Timetravel the paradox

Can anyone tell me if timetravel is possible. I have read lots of posts on this board and on other web sites but none really explain wheath it is possible. I would like to be enlightened and hear if you think it is possible.

if u want a head ache now then we will answer but if u dont please say now
because it gets really confusing and gives u head aches

I think the answer is nobody actually knows yet...The grandfather paradox is the obvious one, ie

What would happen if you were to kill your grandfather before you were born, and if you did this, you wouldnt exsist, so you couldnt go back and kill your grandfather, which means that if you didnt go back to kill your grandfather you are born, which means that because you are born you can go back and kill your grandfather, which means you are not born so you cant kill your grandfather, which means you are born so you can......

so it gos on and on and on..

Some people belive that just standing on a twig in the past could end the world, some people belive it will do nothing but create an entirely different dimension and that anytime somebody travels back in time, you can never travel backwards into your own dimension..it all gets incredibly technical and complex..

It all seams to be thoretical at the moment though so i guess untill, somebody can actually travel at or faster than the speed of light, or create some kind of gravity distorting machine.. time travel will never happen..

and since light speed or faster than light speed is kinda deemed impossible then it all just gets to the point of #ing peoples heads right up...

then you have the idea about time itself and is time fixed for all objects or atoms?



so dont ask me because i dont have the foggyest either, and i doubt anybody else does on this board..

Well there is a kinda of golden age in Time Travel proposels being published in physics journels so if you believe those scientific jounels then yes Time Travel is very possible(as it doesn't violate General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics seems to support the idea). I think there have been over 100 different proposels that have been published so far on various concepts for scientifically feasable Time Travel.

The only problem is Power. In even the simplest proposels you would have to expend at the very least 3 times the amount of power our sun produces in a year. We aren't anywhere near that yet, unless someone finds a practicle way of doing it, it Ain't gonna happend in our lifetimes i think.

However if we do manage to develope the technology we would probably have to set up strict guildlines in order to prevent people from changing history for their own gain.

Here is a very interesting article that all of you should read.
The Physics of Timetravel

and since light speed or faster than light speed is kinda deemed impossible then it all just gets to the point of peoples heads right up...

Nothing is impossible just highly improbable, since we don't have a unified field theory yet we don't really know if it is completely impossible to go FTL or not. General Relativity say you cant go FTL but Quantum Mechanics has a phonemon called Entanglement which seemingly defies the Light Barrier(or rather gets around it somhow). There is so much we don't know, that informed speculation is impossible. I believe something is possible until its been shown to me to be impossible through proven mathematics and/or decades experimentation.

You guys should check out the rest of that site on which The Physics of Timetravel. Dr. Kaku has alot of interesting info on the frontier of Theortical Physics presented in a non-technical way.

The way I think time travel is considered now is movement through the 4th dimension. It looks strange to us because we only see movement in 3 dimensions. Say you have a piece of paper folded into a C-shape. If you only consider 2 dimensions you only see the flat faces of the sheet. Now lets say that you have a paper clip and push it through both sides of the sheet. In two dimensions the paper clip will look like it exists in two places at once, but when in reality all that has happened is that is moving through the 3rd dimension. Aging may be just movement "forward"though the 4th dimension, and time travel may just be movement in other directions. I have also heard that some scientist had plans to try and build a time machine to transport individual particles. I don't remember if it was completed or works though.

Mxyztos,
I think you are thinking of folding Spacetime and creating a shortcut, via wormhole going through a 4th spacial dimension. The 4th dimension is not Time as everyone keeps believing. Space and Time are part of an inseperable fabric we call the Universe which exists in 3 spacial dimension(proven spacial dimensions not hypothetical dimensions like String Theory, M-Theory and if you want to go waaay out there check out the Holographic Universe theory). If we were to say travel into this Hypothetical 4th dimension how would we find our way around? The topography would be totally alien to us, that is if we didn't go insane from trying to figure it all out. There is also a good book out that talks about possible 4th dimensional topography, although they are just concepts at what it might look like. One picture was really jarring, just imagine a Cube with only one edge, that is what the author theorized what a cube might look like in the 4th dimension. I'll post the name of the book if anyone is interested.

Originally posted by devilwasp
if u want a head ache now then we will answer but if u dont please say now
because it gets really confusing and gives u head aches

Oh yes! Time travel is a very complicated thing... If you had a time machine and your sister saved you while you were in time and you sedn robots to destroy her after she saved you becasue you were mad then you go back to the time period and you see yourself destroing the robots that you sent before you went into time and actully remeber destroying them, and then you go back into time would the time period be the right one you just came back to? I got this from a dexter episode on cartoon network

[Edited on 21-5-2004 by AD5673]

Originally posted by The Blade Runner
I think the answer is nobody actually knows yet...The grandfather paradox is the obvious one, ie

What would happen if you were to kill your grandfather before you were born, and if you did this, you wouldnt exsist, so you couldnt go back and kill your grandfather, which means that if you didnt go back to kill your grandfather you are born, which means that because you are born you can go back and kill your grandfather, which means you are not born so you cant kill your grandfather, which means you are born so you can......

so it gos on and on and on..

Some people belive that just standing on a twig in the past could end the world, some people belive it will do nothing but create an entirely different dimension and that anytime somebody travels back in time, you can never travel backwards into your own dimension..it all gets incredibly technical and complex..

It all seams to be thoretical at the moment though so i guess untill, somebody can actually travel at or faster than the speed of light, or create some kind of gravity distorting machine.. time travel will never happen..

and since light speed or faster than light speed is kinda deemed impossible then it all just gets to the point of #ing peoples heads right up...

then you have the idea about time itself and is time fixed for all objects or atoms?



so dont ask me because i dont have the foggyest either, and i doubt anybody else does on this board..

No if you killed your grandfather at age 25 it means you existed till age 25 until you killed him. If you went back in time to kill your grand father in the time period he didnt have children and was 10 years old and kill him then from the point of age 25 you were at you dont exist anymore. That strats a cycle that willlast forever. It will last forever becasue each time another person can go back and witness you being alive and killing your grandfather. So it means you were in fact born and existed until age 25
.

No if you killed your grandfather at age 25 it means you existed till age 25 until you killed him

but if you killed your grandfather before he impregnated your grandmother then you would't have even been born. And if you weren't born then how did you invent the machine to go back in time in the first place? It's a paradox, from our understanding at least since we are the fish in the pond called earth.

It's impossible to kill your grandfather before he impregnated your grandmother because you wouldnt exist to kill him. Or do you mean you kill him before him impregnated your grandmother when you go in time?



[Edited on 21-5-2004 by AD5673]

sardion2000,
Yah I was just trying to say that time travel would seem very strange to us. I understand that time and space are inseperable, and navagating o higher dimension would be impossible for us to do.

Or do you mean you kill him before him impregnated your grandmother when you go in time?

I think you just answered you question with you question And it is probably possible to go back in time to before your Granfather impregnated your grandmother. Thats the core argument of the Grandfather Paradox. Read that link I posted above, Its very well writen by someone who knows what he is talking about, and he presents it in a way that almost anyone can understand it.

On a side note, as an Engineering problem Time Travel is quiet improbable since it appears very likely our Species as it currently stands wont survive the next 1,000 yrs and in order to harness the Power in order to go backward or foward into time at will must be 10,000 yrs ahead of our current technology. Point is talking about Time Travel is merely thought exersizes cause we will never see it(in all likelyhood that is, all it takes is one big breakthrough then everything changes ei E=MC2 is a good example...)

hmmm time travel interesting probally impossible if you seriosly think about it i mean you can't change the past and if someone did go into the past wouldn't our world be constantly changing? Think if someone in the future traveled to the past shot Hitler when he was 12 then wouldn't the WHOLE world change? I'm using that as an example...its impossible

If you want to read about someone that actually believes it is possible and he is currently working on a time machine, check of information on Robert Mallet. www.phys.uconn.edu...

Too many theories on what would happen and the possibilities.... I study time travel alot and the paradoxes are numerous and no one can really come up with the best answer. Personally, I think that Mr. Mallet will end up proving us right or wrong and point us in the right direction.....

If travelling backwards through time is possible and will one day be mastered, shouldn't we be seeing tourists from the future popping up all over the place just before every historic event?

According to this article I've read numerous times, light speed isn't the limit for "entities" already travelling at light speed.

Link

Originally posted by Groo the Wanderer
If travelling backwards through time is possible and will one day be mastered, shouldn't we be seeing tourists from the future popping up all over the place just before every historic event?

Yeah, there was a good movie about that. The Grand Tour.
us.imdb.com...

Originally posted by Groo the Wanderer
If travelling backwards through time is possible and will one day be mastered, shouldn't we be seeing tourists from the future popping up all over the place just before every historic event?

no probably not because there would be strict guide lines
like no meeting ur relatives
you dont want to screw up the time line or circle as it is sometimes called

time travel i dont think will be possible but you can slow it down

Thanks youv cleared it up abit for me