

[Cult_of_Mana]

In that sense, you would only have to extrapolate the orbit of the earth around the sun, procession, and such other localised phenomena that dictate the physical position of the earth at any one time.

It would become more and more difficult depending on how far back in time you wanted to go. You would need to know the gravitational effects of every comet and every other piece of space debris upon the Earth. Not forgetting their influence on other planets and stars who in turn influence the movement of the Earth. Is anyone else getting a headache here? :madeyes: The only thing you could rely upon is observational data. The mathematics wouldn't be able to cope.

Finally, my brain simply can't cope with finding ones position in the universe when everything moves!

Conclusion: Space/time travel may be possible but only practicable a few hundred years back/forward.

 

[Anonymous]

Conclusion: Space/time travel may be possible but only practicable a few hundred years back/forward.

They could overcome this by making several time jumps, say in fragments of 250 years.

 

[Breakfastologist]

So what we really need is a method for travelling through Time And Relative Dimensions In Space?

 

[Anonymous]

like i said, the universe is never in the same place at any one second. it's at a constant rate of anywhere-ness. look at Back To The Future for more basic examples: having to remember where bridges, caves, buildings will be in the future or won't be in the past so as not to have an accident upon arrival.

i've also pondered something else: for time travel to the middle and dark ages, etc, i'd invest in a HazMat-type suit...you don't know how weak our immune systems might be to past bacteria and viruses. something like 12 Monkeys...a sort of "body condom".

 

[river_styx]

like i said, the universe is never in the same place at any one second. it's at a constant rate of anywhere-ness. look at Back To The Future for more basic examples: having to remember where bridges, caves, buildings will be in the future or won't be in the past so as not to have an accident upon arrival.

i've also pondered something else: for time travel to the middle and dark ages, etc, i'd invest in a HazMat-type suit...you don't know how weak our immune systems might be to past bacteria and viruses. something like 12 Monkeys...a sort of "body condom".

I'd be more concerned with being burnt at the stake for witchcraft once they clock your plastic body armour....

 

[Anonymous]

that's another thing i find intriguing: quantum PR. your very accent and mannerism could arouse suspicion. better to dress in drab garb and mumble. hunch over like you have rickets. after your point of arrival, you'll need to find the town alchemist/astronomer/magician/thinker/loon/genius to buddy-up with...fast. someone like Merlin or Leonardo or any forward thinker. that's exactly what i would do. you could tell him that his predictions are farely accurate and converse with him on scientific advancements and assure him that the earth indeed does revolve around the sun. after that he'd be your PR man. show him the time machine and i think he'd be your lover.

 

[Anome]

i've also pondered something else: for time travel to the middle and dark ages, etc, i'd invest in a HazMat-type suit...you don't know how weak our immune systems might be to past bacteria and viruses. something like 12 Monkeys...a sort of "body condom".

Forget your immune system. You probably want a gas mask if you're going back to a densely populated area. While we're used to the smell of fossil fuels, etc, the smell of horse manure, not to mention "night soil" could be a bit of a shock to the system.

My advice would be to land in a rural area, not just because your less likely to be noticed, but the smell of a few thousand medieval peasants crammed into a small area could be a tad overpowering.

 

[Anonymous]

Forget your immune system. You probably want a gas mask if you're going back to a densely populated area. While we're used to the smell of fossil fuels, etc, the smell of horse manure, not to mention "night soil" could be a bit of a shock to the system.

My advice would be to land in a rural area, not just because your less likely to be noticed, but the smell of a few thousand medieval peasants crammed into a small area could be a tad overpowering.

Hence the fact that most alien abductions occur in rural areas

 

[Anonymous]

closed timelike loops

Hi everybody!

Too much time travel would destroy the universe by the way.
The atmosphere and other particles a time traveller takes back with her/him might later accidentally go back in time again, sometimes becoming closed loops with no beginning or end,adding to the total mass of the universe from nowhere.
This would be a problem if there were lots of time travellers, which once a method is discovered is likely.
There will be historical expeditions, tourism, and the time police constantly putting history back the way it should be.And all the quadrillions of quadrillions of people in the future will want to come back in time...
all this extra mass in the present will tip the delicately balanced universe from being an opn universe as it is today to a closed one, which is collapsing.
It gets worse. The people at the collapse will flee back, acellerating the collapse, until the present day is full of chronological refugees, and their massive tardises, and the universe will reach critical mass and turn into a singularity.
Is that what you want? because that is what you will get.

steve b

 

[ruffready]

that

is a good point!

 

[Anonymous]

time police constantly putting history back the way it should be

that's my main piece of evidence against time travel. everything is as it should be. we should only use time travel to prevent things. fixing stuff would have dire consequences.

 

[Cult_of_Mana]

They could overcome this by making several time jumps, say in fragments of 250 years.

This did occur to me while I was writing my last post. But since we don't have any evidence of time-travelling visitors it would appear that this method is not practical either. Alternatively, maybe no-one believes our time and the preceding millenia to be of any interest, or we all die before the technology is developed. The last point has probably been said before.

 

[Anonymous]

Perhaps when you travel in time you arrive out of Phase and therefore cannot be seen or interact with the surroundings.

This would explain why things never get changed and might account for the occasional ghost sighting as well.

Is all about spectating, there would be a great tourist interest in it. Imagine seeing the great events of time.

The building of the first train. The first flight. who shot JFK. Major and Curry at it (well... maby not the last one)

 

[ruffready]

its just to much..

for us to handle..like ufo's.--I just read this in the breaking news--''The big difference between Peru and the United States is that in the United States, people freak out if they see a UFO. They want to join a cult or commit suicide,'' Chamorro said.

In Peru, he said, if people see a UFO they kick back and drink a beer. Even better, Chamorro says, they hope the ship lands and pays for the beer.

 

[Anonymous]

The idea of time-travel lends heavily from our notion of time as a sort of 'stream' flowing from the 'past' to the 'now' and onwards into the 'future'. Of course, this is really only a mental construct. Nothing ever happens in the past or in the future, since both of those things only exists in our heads. The past is a memory and the future is an expectasion.

Therefore, if you somehow could travel into the past, you would not really be in the past at all, since it does not exists
Neither could you alter the future, since that does not exist either.
All there is, is now.

I read an interresting theory once as to why we view time as we do. The author connects our idea of the future, to the earth horizon, allways stretching ahead of us and out of our reach. He sees the past connected to the earth below us ('buried in the past'). A phenomenological theory on human time-perception.

 

[Anonymous]

Jon, your view of time isn't a scientific one: not only does the theory of relativity predict that time is relative and is distorted by mass and speed in the same way as space, these facts have been verified by experiments using atomic clocks.

 

[Anonymous]

Chronological protection hypothesis

Another reason why time travel doesn't happen:

proposed separately by Niven and Hawking, from very differnt points of view
The first culture that invents a time machine sends a traveller or travellers back, who accidently change history as an inevitable consequence, thereby eradicating their own culture- but don't worry, another cuture will invent time travel, go back and change history and eliminate themselves-
the universe will morph through a billion alternative timelines, creating chaos and anarchy until the final one is reached-
presumably the one we live in-
when No time travel is ever developed at any time in the future
by any culture
and the universe finally reaches stability.
the Hawking/Niven Chronological protection hypothesis.

heh heh

steve b

 

[river_styx]

It's my theory that time originates in the future and flows backwards towards the past....

 

[rynner2]

Time travel, computers, wormholes - enjoy!

 

[Anonymous]

Re: closed timelike loops

Hi everybody!

Too much time travel would destroy the universe by the way.
The atmosphere and other particles a time traveller takes back with her/him might later accidentally go back in time again, sometimes becoming closed loops with no beginning or end,adding to the total mass of the universe from nowhere.

Aha! The true nature of Dark Matter stands revealed!!!

 

[MrRING]

... the prof I saw profiled was a 40 something heavyset African American man who was interested in time travel since he read the time machine.

There was an addition in that his father died early on of a preventible disease, and part of his interest, although he thought he wouldn't be able to get there, would be to travel back and change his father's habits (smoking, maybe) before he died young.

Also, I think what he was trying to do was particle time travel, a molecular level kind of experiement for just a few seconds.

I'll see if I can find the story myself.... maybe it hadn't been reported on the board before.

 

[Anonymous]

Time Travelling Prof - Ronald Mallett

Howdy ... this is the guy you are after, I think. His name is Ronald Mallett and he is a Professor of Physics at the University of Connecticut. His page at the Uni is:

http://www.phys.uconn.edu/faculty/mallett.html

... but you should find tons of stuff on him on the net. His time machine theory hinges on a unidirectional RING laser ... which i thought was quite appropriate

Hope you're all having a fabulous xmas ...

Best wishes

scHtick, Christchurch, NZ

 

[MrRING]

Yeah, I think this is the guy all right - thanks!

Now, to try and figure out if he's completed his research or not...

 

[Anonymous]

I wish him luck but if he goes back in time and stops his dad from smoking then he would have no reason to go back in time ...yadda yadda yadda