Time travel will never be possible.
- Thread starter BaronXS
- Start date
Paradox theories tend to leave ones mind in a bit of a haze but bear with me here. what if you invented a time machine and went back in time, set up a bomb (just for laughs) and killed say 200 poeple none directly related to you. although directly not effecting you it would still effect some people however this would still exist and something will have changed if none directly affected anything that had to do with you what do you think would happen?
So what I'm getting here is that there are only two schools of theory that you believe in on these forums..
The Sliders school of Space/Time
or the Quantum Leap school of Space/Time.
The Sliders school of Space/Time
or the Quantum Leap school of Space/Time.
I once heard that if someone build a Time Machine, you would only be able to travel to the moment you turned on the machine and forward.
Also, you could do whatever you want since you would probably end in a parallel universe.
Also, you could do whatever you want since you would probably end in a parallel universe.
The actual science behind the idea of time travel is incredibly difficult for me to wrap my mind around. It seems to be the case that both time and space are relative and related. As a result, time does not pass in a uniform manner and instead is relative to one's speed with respect to light (or indeed gravity, which affects space). Differences in gravity and speed have been shown to result in differences in the passing of time, such that a very accurate clock on the top of a tall building registers time's passage more slowly than another very accruate clock at ground level (though it is an astonishingly small difference).
If time is a function of space, then it would stand to reason that time is directly related to speed. Since the fastest known thing in the universe is light (which provides the only known physical speed limit), the common assumption is the best one can do is slow the passage of time as one cannot actually exceed the speed of light. Everyone technically travels "through time" it's simply done in the same direction and therefore not terribly intresting. Were one able to do so, the concept of time itself no longer has a meaning as it is no longer related to anything in particular, which may indeed mean one can travel about in an arbitrary direction in time.
The trouble is, the amount of energy required to accellerate any object with mass to the speed of light is actually more than the sum total energy in the universe (which itself strikes me as strange, but I digress). However, since speed is a function of space and time, it stands to reason that if one can manipulate space, they could also manipulate time itself. This point is given some degree of crediblity since gravity has been proven to affect both light (the experiment that first corborated Einstein's theory) and time (in a series of famous experiments wherein fantastiaclly accurate clocks were placed at different distances from the center of the earth). The idea of manipulating space itself is at the core of most science fiction faster than light travel, from the idea of "wormhole" travel to star trek's "warp travel". Mass effect is notably different in that they discovered an element who's mass is arbitrary. Since this material has no fixed mass, a lot of the usual physical conventions get thrown out the window.
As an aside, there are things that travel faster than the speed of light...sort of. Sound, itself nothing more than a wave carried through some medium or another, could concievably (and in a recent experiment my indeed) travel faster than light. The catch is, though a sound wave requires motion of a medium, the medium itself doesn't not actually travel - only the energy of the wave does.
But, like I said, the physics explanation of the concepts are incredibly difficult for me to wrap my mind around as it requires thinking in four dimensions if nothing else. Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" actually covers the topic at length, and even in a book written for the masses it's difficult. When the concept comes up as a point of discussion in my various math/physics classes and we start delving into the mathematics of it all it seems like a simpler concept in general (if only because I understand the rules of math whereas I cannot think in four dimensions).
If time is a function of space, then it would stand to reason that time is directly related to speed. Since the fastest known thing in the universe is light (which provides the only known physical speed limit), the common assumption is the best one can do is slow the passage of time as one cannot actually exceed the speed of light. Everyone technically travels "through time" it's simply done in the same direction and therefore not terribly intresting. Were one able to do so, the concept of time itself no longer has a meaning as it is no longer related to anything in particular, which may indeed mean one can travel about in an arbitrary direction in time.
The trouble is, the amount of energy required to accellerate any object with mass to the speed of light is actually more than the sum total energy in the universe (which itself strikes me as strange, but I digress). However, since speed is a function of space and time, it stands to reason that if one can manipulate space, they could also manipulate time itself. This point is given some degree of crediblity since gravity has been proven to affect both light (the experiment that first corborated Einstein's theory) and time (in a series of famous experiments wherein fantastiaclly accurate clocks were placed at different distances from the center of the earth). The idea of manipulating space itself is at the core of most science fiction faster than light travel, from the idea of "wormhole" travel to star trek's "warp travel". Mass effect is notably different in that they discovered an element who's mass is arbitrary. Since this material has no fixed mass, a lot of the usual physical conventions get thrown out the window.
As an aside, there are things that travel faster than the speed of light...sort of. Sound, itself nothing more than a wave carried through some medium or another, could concievably (and in a recent experiment my indeed) travel faster than light. The catch is, though a sound wave requires motion of a medium, the medium itself doesn't not actually travel - only the energy of the wave does.
But, like I said, the physics explanation of the concepts are incredibly difficult for me to wrap my mind around as it requires thinking in four dimensions if nothing else. Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" actually covers the topic at length, and even in a book written for the masses it's difficult. When the concept comes up as a point of discussion in my various math/physics classes and we start delving into the mathematics of it all it seems like a simpler concept in general (if only because I understand the rules of math whereas I cannot think in four dimensions).
When it comes to time travel, I go with the Red vs Blue approach: going back in time makes everything happen the way it did. Everything is set in stone. Who knows? Maybe the first person to invent time travel went back and built the pyramids, then went foward and killed Amelia Airheart before getting on the Challenger and planning it to crash, destroying the only way to travel in time.
And yes, if anyone could time travel, everyone would be screwed. Just like if anyone could fly, go invisible, or teleport. The world would go crazy.
And yes, if anyone could time travel, everyone would be screwed. Just like if anyone could fly, go invisible, or teleport. The world would go crazy.
Time travel has beeen described as being like a telephone call, it is impossible for a time travel device to travel to our time unless we had the technology capable enough of receiving it, in short we can't time travel until we develop the technology to time travel, and will only be able to travel inbetween two points, and not any further into the past than when we created the first time machine.
Done
Done
If the common people will eventually screw up the world, it was destined to happena nd has already occured. Should you find a way to travel through time, anything you do in the past, would make the same exact future as it had to happen to result in you going back in the first place.
I'm thinking that the time travel that is invented will only be able to be used back until the point that it was invented, so you can't go back any further than the point it was invented, if that makes sense.
Humanity will have found another way to completely wipe itself out long before time travel comes along, so there's no need to worry about it.
We all travel through time at 1 second per second!
Who would want to go back in time. We should focus on not messing up the future.
If time travel is not possible - it wont stop people thinking about it or making awesome movies about it. Terminator and The time machine (not the sam mumba one) are among my favourite films.
Although time cop was crap - If i had a time machine, i'd wipe that movie from existence
Who would want to go back in time. We should focus on not messing up the future.
If time travel is not possible - it wont stop people thinking about it or making awesome movies about it. Terminator and The time machine (not the sam mumba one) are among my favourite films.
Although time cop was crap - If i had a time machine, i'd wipe that movie from existence
Time is just a measurement. What has happened cannot be changed. To travel back in time you need to reverse every event after the time you go to. An impossible task. But who knows? Technology is still young. There are many things we do not know yet. The invention I hope will be created soon is the Portal Gun.