Sounds controversial but adds up, debate it

I agree with cam man. This is how I see it.

Time is nothing more than a human concept of the mind. We created time to structure our lives and society.. we used it to mark the progress of a day.. which ofcourse was simply when our location on earth faced the sun.

The invent of science fiction distorted that concept. Unfortunately then we had everyone thinking about time travel.. as a force or field that can be manipulated. This just seems to go against common sense and logic. Just because we beleive in a concept to understand existance, doesn't mean that concept is true for the reality of the universe, and therefore doesn't mean it can be manipulated.

The light speed - time travel theory that Einstein popularized is badly misinterpretted. You cannot pop back into the past, or the future. Like some kind of portal or dimensional shift. It doesn't work that way. This is how I would explain the effect of Einstein's theory:

Time as we see it is a constant because time doesn't exist. What you can do however is speed up the standard rate that particles (energy and matter) act. I'm not talking about an increase in kinetic energy, either. That increase in the standard rate would make things age (in the light speed craft) because the particles are working faster, (an illusion of time travel).

When it gets back to Earth, it appears the craft and its contents are older. That is a physical effect of the increase in standard rate. But the bottom line is, both the earth and the craft were experiencing the same 'reality' while they were apart. There is no 'time travel', not in the fantasy sense anyway.

The way you think about this depends on your definitions and the concepts in your mind.

Time travel is simple in the world of particles. As far as they're concerned an electron traveling forward in time is the same as an anti-electron (positron) traveling backwards. Who's to say I'm not actually my anti-self traveling back to birth being driven by a remembered present?

It only becomes tricky once you try to plug the observer into the picture.

Originally posted by SteveR


The light speed - time travel theory that Einstein popularized is badly misinterpretted. You cannot pop back into the past, or the future. Like some kind of portal or dimensional shift. It doesn't work that way. This is how I would explain the effect of Einstein's theory:

Time as we see it is a constant because time doesn't exist. What you can do however is speed up the standard rate that particles (energy and matter) act. I'm not talking about an increase in kinetic energy, either. That increase in the standard rate would make things age (in the light speed craft) because the particles are working faster, (an illusion of time travel).

When it gets back to Earth, it appears the craft and its contents are older. That is a physical effect of the increase in standard rate. But the bottom line is, both the earth and the craft were experiencing the same 'reality' while they were apart. There is no 'time travel', not in the fantasy sense anyway.

The way you think about this depends on your definitions and the concepts in your mind.

Hi SteveR,

It's interesting the way you describe the effects of FTL travel re: Special Relativity. Are you saying that when the 'craft' returns to Earth, it and it's occupants won't be older then they should be? In other words the astronauts will be the same age but will have some sort of cellular damage (as will the craft?)

When i said time travel was theoretically possible via Special Relativity i didn't mean in the sci-fi (instantaneous) sense... and there's no way to go back of course... and this all depends on actually getting a craft to travel faster than c. I guess i always assumed that if you're going FTL (or close enough to it) you 'slip' out of our space time (out pace it?) and when you slow down (re-enter) more time has passed "here" than you've experienced "there." Not really time travel in the classic sense... but traveling to the future none-the-less. Am i way off here?

In other words the astronauts will be the same age but will have some sort of cellular damage (as will the craft?)

Yes, basically, although all particle and energy processes would have sped up during the light speed travel, and although that will give the illusion of them and the craft being older, no change in reality/time would have occured.

I don't know about you being way off, you seem to know more about the science and terminology than I do, lol, however semantics is coming into play here so before we continue discussing it we will probably need to agree on a definition of time, or two.

The concept of time (that stemmed from sci fi) seems to be a universal force, dimension, or attribute, that when altered (ala time travel) will place the traveller in a different reality, distinguished by being in a different time frame compared to the last origin, discounting any flaws with clock systems and mental perception.

If your going with a definition applicable to that, then again, given my previous post I don't think "time" exists.

Originally posted by SteveR
Yes, basically, although all particle and energy processes would have sped up during the light speed travel, and although that will give the illusion of them and the craft being older, no change in reality/time would have occured.

Basically, in you scenario, the craft/occupants couldn't survive FTL travel, yes/most likely?

I don't know about you being way off, you seem to know more about the science and terminology than I do, lol, however semantics is coming into play here so before we continue discussing it we will probably need to agree on a definition of time, or two.

I would agree with what you say about semantics... this almost gets philosophical ie, what is time. I agree that time (minutes, years, etc etc) is a human concept (which is really just a measurement of distances traveled.)

I don't believe 'backwards' time travel is possible; excluding the multiverse hypothesis. If i'm not mistaken a multiverse (M-theory) would exist outside of our space/time by definition... therefore it's akin to testing for the supernatural imo. Regardless you wouldn't actually travel to your own past but to one of the (infinitly possible) similar one's which is simply 'behind' where you are.

None of this, to my knowledge, is provable or testable even. They took the 10 dimensional String Theory and added the 11th dimension (time), and that's where you get your infinite multiverse. Of course nobody's theorizing how to build such a craft or how it'd be possible to navigate through such a multiverse... i believe it exists largly as theoretical concept in physics - something to do with resolving some mathematical issues (WAY over my head.)

I'm with you though, a defintion of time is in order but sorry, no i don't have one (outside of the mechanics of how we measure it; which don't add much.)

The concept of time (that stemmed from sci fi) seems to be a universal force, dimension, or attribute, that when altered (ala time travel) will place the traveller in a different reality, distinguished by being in a different time frame compared to the last origin, discounting any flaws with clock systems and mental perception.

If your going with a definition applicable to that, then again, given my previous post I don't think "time" exists.

What i meant by special relativity and time travel is demonstrated in the Twin Paradox

Twin Paradox
The story is that one of a pair of twins leaves on a high speed space journey during which he travels at a large fraction of the speed of light while the other remains on the Earth. Because of time dilation, time is running more slowly in the spacecraft as seen by the earthbound twin and the traveling twin will find that the earthbound twin will be older upon return from the journey. The common question: Is this real? Would one twin really be younger?

The basic question about whether time dilation is real is settled by the muon experiment. The clear implication is that the traveling twin would indeed be younger, but the scenario is complicated by the fact that the traveling twin must be accelerated up to traveling speed, turned around, and decelerated again upon return to Earth. Accelerations are outside the realm of special relativity and require general relativity.

Despite the experimental difficulties, an experiment on a commercial airline confirms the existence of a time difference between ground observers and a reference frame moving with respect to them.

ThePole Barn Paradox

The Bug-RivetParadox

I always thought this was the majority opinion... not without it's controvercy but not sci-fi either... i'd have to admit that your description of what happens when moving FTL makes more sense... and doesn't require a new defintion of time either. But i'm a layman so what do i know.

I willing to go out on a limb and suggest Einstein knew something i don't... my point was that i always thought the twin paradox was well - still a paradox - but we currently had no reason to believe the twin on the rocket won't be older than his brother when returns to Earth (outside of having no actual defintion of what time is of course .)

hmm i think time travel is possible.

black holes warp time and bend time.

wormholes might be able to intersect with wormholes in past so wam bam instant time travel.


Now as for traveling into the future and back well thats probably possible too, BUT if you changed anything from future knowledge the future you travelled too would not take place therefore changeing events in an unkown way, so if you knew the results of the stock exchange in future an started buying the results would be altered by your interaction of where before you had not interacted so it would be a differant outcome from the non interaction travel you did to the future as to your returned interaction.

traveling to the past wold require a forcefield of somesort to surround you and it would have to be on a differant dimension to the past time but still let you move around maybe you could travel back in a differant phase of existance and be like a ghost hologram that no one could see, but you could roam about and gain and witness events without interacting or changeing anything.

if time travel has been done and people have messed with the past then no one would ever know, as the instant change in the timeline would be normal to everyone so one day skys blue today, someone invents time travel goes back in time and does something to change colour of the sky to say green, now in the future the colour of the sky would have always been green for all of time since the time traveler changed it, now that makes a paradox as if the sky had always been green the time traveler wouldnt bother going back?? Maybe the time travler does go back and sees the blue sky and makes a green one as in future its green from before when he went back, what if he changes his mind and thinks blues better and dont change it bam blue skys back forever but then he would go back and change it to green but then green always blue looks better bam back to blue LOL back an forwards like a loop that.


i think the future does exist, i think everything exists here and now, as here and now is every where and always will be.

Does time travel 1 path even if you could time travel and change something would time correct it back to what it shouldve been???

cause if i time travel now back 20 mins and tell myslef to not type all this then i wouldnt type it, but if i dont type it i wouldnt travelback to tell myself not to type it would i, so in the end i would type it and it would be and always be, even if i time travled back to say dont type it, it would stillbe here as the effect of it not being in existance would make me type it in the first place, so by travelling back in time and saying dont type it you actually make it possible again for it to exist int he first place so it always has existed??? no way of changeing it either as it would come into existance if i do or dont type it hmm confuseing.