What i don't understand about time travel is...

I still don't understand one thing. If you travel back in time there would be two of yourself. Is that correct? Or is it that if you travel back in time, you will see the same people as the future, the same age and everything, but back 50 years or so. Or will you go back 50 years from when you turn back the clock.

How would it work?

Why not just cram yer inquiry into this thread that is already going on?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by AliensExist182
I still don't understand one thing. If you travel back in time there would be two of yourself. Is that correct? Or is it that if you travel back in time, you will see the same people as the future, the same age and everything, but back 50 years or so. Or will you go back 50 years from when you turn back the clock.

How would it work?

Instead of linking you somewhere else or answering in the normal scienctific way with Relativity proofs and so forth I thought I'd address this one different this time. Using your example of going back in time, wouldn't there be two of you? A couple different things come to my mind.

You would assume that to see yourself you'd 1st go back in time, let's say 1 year for example. 2nd, go to your house where you know you are (or were a year, exactly, ago previous to time traveling.) & 3rd you could stand face to face with yourself. Sound about right? Ok, but wait....

We normally link both Time and Space together, calling it Space/Time, correct? Meaning that the above scenario wouldn't actually happen. (Or may not happen I should say since we are talking theory here after all.) Since both Space and Time are linked and equal to one another, when you traveled back in Time=1yr. you would equally travel back in the appropriate amount of Space as well. So you would travel back in Space/Time=1yr. Or in other words, you would travel back to exactly where and when you were 1 year ago and there would still only be 1 of you.

Now this might create a paradox however depending on whether or not you were aware that you traveled back or not. If you knew you traveled back from the future then you're fine. If not, then in exactly 1 year, you'd travel back 1 year again, then repeat that cycle forever never knowing it.

I could toss out a hand full of other directions this topic could go but that's it for now. I'll let someone else jump in with an alternative one.

Time travel is relative to the individual doing the travelling, as time does not stop for them, which means whichever direction in time they travel in, it will always be their future.

As to whether you could meet yourself.......doubtful, as I'm sure you would have remembered bumping into yourself.

I try not to think to hard about the paradox's thrown up by time travel.

Maybe, if you were to go back in time, because of the near infinite number of choices made in your life time, by yourself and 6 billion others, the chances of you bumping into the same timeline as the one you are now in, would be so improbable, it would be considered impossible.

There you go, clear as mud..!!

[Edited on 1-6-2004 by Koka]

Ok, by request I will now give an example of how Space & Time can be understood as reflections of each other & 'Equal' in comparison. I will also not be using math equations or anything like that, but instead using a thought experiment type example that is easy to understand by anyone.

1.) Imagine you are traveling in a cart which is attached to a track like a ride at DisneyLand or something of that sort.

2.) Also, the track is shaped like a 'Spiral'. That "Spiral" is made up of, 100 sections, placed end to end to form the entire thing.

3.) Now the ride starts, and as you glide down the track it should be obvious to see that you are now moving in 'SPACE' and not just in a straight line but various degrees of 'forward, right, left, up, down, etc.'

4.) Now let's say that it takes 1 second for you to cover the length of each section of the track, this means the entire ride takes 100 seconds of 'TIME' (1 second per each of the 100 sections). Those 100 seconds, when viewed individually would put you in 100 different and unique positions within "SPACE".

5.) So, each Second of 'Time" would put you in a completely Unique position within 'SPACE'. All of which are unique giving you a measurement of 'SPACE/TIME'

6.) Now, if at the end of the ride, you 'Traveled back in Time', you could say that you also would be traveling back in 'Space or Space/Time' and in doing so would put you back into the appropriate spot on the track that you were before.

Does that make sense??

This is of course just one way of looking at it and I'm sure some Relativity folks out there as well as other types of Theorists have other ways of looking at it. But like I said, this is just one simple example of one possible theory.

How do you account for a tree that stays in the same position for 100 years? Couldn't a time machine change the reference frame as well, say that instead of going to where you were a year ago, you could be as a tree staying in the same place and thus ending up with two of you?

Originally posted by Jamuhn
How do you account for a tree that stays in the same position for 100 years? Couldn't a time machine change the reference frame as well, say that instead of going to where you were a year ago, you could be as a tree staying in the same place and thus ending up with two of you?

What exactly is 'Same Position'? Everything in the Universe is in motion so while it may be Planted in one spot for it's entire life, it also happens to be spinning through the cosmos at some incredible speed, riding upon this big ball we call earth. So each 'Reference Frame' throughout all life on this planet as well as others would be unique at each and ever moment. It may only seem that something is 'Still' within Space or Time for that matter, because of the lack of perception at that moment.

Even out in deep empty space with nothing to judge your movement by, how would you know if you were still? What point of reference would you use? If using the Max Speed of Light itself as a guide, for example, from your observation only to judge by, even if you did actually equal that exact speed at that point you would no longer even have the ability to use a reference point anymore either. Theoretically, at that moment there would be no comprehensible difference between You and anything else, even if you could somehow try and measure anything at that point.

You cant go back or forward in time. It is impossible. There is no such thing as time as a noun.
Time is manmade, time is how humans record growth and erosion.
As the earth makes one rotation on its axis i grow or erode 24 hours( a unit of measure) . As the mountain gets taller (grows) I erode one lifetime(another unit of measure).
If you want to go back or forward X amount of units of measure all you have to do is change the unit.
I now say that 24 hours is 48 hours. Now tomorrow when i wake up, have i grown or eroded 48 hours or just has the unit changed. Correct, the unit of measure has been changed. Not the amount of growth or erosion.
You can not go forward in time because those things are not grown yet. You can not go back in time because those things have eroded.
I do believe you can travel to another dimension though. The dimension may be parrallel and slightly more eroded or grown than ours and that could be similar to time travel. I dont think that would be considered time travel .

At the risk of sounding stupid this is just off the top of my head.

What exactly is 'Same Position'? Everything in the Universe is in motion so while it may be Planted in one spot for it's entire life, it also happens to be spinning through the cosmos at some incredible speed, riding upon this big ball we call earth. So each 'Reference Frame' throughout all life on this planet as well as others would be unique at each and ever moment. It may only seem that something is 'Still' within Space or Time for that matter, because of the lack of perception at that moment.

When you were speaking about how space and time were equal, that if you went in the past then you would go back to the space you were in during that past time. I was comparing two references frames that occur on earth. I was saying that there may be way to not go back to that space you were a year ago and instead be solitary in the position that you start from...If there is a tree, and a person is walking around that tree able to look at the tree the entire time, and you were to go in a machine right next to that tree a year back in time, there may be a way to keep next to that tree while going back versus ending up in the circle in which you were walking around the tree.

But I see what you were saying...that you everything moves so much, you wouldn't know what specific coordinates to stay at. But if you had a system of mathematics set up so that you stayed a foot away from the tree or even of a specific point on earth. The mathematics would enable the machine to stay on the planet by using the earth as a kind of natural mathematic, so that the earth does the mapping of coordinates for you and where it was however far back. Then the machine would only need worry about where on earth to be.

As far as how the machine would use the earth as a natural coordinate system in the grand scope of the universe...I don't know.

But i believe in a different kind of time travel, closer to what ashley said in the last post. I think that all of what ever was, is, or will be in addition to all the possibilities exist in a dimension of eternal time. Time travel would involve going to this dimension and then to the past or future and then inserting itself back in a dimension like are own....

Thanks for that. The second post explained what i wanted to know, but thanks for your input everyone.

Jamuhn, I get what you're saying. In fact that is essentially the real question isn't it. Especially when using the example earlier about going to meet yourself only as soon as you flip that switch, instead of going back only in the reference of Time you go back spatially as well and actually end up Being you 1 year before you decide to Time Travel in the first place. In that case what you're saying about the right kind of Machine that would keep Spatially the same and move only in a Time scale.

That too does include a variety of potential problems however. The same idea was used in the Movie The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. That machine did what you're saying. It stayed Spatially the same while the surrounding area (outside the energy sphere of the machine itself) changed. In a case like that you're all good unless you happen to be Spatially located where someone decides to Build a House in the future or a canyon appears below you in the past or whatever, if you see what I'm saying. Having a destination point where you and some other dense hunk of matter are both trying to fill would be 'bad' to say the least.

Honestly, I am of the opinion that, if Time Travel similar to what we're talking about is at all possible, it is quite different in how it would be done than the simple examples we've played with so far. I won't really get into it at the moment though. I do have plenty more interesting 'Thought Experiments' and stuff though if you're interested in going through some other theories.