SCI: Time Travel 101: A How To Guide

Originally posted by Helghast1
"time travel" might work in space, but on earth you cannot travel back in time or we would have someone here from the future already

Perhaps, but what is to stop a space time traveler from taking their space craft and landing on earth after they time traveled in space?

Or perhaps we might build a machine right here on earth that is capable of causing the person inside to move rapidly, within an area here on earth at the speed of light there by achieving the same effect without them leaving earth...?



[edit on 9-8-2009 by gimme_some_truth]

Maybe it's possible change the past.

What do u think?

reply to post by Deicide88


yes. i believe if u can travel to the past, u can change it, but in doing so, you also change the whole future.

Originally posted by jkrog08
reply to post by tauristercus

The spontaneous decay of a selected atom is completely RANDOM, completely UNPREDICTABLE and completely governed by QUANTUM MECHANICAL PROCESSES.

But remember that wave function allows a certain probability to be known, so it is not completely unpredictable. Also once the wave function collapses it is no longer completely unpredictable, as the probability distribution becomes 100% at that point.

You're talking about "predicting" which atom will decay based on probability values having been assigned to the wave function. But this is NOT the same as knowing with COMPLETE CERTAINTY which of the atoms will decay if you've already once observed the decay of that particular atom, then go back in time to just before that atom decayed and watch the outcome once more.
The 1st time you conducted the decay experiment you would have had NO idea at all which atom was about to decay, which is of course at the heart of quantum mechanics ... but once you knew which atom HAD decayed then went back to the beginning of the experiment, you would ALWAYS be able to predict with CERTAINTY and then see that SAME atom decay over and over and over ... therefore implying that EVERY quantum event that happened in the experiment the 1st time around has just been DUPLICATED EXACTLY the 2nd time around, and will also be DUPLICATED the 3rd, 4th, nth time that you re-watch the experiment.

And yet here you are able to state categorically and exactly which atom will decay next. In other words, every quantum mechanical event that happened in the entire universe would have just had to unfold EXACTLY as it did before for that one atom to decay ... the very atom that you knew would decay.

But if you are travelling back on the same time line why would the point of wave collapse be different? Keep in mind that according to uantum theory every possible outcome does happen, just on different realities.

You're right ... travelling back along the same time line to re-observe the experiment essentially FORCES the wave to collapse at the SAME point, resulting in the (already known) atom to decay. The difference is that the wave collapse is supposed to be COMPLETELY unpredicatable and yet here you are the 2nd time around being able to PREDICT with UTMOST CERTAINTY something that should be UNPREDICTABLE !

Therefore, no matter how you "juggle" things around or imagine "what if's" ... there is simply no way around the 2 examples I just supplied that would permit time travel to be even
remotely possible using a single time line. But then it just gets even worse if you allow the existance of additional time lines.

Not really, quantum theory predicts an infinite number of universes (timelines) where each possible individual out come of every event happens. Each timeline is completely separate from the other, so in a sense reality is both singular (to each realities respected observer) and infinite (in respect to a world view). It works out fine.

Again, there is NO evidence whatsoever of the existance of multiple time lines or even if they existed, how to cross from one to another.
So in my examples above, assuming only a single time line and also allowing backwards time travel, would be nothing short of CATASTROPHIC !!

reply to post by Deicide88


Well theoretically speaking, if you are able to go into the past, and assuming you would be on the same time line, I would say yes you could.

If you can change the past you also change the future as well.

However, there are a lot of ethical and moral issues that come into play. For example, let's say a person decides to go back and kill Hitler before he ever has a chance to even think about doing the horrible things he did.

At the same time, imagine if a person who actually agrees with what hitler did, goes back and using their knowledge of how the war went, changes the past so Hitler won... Yikes huh?

Can you imagine what the world would be like if Some one changed the past so that Hitler won WW2?

Originally posted by tauristercus


Again, there is NO evidence whatsoever of the existance of multiple time lines or even if they existed, how to cross from one to another.

Yes there is. It is within the string theory. Keep in mind I do not know that much about string theory but I do know that string theory shows there are a total of 11 dimensions. String theory Opens the window to something called M theory ( Multiverse theory) which talks about an infinite number of parallel universes all existing at the same time, yet on different reality/time lines.

This explains a bit more about string and M theory.

www.damtp.cam.ac.uk...

Let me again preface the following with my mantra ...
"Nature ABSOLUTELY PROHIBITS backwards time travel !!"


And now for a get rich quick scheme guaranteed to work !

Start on Monday by placing a gold bar in a safe that only opens to your thumb print. Now don't open the safe and let the week go by until it's Saturday.

Now, go and open your safe and remove the gold bar. It's there because you didn't open the safe all week. Put the gold bar into your time machine and go back to the previous day (Friday).
Now open the safe and of course there MUST still be a gold bar there because you won't remove until the next day (Saturday). Place the gold bar into your time machine, making it now 2 bars that you have.
Now go back another day (Thursday), open the safe and remove the gold bar. You now have 3 gold bars.

Keep doing this until you end up back at the original day of Monday when you 1st placed the gold bar into the safe. You started of with only a single gold bar and yet you now have 6 gold bars and you're RICH !!!!!

Brilliant, huh ? just too bad it's impossible.

Again, for those that missed it the 1st time, let me reiterate ....

!!!! TIME TRAVEL IS PROHIBITED BY NATURE !!!!!

Originally posted by gimme_some_truth

Originally posted by tauristercus


Again, there is NO evidence whatsoever of the existance of multiple time lines or even if they existed, how to cross from one to another.

Yes there is. It is within the string theory. Keep in mind I do not know that much about string theory but I do know that string theory shows there are a total of 11 dimensions. String theory Opens the window to something called M theory ( Multiverse theory) which talks about an infinite number of parallel universes all existing at the same time, yet on different reality/time lines.

This explains a bit more about string and M theory.

www.damtp.cam.ac.uk...

Ok, I'll concede the possibility but once more, with NO evidence that "potentially existing" time lines are accessible (note the use of "potentially" as I need to be slapped hard in the face with SOLID evidence ), we are still restricted to discussing time travel in relation to the SINGLE time line that we know DOES exist ... ours !

Originally posted by tauristercus

"Nature ABSOLUTELY PROHIBITS backwards time travel !!"

Not necassarily true.

According to further research done on the special theory of relativity, the universe creates, naturally objects we call worm holes. If you were to go to that worm hole and loop it on itself it creates a loop in time and space. To loop time is to be able to travel in where within that time loop you choose.

Now Technologically I will give you it is impossible. But theoretically speaking, if a worm hole exists any where in the universe the ability to go into the past is there.

The beauty of time is that it is only relative to the observer. There is no time. If you were to travel back you would not remember the travel or the future for that would defeat the purpose of why we are here.

We are here to learn what it is like to be confined to time for before we were all that there is. This experience here on earth is about living then dying. We wanted to know what it was like to be powerless and to die.

You start as sperm and live a life as a sperm surrounded by millions of others that live and die then something happens and you are reborn again. For nine months which is a whole life for you in a womb, something happens, then you are reborn as a human. It doesnt stop there. Whats next?

One day the veil will be removed and time will disappear.

So i believe that time travel is impossible and pointless. Kinda like doing a crossword puzzle with the answer sheet in front of you. Pointless. But you can send thoughts and feelings through time. The voice in your head and feelings of premonitions is just you from the future and the past for your thoughts are not binded by time. So think hard of your past and think about what you should of and shouldn't have done and you will receive these thoughts in the past as feelings, ideas or dream. You can change the lives of the parallel you, but thats a whole different topic. Sorta.

Originally posted by tauristercus


Ok, I'll concede the possibility but once more, with NO evidence that "potentially existing" time lines are accessible (note the use of "potentially" as I need to be slapped hard in the face with SOLID evidence

), we are still restricted to discussing time travel in relation to the SINGLE time line that we know DOES exist ... ours !

String theory ( often reffered to as the theory of everything for a reason)and M theory are not evidence? With all due respect are you under the impression that there is no logic or scientific knowledge that went into these theories?

String theory and M theory is about as SOLID as it gets.

Also, who is restricting me from discussing time travel in relation to multiple time lines?

I have seen quite a few people discussing it so far. Even you.

Are you aware that time is not relative? It is viewed differently by every single person or anything. SO to say that there is one time line is inaccurate. Time is different for everybody.There is no one set time line.That too is talked about in the special theory of relativity.





[edit on 9-8-2009 by gimme_some_truth]

Originally posted by gimme_some_truth

Originally posted by tauristercus

"Nature ABSOLUTELY PROHIBITS backwards time travel !!"

Not necassarily true.

According to further research done on the special theory of relativity, the universe creates, naturally objects we call worm holes. If you were to go to that worm hole and loop it on itself it creates a loop in time and space. To loop time is to be able to travel in where within that time loop you choose.

Now Technologically I will give you it is impossible. But theoretically speaking, if a worm hole exists any where in the universe the ability to go into the past is there.

Ok, no argument from me on the topic of wormholes and their hypothetical properties.

But let me once again refer you to my earlier two examples of the "illusion of free will" and the "collapse of quantum theory" should single time line backwards travel be allowed. Complete and total chaos would ensue !

I simply fail to see how nature would even consider allowing such a state of affairs to be possible ... but then again, perhaps I'm missing something obvious here .. but don't think so

Just had yet another thought (oh, no ... they cry !!) ... is spatial location automatically linked to time travel ?
In other words, if I jump into my patented time travel machine (in my garage) and make a journey back say, a month. Am I guaranteed a quick and nasty death because a month ago the entire planet was not even anywhere close physically in space to where it is the moment I entered my time machine and hit the button ... and when I rematerialize a month ago, will I be rematerializing with no planet underneath me ??

Can someone come up with even a "loose" reason why time should be linked to spatial location ? In other words, why should there be any reason to assume that I time travel from my garage backwards a month, and expect to rematerialize safely once again in my garage ?

Originally posted by tauristercus


Just had yet another thought (oh, no ... they cry !!) ... is spatial location automatically linked to time travel ?
In other words, if I jump into my patented time travel machine (in my garage) and make a journey back say, a month. Am I guaranteed a quick and nasty death because a month ago the entire planet was not even anywhere close physically in space to where it is the moment I entered my time machine and hit the button ... and when I rematerialize a month ago, will I be rematerializing with no planet underneath me ??

I am not sure I follow what you are saying. If the planet is there before you go back in time one month, why would it not be there one month before you went back in time?

Did the planet dissapear for a day or am I just not getting your example?

keep in mind as well, as far as spatial time travel. What is being suggested for traveling to the future is moving at a high rate of speed. What is being suggested for going back is looping a wormhole in on it self. Of course to get to the worm hole I imagine we would have to travel to it ( unless we figured out how to make a man made one here on earth.)

Both moving fast and looping worm hole work according to theory. Of course it is just theory. Not proven fact. It will be quite a while before we are able to test it out. On paper though, it does work.

I will go as far as to say, in fact we do not know it will work. But in theory it appears to. We will not know for sure until we are such time as we are able to test it.

And that is what the thread/article is about. The theory behind it all.


[edit on 9-8-2009 by gimme_some_truth]

Pure fantasy. Try to understand this is not real physics or science, just pretend philosophy based on fictional mumbo jumbo math. Your espousing nothing more the sci-fi imagination parroted over and over again. Believe me, the Supreme Being does not issue an impulse to alter the creation, look at his watch and say "well let's see, at the speed of light this will take... oh 50 billion years to reach there from here, I better go to lunch.". Changes are instantaneous. The speed of light is not the ultimate of anything nor is it directly related to "time", nor "time" a dimension.

Originally posted by Angelsoftheapocalypse
reply to post by Deicide88

 

yes. i believe if u can travel to the past, u can change it, but in doing so, you also change the whole future.

If it is even remotely possible to travel back in time, here is what I think.

From the point you alter the past, you will have ultimately changed the future you came from and the thought of traveling to the past would have never have been a thought to go back to the point you went back to in the first place.

Therefore your present time would cease to exist to be able to have come from that point in time because the actions of you changing one thing in the past will eliminate you from ever reaching the point in the future you just came from. so the present time you came from would not exist and since you physically came from the future, you would be stuck in the past you went to and would cause a new path to be played out for your current self, and thus ultimately merging with your past self and causing a new path for your past self, creating a future that your current physical self was never a part of.

Everything you knew about from your time line would be a figment in your brain nothing more than a dream. All the people you knew, the feelings you had and your thoughts of that time would cause you to break down mentally you would probably be suffering from Schizophrenia.

Think about that for a minute, this could be the cause of said Schizophrenia.




[edit on 9-8-2009 by I think Im normal]

[edit on 9-8-2009 by I think Im normal]

[edit on 9-8-2009 by I think Im normal]

Originally posted by gimme_some_truth

Originally posted by tauristercus

String theory and M theory is about as SOLID as it gets.

Look, I agree that String and M theory are elegant mathematical constructs and a credit to those involved in their creation ... i only wish I could understand just a fraction of what S & M theory has to say for themselves.

But unfortunately there is NO consensus in the scientific community regarding it's ultimate value regarding it's predictiveness as the following quote shows:

"String theory as a theory of everything has been criticized as unscientific because it is so difficult to test by experiments. The controversy centers around two properties:
It is widely believed that any theory of quantum gravity would require extremely high energies to probe directly, higher by orders of magnitude than those that current experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider can reach.
String theory as it is currently understood has a huge number of equally possible solutions, called string vacua and these vacua might be sufficiently diverse to explain almost any phenomena we might observe at lower energies.

If these properties are true, string theory as a theory of everything would have little or no predictive power for low energy particle physics experiments. Because the theory is so difficult to test, some theoretical physicists have asked if it can even be called a scientific theory. Notable critics include Peter Woit, Lee Smolin, Philip Anderson, Sheldon Glashow, Lawrence Krauss, and Carlo Rovelli.

For reasons such as above, is why I'm trying to keep my responses relative only to a single time line, if for no other reason than to try to keep things simple.

Also, who is restricting me from discussing time travel in relation to multiple time lines?
I have seen quite a few people discussing it so far. Even you.

Quite true ... but again, why try to wrap our heads around multiple time line interactions when we patently can't even handle time travel restricted to just one time line ?

Are you aware that time is not relative? It is viewed differently by every single person or anything. SO to say that there is one time line is inaccurate. Time is different for everybody.There is no one set time line.That too is talked about in the special theory of relativity.

That sounds like you're implying that each of us has a time line that is COMPLETELY independent of every one elses time line ... and that we're NOT all members of a single time line ?





[edit on 9-8-2009 by gimme_some_truth]

Originally posted by ReelView
Pure fantasy. Try to understand this is not real physics or science, just pretend philosophy based on fictional mumbo jumbo math. Your espousing nothing more the sci-fi imagination parroted over and over again. Believe me, the Supreme Being does not issue an impulse to alter the creation, look at his watch and say "well let's see, at the speed of light this will take... oh 50 billion years to reach there from here, I better go to lunch.". Changes are instantaneous. The speed of light is not the ultimate of anything nor is it directly related to "time", nor "time" a dimension.

Ok, will take your input under consideration ....

Everytime the subject of aliens visiting Earth comes up and idiots say "oh yeah it's impossible because you can't travel faster than light and they could never get here" I think about this stuff, things like wormholes, blackholes, etc.

Obviously a race with millions or billions of years of evolution would have found out by now how to travel all around the universe, one way or another, and they could very well be here.

Originally posted by tauristercus

Look, I agree that String and M theory are elegant mathematical constructs and a credit to those involved in their creation ... i only wish I could understand just a fraction of what S & M theory has to say for themselves.

Well the info is out there all you have to do is look. Scientists such as Carl Sgan and Michio Kiku have written very good books on science that are easy for just about anyone to understand. Perhaps try that

But unfortunately there is NO consensus in the scientific community regarding it's ultimate value regarding it's predictiveness as the following quote shows:

Well of course their is no official consensus. First of all it is a theory, as in not proven. Second that is what science is. The whole point is to attempt to not prove a theory right but to prove it wrong. When they prove one thing wrong they get closer and closer to finding how things really are. If you have ever been to a science lecture and watched other scientists attempt to tear apart the lecturers ideas that is science in progress.

"String theory as a theory of everything has been criticized as unscientific because it is so difficult to test by experiments. The controversy centers around two properties:
It is widely believed that any theory of quantum gravity would require extremely high energies to probe directly, higher by orders of magnitude than those that current experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider can reach.
String theory as it is currently understood has a huge number of equally possible solutions, called string vacua and these vacua might be sufficiently diverse to explain almost any phenomena we might observe at lower energies.

If these properties are true, string theory as a theory of everything would have little or no predictive power for low energy particle physics experiments. Because the theory is so difficult to test, some theoretical physicists have asked if it can even be called a scientific theory. Notable critics include Peter Woit, Lee Smolin, Philip Anderson, Sheldon Glashow, Lawrence Krauss, and Carlo Rovelli.

See above. Also, where did that quote come from anyway?

For reasons such as above, is why I'm trying to keep my responses relative only to a single time line, if for no other reason than to try to keep things simple.

You are more than welcome to discuss it at any angle you like. With all due respect though I guess I am still looking at it from a more complicated angel. I do like a challenge.

Quite true ... but again, why try to wrap our heads around multiple time line interactions when we patently can't even handle time travel restricted to just one time line ?

Why? I don't know. Why not? I mean it is just a theoretical discussion. With your logic we should not even discuss the one time line possibility because we are unable to travel time as of yet.

I guess what I am thinking is since we are ultimately dealing with just theories, what is the harm in contemplating the deeper and more complex areas of the theories at hand?

[EDIT: correcting a few typos.

[edit on 9-8-2009 by gimme_some_truth]

reply to post by gimme_some_truth

I am not sure I follow what you are saying. If the planet is there before you go back in time one month, why would it not be there one month before you went back in time?

Sorry ... obviously made a hash of that !

What I'm saying is that we're all attached to the planet and travel along with it. Now, say a month ago, the planet was in a completely different location in it's yearly orbit around the sun ... and in a months time will be even further ahaead in its orbit. So the planet is NOT stationary in space.

Now, if I go back in time and I start of in my garage, my garage is PHYSICALLY located on the planet which in turn is (at that moment in time) at a PHYSICAL point of it's orbit. By going back one month, sure I've temporally gone back in time, BUT have I ALSO moved thru space back to where my garage was PHYSICALLY located one month ago ? which was in a completely different part of the earths orbit.
If my time machine instead goes back in time one month BUT remains in the EXACT same spot in the orbit, then I'm going to rematerialize and find that the earth won't be reaching this spot I'm in for another month.

And I'm in BIG trouble sucking vacuum !!!