Time Travel?

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joevennix
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Time Travel?

Post by joevennix » Sat Jul 15, 2006 6:15 pm

The last few days I've been reading a bit about time travel. I got the basic understanding of the theories, including Einstein's relavitivity. Scientists proved, using atomic clocks, that if an object is moving faster than another object, time will pass slower for the faster object.

I wanted to read all the theories and things, but many of them involve high level physics and quantum mechanics and such. So my question to you all is whether or not you think time travel is feasible, whether it involves just observing the past/future, or actually participating in it. In a few decades will we be able to go back, see events in our lives, maybe even be able to change them? Will we be able to look into the future?

Also, if any of you guys no much about the theories/propositions that have been put forth on the possibilities of time travel, could you 'dumb them down' please? thanks.
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Post by bicostp » Sat Jul 15, 2006 6:26 pm

All I know is:

- you need a flux capacitor
- the stainless steel body of the DeLorean keeps it stable in the time warp
- you must bring your own weapons
- your safety isn't guarenteed.

;)

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Post by ganonbanned » Sat Jul 15, 2006 6:30 pm

wow, i have been trying to find things to read about time travel lately. i know nothing about time travel though.

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Post by timmeh87 » Sat Jul 15, 2006 6:33 pm

i doubt i will ever be able/want to go back in time and meet myself. i say this because i have not met a future version of myself... ;)
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Post by vskid » Sat Jul 15, 2006 6:41 pm

timmeh87 wrote:i doubt i will ever be able/want to go back in time and meet myself. i say this because i have not met a future version of myself... ;)
Thats what I think, if I go back and change something, why would my past self change it? Then it would go back to the way it was before I changed it and I would have to go back and change it again, and so on.
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Post by joevennix » Sat Jul 15, 2006 6:58 pm

From what I've read it says that when electrons move from one level to another, they move in an infinite number of different paths. Each path belongs to its own parallel universe, so if you go back to the past and kill your parents before you were born, you would just be killing your parents from a parallel universe in which your parents end up dead and you were never born, not the ones from your own.

Hard to explain. I hope I'm understanding it right
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Post by teraflop122 » Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:36 pm

Yes, you've explained one of a few basic paradoxes related to time travel, and one theory of how they can be remedied. Another paradox is getting information from nowhere: you go to the future and read a physics article in a magazine, you bring it back and explain the concept to your student, who then ends up writing that article. Where did the information come from?

Travel into the future is extremely feasible. You just need to go really, really fast. Travelling into the past is theoretically possible, though not particularly feasible. You would need to make use of some objects which may or may not exist. For instance, an infinitely massive cylinder of infinite length rotating faster than the speed of light. Light waves would be drawn around the cylinder into a causal loop, allowing travel to the past. A so-called "cosmic string," a remnant of the Big Bang, could be used similarly. Theoretically, a cylinder of curved lasers could stop time for anything travelling within. All rather abstract stuff.

Understanding time travel requires you to wrap your mind around some concepts barely within the limits of human comprehension. Time is not linear- that is a human simplification. Neither must there be multiple universes- that is also a human simplification. We perceive space as three dimensions, and time makes a fourth dimension, but more than seven dimension exist. It is completely impossible for any human to visualize 7th dimensional space, so it'll take a while for us to figure out the dynamics of such a complex system.

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Post by Sword_Gun » Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:41 pm

One way to go back in time,

Fly to china, You will lose about 5 hours and get Jetlag, then fly back, your actually reversing time sort to say.

10 PM there, when you get back its like 10AM YESTURDAY :D
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Post by vskid » Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:42 pm

I read in Popular Science that there was a time travel convention held, and no one from the future came, so traveling back in time=not possible, even in the future.
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Post by teraflop122 » Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:53 pm

Or that could simply mean we don't survive long enough to achieve it :shock:

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Post by joevennix » Sat Jul 15, 2006 7:58 pm

They might have come to the convention, but in a different parallel universe or something. I don't know.

@teraflop: If you were to go 10x faster than the speed of light, couldn't you eventually catch up with the light rays that were reflected on earth, and you would be able to 'view' the future. Wait, no, light eventually dissapates.

I understand the whole 'going faster than light into the future' concept. I also understand that some scientists propose that if one went through a shortcut in the space time continuum, called a worm hole, that allows you to skip through the mesh of the universe, cutting in front of light waves at your previous location, and putting you in the future, or what happened before the light waves from the previous location got there. Or something like that.

Also, doesn't gravity have an adverse effect on time? Like a clock at the top story of a skyscraper will run a millionth of a microsecond faster than a clock at the bottom or something crazy like that??

This is all really interesting to me.
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Post by vskid » Sat Jul 15, 2006 8:04 pm

joevennix wrote:This is all really interesting to me.
Really? It makes my brain want to fry.
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Post by wallydawg » Sat Jul 15, 2006 8:20 pm

bicostp wrote:All I know is:

- you need a flux capacitor
- the stainless steel body of the DeLorean keeps it stable in the time warp
- you must bring your own weapons
- your safety isn't guarenteed.

;)
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Post by Lucretius » Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:00 pm

Quick warning: anybody who tries to jepordize the serious nature some are trying to reach with this topic will be punished...

I think one thing should be understood. There is no faster than light period. There's no hypothesizing about it. It can't and won't happen ever. That said, the speed of flight is only useful in future travels. The thing with time is, thought it isn't constant, it is uni-direction and linear. Foward only. 1 dimension of time. 3 of space. Several others for m-theory purposes. Velocity at speeds approaching lightspeed (because nothing created at the speed of light, can ever reach it), though usefull in slowing time down, are powerless to completely stop and reverse it.

And no, gravity and time are only related in relative schemes and not by any direct means like velocity and time.
Last edited by Lucretius on Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by gamer2 » Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:02 pm

I read somewhere that time travel is feasable, but it requires an adorbant amount of energy. Now when it comes to travel i think you should not beable to return to your time if you go into the past, and you cant go to the future.

according to certain theries the faster you approach Light speed, time in your vessel will slow down, while the time outside will speed up. Time machines do exist, you can buy them on ebay. :-D
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