Can Time Travel Ever Become Reality?

[DiracPool]

My guess is that this topic has been covered somewhere at some point. However, I have not recently seen a general, more non-technical treatment of the subject, so I thought this may be the thread for it.

In any case, for discussion purposes, I'm going to make the bold statement that time travel is impossible and that the "proof" for this statement is nothing so much technical as it is experiential. Experiential in the sense that if time travel were possible, we would at this moment see time travelers all around us, not only those traveling from the future, but those traveling from the past. In addition, not only would we at our time see time travelers, every culture from early humans to the dinosaurs would have experienced time travelers and all history and science books would have at least an obligatory chapter on the technology. The fact that none of this is the case is proof that it is impossible and we should stop fantasizing about it and wasting good popular science programming time.

Now, I'm not talking about the deal that when we find out how to time travel then we can go back in time or forward in time, etc. from THAT point. You know, where the guy demo's the six flags rollercoaster loop thing as his vision of a model for time travel. That may be a different deal altogether. I'm talking about the good old H. G. Wells stuff.

So either you can side with me, or side with Michio, who was quoted in another thread as saying...

"Once confined to fantasy and science fiction, time travel is now simply an engineering problem" - Michio Kaku

Ain't going to happen. Ain't ever going to happen. Is my common sense logic flawed here?

 

[DiracPool]

Oh, just one more thing, I personally do not buy the parallel universe "solution" to make time travel work. So if one were to try to invoke that then I think practically any "Deus ex Machina" solution is fair game, and it becomes a null argument in my mind.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Just because we, or any other life in the universe, may never develop the technology, doesn't mean it's impossible.

 

[ZapperZ]

Closed, pending moderation.

Zz.

 

[LudusRex]

I can understand why people may be fascinated with the idea of time travel. It's a concept that has been explored in literature and film for decades, and it's easy to see why people would want to believe that it's possible. However, based on our current understanding of the laws of physics, time travel is simply not possible. Let me explain why.

First, let's define what we mean by time travel. In this context, we are talking about the ability to travel backwards or forwards in time, to a specific point in the past or future. This would require being able to manipulate time itself, which is something that we have not been able to do.

One of the fundamental principles of physics is the concept of causality, which states that an effect cannot occur before its cause. In other words, the arrow of time only moves forward, and it is impossible for us to go back in time and change events that have already happened. This is supported by the laws of thermodynamics, which dictate that entropy, or disorder, increases over time. If we were able to travel back in time, this would violate the second law of thermodynamics.

Furthermore, the concept of time travel also raises the issue of paradoxes. For example, if someone were to go back in time and prevent their own birth, how could they exist in the present to go back in time in the first place? This is known as the grandfather paradox and highlights the logical inconsistencies that arise when considering time travel.

In addition to these conceptual issues, there are also practical challenges that make time travel highly unlikely. As mentioned in the original post, if time travel were possible, we would expect to see evidence of it in our current time. Yet, there is no scientific evidence or documented sightings of time travelers from the past or future. This suggests that time travel is not possible, as there would undoubtedly be some kind of evidence if it were.

In conclusion, while the idea of time travel may be intriguing, it is not supported by our current understanding of physics and the laws of the universe. As scientists, we must base our beliefs and theories on evidence and logical reasoning, and at this point, there is no evidence to suggest that time travel is possible. It may make for entertaining fiction, but in reality, it is highly unlikely to ever become a reality.