My take on time travel

Lets shatter the idea shall we?

My favourite concept of time travel would be the idea of harnessing cosmic strings.

Yet another theory for how we might travel back and forth through time uses the idea of cosmic strings, proposed by Princeton physicist J. Richard Gott in 1991. These are -- as their name suggests -- string-like objects that some scientists believe were formed in the early universe. These strings may line the entire length of the universe and are under immense pressure -- millions upon millions of tons.

These cosmic strings, which are thinner than an atom, would generate an enormous amount of gravitational pull on any objects that pass near them. Objects attached to a cosmic string could travel at incredible speeds, and because their gravitational force distorts spacetime, they could be used for time travel. By pulling two cosmic strings close together, or one string close to a black hole, it might be possible to warp spacetime enough to create closed time-like curves.

A spacecraft could be turned into a time machine by using the gravity produced by the two cosmic strings, or the string and black hole, to propel itself into the past. To do this, it would loop around the cosmic strings.

science.howstuffworks.com...

Now that sounds fine and dandy. Its kind of like the idea of wormholes, black/white holes.

Now this is the funny part in the article.

Gott himself said that in order to travel back in time even one year, it would take a loop of string that contained half the mass-energy of an entire galaxy. And, as with any time machine, you couldn't go back farther than the point at which the time machine was created.

Wow thats not much at all.





So we have our razor thin cosmic strings set in place and we suckered some poor sap into testing out our new thoughts. How are we going to travel around these cosmic strings? Well lets just say, since we have no clue, that the experimental pilot is travelling in some "bubble".

(yep a bubble)

Now he has to endure millions upon millions upon millions of pounds of force, for the entire time he wants to travel.

So now this man is sucked into the cosmic strings and the "bubble" is somehow propelling at insane speeds in the free space time.

So is this man travelling in time? Well supposedly, in our little perfect world.

But the question is this. We don't know if cosmic strings actually exist. Now if they do, and say there are two working together already, or near a blackhole for that matter. Isnt "something" time travelling already?

This is the thing I dont understand about cosmic strings.

Its kind of the same way with blackholes / white holes and worm holes as something goes in and comes out. We dont really know what happens to something that goes inside.

So now back to the time travel idea.

Lets use John titor for an example.

If he can only go back in time as long as his time machine was created, how did he travel back in time to before it was created?

Already we have a problem.

Now say we are still spinning around in our cosmic strings, going back in time. What happens when you reach the point of STARTING to go back in time?

Do you instantly stop moving in time? How because these cosmic strings are still atrracting you.

The cosmic string supposedly was created when the universe was created, does that mean we can go back that far?

And then what?


I myself believe if anything, time travel TO the future is possible, but back seems to strange. Perhaps one can achieve sufficient time dilation speeds to go into the future a bit, but anything into the past seems too strange.





[edit on 18-6-2005 by Dulcimer]

There is also the age old question of, "how come we dont already have time travellers?"

Well a few thoughts come to mind.

1-What if mankind doesnt last long enough to figure it out?

2-It hasnt been done yet

3-If it did happen, say today I create a time machine, if I go back in time i am only going to go back as far as I have created it. so a few days pass, say 3 and i say hey everyone i have a time machine ! everyones like wow, lets see it work. so i go back in time 3 days. that people that say wow, lets see it work havnt actually said anything yet.



But theres also the issue of multiple dimensions and such.

I guess in theory you could go INTO the future, and then come back and see what happened.

But in normal life you are basically doing the same thing!



[edit on 18-6-2005 by Dulcimer]

Time travel is not possible for the simple reason that you cannot create temporal paradoxes like the famous: If I kill my mother before Im born, then how can I exist, which means how could I have killed my mother, etc
*head explodes*

No one has a good answer for this.

Originally posted by Raideur
Time travel is not possible for the simple reason that you cannot create temporal paradoxes like the famous: If I kill my mother before Im born, then how can I exist, which means how could I have killed my mother, etc
*head explodes*

No one has a good answer for this.

Thats where the multiple dimensions come in where you can exist in two places etc.

Wow, wait a second, multiple dimensions?

Actually, multiple dimensions doesnt seem that absurd considering your using black holes and cosmic strings for time travel....

Also another thing I was thinking.

At what speed does the time traveller age? Does one age "normally?"

Would organisms be able to evolve using means of cosmic string travel?

I just think time is funnel shaped, but there is a "higher" or maybe "lower" dimension that we cant see that dosnt actually make it so "funnel shaped". In "our" perception, its funnel shaped, but in a different dimension it could be split up into something completly different. I think time is more in a shape of a dealers rose(look it up if you dont know what I'm talking about). For every card in the "dealers rose" represents seconds of time that go on forever, but in this shape(dealers rose) there is a center that this is being rapped around. If we could find out how to get to this center then we could go up or down in time. With this theory it kinda goes into time being overlaped, which could also explain ghosts and deja vu.

[edit on 19-6-2005 by TravisT]

Originally posted by Dulcimer[/i

By pulling two cosmic strings close together, or one string close to a black hole, it might be possible to warp spacetime enough to create closed time-like curves.

science.howstuffworks.com...

[edit on 18-6-2005 by Dulcimer]

Just wanted to point something out that was on the website. "...to warp spacetime enough to create closed time-like curves."

What the hell is a time-like curve?