Is time travel really possible?

In summary: The problem is that both sides think they're right. And since you're all intelligent people, it's hard for you to imagine that someone could disagree with you when you're right. So you all think that the other people are just wrong and don't understand the issue.But you're all right and you all understand the issue. The problem is that you're all thinking about different things.The people who say time travel is impossible (or possible) are thinking about one thing. The people who say time travel is possible (or impossible) are thinking about something else. The problem is that you're all trying to answer the same question, but you're thinking about two different things. So you're ending up with two different answers.
  • #1
shadowman
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Time travel is impossible. you cannot "travel through time" because time is intangible. Time is not a relm or a dimension. Time is a concept. It is a concept designed by early man as a way to track and orient hisself with the daily movements of the earth. The passing of events is what man knows as time. Man also devised the hour, minute, second, millisecond, nannosecond and so on and so forth. These are used as a measure of the concept of time. Therefore, you cannot travel into something is a concept.
Also, look at it this way. Our only link with the past is our memory of it. And the only link to the future is predicting certain aspects of it by information that is happening now. what happened a few hours ago is gone. no more. there is not a " place" to travel to. when a moment in time passes by, it no longer exsists. how can you travel to somewhere that doesn't exist, or hasnt existed yet?
 
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  • #2
There is an article related to that subject and the various views about the concept of past, present and future. It's phylophical in nature, but so is your subject. You may find it an interesting read.

Does time flow or lapse or pass? Are the future or the past as real as the present? These metaphysical questions have been debated for more than two millennia, with no resolution in sight. Modern physics provides us, however, with tools that enable us to sharpen these old questions and generate new arguments. Does the special theory of relativity, for example, show that there is no passage or that the future is as real as the present? The focus of this entry will be these new questions and arguments.
Being and Becoming in Modern Physics by Steven Savitt.
 
  • #3
shadowman said:
Time travel is impossible. you cannot "travel through time" because time is intangible. Time is not a relm or a dimension. Time is a concept.

It's indeed a dimension.
Up for a debate - My pawn just moved forward.

Ebe
 
  • #4
shadowman said:
Time is a concept.
Whenever people don't have a word for something they call it a concept.
 
  • #5
I think its fairly obvious time travel is impossible, a logical way to do that would be to travel faster then instantaniously meaning u could travel an unlimited amount of distance in 0 seconds, which is weird becuase it wouldn't be a finite "speed" if you could call it that, since we aren't even near obtaining light speed, itself explanitry why this won't work.
 
  • #6
shadowman said:
Time is not a relm or a dimension. Time is a concept. It is a concept designed by early man as a way to track and orient hisself with the daily movements of the earth. The passing of events is what man knows as time. Man also devised the hour, minute, second, millisecond, nannosecond and so on and so forth. These are used as a measure of the concept of time. Therefore, you cannot travel into something is a concept.

Interesting…. Using your argument of constructs, a meter is just a construct that enabled us to orient ourselves with respect to the position of others, (or landmarks) – yes, it was also a form of comparison for trade in commerce… but I digress. That simple “concept” has been expanded, and from it we now have a system to position ourselves and measure the universe around us.

The meter is not today what it was yesteryear. It’s changed and evolved to a higher precision, thereby increasing it’s usefulness. Could it not be said that our “concept” of time and time measurement is still in it’s early stages, and that we have yet to hone it, sharpen it to the point where we can find more uses for it besides getting into work on time (hopefully! :biggrin: ).

We know that time exists, because we know that there have been things that once existed that no longer do. We may not be seeing the dimension in it’s full view, but I argue that four hundred years ago, people still did not understand the nature of a foot or mile.

Well, that’s my two cents…
 
  • #7
All out support on Ebe's game
 
  • #8
Discombobulation and its applications

I am discombobulated,
it would be beneficial to the continual improvement of my intellectual capabilities if the venerated Physicists on this communication channel elucidated on the subject of preference, namely the possibility of Time Travel.
Much Thanks.
 
  • #9
patrickgamer said:
Interesting…. Using your argument of constructs, a meter is just a construct that enabled us to orient ourselves with respect to the position of others, (or landmarks) – yes, it was also a form of comparison for trade in commerce… but I digress. That simple “concept” has been expanded, and from it we now have a system to position ourselves and measure the universe around us.

whenever i think about "time," I get like this: :grumpy:

does our view of past events change as we move into the future? assuming that we are "moving" through the "dimension" of time, and comparing this to moving away from something that we are measuring the length of, do we have to take scale into account when measuring with time?

ok I've just confused myself again: moving away from something also involves time, so it's like being driven by time. so as we move through time are we also moving through some other thing that drives time, and so on?

and I'm assuming that all this "movement" business is like the everyday movement that we 3-d-limited creatures go through without getting :grumpy:. is there another way to think about it?
 
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  • #10
the best way to supprot the Idea is like this:
If time traveling was possible than we should have seen a person from the feture by now!
 
  • #11
I just posted this in another thread a couple of hours ago. Maybe it will help:

To the rest of you, there seems to be a very basic semantic error that is causing all of this misunderstanding. Geistkiesel is speaking of time as if time itself is an absolute frame of reference, but that is speaking as if time is something tangible. Time cannot be seen; time is only a medium that we move through. The central idea of relativity, the thread that binds SR and GR, is that all objects are moving at the speed of light. It isn't just the maximum speed; it is the only speed. But this speed must be parcelled out through each of four dimensions. Therefore, the faster an object moves through space, the slower it must move through time, with the speed of light being the upper barrier at which all movement through the temporal dimension ceases.

When you look at it this way, it should be fairly easy to see why you can't have negative movement through the temporal dimension, any more than you can move -2m through space.
 
  • #12
Why is does it have to be the speed of light?

Why do we keep moving through time? Why can't we totally stop and move into the future? Cryogenic freezing. But why's everything moving all the time, screwing with our efforts at achieving absolute 0? Big Bang? Assuming the theory is true, how'd that happen? :grumpy: u know, i think I'm getting off-topic. This stuff is just weird when we base our assumptions upon assumptions.

Relativity. o wait to something moving at the limit, everything else IS frozen and going quickly into the far future of the moving... thing. well that sucks.

---

btw, has anyone ever seen this physics video or something in which 2 people are on opposite sides of a trolley? One person is stationary, and flashes a light as the trolley goes by. To the stationary person, the light reaches the 2 ppl at different times. But to the ppl on the train, they both receive the flashes at the same time. The light was registered by electronics, mind you. (cartoon ones, but it was supposed to be illustrating some theory... lawrence contraction or something)

I never quite got how that is possible, even with contraction. Can anyone please explain, or refer me to a relevant website?
 
  • #13
same stuff over and over again.

These arguments are balogny. We know nothing about time and the first argument says it all, the only things that we know about it is:
1)Time is supposedly invented by us (but then perhaps it's only observable really, by sentient beings...how could something that has already existed before we were made be OUR invention?)
2)The faster you go the slower that time is.
3)You cannot exceed the speed of light (and anybody that says you can do that is not living in todays world and should really be in a star trek physics forum).
4)If it were possible to travel in time, THERE WOULD BE time travellers all over the place. Because there are not that means either every sentient being is afraid of time travel to do it, or because it is impossible to begin with anyways.

We MAY not go back into time.
Time is the progression of a system.
If you have two particles in your space, only two(to simplify this) and they are not moving they are just sitting there. If they move there is a need, a purpose for time. If they sit there, it doesn't matter 1 minute or 1 millenia it's the same anyways. If they arranged themselves into an organised, moving state, as everything in the universe does around you, those particles would experience time. Things that don't move age instantly, things that move age SLOWER. We experience time because we are moving through space, and every particle in us, this planet, and space, is interacting with each other. Even particles we have yet to detect. Screw strings they had over 30 years to explain time and the best that it can come up with is an extra dimension? What if there are no extra dimensions and they are all just fields?
We have prove that fields of indetectable particles exist yet we go to the strings explanation because we should break with the current model and make physics more difficult for people to understand for most people. Why not if unified theory ever came out it would be a good idea otherwise the table top thermonuclear bomb might become a reality.

Time is just what happens to make sure that all of the energy in the universe isn't interacting all at the same instant. Time is a buffer, because in reality the big bang was time exploding out, I don't think there was much room for motion in something insanely more dense than a black hole (and probably so massive that nothing would move out of synch with everything else...and if something did and broke the symmetry then wouldn't time be necessary?).
If you can't mark one event from the other, then time is useless.

e+e=t
Very simple. Energy (because only one of the most basic, smallest pieces of it wouldn't accomplish anything) plus Energy= Time.
Even if you are flying through the vacuum of space you are coasting through an energy field of somesort. The very fabric of space is energy. Everything is energy, period, we just can't see things small enough.
 
  • #14
oh and why does time have to go backwards when you exceed the speed of light, couldn't it just slow down infinitely? Slower and slower and slower but not backwards...where's the proof that it runs backwards and not slower?
 
  • #15
Time doesn't run at all. You run through it. Again, the reason you can't go backward is the same reason you can't have negative motion through space - to even postulate such a thing is meaningless. If you cryogenically freeze yourself, you still move through time at exactly the same pace, you just slow or even stop the chemical reactions that cause physical aging.
 
  • #16
Imposiblities

Hey, Shadowman. :surprise:
For the past 100 years, we have accomplished more impossible things than any other point in human history.
In theory, I'd generally agree that time travel would be highly infeasible. But with believers, nothing is impossible.
Or more accurately, With God nothing is impossible. While many refuse to believe in the unthought of, or hitherto unconsidered, and even the concept of God, that does not make it impossible. It only makes it not yet accomplished as we presently understand it.
So, the next time you state 'impossible', look at the airplane, satellites, electricity, automobiles, computers, ad infinitum.
All of these were previously impossible. They were only concepts, ideas in some "crazy" mind that all believed filled with delusions of granduer.
While I'll admit that to believe a lie, regardless of by how many, it still can never be a truth, to equally believe a truth to be a lie, regardless of how many believe so, it is still a truth.
When such a time occurs for humanity to comprehend the manipulation of time, we will do so. Until that point in time, we will continue to wonder.
Remember, it was the religionists of the day who said the Earth was flat. It didn't take too long to prove them wrong.
While I wouldn't want to be the one changing human history, to be a visitor, meandering through time, yet not bound by time, would be incredibly intriguing. That alone deals with the consequences of changing our past.
 
  • #17
Time Travelers seen?

mollasadra said:
the best way to supprot the Idea is like this:
If time traveling was possible than we should have seen a person from the feture by now!


Perhaps we have seen time travelers. UFOs are reported by many
reliable persons every day. Might some of the lights,disks and black
triangles be explorers from the past or future checking us out?
It is the theme of many Sci-Fi novels and movies and perhaps it
is not possible to time travel. Dr. Kaku has his doubts I think but
the saying :"That's impossible" is proven wrong every day. Some
smart men said it was impossible to drive faster than 30 miles an
hour in the first automobiles,as the air would be moving too fast
past your face to allow you to breathe. And they called Robert
Goddard a "Moon Crazy man" when he experimented with his liquid
fueled rockets in 1930. Many said man would NEVER travel to the
MOON. :wink:
 
  • #18
I'd be a more careful timetraveller!

RonRyan85 said:
Perhaps we have seen time travelers. UFOs are reported by many reliable persons every day. Might some of the lights,disks and black triangles be explorers from the past or future checking us out?
But why do those IDIOTS use lights on their UFOs if they don't want to be seen? :rolleyes:
 
  • #19
ahhh and is there any proof that if something is frozen to absolute zero (not a pinch above but right when all motion ceases) that time doesn't change slightly? When you move through space time slows down for you, and the rest of space around you that moves at regular speed experiences their time, which is running faster than yours. Isn't that all caused by motion too?
Well then since you know so much about time perhaps you have some sort of unified theory you would like to fill us all in that HAS BEEN proven and is widely accepted by the scientific community or is it that there is none, and what you are postulating is a guestimate because there's no proof that time is a dimension at all. None what-so-ever and anything that you can produce that has some sort of unproven presumption. I'm not saying that your view is any less valid but don't you think that perhaps temperature does have something to do with it? So then what do you propose is causing it? Motion through a field? And since that field is indetectable it's probable that even the motion of atoms counts as motion through that field. Either way it's inescapeable unless you go into this extra dimension thingy, but think of it this way. Call it a dimension, or a field, they both act essentially the same but principles are different.
Has anybody proven that these dimensions exist and are not fields? Isn't that what first brought about the idea of dimensions? And perhaps they are simply objects which are smaller than what we can see with our electron microscopes and accelerators and such.
There was an episode of star trek voyage in which kess developed great mental powers and could do things like make coffee hot, or whatever. But then she could see things even smaller, and they did this little cg animation of funky looking things but besides that, I never said that they had to be perfectly round (although I would expect symmetry to become more simplified at smaller and smaller scales) but also they are probably more or less loose collections of objects that simply bond to the things around it, kinda like temporal glue, it's why you cannot travel faster than light. Time exists everytime a bond is broken or established, which is happening all around you.
Time doesn't have to be a particle, it doesn't have to be a higgs boson (and since they haven't been proven, perhaps when the LHC doesn't find them my ideas will be a little more accepted) . It certainly doesn't have to be a dimension but doesn't string theory also require the higgs boson, so then you are betting on a horse that hasn't placed or showed in spite of so many chances for it to do so, the odds can go either way.
Do you have any proof of anything?
Anything that proves that time is an effect and not an actual entity (field, etc).
 
  • #20
"The Vulcan science directorate has concluded that time travel is impossible." :rolleyes:
 
  • #21
Ok, Grizz.
Obviously the directorate didn't watch ST4 when the crew went back to '84 and saved the whales. Nor did they watch TNG's episode on the crew's getting caught in the causality loop with Kelsey Grammar as the captain of an 80 yr old ship. I think that we could talk sci fi here all day long, but I for one have seen enough sci if, to know that hollywood has no problem writing time travel shows. In fact I believe their interest in this has gone all the way back to the earliest times of the silver/electronic screen.
Which in one sense makes my point all the more clear.
1-We've never had the opportunity to travel into deep space yet, so we have no idea how things work out there, although since Dr. K has already written on the physics of the ST series, I'm sure that he'd have more than a few intersting thoughts on it.
Back to the line of thought though...
How many things now are common place that once were heralded as "impossible"?
I'm one of those guys who happen to believe that there is a creator, and that he made everything in 6 days. While I cannot imperically prove it, it is written, and I get to deal with my struggles over that one. As such, believing that he has a very set list of ideals, values, etc..., find it hard to conceive that he'd allow mankind to travel outside of time to either the past or the future. However, 100 years ago, many other's who believed much as I do said likewise about flight, automobiles, travel to the moon, etc... Now look at us. We've done all that and far more.
And while I might find it hard for me to believe that the creator would allow manking outside of time-- only because it (the Bible) seems to discuss that beyond time is the creator's domain, and not ours until after we die-- we've still succeeded at just about everything we've put our hearts and minds to. And only once did the creator stop us in our endeavors, and that was by scrambling our languages back in the beginning (And no, it was not my intent to bring "religion" into this discussion, but to give some context to my thoughts, and ideas).
So, while many will sit at the sidelines, and poo poo our endeavors to 'better' life as we know it, or make money, etc... we will still progress towards the inevitable. And if that inevitable means time travel, then it will not be impossible, it will only be one more part of the future.
I for one will be more than happy to wait until after I'm dead to do all of my time and cosmos traveling.
 
  • #22
I thought that was part of what we were discussing--- none of this has been proven. All of it is just hypothesis' and ponderings.
The only real research that I've heard of on time is the work of Dr. Preston in Britain. And even then, I'm not aware of his more recent work. http://freespace.virgin.net/steve.preston/Time.html
If it's against the rules to post to other sites, I apologize.
While there do seem to be others, they just don't have the ring of integrity to me. Of course, who am I?
Steve Preston seems to give this typically sci-fi topic some interesting ideas.
What if time isn't a field, or anything that we'd typically identify various aspects of this physical realm with. For our present understanding, time is only as it defines our understanding of present, past, and future. We have time devices to count that present, past and future. If we weren't curious about the future, or interested in the past and how it affects our lives, we wouldn't care about time to the extent that we do. The fact that we want to travel from our present, to either our future, or our past is one of curiosity, and I'd think dislike for the events of the past.
Who here wouldn't seriously consider assassinating Hitler, or think of sitting at the feet of some great historical figure? I'd love to meet the likes of Plato, Socrates, Jesus, Paul the apostle, and a few others. How many of you would actually do the Hitler thing if you knew for a certainty that Mussollini were to succeed at his whole package, and become 100 times the murderer that Hitler was? Of who would fix the O-rings of the Discovery Shuttle from 1986, if you knew that in 1990, the shuttle were to explode on the pad and kill all of the Nasa personnel at the Cape?
While there are innumerable options that could be used here as examples, not a single one can be tested. For the present, we are inextricably stuck, in the present. Each moment will pass into the next. When the next moment comes, the previous one will be the past.
Since no one human has themselves been placed into absolute zero, we have no idea if time has stopped for them. From what I've heard, and seen, time only affects people, and biological life. Decay affects other elements, but only because of oxidation, and other elemental affects. We call those time affects, but if we were to remove the affects of, say, oxygen on iron, would it still change with time? Or would it, like stainless steel, stop the moment it was exposed to air? Would oil and gas still distillate out of biological decaying life forms, without time, pressure, and a few other specific affects?
As Jean Luc Picard stated so eloquently in TNG's "Generations" movie, "Time is our friend, one that moves with us through our lives..., much like a companion."
Or, another from an ancient, "We spend our lives as a tale that has already been told." Another ancient-- highly reputable-- writing speaks of time, and the cosmos being as a scroll that will one day be rolled up and taken away.
I guess for now, we study, learn, and one day... hope to discover... the secrets of time.
 
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  • #23
All of a sudden, it dawned on me.
There really does exist one time traveler in history.
For a number of reasons, he hasn't interjected himself into this time frame for the past two thousand years, but there was a time-- in ancient Israel-- when he did so, apparently, quite frequently.
Let me preface this line of discussion by stating that I am fully aware that this will more than likely bring all kinds of responses, and raise the ire of many, if not all. So be it. It is just a discusson on time travel, and not one on anything else.
In the Bible, there are numerous references on time, and the cosmos being as a scroll to be rolled up one day to make way for the Kingdom of Heaven. It is available for all to look into if you desire.
There are also an equal number of references of God interjecting himself into the human experience as a man. Each reference the witnesses are flabbergasted by the experience, and prostrate themselves in fear, proclaiming their unworthiness. The theologians refer to these as "theophanies." God appearing as a man, or in human form. Ultimately, the final "theophany" is demonstrated in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. First of all, let me say that I do not believe this God, whoever He is to be an alien. Nor do I believe him to be from the future. I do however-- from only what I've read-- believe that he is outside of, and encompasses time. Also that he created time, or its concept--- whatever that concept may consist of.
Again, I understand that many of you are seething with rage at my mentions of deities, and "religious" figures. Again, this is a discussion of time travel. So far, in the Bible are the only places where I've found legitimate discussions of time, and its properties. Any honest interrogation into that text will bear me out.
To an old man sitting at his tent, he was with two friends, passing by, on the way down to Sodom, and Gomorrah. To a farmer, he was an angel telling him that he would help him beat the midianites. To a sheepherder, He told him that He'd save the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt.
To each person He visited, He came from outside of time, and told them to trust that they would make it through their specific troubles. To each who did so, they did indeed overcome the trouble of the day. For the people the bible calls prophets, or seers, they were let into the scenes of the heavens, and saw things that only time travelers are allowed to see. What is was that actually happened, we do not know. What we do know is that they saw things that are only given to those outside of time to see. One such seer said that he 'saw things that are not lawful for a man to repeat.' Then, down to this Jesus person. He claimed to be from heaven. A place outside of time. He said that, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day, he saw it, and was glad." The leaders of his day were so angry with him, and seriously believed him to be claiming he was actually God himself, that they wanted to kill him for that statement.
He further made comments that he would overcome his enemies, and be raised from the dead. He spoke of the future as though it had already happened. He also spoke of life as though it was just a whisp in the wind. Here today, and gone tomorrow.
If you look at the bible as a whole, and look closely at the parts, you'll see that time is only part of the whole creation for humanity to dwell in. Once our lives are over with, we get to live outside of time, in what it calls Eternity. An ever constant present, with no past, or future.
Ok, remember, I'm using this only to discuss time travel.
While hollywood has written numerous stories about this topic, the Bible is the only place where I've actually seen, and heard about time travel with any discussion. It shows one person traveling in and out of time with ease, or relative ease. And their affect, while pissing off the status quo, always affects the human condition for the better. Definitely fodder for discussion.
For believers, you know of what I speak, or can easily verify my thoughts. Acts 17:11.
For bible antagonists, deal with it. This really was just a discussion on time travel. After visiting another BB on time travel, it dawned on me that time travel, while not called such, is discussed in the bible. However, it is done by only one individual-- the one whom it calls creator.
 
  • #24
So long as you stick with the time travel theme, I don't see anything wrong with this. So is your time traveler, who appears as the the old testament Jehovah as well as Jesus, a contingent being or an omnipotent one? Is time travel his only trick?
 
  • #25
Yes, this traveler is the Jehovah(YHVH) of the OT, and the Jesus(YHshua) of the NT.
No, definitely time travel is far from being his only "trick." As to omnipotence, that is just one of many attributes. Omniscience, righteousness, kindness, the list goes on for quite a while. But to spare the antagonists too many terms that they feel to be irrelevant, I'll skip it.
Part of this time travel thing with this individual is one of meeting with humans to give them encouragement, wisdom, fellowship, insight, and other such life affirming attributes. They speak to humans through supernatural means, and discuss the future events of mankind, the end of life as we know it here, now. And give a beautiful protrait of the Earth to come in the distant future. Of course, there is discussion on what happens when the people were not to follow the laws laid out for them.
While speaking for a predominantly religious/spiritual/national purpose with the nation of Israel, and followers of Jesus, it dawned on me the other night that one person had interjected themselves into our time line to accomplish a single goal-- better the human condition.
In sci fi, and other time travel ideologies, we talk about polluting the time line, or acting as watchers. Doing some deed, or list of deeds to change how the human condition is progressing, or regressing towards its future. With those of us who believe in the creator, and what He stands for, etc... we're called Lights, or salt of the earth. We're told that salt is to act as a preserving agent, and to make life taste better. As lights, we act as a beacon of hope. All of this 'pollutes the time line.' It acts as an agent for good-- according to the bible's standards, but the 'pollution' still occurs. If this series of interjections were to cease, or not occur; if we as salt, and lights, cease to be effectual, life would progress towards some final destination that I'm sure many would not like. It's said that Jesus did more for humanity than any other single human being. More than Julius Ceasar, Abraham Lincoln, etc... That he alone changed the course of humanity. That without him, we would be far worse than even Rome was with its citizens. I could easily make a list of all the 'evils' of the 'ancient' world, but I'm sure we've all had our history classes, so I'll skip that too.
The dead were raised, the lepers healed, children were freed from madness, and possession-- however you wish to call that. Innumerable peoples lives were affected. All because this person stepped out of eternity, into time, and lived as man. All of it 'polluted' the timeline.
curiosity seeker, ponderer of time travel, I'd want to look into those events that demonstrated time travel-- in whatever shape it took. The Jewish bible is rife with these examples. From the time of Abraham, to the time of the Judges, YHVH steps into time, and the human picture numerous times. The writings of the prophets are also rife with futuristic tales of times, events and people to come. Even "Bible Code" researchers discuss the idea of someone being outside of time to understand how this works.
The likes of Gallileo, Newton, Copernicus, and many others believed the bible, and sought to understand the natural world for the purpose of better understanding the creator. Throughout my prof's lectures, comments on Newton have been made that he believed that if we could manipulate matter, we could make gold from lead. Perhaps by adding electrons, or protons, and neutrons to the atom, we could change its make up.
While he wasn't necessarily trying to be an alchemist, he was branded such for a time.
Ok, as I get farther into this, it's becoming increasingly obvious to me that as much as I try to avoid having this sound 'religious,' I'm not succeeding. I really do want this to remain just a discussion on time travel.
While omnipotence gives such a being indescribable power, they've still accomplished something that we just dream of--- traveling through time. Stepping in and out of it, much like we'd step through the door way into our home, or the store.
Ok, here's another analogy that I'm sure many have heard when it somes to time travel.
If you were in a sky scraper, or really high tower. You could see for a very long distance, in all directions-- north, south, east, and west. Let's say that a window washing device fell from a building 20 blocks from your location. As you watched it, you could begin to notice that people on the ground were oblivious to its imminent landing. Also, you noticed, two blocks away, a bus full of school children driving to that location. As a watcher, you just let it happen. But, as an active participant in time, you act. You call the police, 911, etc... Since you're a distance away from the event, you're probably scoffed, or mocked, but you keep insisting that the event is occurring. For the sakes of those people below, and the school bus full of children, you are impelled to make your case.
While you are in time, you are far enough above the milling about on the streets below to see a lot of action, and life happening. As an "outsider" you have a vision that only those above the din can view. This basically is what we call time travel. What I'd think the creator can see as well. He, they are outside of time. Above it all. Able to see the end, as well as the beginning. There is an ancient saying that goes something like this, "He sees the end from before the beginning."
I'd think that an adept time traveler would have that same sense of vision. Able to see all kinds of events from another perspective. An outside perspective. Or, from a biblical sounding point of view--- an eternal perspective. Eg, "We look not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are not seen, for the things which are seen, are only temporary, but the things that are not seen, they are eternal."
Ok, while I'll be more than willing to answer any and all questions about this perspective of time travel, I'm done now. I know this has gotten far too religious sounding for many, and I honestly wasn't trying to do that. I'll not apologize though, as I think I made some very interesting points.
Time travel is indeed possible. Perhaps not by man, but by one, or maybe even many already living outside of time.
If I lived one hundred+ years ago, and someone told me that by the year 2000, there would be devices that could fly me in the sky at speeds 5x faster than the whistle could move, move me along the ground at speeds 100 times that of a horse, that I could talk-- live-- with someone 10,000 miles away, step foot on the moon, fly in outerspace, go to the bottom of the ocean, and see life of unspeakable kinds, hold a computing mechanism in the palm of my hand, etc... etc... etc... I'd say they were crazy, and it was impossible. But, look at us now.
I can hold the entire world's libraries in the palm of my hand, with a 250GB+ hdd. We view at the nanoscale, and then some.
The only impossible things are those we refuse to attempt.
My dad was an electronic engineer in the late 50's throughout the 70's. The first computer he worked on was the size of your average warehouse. The last one he worked on was the size of your washing machine. He now has one that he holds in his lap-- as do most of us. He told me that the OS's were so small, that they all were run off of punch cards. Ram was no greater than 64kb. Hdd's were less than 4mb's, if not smaller. The computer that got the Apollo crew to the moon was so huge, and held so little computing power that we'd laugh if one were to be placed in front of us today for our use in solving problems.
As many of you older physicists will remember, Fortran was the only program availble at one point. Now there are many languages.
What was once impossible, is now possible, and in some cases, quite commonplace. Now, we are faced with yet another impossibility. Some day, someone will figure it out. If they give themselves enough leeway.
Perhaps there is a cosmic cop sitting out there, preventing us from doing so. Perhaps they are out there just wating for us to join them. Perhaps we'll get there, and find ourselves alone. Perhaps.... We will never know... until!
Just like the Vulcans of time not yet passed, ignoring the likes of us because we don't have warp technology that takes above the light barrier. We'll never know until we try.
See you when...
 
  • #26
time travel is possible. if time travel were not possible, then time itself would not exist. someone had to create time to begin with, therefore i would kind of just maybe guess that that person locked himself/herself from being able to use time to their own will. it is only a logical conclusion that time travel is actually very possible. for thousands of years, wether they knew it or not, most theories, like quantum mechanics and relativity, have predicted that time travel is possible, but only under certain conditions. from what i can see, only EVERYTHING is possible under certain conditions. you brush your hair, only when it is needed, wether ofter or hardly at all. atoms have ionic compounds, only when necisary conditions apply. and as we have seen, most people don't believe it, the mind is an extremely powerful tool for doing all things, under certain conditions, usually the same condition though. i have studied things like what everyone would say "x-files" is about. no aliens or things like that, but very odd phenomenas, and the only solution is someone being able to usse their minds to do certain things under certain conditions. move things across the room, control electricity, read minds, control other people, teleport, many many more things as well. most all of your phenomenas are one of two things: a joke and not real, or something to do with the power of the mind and very real indeed. never underestiamte the power within the mind.
 
  • #27
It is not clear if time travel is indeed possible.
The most plausible idea for a time machine
was proposed by Frank Tipler. A simple explanation
of it is http://yolanda3.dynalias.org/wbpage/wpage.html [Broken]
 
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  • #28
Time Travel

the best way to supprot the Idea is like this:
If time traveling was possible than we should have seen a person from the future by now!


: Well, that is of course UNLESS we just haven't invented the technology that allows for the reception of a time traveler. What if they can only travel back to the point in which time travel was invented?



3)You cannot exceed the speed of light (and anybody that says you can do that is not living in todays world and should really be in a star trek physics forum).

Actually... The theory of relativity says you cannot go from being slower than the speed of light to faster.. but it DEFINITELY allows for the existence of particles existing on the OTHER side of the light speed boundry. This implies that there is still hope.

Time is just what happens to make sure that all of the energy in the universe isn't interacting all at the same instant.

Actually, time is more a distribution of perception. It's all realitive baby... because LIGHT SPEED is ACTUALLY THE SAME SPEED AS THAT OF TIME.

See people... it's not that it is IMPOSSIBLE to travel through time.. It's that it's without meaning. To travel far enough and fast enough to reach the future... you would age at a rate much slower than that of your people. In fact you might just out live your own species... What sense would that make? Now to travel back in time... the problem with that would be philosophical as well... Just consider that one tiny change in a huge math problem can make the difference considerable, "the butterfly effect", now imagine that on a REALLY BIG SCALE... times that by a billion... times the speed of light.. times a billion.. etc. **** WOULD BE A LOT DIFFERENT if events we altered by someone from the future... Now I ask again.. what sense would it make?
 
  • #29
1- the idea that we just haven't seen someone from the future, is a matter of the "pollution" of the timeline issue.
2- that we cannot travel faster than light, while a premise of present day physics, it still just hasn't been done yet. There is research being done that discusses the plausibility of time having a variable speed.
3- there are still far too many things that we just do not know, and therefore, cannot make absolute statements about. Not that making absolute statements isn't fun, or even seemingly necessary... it's just that we really do not know with absolute certainty whether time travel is indeed possible or not.
4- humanity has indeed met one person from outside of time, and the last time he set foot on Earth was 2000 years ago. Purely from a biblical perspective. The p.o.v. of the future is laid out rather well in that text. In spite of the fact that so many dislike it.
5- And as to the star trek comments, those are probably justly deserved, they were only used to make a point for others who also had used them.
 
  • #30
lol

Time is a dimension because it describes an object. If you want to say that time is just a concept, then height, width and length are all simply concepts as well.

"you cannot travel through time." WRONG, I am doing it right now.

Time travel is not only possible, it is probable. If I have a wormhole and place one end in "empty" space and the other end within the gravity well of a neutron star, then the neutron star's end would in fact be behind the opposite end (Mass warps spacetime). The interesting part is if I go through to the neutron star and then back through, then I will have gone BACK in time.

This implies that one cannot go further back in time than when the time machine was created, but I happen to be an optimist and believe that there are naturally occurring wormholes that will send me back in time.
 
  • #31
There seem to be 3 views of time. In presentism only temporally present objects are real. The past no longer exists and the future does not exist yet. Obviously in that view there will not be any time travel. In possibilism (sometimes called the "growing block" or "growing universe") the past and the present are fixed and actual and the future does not exist yet. In eternalism time is a fourth dimension and past, present and future are actual. That's the most likely candidate to use for time travel. Believing in the others limits the possibility of time travel or makes it impossible in that model. But that belief does not prove it is impossible altogether.
 
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  • #32
Is color a dimension, too? Brightness?

Of course... many things can be concepts...
concept n : an abstract or general idea inferred or derived from specific instances.
 
  • #33
no, because you cannot mathematically describe an object as blue.
But you can say, for example, that an object is 3 units wide, 4 units long, 5 units high and moving along the line y=x at a velocity of 5 units/sec at t=6seconds. Color and brightness are irrelavent.
 
  • #34
Color is a concept which can be described by physics as a light wave. That does not make it a dimension. But there is no need to descibe it that way.

Wikipedia said:
Electromagnetic radiation is a mixture of radiation of different wavelengths and intensities. When this radiation has a wavelength inside the human visibility range (approximately from 380 nm to 740 nm), it is called light. The light's spectrum records each wavelength's intensity. The full spectrum of the incoming radiation from an object determines the visual appearance of that object, including its perceived color.
You are free what to believe, but the fact that you feel time is not a dimension, doesn't prove anything. So, thanks for sharing you don't believe in time travel. ;) It doesn't help much, because science continues to make advantages in that field anyway.

Allah: Even color has solid physics theories and laws. Have a look at Color. And about its maths: Color can be mathematically decribed in the wave equation.
 
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  • #35
I know, but my point is that if a block is blue or red does not matter when you describe it mathematically.
 
<h2>1. What is time travel?</h2><p>Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner similar to moving between different points in space. It is the hypothetical ability to travel backwards or forwards in time, allowing someone to explore different periods of history or potentially even the future.</p><h2>2. Is time travel possible according to current scientific knowledge?</h2><p>At this point in time, time travel is still considered to be purely theoretical. While there are many theories and hypotheses surrounding the concept, there is currently no scientific evidence or technology that supports the possibility of time travel.</p><h2>3. What are the main theories surrounding time travel?</h2><p>There are a few different theories that have been proposed by scientists and physicists. The most well-known is the theory of general relativity, which suggests that time travel could be possible by manipulating the fabric of space-time. Other theories include the concept of wormholes and the idea of traveling through parallel universes.</p><h2>4. What are the biggest challenges in achieving time travel?</h2><p>One of the biggest challenges in achieving time travel is the immense amount of energy that would be required. The laws of physics, particularly the laws of thermodynamics, make it difficult to manipulate time without an enormous amount of energy. Additionally, the concept of causality and the potential for paradoxes also pose significant challenges.</p><h2>5. Are there any real-life examples of time travel?</h2><p>There are no known examples of time travel in real life. However, some scientists have suggested that the effects of time dilation, which is a consequence of Einstein's theory of relativity, could be considered a form of time travel. Time dilation occurs when an object moves at speeds close to the speed of light, causing time to pass more slowly for that object relative to a stationary observer.</p>

1. What is time travel?

Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner similar to moving between different points in space. It is the hypothetical ability to travel backwards or forwards in time, allowing someone to explore different periods of history or potentially even the future.

2. Is time travel possible according to current scientific knowledge?

At this point in time, time travel is still considered to be purely theoretical. While there are many theories and hypotheses surrounding the concept, there is currently no scientific evidence or technology that supports the possibility of time travel.

3. What are the main theories surrounding time travel?

There are a few different theories that have been proposed by scientists and physicists. The most well-known is the theory of general relativity, which suggests that time travel could be possible by manipulating the fabric of space-time. Other theories include the concept of wormholes and the idea of traveling through parallel universes.

4. What are the biggest challenges in achieving time travel?

One of the biggest challenges in achieving time travel is the immense amount of energy that would be required. The laws of physics, particularly the laws of thermodynamics, make it difficult to manipulate time without an enormous amount of energy. Additionally, the concept of causality and the potential for paradoxes also pose significant challenges.

5. Are there any real-life examples of time travel?

There are no known examples of time travel in real life. However, some scientists have suggested that the effects of time dilation, which is a consequence of Einstein's theory of relativity, could be considered a form of time travel. Time dilation occurs when an object moves at speeds close to the speed of light, causing time to pass more slowly for that object relative to a stationary observer.

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