Kettle Posted July 9, 2003 Posted July 9, 2003 I'm in no way knowledgable about these things (so please excuse me if this seems a bit on the simple side) but.... We know from giving watches to astronauts that the speed you are travelling affects time - the faster you are travelling in distances, the quicker you are also travelling through time. So if, theoretically, we managed to travel very, very, very fast between the Earth and a distant point in the solar system or galaxy (maybe at the speed of light), you would in a way travel forward through time - maybe only a couple of days would have passed for you but several weeks or months will have passed back on Earth. I know this isn't *technically* time travel and you still wouldn't be able to travel backwards in time but would travelling at near light speeds be easier than breaking the space-time continuum?
blike Posted July 9, 2003 Posted July 9, 2003 Originally posted by Kettle I'm in no way knowledgable about these things (so please excuse me if this seems a bit on the simple side) but.... We know from giving watches to astronauts that the speed you are travelling affects time - the faster you are travelling in distances, the quicker you are also travelling through time. So if, theoretically, we managed to travel very, very, very fast between the Earth and a distant point in the solar system or galaxy (maybe at the speed of light), you would in a way travel forward through time - maybe only a couple of days would have passed for you but several weeks or months will have passed back on Earth. I know this isn't *technically* time travel and you still wouldn't be able to travel backwards in time but would travelling at near light speeds be easier than breaking the space-time continuum? Yea, what you just described is, in a nutshell, Einsteins theory.
KHinfcube22 Posted July 9, 2003 Posted July 9, 2003 I didn't read any previous posts because I'm very busy right now. I just wanted to clear up a few miscalculations. Time Travel is possible. Otherwise movement would be impossible. There would be no such thing as "speed", (not the drug), if time travel were impossible. Reverse time travel is the only thing thats impossible.
Kettle Posted July 9, 2003 Posted July 9, 2003 Originally posted by blike Yea, what you just described is, in a nutshell, Einsteins theory. Aha Has anyone come up with a theory for moving backwards in time?
Radical Edward Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 no. we haven't even worked out why time goes in the direction it does yet.
JaKiri Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 Originally posted by Radical Edward no. we haven't even worked out why time goes in the direction it does yet. Go go gadget 'because it makes sense that way, sort of, even if it might not work with some other stuff we've got' ideas* *or the thermodynamical arrow of time if you prefer
Radical Edward Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 but there is nothing on a really fundamental level that says which direction time goes in.
JaKiri Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 Originally posted by Radical Edward but there is nothing on a really fundamental level that says which direction time goes in. Isn't that what my post says?
Aleph-Null Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 Just doing a recon mission, who here knows anything about Kip Thorne ?
JaKiri Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 Originally posted by Sayonara³ Black hole & gravity man? The crime fighting duo?
Aleph-Null Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 I'm going to perform a "thought experiment" here. Let us assume that small objects can travel back through time. Subatomic particles for instance. Let us also consider the "Inflation Theory" Thought experiment: Imagine that you can use the rules of nature allowed by the "inflation theory" isolate a pocket of space (say on a plank scale where time travel is possible) and "inflate" the dimensions of that space without inflating the whole universe along with it.... Could that "inflated" region serve as a window for time travel, and I also assume that any object entering it (would not travel through time) but would experience the inflation effects and there would be a "barrier" that would stop you from entering it.... Only the subatomic particles that make up your body could enter it and they would suffer from thermodynamic entropy effects... But, lets just assume we can "Inflate" a region of space without "inflating" the entire universe or "Controlled Inflation of the Spacetime Continuum" I suppose "tachyons" are out of fashion nowadays eh?
Aleph-Null Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri They're a bit tachy. HOHO. Classic! Thank you, you have brought a smile to my face.
Aleph-Null Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 My view would be that at the moment we created this window we might begin retrieving signals from our "future selves" which would bring into question the whole "free will" or "multi universe" things into light. How do we send signals? Well, we control the flow of matter into the window, set up a phaser to smack into our "barrier" and let entropy do its work on the particles... until their broken down into their time-travelling constituents... beginning the proces of creating the universe in the past which will continue into the future .... sci fi mode... thus solidifying the "eternal now" and the "closed self-sustaining universe" (feel free to ignore, I'm still a little groggy from this morning)
Aleph-Null Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 nevermind that, its bad fruit. (back to the drawing board)
M-CaTZ Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 I actually think Reverse time travel is more possible than Forward time travel. Just on the basis of something that hasnt happened yet, cannot be forced to happen faster, but something that has already happened can be revisited. I dont know of any mechanism or any way to alter the time dimensions but if there were, i think backwards time travel would be more probable.
blike Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 Originally posted by M-CaTZ I actually think Reverse time travel is more possible than Forward time travel. Just on the basis of something that hasnt happened yet, cannot be forced to happen faster, but something that has already happened can be revisited. I dont know of any mechanism or any way to alter the time dimensions but if there were, i think backwards time travel would be more probable. Well, its actually much easier for us to travel forward (what we call it anyways) in time. We're doing it now. If you read up a bit kettle explained it very generally.
JaKiri Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 Originally posted by M-CaTZ I actually think Reverse time travel is more possible than Forward time travel. Just on the basis of something that hasnt happened yet, cannot be forced to happen faster, but something that has already happened can be revisited. I dont know of any mechanism or any way to alter the time dimensions but if there were, i think backwards time travel would be more probable. If I wanted to travel to the future, I could do it by using Special Relativity.
M-CaTZ Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 ok, but what im saying is that all though in theory it might be easier to travel forward, in practicallity, only reverse makes sense. Do you guys see what i mean??
JaKiri Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 Originally posted by M-CaTZ ok, but what im saying is that all though in theory it might be easier to travel forward, in practicallity, only reverse makes sense. Do you guys see what i mean?? Not in the slightest.
Aleph-Null Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 Perhaps we are also travelling backwards and this could be the cause of the "deja vu" phenomenon.
Kettle Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 Originally posted by M-CaTZ ok, but what im saying is that all though in theory it might be easier to travel forward, in practicallity, only reverse makes sense. Do you guys see what i mean?? Er - kind of. So, forgetting all about Einstein and Relativity for a moment, we would find it easier to travel back in time because events in our past have already been established but we can't travel to the future because it hasn't been established. Have you been watching Time Cop by any chance? I've been looking about for some information on studies that people have already done on time travel and found this little gem: http://freespace.virgin.net/steve.preston/Time.html It's pitched at about my level too which is great Basically, it describes lots of theories for time travel.
Sayonara Posted July 10, 2003 Posted July 10, 2003 M-Catz means that in theory it should be easier to visit the past than the future, because the events of the past in his temporal model are not cause-dependent (they have already occured as a consequence of prior events), whereas events in the future are cause-dependent and two-way foward travel would have to resolve the multiple outcomes of causality without fixing them into any sort of dimensional chronology. This falls down slightly because just as we perceive events prior to now as being fixed and past causality relationships resolved, so would anybody who was native to a future we visited. Therefore if we were able to visit a future and observe causal outcomes we would have to assume that either: (a) There is no guarantee that during the period between the present and the future, events would follow the same causal pathway on subsequent visits, or indeed during the 'natural' evolution of the timeline, OR (b) All events in time are mapped strictly and immutably, and our present is no more 'special' than any other present. Throughout history there has been a great human tendency to assume that civilisation is at the leading edge of existence itself. However, just as we recognise that the Phoenecians and the Babylonians and the Roman Empire occured in the past, we should also consider that 'at some point' (as meaningless as the phrase may seem in this context) there will be a civilisation that considers us to be of slight historical note. Unfortunately, since we have no way of verifying how often history prior to our civilisation has been altered by people meddling with the timeline (if this has ever or will have ever happened), that really doesn't give us any clue at all as to whether or not the past or present are mutable. And of course there's a good chance all of time exists as a special case dimension, which would mean that everything that will ever happen all happened 'at once', and it is only our perception of events that is moving, not time itself.
Radical Edward Posted July 11, 2003 Posted July 11, 2003 Originally posted by MrL_JaKiri Isn't that what my post says? maybe it only got through to me on a subconscious level.
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