Physicist Definitively Rules Time Travel Impossible

[Megacherv]

Actually, he's not ruled out time travel into the future, which is sort-of possible. The faster you're moving, the slower time goes for you. Here's an example

You have 2 (theoretically) identical clocks. One stays in the exact same spot in on the planet, moving at the speed of the earth's orbit, whilst one is sent round the earth at such a speed that it returns to to its starting position (next to the other clock) in exactly one hour. The clock that orbited the earth in an hour would be slightly behind the other one, as it travelled faster.

Sure, it's not instant time-travel, but it's similar

There's no difference in principal from the method you describe to just living one day at a time and 'time-travelling' that way.

I...wait...are you agreeing with me here or what? I honestly can't tell

 

[manythings]

It's impossible because it can't be done just now. Who says his proofs are irrefutable?

Is he trying to say that we know all there is too know about this branch of physics, right now?

"Phycicist thinks time travel is probably impossible based on all this sciencing" is a less grabbing headline. He either is certain he is right or certain no one will prove him wrong while he is alive... or this strand of divergent time.

Or just talking out of his arse to get his 15.

Money is tight these days, I'm willing to bet a lot of scientists are fuzzing research data to sound more earth shattering to secure grants.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

Looking at the article, it's all to do with creating a spatial analogy to time, and showing that in that model you can't bend light back on itself. But at no point is reflection ruled out.

I want a time mirror (that is now my phrase/name for it. No-one steal it please!)

 

[YawningAngel]

This paper has been misconstrued. What it says is that the Big Bang as modelled in metamaterials cannot have reversed time flow. Nothing more, nothing less.

Oh, and while instant time travel to the future isn't known to be possible, travelling any given length of time as experienced by the rest of the universe is (barring the relativistic complications) trivial provided you can attain an arbitrary speed.

 

[loomis]

I like this quote from an Ivan from the popsci site.

"Nice work, but calling time travel impossible, when looking at all the things called impossible in history, just makes it more probable "

it's is true.

 

[Dragonpit]

The sad thing is...like before, even if you say it's impossible, people just won't give this up.

 

[Fanboy]

Oh yeah? This post was made on April 6th, at 3:28 pm, but on April 7th I will go back and edit it to something completely different.

Just TRY and stop me, Igor Smolyaninov!

But wait, if I change the post I will prove him wrong and have no reason to make this post in the first place, which means I won't be able to change it in the future, which means he will be right, [small]which means I will make this post and change it in the future, which means he'll be wrong and I won't have to make this post, [small]which means I am stuck in a loop...[/small][/small]

[sub]Crap.[/sub]

 

[Axolotl]

We already knew traveling back in time was impossible, that's obvious. The important question that Hawking and others tried to answer is why time travel is impossible.

 

[Verlander]

I thought Einstein worked this out, and probably people before him?

 

[MadCapMunchkin]

Screw science, I have a TARDIS!

 

[RA92]

Who says time travel is impossible?

I'm travelling through time, towards the future.

 

[ssManae]

I say we invoke Clarke's First Law:

"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong."

Still, the alternate dimension thing reminds me of this time-travel thing I saw once a few years ago, about a guy coming back to get some UNIX systems so they could fix the problems with 'em in the future after the nuclear wars (they were supposed to drop in 2007; it was a decent read, though, back in the day). Part of his claim on it was time travel was less a straight line and more of a hyperboloid: the further you traveled, the further you [might] be from your own time line. If nothing else, it gave the writings a bit more of an "authentic" route in that if none of it came to pass, well, we were just a dimension far enough from his own.

EDIT: Also, abusing relativity to travel forward in time still holds. Too bad you can't come back using that theory...

EDIT2: Dupeo got his name. John Titor. Couldn't remember that for the life of me. Been years since I read any of it.

 

[Dupeo]

Uh, we DO have at least one time traveler who decided to reveal himself. John Titor. Look him up.

 

[kebab4you]

Soo with that logic someone from an alter universe could come to ours and kill Hitler for us? Sounds kewl.

 

[ssManae]

Soo with that logic someone from an alter universe could come to ours and kill Hitler for us? Sounds kewl.

Nope. He already would have been killed. Past is still set in stone for us.

 

[SilverHammerMan]

So.... we're going with the Marvel Universe approach to time travel?

 

[Amizrael]

I like the idea of alternate realities. We'll fuck up their timelines, but keep our one pristine.

What sort of perfect dimension are you from? Ours has never been pristine.

Think he means free from the meddling efforts of universe hopping interlopers.

 

[Worr Monger]

Star Trek & Farscape teach me different.

F this noise..

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

Wait...so if we can still theoretically travel to alternate dimensions...and there are infinite universes with infinite possibilities...does that mean I could go to a universe where Scarlett johanssen accepts my constant marrige proposals and we all gets six-shooters and katanas and pet dinosaurs?