The reason Time Travel can't exist

first of all, saying humans made clocks is why they see time would be a ridiculous thing to say with no relevance whatsoever, so if you were referring to me and trying to judge what i would say, i don't appreciate it. But clocks gauge time according to their relative time frame as you said, and if clocks are in the same frame we are, then they will perceive time accordingly.
The point I was getting at was that we see time according to a universal perception and that the time we experience is only a part of what time is.
A universal reference frame of time....I'd recommend reading some Hawking or something expounding on ideas from Einstein.
To a two-dimensional world, a third dimension would appear to them as only having two-dimensions as well. Time is the same for us....its hard to perceive time as being something that goes backward, forward, up, down...but I believe in another place it does.
Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that all experiments are affected by the observer. Our hypothesis supports our data, rather than data our hypothesis. Just have to open your mind and believe sometimes.

Originally posted by Jamuhn
first of all, saying humans made clocks is why they see time would be a ridiculous thing to say with no relevance whatsoever

That's not what I said, read my post again.

so if you were referring to me and trying to judge what i would say, i don't appreciate it.

I wasn't.

To a two-dimensional world, a third dimension would appear to them as only having two-dimensions as well.

How can you say this? Have you ever experienced it yourself?

Time is the same for us....its hard to perceive time as being something that goes backward, forward, up, down...but I believe in another place it does.

You treat time as any of the other dimensions.
Time is not the same as space, even though time has a lot to do with space like Einstein pointed out, you can't say that time goes into all directions just like the other dimensions do.
Time only goes into one direction, it can't be reversed.
Our perception of time is not only ours, it's also the perception of everything else travelling at the same speed on the same location.
There's a big factor of perception involved here, but I think you overestimate this too much.

I.. I was going to reply to this topic.. But wow, you two, you suck at life..

I really don't think any insults were ever exchanged, yet somehow you ended up in an argument, what the hell?

Originally posted by Jakko
Time only goes into one direction, it can't be reversed.
Our perception of time is not only ours, it's also the perception of everything else travelling at the same speed on the same location.

Obviously you did not read about Robert Mallet and his theory. I will provide an address into the present day reality and possiblities. He is actually working on a real time machine. This is a guy who has made it his lifes work. The Learning Channel even aired an hour long documentary on December 3, 2003 about his work on the time machine.

Now, you say that time cannot go backwards right? Who says? That has not even been proven by the best minds. Basically, it comes down to entropy. So, you cannot say impossible, just improbable. Now, if time can go forward, it can go backwards if everything lined up in reverse. That is a fact. Also, that would mean that you could stop time. The whole key to time travel is going to be the ability to stop time. Once you make the time machine to stop time, then time travel will be possible to that time as long as that machine is turned on.

Here is his theory in this address below. If outlines it with a pretty picture for the less inclined to read. This is REAL physics folks....

www.walterzeichner.com...

www.phys.uconn.edu...




edited to add links..

[Edited on 1-6-2004 by JCMinJapan]

Originally posted by Viendin
I.. I was going to reply to this topic.. But wow, you two, you suck at life..

Yes I think he misunderstood my post for a reply to his post.
My post was actually a reply to the first post in the topic.
As for "sucking at life", for someone who gets all hysterical about a sharp tone in a discussion, you have a rather insulting way of speech.


[Edited on 1-6-2004 by Jakko]

I did read his theory JCmin, I just don't believe in it.
If speed slows down time for the object(s) at high speed(travelling into the future), even more speed will not somehow magicly reverse this proces. (travelling to the past)
It just has a lot of assumptions in it that don't make sense in my opinion.

Originally posted by Jakko
I did read his theory JCmin, I just don't believe in it.
If speed slows down time for the object(s) at high speed(travelling into the future), even more speed will not somehow magicly reverse this proces. (travelling to the past)
It just has a lot of assumptions in it that don't make sense in my opinion.

Well, you know what they say about opinions... ha ha (BTW: Just a joke.. maybe a bad one, but just a joke in any case. ha ha)

Well, it does make alot of sense for me. Although not being a physicist much goes over my head in the actual math part. I am one of those poor saps that for some reason just like physics...

Have you read The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene? If not, I would recommend it. It was a great reading. He explains stuff very nicely. He is also is weary of time travel possibilites, but he shows both sides of t very well. This book certainly makes one think alot.

Time doesn't really exist, IMHO, it's just our perception and measurement of progression or process and it can therefore only move forward.

When you approach light speed, it's not 'time' slowing down, but 'progression' or 'process' slowing down within the affected area.

Time isn't a dimension which is tangible, visitable or alterable.

Nope JC, I didn't read that other book you mentioned.
That piece about Mallet has some cool passages in it though, that make you think what he says is based on solid proof and reason.
But when you look deeper than this at every sentence, it just stops making sense all of a sudden.
For example:

We know that matter can bend space-time and according to Einstein's theory, matter and light are both forms of energy. So why can't light bend space-time?

Is somewhat like saying.

We know that a horse can hold the weight of someone, and according to biologists, horses and rabbits are both animals, so why can't a rabbit hold someone?

Matter and light being in the same subgroup "energy" does not mean they can replace eachother in every and any situation with the same results.
Even if this beam of light would somehow, for some reason, move this neutron particle around so fast that it would go at the speed of light, time would almost stop for this particle.
The interpretation of the particle would be "hey I am moving at 500 times the speed of light" because his perception of time is way way way slower then our perception of time, and we still see the particle move at the speed of light.

So even though this would be a very cool experiment, I don't think the things will happen that Mallet expects or hopes.

[Edited on 1-6-2004 by Jakko]

I actually think light does bend spacetime. Light has momentum, p = h/λ. The stress-energy tensor includes momentum and therefore I think that light bends spacetime a little bit as well. I'm not completely sure though.

In my mind the only time that exists is now... and now.. and again now, but by the time you read this the time that I typed that is gone forever and no longer exists. Action and reaction continualy exist but only in the time that it is happening. You can't go back nor can you go forward you just have to experience time right now. wich was earlier when I typed this.... Energy exists but time only exists right now. Later will exist, but it does not exist right now so you cant go there till you get there. Once you get to later it will exist then it will be gone for ever.

It is to late to stop me from writing this and confusing you because it happened earlier, but it is right now for me or was it.

See you later???
X

[Edited on 1-6-2004 by Xeven]

[Edited on 1-6-2004 by Xeven]

I like the idea that you can't go back in time to a time where the time machine does exist. If the time machine was 'invented' 100 years ago, you could only go back those 100 years, then forward to the point you went back.

But if the time machine actually stops time for itself, than it would be unaffected if you could somehow go in the past.
But along what you were saying about going only back to when the time machine was around...The person in the time machine would have to be living as well if they went back in the future. If they both went back further, than theyd be broken up into what their bodies were before living...and then you have to think about what if we have these eternal consciousnesses.

Indeed.
That's just one of the reasons why travelling intom the past is not realistic or based on anything solid.
It would create too much conflicts regarding existing laws and systems.
Everything would just stop making sense.

That's why I think time can be slowed down to a point close to 0, but time can never completely stop, or be reversed.

I just thought some of you 'Time Travel' folk might like to see this if you haven't already.

Doesn't really help much at the moment for your current debate, but perhaps one day it will answer it once and for all!!

sprott.physics.wisc.edu...

In response to time being infinite, and therefore we cant move around it:
I think it would be possible to move relative to your own time, or the moment you program your 1980's sports car to go back/forward in time.

In response to that bit about th cyclic nature of time, multiple big bangs and big crunches etc.:
What if the big bang gets stronger every time, gains energy from an external source? Then eventually there will be no big crunch and therefore ruining the fabric of time and space, (A Brief History Of Time, by that bloke who is a bit clever)

Now consider this, if time travel were possible, and you moved back (or forward) in time, say 6 months, due to the movement of the Earth, and the expansion of the universe, you would probably be a few million miles away from the Earth, and would probably die instantly.

What we all want to know though, really, is:
Can you get 'Time Traveller's Insurance'?

"humans invented the clock"......

we did not invent the clock, we are part of the clock itself. OUr very notion of Time is based upon the movement of the sun, moon, stars, and the earth through this galaxy. We divide the year into Lunar or solar months, then into weeks, into days, into hours, into minutes and seconds and nanoseconds...but all based on the movement of the earth and solar system through the universe. We are part of a Living clock.

Our concept of time is best demonstrated by the Mayan Indians. They understood the Nature of Time, and what Time really is. Time is cycles inside cycles inside cycles and on to infinity. The planets and stars determine which cycle we are in, and going into.
Now, is it possible to travel through the Cycle..? its fun to play with that idea;
with the help of Hallucinigenics, maybe people do. there are stories about many native aboriginal peoples doing just that. Read about the dreamtime that Australian Aboriginals believe in. Native american peoples would eat Peyote or mushrooms, and travel through time, space, and realities
We also have the issue of prophecy in most of the great religions. how does one tell the future, if you dont travel through time to see it....it may be a mindwalk...but you never know.

Originally posted by xenophanes85
I totally agree. Using the cliche time machines of movies where they enter the date they are at and then the date they want to go to, the Universe does not know BC or BCE. It does not know seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, or years. Time is infinite. Time did not begin when the Universe was created - Space, yes, Time, no. Becasue Time is infinite, you can't go to specific points - in order for points in time to exist, there has to be a zero to compare them to. Why is it assumed Time began at the Big Bang? The Big Bang was just an event in Time! The Calendar year 0 is just an event in Time also - maybe its (using Earth years) the 5 trillionth year in Time, or maybe its the 4 quadrillinth year in Time, we wont ever know. Basically, all events are points in Time. The events cant have numbers attached to them either, becasue that implies there would be a zero to count up to them from.

[Edited on 6/1/04 by xenophanes85]

well technically in math class we learned a line never ends like a coordinate plane thing......there are negatives and positives.....negtives would probably be before time began and the positives would be when there was time.....itll keep stretching and stretching

Time only goes into one direction, it can't be reversed.

How do you know that?

Perhaps somewhere out there in the universe for some reason time is reversed and beings grow younger instead of older.

Time can be both negative and positive on an infinite timeline. Since theoretically it is a timeline you could travel back in it. However as stated above all the particles in the universe would have to travel to a previous state which is impossible, meaning that time travel is possible, but when you go from there the future will be different.

Its complicated stuff that nobody will ever figure out because no single person has the brain power to figure it out. Hundreds of people do however.