Why Backwards Time Travel is highly improbable

I've put a decent amount of thought into the subject before I've come to the conclusion that reverse time travel is highly improbable, but not for the reasons you may be thinking.

To understand this theory, you must first understand the geometry of the motion of our solar system.

Most are under the impression that our solar system moves as illustrated here.

This diagram shows a common misunderstanding of the geometry of motion in our solar system. It depicts the Earth orbiting around the sun, and the solar system moving forward. However, this is a very incorrect depiction of how the REAL geometry of motion is portrayed.

A more realistic view of the geometry of motion would be as depicted in the next diagram.

This diagram shows the real geometry of motion of our solar system. As seen here, our Earth revolves around the sun SIMULTANEOUSLY with our sun moving forward. This shows how the orbit of the Earth is more of a spiraling motion through space.

Back to time travel into the past.

If you are to travel through time with your entire physical being, then there are certain values that MUST be known prior to your traveling backwards with your time machine. We are going to assume that your time machine is capable of traveling backwards in time with you, even if it weren't you will find that it really doesn't matter in this sense.

First, you must have a time you wish to go to. That would be your first value. Not so difficult right? You go back so many years.

Then, comes the part where traveling backwards in time, seems somewhat of a complicated mess that I doubt anyone would enjoy playing with; the location. You must have a place for you to come together in the past that isn't currently occupied by another physical structure. This means you will most likely have to place yourself one or two feet in the air upon arrival, just for clearance from fusing your feet to the ground.

Time isn't so difficult to calculate, you can use the creation date of your time machine as zero, and go into the past by going into negative numbers, signifying you are going backwards, or forwards with positive numbers.

Location, however, is an entire new story. Once you take into account the geometry of motion you will see where the problem lays with location as our Earth is constantly hurtling itself through the entire universe within our solar system, within our galaxy, compared to the cosmic background it would be nearly impossible to accurately predict where our Earth was located "X" amount of years ago.

With that said, even if you could use a very high powered and precise computer to make this calculation, how would you measure the location in space? Considering we are constantly moving any measurement for a location in space via distance would constantly be changing. If you attempted to make a relative measurement, for example, have the location set as the moon, you will find when you go back one year, even though the Earth and the Moon are moving relatively the same speed, neither of them are located in the same space they were occupying when you left, you would have to put in the value of where the moon was located that many years ago.

There may be more added to this later, but I'll let everyone skim or read over everything hear, can't wait to hear what everyone has to say!

A way around your problem would be to travel back in time in a space ship, then you can fly to your destination, assuming you can locate your destination, which may be a problem if you are travelling a month or more back in time, im not sure of the velocity of our solar system, so this may only work for very short jumps backwards in time.

reply to post by Vortiki


Maybe your time machine will be static like the one featured in HG Wells story. It will move in time but not in space. Eg. Machine will sit there and time will move forward or backwards.

reply to post by Vortiki


That's a fun thought experiment! Stepping through your logic it sounds as though you've decoupled time from space and are working with multiple variables. I've always though of time travel as movement through a single dimension rather than through all four. My 'time machine' creates a bubble in which normal forward progression of time is suspended leaving the other three dimensions to swivel and rotate around me in whichever direction I desire.

No need to worry about the other 7 or so dimensions... Cool thoughts!

Because John Titor does not exist and many people simply says this is impossible. Mmmh !? Just some thoughts to make you think.


Thruthseek3r

reply to post by bhaal


Yes, you could possibly fly to your destination granted you knew its location relative to yours. However, how would you find any location near an object that is constantly moving? By the time you finished the equations to figure out the distance, we would have moved and the equations will be incorrect.

If you could determine the "absolute location" in a geological standpoint of your desired destination in "now" couldn't you then compare that to the "absolute location" to lets say last year and thus determine the amount of shift in both geological and astrological location resulting from that time? I completely agree with your second diagram but think not only Earth's rotation would come into play but also the Milky Way's rotation. There are so many variables that calculations could become VERY complicated but I personally do believe reverse time travel is possible

Originally posted by MysticEngineer
reply to post by Vortiki

 

Maybe your time machine will be static like the one featured in HG Wells story. It will move in time but not in space. Eg. Machine will sit there and time will move forward or backwards.

It would be strange to move backwards in such a device, as there could and probably are other things that have PREVIOUSLY occupied the space you are in, so I can't imagine it going backwards without some form of complication.

This is learned from Star Trek 2009 the motion picture...

"Try to think of space as the thing that's moving."

maybe things become calculable?

LoL, just poking fun.

reply to post by S2thetruth


That's what we call relative speed, the earth moves relative to the sun, solar system moves relative to the galaxy, galaxy moves relatively to the cosmic background.

reply to post by truthseeker84


Well that is just the problem, that space is moving, and that the location factor is constantly changing. Not to mention it changes in different relative natures.

reply to post by Vortiki


It would not be a big problem for short jumps backwards in time, as we would be able to see some features of our solar system in the distance, you could also use the radiation(radio/tv) coming from our planet as a homing beacon,assuming you have not jumped back before we had invented them.

reply to post by bhaal


It would be dependent to where the location factor is relative to. Is a point in space a constant? You can say a point on the moon will always be a point on the moon. However that point on the moon will NOT be in the same place in space 1 year as it was prior.

I, rightly or wrongly, can’t seem to separate time and location in my brain.

Say I travel back in time to 1990. I’m 4 years old at that time.

I (that exact same 4 year old girl) am now 24. traveling back in time to 1990. But where? 1990, when you think about it, doesn’t describe anything.

1990 is a made up number to differentiate between years. It isn’t the whole part of the equation. We need location.

If my 24 year old self travels back to 1990... I am already there... As a 4 year old girl. Not just stuck in “time” somewhere, but actually at a specific location doing something that is in the past. I cannot go back and interact with my 4 year old self unless I already did. Which I couldn’t have done.. because I wasn’t a 24 year old yet, with some idea to go visit my 4 year old self.

In essence, I agree with you. I think backwards time travel is born from science fiction and a desire to go back and change something we did or didn’t do... In a word, regret.

ETA: I used the classic meeting yourself example because it was easy. But you could really use any event or situation.


ETA: now tell me why I’m wrong

reply to post by worlds_away


While this may be true, there is some speculation that if you were, by some unknown event, go back into time, you wouldn't be going back into your own time, more a different reality parallel to yours in which you exist after arriving there.

I find myself constantly moving around in time -- "forwards" or "backwards" or "sideways" or "up" or "down" or however you want to try and define it. I tend to perceive my reality as only being in one relatively stable context, but I understand that there is still a lot of shifting going on.

So I can see where "travel" into the "past" is improbable, mostly because of how people want to define it. It's pretty much impossible to travel anywhere, since no matter where I go, there I am.

Is space a fix point, now that depends on whether space is expanding.

You could have two fixed points in space that are say 10cm apart and not moving, however the space in between them could expand, so even though to two fixed points had zero momentum, they are now farther apart.

How would we be able to calculate this i don't know, do we know the exact expansion rate of space and is it uniform across all space.

Personally i think the furthest you could go back in time would be the moment you first powered up your time machine, and your time traveling would always take you back to your machine.

Originally posted by MysticEngineer
reply to post by Vortiki

 

Maybe your time machine will be static like the one featured in HG Wells story. It will move in time but not in space. Eg. Machine will sit there and time will move forward or backwards.

But that's the point. I came to this conclusion many years ago as has the OP. The moment you move in time you MUST ALSO move in space to keep the same relative space-time position

The HG wells story is, ironically enough, a wonderful example. When the morlocks move the machine it has moved in space from the lab to the garden. However, that assumes the earth has not moved in space during that time. Even the rotation of the earth changes the location.

Now you can get round this with a spaceship BUT the spaceship will end up in the middle of where exactly? It could "drop out" of time and end up in the same physical space which is now occupied by a black hole.

The only solution is a wormhole which anchors time and space at each end.

These problems require 4d thinking and most people can only think like Khan of Star Trek II.

Reply to post by Vortiki

But, and maybe this is where I'm having trouble understanding...

Where is "there"?


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

reply to post by bhaal


Which would bring me to the conclusion the the only possible way of going backwards is via a gateway and not a craft of some sort. If you had a predetermined path and location to end up at all times, whatever device was "sending" you would merely have to seek a signal of the "receiving" device.

Doing this you would establish a set location that would be the same relative location regardless of change in distance between targets.