Time Travel

[Emilio Primo]

Your questions of post 23 are mostly metaphysical questions. Relativity predicts how time behaves, and is confirmed to a very high degree.

 

Yes, when it comes to time they are metaphysical, but apply them to gravity and you have this:

 

Gravity:

 

Is it a force? Yes, Gravity is a force.

 

Is it fluid? Yes.

 

If so, in which way? Expansive, Linear? Gravity moves in waves.

 

How fast does Gravity "move"? Gravity moves at the speed of light.

 

 

 

Now do you see know?

[swansont]

Is time a force? No. Is it a fluid? No. (neither is gravity, BTW)

 

The other two do not make sense.

[Emilio Primo]

Is time a force? No. Is it a fluid? No. (neither is gravity, BTW)

 

The other two do not make sense.

 

 

 

http://www.allanstime.com/UnifiedFieldTheory/gravity.htm

[swansont]

http://www.allanstime.com/UnifiedFieldTheory/gravity.htm

"New Theory of Gravity"

 

'nuff said

[michel123456]

Exactly, this is my point. What is time: Is it a force? Is it fluid? If so, in which way? Expansive, Linear? How fast does time "move"?

 

This is not metaphysics, it is only unanswered questions. No mystery, only ignorance. There is no obligation for science to answer everything so there is nothing to be ashamed of. The scientific procedure is going on.

 

How fast does time "move"?

 

At this question, I have an answer we discussed earlier in other places. It is not THE answer, it is just a speculation:

Time is not moving. We are moving through Time.

Time is like a receptacle, similar to Space. Scientifics have accepted that Space & Time are a continuum, called Space-time. Time can be transformed in space and inversely. But still it is difficult to make everyone admit that Time is not moving.

BTW, the standard model proposes that Space is expanding (not moving), so I guess that Time must be expanding too.

[Emilio Primo]

This is not metaphysics, it is only unanswered questions. No mystery, only ignorance. There is no obligation for science to answer everything so there is nothing to be ashamed of. The scientific procedure is going on.

 

 

 

At this question, I have an answer we discussed earlier in other places. It is not THE answer, it is just a speculation:

Time is not moving. We are moving through Time.

Time is like a receptacle, similar to Space. Scientifics have accepted that Space & Time are a continuum, called Space-time. Time can be transformed in space and inversely. But still it is difficult to make everyone admit that Time is not moving.

BTW, the standard model proposes that Space is expanding (not moving), so I guess that Time must be expanding too.

 

Excellent points, I didn't think of it that way, if space is expanding and if space-time are a continuum than that must mean time is expanding as well.

[MUTANT]

I fail to see what's logical about this. We travel into the future already because time progresses. Today becomes yesterday. There are very limited circumstances that would hypothetically allow travel into the past, and none that permit you to screw with stuff.

 

Guys, The universe Absolutely allows for travel into the future. It has been proven with atomic clocks on airplanes and the GPS system adjustments that must occur daily. In addition the apparent extended time it takes for particles to decay in a particle accelerator.

 

What folks miss is that "YOU THE TIME TRAVELER DO NOT TRAVEL INTO THE FUTURE". The traveler does not go zooming off into some

future place.

 

YOU simply slow down Time for the Time Traveler and everyone else Travels into the future at their current rate.

Time ticks slower (proven) under different circumstances. You simply need to place the

time traveler in one of those circumstances and when he emerges, he will return to a point in which

everyone/everything else has zoomed on past him. To the traveler, it will be the future.

The different circumstances to slow down time involve Mass and Light Speed (or near light speed). Thats for another

time.

 

So, You slow your own time down for a while (kinda like going to sleep) and when You emerge. Everybody and everything

else appears to you like the future. To them nothing out of the ordinary has happened. You are the fish out of water.. not them.

 

I dont know why these shows dont explain stuff in plain language like that. It is very straight forward. Creating the circumstance

is the hard part.

 

~MUTANT

 

Guys, The universe Absolutely allows for travel into the future. It has been proven with atomic clocks on airplanes and the GPS system adjustments that must occur daily. In addition the apparent extended time it takes for particles to decay in a particle accelerator.

 

What folks miss is that "YOU THE TIME TRAVELER DO NOT TRAVEL INTO THE FUTURE". The traveler does not go zooming off into some

future place.

 

YOU simply slow down Time for the Time Traveler and everyone else Travels into the future at their current rate.

Time ticks slower (proven) under different circumstances. You simply need to place the

time traveler in one of those circumstances and when he emerges, he will return to a point in which

everyone/everything else has zoomed on past him. To the traveler, it will be the future.

The different circumstances to slow down time involve Mass and Light Speed (or near light speed). Thats for another

time.

 

So, You slow your own time down for a while (kinda like going to sleep) and when You emerge. Everybody and everything

else appears to you like the future. To them nothing out of the ordinary has happened. You are the fish out of water.. not them.

 

I dont know why these shows dont explain stuff in plain language like that. It is very straight forward. Creating the circumstance

is the hard part.

 

~MUTANT

 

Time travel into the past works mathematically because mathematics can deal with a "Infinity" term in equations.

Infinity is no sweat on paper in a math equation. However, it drives physicists nuts. There is no current proof that

traveling into the past is possible. However, to travel into the past means that "Cause" and "Effect" laws must be

broken. There are on-going experiments to explore whether an effect can occur before the cause. Its possible that

this law can "APPEAR TO THE OBSERVER" to be broken if multi-dimensional effects are considered. To date,

I do not believe Cause and Effect reversal has really been proven to be possible.

 

~MUTANT

[michel123456]

IMO time travel involves a transgression of energy conservation.

Let's say I can go to the past. Puff, I appear in front of my father 50 years ago: isn't that a lot of energy "puffing" suddenly "from nowhere"? And when I disappear from now, isn't that a lot of energy lost "somewhere"? Isn't the whole idea contrary to the law of conservation of energy?

Edited July 30, 2010 by michel123456

[MUTANT]

The universe absolutely allows for travel into the future. It has been proven with atomic clocks on airplanes and the GPS system adjustments that must occur daily. In addition the apparent extended time it takes for particles to decay in a particle accelerator.

 

What folks miss is that

 

- YOU THE TIME TRAVELER DO NOT ZOOM OFF INTO THE FUTURE.

 

- YOU DO NOT MEET A FUTURE VERSION OF YOURSELF.

 

 

YOU simply slow down Time for the yourself and allow everyone else to travel into the future at their current rate. Time ticks slower (proven) under different circumstances. You simply need to place the time traveler in one of those circumstances and when he emerges, he will return to a point in which everyone/everything else has zoomed on ahead of him. To the traveler, it will be the future and he will have aged less than everybody else as well. The different circumstances to slow down time involve utilization of Mass and/or Speed.

 

So, you slow your own time down for a while (kinda like going to sleep) and when you emerge. Everybody and everything else has moved on into the future. To them nothing out of the ordinary has happened. It is not possible to meet up with yourself in the future because you took yourself out of that space-time arrow and then rejoined it later. Therefore, no paradox is created.

 

 

 

And yes, the mechanical clock on your arm ticks at a different rate than your friends that did not join you in the event. This has been proven with atomic clocks. Very strange, but the universe works this way. The important question is “WHY does it work this way”. This is what all of the particle colliders and search for gravitons, Higgs particles and so on hope to discover (among other things).

 

 

 

Its all about mass and speed and you can vary either one to create the circumstance. If a person stands next to the Great Pyramid in Egypt and another stands 2 miles from him next to nothing of mass, then the mechanical clocks on their arms tick at different rates. It is imperceptible by a human in this example but it makes the point that being near a large mass causes your clock to tick differently. You can also use speed. If you were on a train that circled the earth at near light speed (8 RPM) for fifty regular earth years; the passengers on the train will have only aged one week while everyone else will have aged 50 years.

 

 

 

Also, it is important to note that you will still die of old age. Essentially, you have your standard 70-80 year lifespan to accomplish all of your time travel. You can slow your aging down but you will eventually die. In the train example, you get about 1 shot in your lifetime to execute a time travel. However, if you could live to be 100, then you could do it twice if you started when you were born and didn’t care to look around too much after the first 50 year hop. You could get 200 years out of the deal that way.

 

 

 

The fact that you can vary mass or speed independently to affect time is the essence of Einstein’s insight that space and time in OUR universe are inseparable. Thus, the concept of space-time and all of the interesting discoveries that followed.

 

 

 

Time travel into the past works mathematically because mathematics can deal with a "Infinity" term in equations to overcome the problems of generating infinite energy. Infinity is no sweat on paper in a math equation. However, it drives physicist’s crazy. There is no current proof that traveling into the past is possible. The paradox of running into a past self or killing your parents can be overcome in concept by using the infinite self’s/time arrows concept. However, without that, to travel into the past means that "Cause" and "Effect" laws must be broken. There are on-going experiments to explore whether an effect can occur before the cause. Its possible that this law can "APPEAR TO THE OBSERVER" to be broken if multi-dimensional effects are considered. To date, I do not believe Cause and Effect reversal has really been proven to be possible YET.<br style=""> <br style="">

 

I don’t know why these shows and books don’t explain stuff in plain language like that. It is very straight forward. Creating the circumstance of large enough mass and/or enough speed is the hard part.

 

~MUTANT

 

 

 

I am going to take this time to pounce.

IMO

 

You cannot travel into the future, or the past for that matter, because our universe does not operate on our idea of time. Our idea of time is just that it is our IDEA, it is flawed and has no real substance.

 

And here is where i input a set of Logical Paradox: If you one day you could travel into the future then later you could travel to the past. If you can travel into the past then you could: A) screw with stuff, and B) travel to the Current(2010) present and give all the wonderful technological advances that the human race has achieved.

Now, we have had no crazy people from the future coming back with their time traveling device, nor have we experienced any wild and crazy inventions from some unimaginable future.

 

End logical paradox set.

IMO, if we were to eventually learn how to travel into the future it WOULD NOT be future as a function of time, it would be due to a multiverse or some similar concept.

 

You are correct under the premis that you state but Your understanding of the premise of "FUTURE TIME TRAVEL" is NOT what physicists are talking about when they refer to traveling into the future. Its a much more mundane and less exciting proposition but it can be done. See my later posts.

 

~MUTANT

 

IMO time travel involves a transgression of energy conservation.

Let's say I can go to the past. Puff, I appear in front of my father 50 years ago: isn't that a lot of energy "puffing" suddenly "from nowhere"? And when I disappear from now, isn't that a lot of energy lost "somewhere"? Isn't the whole idea contrary to the law of conservation of energy?

 

Yes, thats what I am saying with regard to traveling into the past. You can conceive of mechanisms to get around some of the problems, but they are not realistic in physics. A math major

can handle infinite dimensions but a physics has trouble getting beyond 4. Its the difference between paper math and physical reality. I added some stuff to my post and resubmitted it.

That might help.

 

Logic has nothing to do with any of this in the way that you use it. Traveling into the future under the circumstances I outlined are a function of the ACTUAL EXISTING laws of Physics

in our universe. These are proven and we use them everyday such as keeping the GPS time on the satellites accurate. Relativity is a real existing law. I don't if

Einstein got it perfect, but he sure advanced us thousands of years with this flash of insight. The LOGIC you refer to is exactly why it took so long for scientists to acept

it. It sounds counter-intuitive to us humans but it is really there.

 

Whoever established the laws (GOD, RA, ALLAH, etc) must have thought it was logical.

 

~MUTANT

[HiggsBoson]

Traveling forwards in time is relatively easy. When you walk, technically you are travelling forwards in time (a very tiny bit). Travelling backwards requires the bending of spacetime back on itself, we can currently do this with intense lasers, and can make subatomic particles travel back in time, but we can only make it travel back in time until the "time machine" was turned on. If we ever reach the point when we could do this, it would have to be very closely guarded, to prevent tampering.

[æτhεr φ]

If time travel is possible in the future, then people - from the future, would have already travelled back in time. - Ricky Gervais

 

I don't think it will ever be possible; furthermore I don't think we'll ever be able to defy the laws of the universe. My idea is that perhaps time as we understand it is actually standing still and the energy flowing backwards through the medium of "time" is percieved by us as progressing through time.

 

-P.S; that's to OP, I didn't have time to read the whole thread.

[swansont]

Traveling forwards in time is relatively easy. When you walk, technically you are travelling forwards in time (a very tiny bit).

 

You are traveling forward at one second per second, but it's not like you have a lot of choice in the a matter. In your own frame, that's what happens.

 

Travelling backwards requires the bending of spacetime back on itself, we can currently do this with intense lasers

 

We can? Are you referring to Ron Mallett's hypothesis? I wasn't aware he had succeeded.

 

 

I don't think we'll ever be able to defy the laws of the universe.

 

True by definition.

[Farsight]

It's a figure of speech swanson. You aren't really "travelling" into the future at one second per second.

 

All: Hold your hands up. See that gap between them? That's a space, and you can see it’s there. Now waggle those hands. That's motion, and you can see that’s there too. But can you see time? No. Can you see time flowing? No. Can you see any travelling through time? No. There’s no actual scientific evidence for time flowing or time travel. Time travel is science fiction, and it’s going to stay that way forever because travelling back in time is impossible. Not because wormholes are tricky, or because closed timelike curves are hard to handle. It’s impossible because we don’t even travel forward in time.

 

To understand this, think about a stasis box. That’s science fiction too. It’s the "ultimate refrigerator". No motion occurs inside the box, so when I put you inside, electromagnetic phenomena don’t propagate, and absolutely nothing happens. So you can’t see, you can’t hear, and you can’t even think. Hence when I open the door 5 years later, to you it’s like I opened the door just as soon as I closed it. And get this: you “travelled” to the future by not moving at all. Instead everything else did. And that motion wasn’t through time, and it wasn’t through spacetime, it was through space. You can't travel through spacetime because it's an "all time view". It's like taking a film of a red ball travelling across a room, then cutting the film up into individual frames and stacking them into a vertical pile. You can see a red streak in there, which is effectively the ball's world-line. But the ball isn't moving along it. Hence there's no actual travel through spacetime, and nor is there any actual travel through time.

 

Anyhow, that the stasis box is science fiction, but don’t forget, we can freeze embryos now. So “in the future” maybe we’ll be able to freeze an adult. Then you could “travel” to the future by stepping into a freezer. But you aren’t really travelling. You aren’t moving. Everything else is.

[IM Egdall]

I believe that the the point that Hawking was trying to make was that according to special relativity, motion slows down the passage of time. And this has been verified in a number of experiments, including with clocks in airplanes, clocks in rocket ships, and everyday operation of GPS. And careful laboratory experiments with light and subatomic particles agree with Einstein's prediction to great accuracy. (Gravity also slows down time, but we ignore that effect in this discussion.)

 

OK, so what does this imply? It tells us that we are all time travelers! It's just that at the speeds we travel at, the effect is miniscule. But it is real. For example, take a clock which is on your nightstand at home. Let's compare it to the watch on your wrist. (Let's assume both are time-pieces of remarkable accuracy.) When you get up in the morning, drive your car to work or school, and then return to your home that night, what do you find? You find that the wristwatch you took with you shows a tiny bit less elapsed time than the clock which remained on your night stand. Why? The motion your wrist watch experienced while traveling with you caused it to run a tiny bit slower. And here's the point. So did you! That is the elapsed time you experienced while in motion during the day was just a little bit less than the time elapsing inside your stationary house. So to you, time in your house when you return at night is a little bit later than your time. You have, in effect, traveled a tiny bit into the future.

 

Now what if someday people can travel at speeds which are a significant fraction of the speed of light. Then this "time dilation" effect is dramatic. And, according to Eisntein's formula, if they traveled at say 87% the speed of light, time on their rocket ship would elapse at half the rate of time on the Earth. So for 10 years on the space ship, 20 years will have gone by on Earth. Say it was the year 2350 when the rocket left the Earth, When it returns, Earth calendars now say it is 2370, But the calnedar on the rocket ship says it is only 2360. So to the people in the rocket, they have arrived back on Earth 10 years into the future.

 

Time Dilation Equation: Time Elapsed in Rocket = sqrt (1 - v**2) multiplied by the time elapsed on Earth

where v is the veolcity of the rocket as a percentage of the speed of light

[Farsight]

There's no issue with the SR time dilation equation, IME, or with the experimental proof. Time dilation is very real. But "the passage of time" is another figure of speech. Time doesn't actually "pass" in the sense that time literally moves or we literally move through it. Things move through space, and we use this to derive the time dimension. But it's a dimension of measure rather than one that offers freedom of movement. Yes, the macroscopic motion that your wristwatch experienced while travelling through space caused it to run a tiny bit slower. The reading on the face is reduced, and we say that less time elapsed. But all that really happened is that the cogs and sprockets within your watch moved at a reduced rate in what you'd call your local space or frame, because you were moving fast through the universe.

 

The wikipedia article on time dilation has a section showing how the time dilation equation is derived from Pythagoras' theorem. Consider the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle as the light path, and the base as your speed v as a fraction of c. Using natural units where c=1, the height √(1-v²/c²) gives the Lorentz factor, where we use a reciprocal because length contraction has the opposite sense to time dilation. If you're travelling at .99c the height of the triangle is .141 and the Lorentz factor is 7.089. In round numbers you'd experience a seventh of the time, and to you space would appear to be length-contracted sevenfold.

[swansont]

It's a figure of speech swanson. You aren't really "travelling" into the future at one second per second.

 

All: Hold your hands up. See that gap between them? That's a space, and you can see it’s there. Now waggle those hands. That's motion, and you can see that’s there too. But can you see time? No. Can you see time flowing? No. Can you see any travelling through time? No. There’s no actual scientific evidence for time flowing or time travel. Time travel is science fiction, and it’s going to stay that way forever because travelling back in time is impossible. Not because wormholes are tricky, or because closed timelike curves are hard to handle. It’s impossible because we don’t even travel forward in time.

 

To understand this, think about a stasis box. That’s science fiction too. It’s the "ultimate refrigerator". No motion occurs inside the box, so when I put you inside, electromagnetic phenomena don’t propagate, and absolutely nothing happens. So you can’t see, you can’t hear, and you can’t even think. Hence when I open the door 5 years later, to you it’s like I opened the door just as soon as I closed it. And get this: you “travelled” to the future by not moving at all. Instead everything else did. And that motion wasn’t through time, and it wasn’t through spacetime, it was through space. You can't travel through spacetime because it's an "all time view". It's like taking a film of a red ball travelling across a room, then cutting the film up into individual frames and stacking them into a vertical pile. You can see a red streak in there, which is effectively the ball's world-line. But the ball isn't moving along it. Hence there's no actual travel through spacetime, and nor is there any actual travel through time.

 

Anyhow, that the stasis box is science fiction, but don’t forget, we can freeze embryos now. So “in the future” maybe we’ll be able to freeze an adult. Then you could “travel” to the future by stepping into a freezer. But you aren’t really travelling. You aren’t moving. Everything else is.

 

Just to confirm this: you are using a science-fiction scenario to disprove a position that I have never put forth, namely, that freezing someone represents time travel.

[Farsight]

No. I'm countering the position you did put forth, that you are traveling forward [in time] at one second per second. You aren't , because you aren't travelling in time at all. It's just a figure of speech. The science-fictional stasis box and film frames and the freezer hopefully make this clear, and hopefully make it clear that time travel is science fiction too.

[phyti]

I still agree with Farsight's reasoning about time, and his bean counting example he posted a few years back. He sees it for what it is, a measuring process, no different than measuring spatial distances, or a correlation reference to study various physical relations, like the motion of a stone in a gravitational field. The sleep/coma/death example shows that if you aren't counting time, you aren't aware of its passage. The simple fact that motion alters the observers sense of time (per SR) is sufficient to indicate that it is not a common or universal shared experience, like so many people floating down a river on a boat. SR measures distances with clocks, thus the space-time connection, but that is no mystery either.

Time travel provides more drama, mystery, and adventure than bland science, and sells more books. Who has the greater fan base, Einstein, or Star Trek? I'm not anti science fiction, but like to maintain a clear distinction, and not mix the two.

[netrat]

Time is another dimension like Space. So its relative just like space.

 

suppose a father named A gets stuck in a blackhole where time virtually stops to zero. He wont age anymore.

His son will age sitting on earth.

If u pull father out of blackhole when son is as old as father,

then son is seeing the past of father( youth of father), while father is seeing future of son ( old son).

While for everybody else, both are in present!

Its relative.

 

 

COUNTER ARGUMENT FOR "FARSIGHT" Freeze Problem:-

You have taken a complex specimen for freezing. namely biological system.

Take two photon clocks.

Put one in freezer other outside for as long as you want. Both will read the same time.

 

Now put one photon clock on a fast moving vehical and the other with you. Time counts slower on vehicle photon clock than that on with you.

 

Stationary Photon clock:- [please ignore dots (.)]

------------------------

.............O (photon)

.............*

.............*

.............*

.............*

.............*

.............*

------------------------ (mirrors)

 

 

Moving Photon Clock:-

-------------------------------

..........................O

........................*

......................*

....................*

..................*

................*

..............*

............*

------------------------------- (mirrors moving -> )

 

NOTE: Each bounce counts suppose 1sec.

Stationary Photon clock covers shortest distance (straight line) while moving covers longer hence time difference in individual bounces.

Edited September 3, 2010 by zacinfinite

[swansont]

I still agree with Farsight's reasoning about time, and his bean counting example he posted a few years back. He sees it for what it is, a measuring process, no different than measuring spatial distances, or a correlation reference to study various physical relations, like the motion of a stone in a gravitational field. The sleep/coma/death example shows that if you aren't counting time, you aren't aware of its passage. The simple fact that motion alters the observers sense of time (per SR) is sufficient to indicate that it is not a common or universal shared experience, like so many people floating down a river on a boat. SR measures distances with clocks, thus the space-time connection, but that is no mystery either.

Time travel provides more drama, mystery, and adventure than bland science, and sells more books. Who has the greater fan base, Einstein, or Star Trek? I'm not anti science fiction, but like to maintain a clear distinction, and not mix the two.

 

If you go down that road you have to argue that distance is an illusion as well, as it is also altered by motion. It is not universal. And the argument that this is about perception misses the point — perception is a psychological phenomenon, completely divorced from the physics. Motion alters time, not just the perception of time. Any clock, or any mechanism or process that is dependent on time is going to be affected.