This Just In - Physicists Prove That Time Travel Is Impossible

Interesting that this report isn't featured with a book deal attached to it, or a cameo appearance on a Discovery Channel episode. Finally, the grown-ups are getting involved in this debate.

Link - news.yahoo.com...

HK scientists 'show time travel is impossible'

Hong Kong physicists say they have proven that a single photon obeys Einstein's theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light -- demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, "obeys the traffic law of the universe".

"Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light," the university said on its website.

"Professor Du's study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves."

The possibility of time travel was raised 10 years ago when scientists discovered superluminal -- or faster-than-light -- propagation of optical pulses in some specific medium, the team said.

It was later found to be a visual effect, but researchers thought it might still be possible for a single photon to exceed light speed.

Du, however, believed Einstein was right and determined to end the debate by measuring the ultimate speed of a single photon, which had not been done before.

"The study, which showed that single photons also obey the speed limit c, confirms Einstein's causality; that is, an effect cannot occur before its cause," the university said.

"By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring a closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon," said Du, assistant professor of physics.

"Our findings will also likely have potential applications by giving scientists a better picture on the transmission of quantum information."

The team's study was published in the US peer-reviewed scientific journal Physical Review Letters

Personally, I've always believed that the speed of light and time travel have nothng to do with one another, but even so, this little item chinks the thread-bare Einstein connection to the fallacy of time travel. Next, someone with letters after their name will have to get real about the nature of progressive ramification, and that should nail the notion of time travel right to the floor forever.

Is FTL really required to go back in time?

Not if the parallel multiverse and everything is a NOW NOW moment happening all around us then FTL is not required.

Ever had a deja vu or a moment where you feel something changed, well that could be a new now now. .who knows.

I guess FTL is required to fit the model of linear time but it fails on the everything concurrent now now model.

You are also not including what material the light photons are passing through, speed of light changes depending on the surrounding environment. There is even materals that slow down light photons.

reply to post by NorEaster


I think thease scientists have forgotten one very simple principle. If time-travel is impossible.....how do any of us move from one second of time to another? DUH?! Magic?

The fact is Time is experienced by us as a constant, a natural phenomina. People often forget we actuly live in a 4 Dimentional world, the 4th dimention being time. The word dimention by definition is to measure somthing.

Why is it that clocks on the top of skyscrapers have to be re-ajusted periodically? Because they are further away from the sirface of the earth they move quicker and move through time quicker (Proven scientifict fact).

I think you will also find that NASA of all people did a study on the human body and its effects in space, they found that traveling at high speed in orbid caused the human body to age ever so slightly slower then those back here on earth.

Thare are litrilly thousands of examples of how time distortion is being recoded in hundreds of ways. Saying time travel is impossible is just a negative statement from someone without the mental capcity to comprehend the physics at work.

Seriously google it.

the thing i like about science is. Its always being advanced. So in say 100 years the could release a study saying actually hold it is possible to go faster then light.

And i remember reading (i think it was something to do with quantum physics) how theres two parts to a proton and what you do to one effects the other part no matter the distance it seems its instantaneous. You guys know what im on about? Im no scientist i just find this stuff interesting

if time travel were ever possible then wouldnt we have time travellers here now from the future?

Time travel wouldn't be possible anyways because the actions of subatomic particles are random. You cannot duplicate randomness, sorry.

The tests would also prove that the hypothetical Tachyon particle doesn't exist, which would be quite dissapointing.

reply to post by originunknown


SHHH don't spoil the dream!

And i guess its possible that the time travelers are our really advanced decedents. And they know better then to disturb the past?

Originally posted by zookey
Is FTL really required to go back in time?

Not if the parallel multiverse and everything is a NOW NOW moment happening all around us then FTL is not required.

Ever had a deja vu or a moment where you feel something changed, well that could be a new now now. .who knows.

I guess FTL is required to fit the model of linear time but it fails on the everything concurrent now now model.

You are also not including what material the light photons are passing through, speed of light changes depending on the surrounding environment. There is even materals that slow down light photons.

edit on 24-7-2011 by zookey because: (no reason given)

Like I said, this only debunks the Einstein angle. The progressive ramification issue (the real buzzsaw in that doorway) is where the myth of time travel will be finally obliterated.

Oh, and deja vu is a memory/perception schism. It's like when someone remembers something as having happened in the wrong location, or involving people who weren't actually involved in the event that they are recalling. Memory can be remarkable vivid while being completely flawed. The stories and evidence of this are too numerous to keep track of, and no one is immune to substituting details between one memory and another. Deja Vu is just projecting a long term memory's details onto a very short term memory. After all, everything that you experience as a corporeal human being is filtered through your short term memory - as has been proven by the study conducted in 2008, where the team of Chun Siong Soon, Marcel Brass, Hans-Jochen Heinze, & John-Dylan Haynes proved a definite lag time between thought and the experience of thought by the human being.

Link - www.nature.com... Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human Brain

While Soon, Brass, Heinse, and Haynes did not take their findings to the same place as I have, the indications are clear that there is a point that delineates the experience and the processing of thought, and this supports idea that the well-known phenomenon of "lost-time" following a brain-injury (or response to toxic substances) is due to memory loss and not to loss of conscioiusness. Deja Vu is the 180 degree opposite of lost-time due to memory failure. It's the manufacture of a false memory as a result of transferring details from a vague memory to a brand new memory as that memory is being processed for short term storage.

Time travel is not Deja Vu, and Deja Vu is not evidence of time travel - or of Reincarnation. It's just a result of the fallable human memory.

reply to post by Jademonkey2k

I think thease scientists have forgotten one very simple principle. If time-travel is impossible.....how do any of us move from one second of time to another? DUH?! Magic?

Im certain the Article probably implies time travel into the past.

Which may be impossible to travel back in time.

Ok a hypothetical Scenario

If anyone in the future of humans and/or an aliens did 'invent time travel and went back in time then we would have infinite amount of time travellers visiting us at infinite amount of locations all the time.

Time Travel into the past doesn't make sense.

Unless we imply time travelling to other universes that are on a different time frame as us but in sync sort-of with our past and /or future.





Although we can't prove it for sure. Yet.

I'd say its safe to assume that Time Travelling into the past is impossible for this reason.

If anyone in the future of humans and/or an aliens did 'invent time travel and went back in time then we would have infinite amount of time travellers visiting us at infinite amount of locations all the time.

Or unless we imply the multi- universe theory.

Which no-one can prove yet.

Its all up to your /our own speculation.

reply to post by NorEaster


There is just one thing that puzzles me the human brain seems to have the ability to perceive things before they actually occur. Here is an article on it. So I'm not so sure about this conclusion there are still things left unexplained. Maybe its impossible for us to see a faster than light particle.

www.npr.org...

reply to post by zookey


I was going to say, I think this only applies in linear terms.

That was it the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) Paradox

a pair of protons whose quantum spins cancel out. Now separate them and measure the spin of one proton. Because they were paired, they had a combined wave equation (see The Schrödinger Wave Equation). Measuring the spin of one proton ‘collapses’ that wave equation and determines the spin of the other. It appears that a measurement in one place can have an instantaneous effect on something that may be light years away

If ftl is not possible then how can that happen(the bit in bold)

There may be forces faster than light which we might not be able to sense.

Also ,thoughts and gravitational waves could be faster than light.

Here is yet another example the Global Conscientiousness Survey.
Here is another example of the human mind perceiving things before they occur.

noosphere.princeton.edu...

Originally posted by Jademonkey2k
reply to post by NorEaster

 

I think thease scientists have forgotten one very simple principle. If time-travel is impossible.....how do any of us move from one second of time to another? DUH?! Magic?

Ha! Nice try.

The fact is Time is experienced by us as a constant, a natural phenomina. People often forget we actuly live in a 4 Dimentional world, the 4th dimention being time. The word dimention by definition is to measure somthing.

Time is the span that each unit of event exists before being replaced by the follow-on unit of event, within a specific trajectory, as that trajectory plays out. The entire contextual environment (reality) that we exist within is host to an enormous amount of event trajectories that are occurring concurrently and consecutively on a constant and ceaseless basis. The one constant between all these event trajectories - be they linear or redundant - is the span of the event unit itself, and the entire contextual environment (reality) is determined solely by the specific span that this event unit exists. It's constant and immutable, regardless of what else occurs or doesn't occur. Perception of time is one thing, but time is rock solid.

Why is it that clocks on the top of skyscrapers have to be re-ajusted periodically? Because they are further away from the sirface of the earth they move quicker and move through time quicker (Proven scientifict fact).

You'll need to provide a link to a reputable source before that statement will have any validity. Even then, the specific context of the original statement will be subject to scrutiny. No disrespect, but that's quite a claim and one that I have never heard before.

I think you will also find that NASA of all people did a study on the human body and its effects in space, they found that traveling at high speed in orbid caused the human body to age ever so slightly slower then those back here on earth.

Again, this statementhas never been qualified in any manner that provides objective verification. To begin with, there's no reliable means to determine a adjustment to the aging of the human body. The impact of time on such a complex system is overwhelmingly subjective, and suggesting that issues like the stress of gravity (or lack of gravitational stress) can be dismissed is extremely naive when the impact of space travel on a normally gravity-addled system are being examined. Also, the numbers that have been tossed around involve 1/10,000 of a second, and that's not even a number that can be accurately measured when it comes to something like human age. That statement isn't related to science at all.

Thare are litrilly thousands of examples of how time distortion is being recoded in hundreds of ways. Saying time travel is impossible is just a negative statement from someone without the mental capcity to comprehend the physics at work.

Seriously google it.

You might want to google some of this for yourself. Physics isn't Theoretical Physics. Theoretical Physics is lab rats that broke into the ethyl alcohol and are on a D&D bender, trying to outdo each other with wilder and wilder "theories". Some of them get that crap into print and others even get book deals if their stuff is scary or wondrous enough. Then guys like you demand that it's true, and guys like me are forced to call you on it. In the end, reality chugs on as if none of it matters. Real is what is real, and that's about the extent of it.

Originally posted by Bixxi3
That was it the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) Paradox

a pair of protons whose quantum spins cancel out. Now separate them and measure the spin of one proton. Because they were paired, they had a combined wave equation (see The Schrödinger Wave Equation). Measuring the spin of one proton ‘collapses’ that wave equation and determines the spin of the other. It appears that a measurement in one place can have an instantaneous effect on something that may be light years away

If ftl is not possible then how can that happen(the bit in bold)

Did you know that the notion of protons "spinning" is still a debatable notion? It's true. There are serious physicists that still point out that the concept of protons and electrons spinning around a neutron is based on a diagram that introduces students to the structure f the atom. It's called the Bohr Model en.wikipedia.org... and it's not accurate so mauch as helpful.

The Bohr model is a primitive model of the hydrogen atom. As a theory, it can be derived as a first-order approximation of the hydrogen atom using the broader and much more accurate quantum mechanics, and thus may be considered to be an obsolete scientific theory. However, because of its simplicity, and its correct results for selected systems (see below for application), the Bohr model is still commonly taught to introduce students to quantum mechanics, before moving on to the more accurate but more complex valence shell atom.

The later notions of atom structure are more accurate, and don't really feature "spinning protons". en.wikipedia.org...

Real physics is pretty complicated stuff.

Originally posted by mr10k
Time travel wouldn't be possible anyways because the actions of subatomic particles are random. You cannot duplicate randomness, sorry.

The tests would also prove that the hypothetical Tachyon particle doesn't exist, which would be quite dissapointing.

Random OR just all states happening at the same time?

If it is impossible to travel back in DIRECTION in time, how is it possible to travel forward in DIRECTION in time?

obviously it IS possible to travel in time if time is linear, we are travelling slower than speed of light now yet we are still travelling in DIRECTION in time now.

Assuming time is linear.

Originally posted by enament
reply to post by NorEaster

 

There is just one thing that puzzles me the human brain seems to have the ability to perceive things before they actually occur. Here is an article on it. So I'm not so sure about this conclusion there are still things left unexplained. Maybe its impossible for us to see a faster than light particle.

www.npr.org...

I don't know. It's a pretty small bump from 50% (which is not a rigid standard of random possibility by any means) to 52%. Also, that fMRI machine experiment I referred to earlier can readily explain the 2-3 second measured reaction before the computer's selection. It involves the shared lead/lag time that all humans experience, and the differences between one machine's response indications and another's within the same closed system. To have a better handle on what these aspects might contribute to the findings, you'd have to have full access to the entire data train, as well as full control over all increments within the test progression itself.
Then, I remember that the guy is a Psychology professor. I don't know. None of it is definitive in any way whatsoever, even if the protocols could be cleaned up and made much stricter than they've been described as being.