reply to post by Andrew E. Wiggin
Because space is accelerating apart, the universe will only exist for another 80 billion years or so before "the big rip" as they are calling it,
where everything in the universe will literally be ripped apart as it approaches the speed of light. So your number was a little too big for how much
time we have left to work with
.
And as for time being reliant on speed in order for time to exist, as another poster said, this is false. If one was to come to a complete stop in
space, and end all of his/her motion, they would still experience time. Time slows the faster you go, which is I think where the confusion entered.
So, for example, if you were able to travel around the earth's orbit at say 99% the speed of light for 10 years, and then landed on earth, you would
have barely aged, while everyone else would be 10 years more worn down. If you were to come to a complete stop for 10 years and came back to earth,
you would have in fact aged more rapidly than those who had been whizzing through space for that length of time. However, this likely would be
negligible, as the speed/time thing is only truly noticable (by our human perceptions) on scales using significant fractions of the speed of light.
We know for a fact that time travel is possible and completely within the bounds of physics. Will it ever be acheived? Given that we currently still
have 20,000 active nuclear weapons on Earth, the majority of which are vastly more powerful than those dropped in WW2, I'd say the odds are very high
that a megalomaniac will rise to power and manage to set off a mutually assured destruction scenario in the next 1000 years or so, before we can
acheive human time travel.
Our missle defense shields can only stop about 90% of the nukes on a best-case scenario, and only 1000 nukes is enough to wipe out most if not all of
the world's major cities, creating a nuclear winter that would likely end humanity, game over. And believe me, in a nuclear exchange, they will all
go flying in order to maximize the number of weapons that will pass through.
Hitler's last order to his troops in France? Burn Paris down and everything from Paris to his bunker. Good thing the troops either didn't listen
or didn't get the message. But this just shows how one man in power is capable of making drastic decisions that could literally obliterate mankind,
or in this case, the majority of a country.
IMO, is time travel possible? Without a doubt it is possible within our current models of the universe/multiverse. Is it acheivable? Not unless we
change things on this planet quickly. Sagan said it best, the inhabitants of this planet were paying a million, million dollars a year for armaments
back in the 80s. A million, million dollars a year to create war machines, to create weapons capable of destroying humanity, a huge portion of our
world's resources going to ensuring our destruction. Imagine what we could do with the money/resources, if we spent it on something other than our
destruction. With a million, million dollars a year we could have full-blown civilizations on asteroids, the moon, mars, and maybe even some of the
moons of saturn/jupiter verrrry quickly. In fact, we could also solve the world's energy problem with fusion BEFORE 2050 (currently $10 billion is
going to this in France, where in 2020 the first fusion reactor should be created that gives out more energy than it takes in, slap $1 til at this and
I bet it gets done on a global scale rather quickly - michio kaku ats mix pt. 2!!). We could solve much of the world's problems with even half of
this money, and instead we are still gearing up for war around the world. And people wonder why aliens don't make a whitehouse landing.
And yes, sorry for the humanity is stupid rant...
