My thoughts on time travel

I always believed it was impossible to go back in time, but undoubtedly you can go forward. But the other day I was thinking. What if the government did have a device to go back in time to change the course of the future? What if the government killed Kennedy? Many speculate as to whether they did or not, to cover up his speech on extraterrestrials, but they always think of the 1963 government doing that. What if our present government did that or even our future government? That would certainly have changed history, and this website may not even be in existence today. Wouldn’t my idea explain the magic bullet theory? And what about the first shot in the revolutionary war. What if the 1775 colonies decided to forfeit to England at the last second, on the battlefield. Then in 2020, while the United States was controlled by England they used a time machine to go back and fire a shot to start the war, and we all know the US won. There could even be other examples but there the only two that crossed my mind. I hope this all wasn’t too confusing.

[edit on 3/5/2006 by Schmidt1989]

[edit on 25/3/2006 by Umbrax]

Originally posted by Schmidt1989
I always believed it was impossible to go back in time, but undoubtedly you can go forward.
[edit on 3/5/2006 by Schmidt1989]

By going forward, do you mean each passing day is a "slow" "trip into the future" or do you mean you could in theory go "into the future" but not back in time?
There lies a paradox my friend......if you think of time as a river with many branches, each branch representing a possible "future" how would you know, that you were in the "right" future? What if you witnessed something in "a" future, but when you got back----to "your" time the event never occurs, cause you zigged, when you should have zagged.... And if you mean being able to "travel" to the future somehow, then when you return, wouldn't you be "going back in time"? "Time" is a human idea, that has yet to be fully understood. But even though the concept of time is human, the "passing" of time is observed and felt by all. Even though I am pretty sure my dogs have no distinction between 1 second, 1 minute, or one hour, they still know that at 8:15 pm my SO will soon be coming through the door and wait by it until it opens...

I mean litterally go forward but not come back. You project a ship into earths orbit at a very very high speed (not yet possible today) then the person inside the ship will age slower than someone on earth. when people from earth go into orbit at any speed, they come back down essentially a few seconds younger than they wouldve been if they stayed one earth. in 20 years, we could probably change that few seconds into few days, still not making a visible difference but younger none the less. get where im going?

Check the forum for some of our excellent threads on this very subject.

There's a lot of material there that will give you some interesting insights on your thought problem.

Well, I have two reasons that I give for why Time Travel is either impossible, or irrelevant.

Reason 1: Straight Line theory leads to Paradox

If you consider Time to be a straight 1-dimensional line, then you can go forward and backwards on it. In this universe if you travel back in time and change something, everything ahead of you will change.

The problem is though that FATE exists to stop you. If you try to change something, then you would be changing the circumstances under which you left, and may never have left at all. Grandfather Paradox: You go back in time and kill your Grandfather. If you killed your Grandfather though, then you should never have existed to go back and kill your Grandfather. Therefore, your Grandfather should exist - but that also allows you to exist and go back and kill him again.

Thus, something must happen where, if you go back in time, FATE will prevent you from changing anything in time. Whatever you do back in time, you already have done - it's just that it didn't matter.

Reason 2: Time is a cone leads to no paradox, but nothing useful.

In this reason, time can be considered a cone. At any quantum event and at any decision, all the different possible actions occur - and a seperate universe exists for each. If you go back in time in this universe you can change things, and it won't result in a paradox - since there's another universe (the one you're from) where you didn't change things.

However, changing things then makes it so that your universe still remains unchanged, and so upon returning to YOUR universe, nothing will be unchanged.

However, you could travel forward back to your time in this ALTERNATE universe to see the fruits of your labour - but other quantum changes might happen along the way (different decisions made by other people, and so on - since, as it's a different universe, different "spin-off" universes will continue to form from the quantum events of that universe).

This means that you can't be sure that changing the past will change the future the way you want it to.



In the end it means that time travel is, from a "changing history" perspective, pointless - since you can't change your history, no matter what. This means that conspiracies shouldn't be formed around Time Travel because it wouldn't make sense.

So, I'm not saying you can't time travel - just that doing so is useless.


Oh, and as for people aging slower in space - that happens all the time, not just in space. Any movement through space causes a distortion in time. If you walk forward and your friend beside you stands still then you'll age slower than your friend. A baseball thrown forwards looks like it gains mass, whilst time slows down for it, as it hurdles towards a catcher's glove.

It's happening all the time my friend - but I don't think it's uses are that great except at nearly light-speed, and for travelling to distant stars.

thanks for all the helpful information friends.

Travel at the speed of light, then you will reduce the distance to every single particle in the universe to nothing, along with the entire age of the universe being your existence.

I propose that if you somehow manage to not move at all (relativistic to the non existent ether), then you will be infinitely far away from everything in this universe, and there will be no end of time as no time will pass.

I further propose that we are somewhere in between those two scenarios.

yeah, time travel is just impossible. that would mean for every micro second of our very life, there is always past, and a possible future. that means, why hasnt anyone come from the future yet, because if time is travelable, then that means, before we were even born, we had died, and someone would have gone back in time before they even existed. Now I think its more possible to slow down time around you, in a specific time to allow time around you to proceed faster, but going backwards is impossible.

my thaughts exactly Para Bellum

Reason for why no ones come to us form the future is THEY DON'T WANT US KNOWING so I'm sure they could keep it secret if they have technology to travel time, also maybe UFO's are time machines or time UAV's machines to record data on the time era's they travel too.

Lots of FOO FIGHTERS during WW2, they have been seen all through out history too, but huge amounts of them during WW2 was spotted by all sides, plus if we think they are extraterrestrial then we don't figure out they are time vehicles or UAV's from the future.


As for traveling in person to one place, i think you were probably always there, for if you travel there you had to leave in the first place meaning you were there in the first place as well, that allows you to leave and not make any changes as well cause you were always there and the future of you there will be same as when you left to travel there cause you were there anyway.

...if you would travel to the future or past... would there be something there at all? some people say no, past and future, as we try to conceive it does not exist.. only the present.

But that's something I can only imagine a timetraveler wanting to be all powerfull in some timeline would come up with...

Even more profound

You can't travel into the future or the past, because no matter where you go in time, it's still the present for you

Woah.

Well, I have one not very developed thought to oppose what Yarium said.

Let's just assume that time travels are possible. Someone today enters the time machine and travels to the past to kill his grandfather as suggested by Yarium. What if that "someone" actually doesn't leave the present? What if that "someone" simultaneously exists in the present and in the past after he got there? Then my reasoning goes the following way - if you kill your grandfather you also "kill" the present yourself. However, that "someone" who still exists in the past might travel back to the present. I can't answer, what would happen when "someone" returned to the present - would he again exist simultaneously in the past and the present... Maybe technology allows to detonate the past yourself

Anyway, I have no explanation to whether the travel back from the past to the present is at all possible. Maybe it's a one way ticket? And maybe Yarium is right, perhaps if you kill your grandfather you cease to exist at all! Then, exactly, why would anyone want to do that?

My final point - I don't think it's reasonable to put constraints on the concept of time travelling as to what would happen if someone got stuck in the past. Perhaps there's a way how to avoid catastrophic consequences.

Time Travel may not be possible now, but if it ever becomes possible you may wish you had joined this club during your lifetime.



www.timetravelfund.com...

Just out of curiosity, but wouldn't the grandfather paradox be subject to the same physics as time being relative? For instance, if Astronaut X travels near the speed of light for 2 days, upon his return to earth, he might find the people on earth had aged 2 years, whereas he had only aged 2 days. Time was relative to his placement in it, but it neither slowed or advanced for him but plodded on at the same speed. Under these circumstances, wouldn't the grandfather paradox be superceeded by your relative placement in time? You would still be you because you are where you are, regardless of when or where that is?

First of all.....what is time? Isn't time just a human concept? I think it is. I don't think time as either a line or cone or web or whatever you want to see it as because I've been thinking for a while that there is no such thing as "time." If there were something such as "time," whether tangible or intangible, it should surely be able to be measured right? Well now, you might think, "Oh well a clock measures time!!" My answer to you is, "Really?!" Do you actually think a clock measure time? You can say that a day has nearly 24 hours and that an hour has 60 minutes and that a minute has 60 seconds, but what you're doing is using time to measure time.....Think about it.....time cannot measure time......time cannot be measured because it is a concept......there is no such thing as time!!! How I see "time" to be is the conciousness progression through the different "Nows" that we exeperience in the "present" as we go towards the "future." Again the present and future are mere perceptions of what we think of as reality, and just because we think something is real, does not necessarily mean it IS real.

Anyway....back to the topic of time travel....my question to you is, "How can you go forward through time (or backward for that matter) if there is now such thing as time??!!!"

Time definitely exists. Clocks measure time in the same way a ruler measures distance. It's not precise to any massive order of magnitude, and like distance there is no minimum or maximum "length" (every length of time or distance can infinitely be divided or multiplied).

The question is whether the future or the past physically exist.

If they physically exist then fate = yes, since those events have infact already happened and thus must happen. Paradox can not occur because everything has already happened, including whatever actions you have performed by travelling through time.

If they do not physically exist then fate = no, and no paradox can occur because events in time do not affect other "worlds" since no other worlds exist to be affected and everything is already self-contained.


"Time" is as much a human concept as "distance". It exists, and it's measureable. However, all these measurements are relative to our position and observation of time and distance.

Now you say "How do you measure time with time?" - the same way you measure distance with distance. You say 1 metre not because that is the length of 1 metre everything, but because that is what is generally accepted as the distance between here and there. That's all a metre is, a standard unit of measurement that all people can understand and use. We measure time with time because these are observations between now and then that are generally accepted by all people. There is no clock in heaven. However, we all say "Once the sun has returned to this position tomorrow, then things have changed over a period of events that will correspond to what I will call a 'day', and since everyone sees the sun return to that position, if I say something will happen in 2 days, then people generally accept that in two rotations of the earth, I will do this event."

Time does exist.

Saying time doesn't exist and is just as much a human concept as distance. If you philosophically state that time doesn't exist, then you are also saying that distance doesn't exist. The two are the same in every way. Time is the difference between then and now, and distance is the difference between here and there.

The reason you cant change a situation in time is because the event that occured for you to travel must remain the same, because u are in fact there. Hence time will alter itself to correct the problem. I beleive this becuase we are all here. Maybe when somene really screws up with time it creates the big bang, and we do it all over again.

I would disagree on one point namely "We are all here" that is subjective.

I know people who would argue till they are out of breath that there is no way you can prove anything or anyone is here or that there is a here.

If time travel exists and history does change, how do we notice?