Time travel idea

While watching The Time Machine (the original) again the other day I really started to think about time travel and the possibility or lack thereof.
I have heard many ideas on time travel but never really given it very much in depth thought (if that makes sense to anyone).

Anyway while I believe and have always believed it is possible I now have a clear idea of how I think it works. I think the guy that acted as the character John Titor had one piece partially correct in that you travel dimensionally as well as time.

Here is what I mean and why I think this way.

If I want to travel into the past while in idea I can return to my time as if I never left I will have left this time. Meaning I will be missed in this time while I am not here and the future will have changed in one dimension. The same goes even more so for the future, because at some point I will be missing and never return in one dimension so again a future has changed.

I can always return to my time but it will be somewhat different even if there is no other changes accept for a blade of grass. This maybe such a subtle change that I would never know the difference.

Why would things change? Because I cannot occupy two time flows at once. Meaning I cannot be in my future and there be the future me in that future. I also cannot be in the past and my future at the in the same time flow. I can though be in a separate but close time flow, sort of one time flow running beside another. At the same time the further I go into the past or future the farther over in a parallel dimension I will be, meaning there will be a greater change.

So while I can come back to a certain time it will be a different place really than my original starting place.

I do believe that traveling into the future would cause a greater disturbance than traveling into the past as far as my return would go. So basically if I went forward in time I think a change would be more noticeable than if I traveled back in time.

Another thing to point out why I believe this is that there is no way (that I can see) you could be in a different time without causing even the smallest change pushing you into a different dimension upon return. The only way around this would be if you were completely unable to interact with the time you were in, say by being unseen, unheard, and unable to be touched or touch.


This is still a thought or idea still in progress by the way.
Thoughts? Ideas?

Raist

Part of the problem would be a contiunity loop. Let's say you have a time machine and you in 5 minutes you are going to travel back to now. So UO (you the original) goes back in time to UP (you in the past). So it worked and you pat UP on the back and say you will love the trip. What better celebration that watching yourself enter the time machine and go back in time so you wait 5 min for UP to step into the machine and vanish. At 5 min and 1 sec UP pats you on the back and says that was cool. And at that same UP2 pats UP, and UP3 pats UP2, and UP3 pats UP2 and so on infinately.

That is if time is truely linear (which would the basis for time travel). So at the point of time that you appeared there would be 2 of you, but if you waited to watch yourself go back there would be an inifinate number of you's at that moment forward until you went back to the original time that you left (plus 1 sec or 10000years). Unfortunately all of the you's would have to enter at the same time since time is linear (if it is). The problem here is that 2 (or or in this infinate) you's can not occupy the exact same space at the exact same time without quite a bit of physical discomfort. Much like trying allow a knife share the same spot with your thigh at the same time in a stabbing motion would be uncomfortable.

Okay, can't watch yourself (that is UP) go back in time. UP will have to watch UO leave within the 5 minute time span. Hopefully your time machine is more than able to track you across the span of time and activate a recall (much like the Star Trek transporter effect I would imagine). [personal note-I really liked the machine in Quantum Leap as it operated on this principal somewhat as opposed to HG Wells's machine that traveled with a passenger...Back to the Future touched on the problems with machine traveling such as fuel, energy requirements and other conditions]

So we fixed everything right? No, if the now parade of infinate you's ever decides to express free will or is awed of his future self's accomplishments and misses the the exact departure time then we have a real problem as the original timeline experiences divergance. Unless of course, that everything that will happen has already happened and we are completely devoid of any free will. Many people do not like that thought. However it is the only true explaination for accurate precognition and prophecy. If this is true then only those that know the future have the ability to change it. But that is a different topic although somewhat related.

One slight problem with your theory.

For your theory to be right every you in every universe has to make the decidion to time travel, so there's never 2 you's in any one universe

.... however

In an infinite multiiverse of infinite possibilities, in one or more of those universes you will make a decision NOT to time travel, or you never did.

Now, you could argue that only in those universes in which you do travel would there be 'you' exchanges.... but in an infinite universe one of the possibilities has to be that you travel to universe where you never left.

Am I making any sense?

I do not think the conventional concept of time travel is possible.

we are not standing still,
even when not moving our physical bodies.

we are moving,
add the speed of the earth spin and the speed of our solar system and add the speed of our galaxy spin,
man....just how fast are we moving?, and I didn`t even take into account
the speed of our galaxy orbit or universe spin and mabey more that we don`t know of.

what I`m trying to say is that we never ever get to touch the
same spot twice in our constantly moving journey through space and time.

once you under stand this you can see that time is everywhere all at once, in the moment.

time and space are not just relative.
....they ARE one and the same.

the natual function of a wave is to move ahead.

life and natures waves cannot move in reverse.
you can have reverse calculations but the process
still "Moves Forward" as far as wave propagation is concerned.

waves can be accelerated,amplified,reflected, dampened,halted,
reverse polaritized, um...well you get the drift.
but a wave cannot probagate in reverse..the process always
moves in a forward manner...like birth to death.....this is
a mathematical constant that you can count on.
now having said all that.

Another option might be a quantum leap of sorts.
2 devices at different locations(galaxy or point in the universe).
each device shares a common resonant frequency and wave signature
with the universal frequency.
or possibly just one device that is capable of resonating with
and tapping into a quantum string or superstring.

then just like the show "Stargate", you would simply walk through
it and instantly(non-linear) arrive at said location.

but this is still not time travel,more like dimensional .
because of the huge inter-stellar distances it would
almost appear as such,but only to the
observer, and depending on the point of observation.

this quantum stuff is mind bogling to say the least.

when you look at the night sky , you can see the depth
of space and time.
with the naked eye we can see little dots that are whole
clustsers of galaxies.
they and us are all at different points in space/time.
we can see it but its vision is from the past...
the past?
hmmmmmmmmmm
so we can see the past ? if so can we go there.?
no not really because if you go there and look back at us then we would appear now to be in the past. see?

distance is time is space...it needs one word to describe it all.
like mabey.
conciousness? hhhhhmmmmmm....lol

I love this thinking outside the box stuff....
even if your wrong it is still great brain food
and one must be wrong alot to truly learn.
.

Well now I see a few gaps, holes, and wrong turns in my ideas. Definitely some food for thought posted here.

Guess I will need to go back to the drawing board on this one, thanks for all the input so far.

Ok a few new questions to add to the board.

Do you think we are capable of traveling time at this time?
Do we have the technology or do we still have a ways to go on that?
If we are capable and have the technology how long do you think we have had it? (We being mankind in general)

Thanks
Raist