i heard

this is interesting... with my limited knowledge in this field, suggesting that time travel can only possibly be done toward the future...

eventhough the real experiment still cannot be reached, the concept of Einstein's relativity may seems to be in senses... the time dilution phenomena, when people travel in speed of light, the time slows down for the traveler. and yet, traveling at the speed of light is also seemed to be impossible or far in the future.

while travleing back to the past, i only agree it must swicth to another timeline. by switching to another timeline, this cannot be considered as time traveling. despite that, this may be named as dimention travelling. Eventhough, i agree about this concept, the parrallel world is still unproven, and the mistery of balck hole is still far from obvious...

Yeah, I too have a hard time buying what Einstein said. From what I've read, it was never taken seriously and still isn't. I mean, when you hit the speed of light you are going insanly fast, so why would everything slow down? Seems to me if you go between point a and b traveling the speed of light, it shouldn't take you 300 years to reach your destination, it should take 300ths of a second.

Originally posted by Frosty
Yeah, I too have a hard time buying what Einstein said. From what I've read, it was never taken seriously and still isn't. I mean, when you hit the speed of light you are going insanly fast, so why would everything slow down? Seems to me if you go between point a and b traveling the speed of light, it shouldn't take you 300 years to reach your destination, it should take 300ths of a second.

Frosty,

Contrary to what you may think about relativity, the effect you are talking about - time dilation - is taken quite seriously, and has been experimentally verified over and over under laboratory conditions. In fact, were it not for time dilation, many new particles that have been discovered through the use of particle accelerators could not have been studied. Their half-lifes are so infinitesimally short that, if their time had not been slowed down by their speeds, they would not have existed long enough for us to discover them.

Time dilation has been verified using atomic clocks. Google a combination of these words to find out more.

Lastly, it is not necessary to travel at the speed of light in order to experience time dilation. This effect occurs any time there is a relative difference in velocity between the observer and the traveller. But the effect is only large at extremely high speeds. It is estimated that some of the Apollo astronauts moved a minute or so into the future because of the speed and duration of their long flights to the Moon.

Harte

hmm, i would've thought it the other way around. a person travelling at light speed would experience much less time than the people not travelling.

per example, three men board a ship, which will travel at light speed from point a to point b. they arrive, for them the trip has only been 3 months, but for the people at points a&b it has been 20 years.

please, clarify this for me, i am very confused.

So, if one were to travel the speed of light, their entire internal organ system would slow down? What would be their heart rate?

Originally posted by Frosty
So, if one were to travel the speed of light, their entire internal organ system would slow down? What would be their heart rate?

Your heart would beat normally, time is relative ,you the observer would not notice time slowing had until you compaired your clock to the one remaining on earth after your super-luminal escapade.

Another interesting point is that if you lived in the vicinity of a neturon star its gravity would also distort time, hence in a neutron star based solar system time would pass slower inside the boudary of influance.Time flow may even vary in all solar systems base on the mass of the stars, be it insignificant in some cases.

Kitsunegari : you've got it right no need to be confused

Your time seems to move much slower compared to everyone else, but you perceive your clock as running normal. The faster you go, the slower your time moves. At the speed of light (assuming you could go that speed, which you can't) it takes you no time to get anywhere. (in your frame of reference)

Expirement that I need some help with:
So I and a friend stand side by side together and snap our fingers in synch with each other. My friend then suddenly excelerates to the speed of light. While this is happening we both continue to snap our fingers. My friend then returns to his original position. By the time he left and has arrived, I have snapped my fingers to a total count of 55, how many did he snap? Why is the number not the same? Where along the line of his travel did time dialation occur?



[edit on 13-7-2005 by Frosty]

We dion't know how many times, more numbers are needed and acceleration is very hard to account for. Time dilation occured for the entirety of the trip, even when he was standing still. (Depending ever so slightly on his elevation relative to yours)

thank you for all of the opinions...

the general concern is, how to make time travelling to the future possible based on this time dilation phenomena...

i ve read some articles and the ideas:
1) the time traveling is focused on the traveling in time which is based on the earth time...
2) by making a machine that vibrate in a very small amplitude with speed of light... but how could the atoms in the body of traveller can be maintained with such high speed vibration???
3) or may be traveling around the world with speed of light...
4) the other main problem is " is it possible to make such machine that could travel with speed of light?"

Originally posted by Amorymeltzer
We dion't know how many times, more numbers are needed and acceleration is very hard to account for. Time dilation occured for the entirety of the trip, even when he was standing still. (Depending ever so slightly on his elevation relative to yours)

But according to the theory, the number of snaps will not be equal amongst the two. And this is what I have a hard time understanding.

That just means you're normal. It's weird to think about, but time is not as solid as regular life shows it to be. It can change however the hell it damn pleases. (according to rules)

Originally posted by try
thank you for all of the opinions...

the general concern is, how to make time travelling to the future possible based on this time dilation phenomena...

i ve read some articles and the ideas:
1) the time traveling is focused on the traveling in time which is based on the earth time...
2) by making a machine that vibrate in a very small amplitude with speed of light... but how could the atoms in the body of traveller can be maintained with such high speed vibration???
3) or may be traveling around the world with speed of light...
4) the other main problem is " is it possible to make such machine that could travel with speed of light?"

I think you may be running into the difference between "what we really know about time travel" and "folklore about time travel."

There's a HUGE chunk of literature on this in the scientific world. What you find on a lot of "folk knowledge" websites is some of the real science -- but they simply can't go into the math (or don't understand the math, theories, and formulas).

The "folk knowledge" sites don't give you enough of the right detail to answer these questions.

So, the answer to #1 is "no, time travel theories (scientific) give parameters for time travel in any place in this universe as well as in a number of other types of universes." (the mathematical description of a universe... not the "folk knowledge-comic book type of universe.")

"Folk knowledge" sites won't give you enough right information to be able to construct any sort of time travel machines. The science sites will, but to date they've only been successful sending pieces of atoms into the past. A lot of important research is going on here and descriptions of the machines are given.

But it's not something you can build in a home garage.

You might like to check scholar.google.com... and just google there for time travel papers. There's two major branches of time travel discussed in scholarly papers -- the psychological time travel and the mathematical one. The math ones are hard reading but are just SO fascinating!

Originally posted by Frosty
But according to the theory, the number of snaps will not be equal amongst the two. And this is what I have a hard time understanding.

Yes. Time is relative. The number of snaps will not be equal, because even though you are snapping to a beat, to your friend, the timing of his whole reality, including the beat, will have changed, but since he has no point of reference to determine that, it will seem like everything is normal.

Whoever said that people think Einstein's theory of relativity has no place in modern science, I must say that such an assertion is completely and absolutely assinine. We're trying to deny ignorance here, all you needed to do was one simple google search to disprove your hypothesis.

en.wikipedia.org...

There is a debate about whether Einstein's theory is correct, and THAT is what few people pay attention to, and many think is crazy.

dir.salon.com...

Zip

Originally posted by Zipdot
Yes. Time is relative. The number of snaps will not be equal, because even though you are snapping to a beat, to your friend, the timing of his whole reality, including the beat, will have changed, but since he has no point of reference to determine that, it will seem like everything is normal.

Could he not use the number of snaps he performed previously before accelerating as a reference frame?

I gave two examples of a clock in time travel: the human heart beat and the snapping of one's finger. Suppose the same analogy were used to describe the heart beat in place of the snap. In order for there to be any conclusive reasoning as to why the hearts beats of the two gentelmen would be different (if they were already in synch) would mean that at some point in the trip, the man's heart had to beat out of it's original beat. But why?

That's not how it works. The speed of the heartbeat won't change. There will be more time to allow more beats of the heart.

Zip

Originally posted by Zipdot
There will be more time to allow more beats of the heart.

Now you are sounding a little crazy to me. If your statement of our ability to creat time is true, then there is there a possibility to destroy it all together with a similar effect. No?

It's not creating time. It just appears to be more or less time depending on your point of views. That's why it's called Relativity. A totally unrelated and incorrect analogy would be driving at 30mph and throwing a ball at 30mph. The ball will be going (roughly) 60 mph, right? Did you "create" velocity? Well, no, because the ground thinks the ball is going 60, the car thinks the ball is going 30, and the ball thinks it isn't moving.

Originally posted by Amorymeltzer
It's not creating time. It just appears to be more or less time depending on your point of views.

So you are saying there is no time dialation, or that over certain distances events take longer to approach one observer over another who is closer to the event?

No, there is time dilation, and that's why it appears the snaps aren't equal. One person's time slows down relative to the other, so person A sees person B snap 5 times when he (A) has snapped 10, but person B is still snapping at the same rate. His time is just moving slower.