Question on Block Time and Relativity/String Theory.

[etcetcetc00]

Time seems to be inversely related to speed to me. If I speed up to just under the speed of light, physical restrictions not withstanding, time slows down for me relative to anyone not moving as fast. It almost seems like we are constantly traveling forward through time as we are now, and can affect the speed at which we travel through time by increasing the speed at which we travel through space. If a man could bypass the flow of time of the rest of the universe by traveling quickly, it implies to me that time is an established dimension that can be traveled along just the same as the three spatial dimensions.

My question is to what degree does this relativistic property of time constitute as time travel, and if it does constitute as time travel, how does that not explicitly suggest Block Time?

Also, if a point in time contains all points in the three subsequent dimensions, how can string theorists talk about eleven dimensions without the whole of the time dimension contained within one of those higher dimensions?

I am a layman, and I may be making large assumptions. If that's the case, have a heart and let me know instead of passing on it if it seems ridiculous.

[ajb]

Time dilation effects are not usually considered as time-travel.

[etcetcetc00]

Why not? If a man travels so fast it takes him beyond the point in time he would have been in had he not been moving so fast, that seems like time travel to me. Help me out.

[ajb]

Look up closed time-like curves on google.

[etcetcetc00]

Anyone care to just explain it here?

[ajb]

paths in which you end up in your own past.

[iPeppers]

Time seems to be inversely related to speed to me. If I speed up to just under the speed of light, physical restrictions not withstanding, time slows down for me relative to anyone not moving as fast. It almost seems like we are constantly traveling forward through time as we are now, and can affect the speed at which we travel through time by increasing the speed at which we travel through space. If a man could bypass the flow of time of the rest of the universe by traveling quickly, it implies to me that time is an established dimension that can be traveled along just the same as the three spatial dimensions.

My question is to what degree does this relativistic property of time constitute as time travel, and if it does constitute as time travel, how does that not explicitly suggest Block Time?

Also, if a point in time contains all points in the three subsequent dimensions, how can string theorists talk about eleven dimensions without the whole of the time dimension contained within one of those higher dimensions?

I am a layman, and I may be making large assumptions. If that's the case, have a heart and let me know instead of passing on it if it seems ridiculous.

 

I think it is just how you want to phrase it in your own mind. I wouldn't see anything wrong with calling that time travel. Technically we are traveling through time as we speak, and to an extent we can control this with our movement through the spatial dimensions. Traveling at the speed of light would be as if time had slowed to a stop. Too bad we can't travel faster than the speed of light, because then one might be able to take a leap and say time might run into the negatives, or we would travel backwards in time?

 

I'm not a string theorist, so I wouldn't know for sure, but does time need to be contained within the extra dimensions that string theorists like to tag on? When they talk about 11 dimensions, time is included as one of those dimensions.

 

The rest of the dimensions don't all have to be spatial either, what if there were more dimensions that acted more like our familiar time dimension, but more compact and curled up instead of blown up to interact directly with our senses? I found Brian Greene's the Elegant Universe book and documentary on Nova to be quite interesting on these subjects, but it really does leave everyone a bit confused in the end. There are many different versions of string theory as well as m-theory going around, and there could be any number of possibilities when talking about extra dimensions.

[cameron marical]

paths in which you end up in your own past

 

well, with that i see two different things, either.;

a; it changes the future you came from therefore yourself.

or

b;it spawns off into its own parrallel universe and affects "your" future in that parrallel universe. not the one from wich you came. so you{the one who were talking about} are not affected.

[ajb]

well, with that i see two different things, either.;

a; it changes the future you came from therefore yourself.

or

b;it spawns off into its own parrallel universe and affects "your" future in that parrallel universe. not the one from wich you came. so you{the one who were talking about} are not affected.

 

Or it is just completely consistent. You always were part of your history. But then what happens to free will?

[iPeppers]

Well I would conclude that humans never learn how to time travel. If they did, then we would have some record of time travelers, or see them amongst us. Since the human population keeps expanding, one would think that if time travel were invented, that humans would eventually expand into our own pasts. But this has obviously not happened. So either time travel must be impossible for us, or we just get wiped out before we figure it out. Or we do figure it out, but it is too expensive or difficult for everyone but a select few to use, and then we get wiped out before it gets to be feasible for everyone.