From "Through A Wornhole" Episode, "Is Time Travel Back Possible"?

[rhinefire]

On 12-29-13 I watched an episode of Through A Wormhole and the subject was "is it possible to travel back in time"? Now this is the first time I have experienced any form of intelligent conversation pertaining to going back in time as I was under the impression the grandfather clause automatically destroyed such consideration. However since little stays the same in the science world it may not be 100% impossible but to me it remains inconceivable. One item was if you built a time machine in 2000 and went back to 1900, how would you get back to 2000 if the machine was not built yet.

 

[TheNextEra]

One item was if you built a time machine in 2000 and went back to 1900, how would you get back to 2000 if the machine was not built yet.

Because you would have the machine with you which IS built. Even though you are in the past, the time machine would already have been built.

The best theory I've heard from a science show on time travel was that it would be impossible to travel back in time, but you could travel in the future. You just can't get back from there once you get there.

 

[TNAR]

The best theory I've heard from a science show on time travel was that it would be impossible to travel back in time, but you could travel in the future. You just can't get back from there once you get there.

This is based on the concept of slowing down time. I find this theory bogus as it is based on a faulty understanding of and reliance on relativity. The most logical theory I have heard is the "multiverse" concept of an infinite number of potential realities.

 

[TheNextEra]

This is based on the concept of slowing down time. I find this theory bogus as it is based on a faulty understanding of and reliance on relativity. The most logical theory I have heard is the "multiverse" concept of an infinite number of potential realities.

That's ironic because I find the "multi-verse" theory, which is not based on anything but some make believe idea that there exists an infinite number of the same worlds, bogus.

 

[TNAR]

That's ironic because I find the "multi-verse" theory, which is not based on anything but some make believe idea that there exists an infinite number of the same worlds, bogus.

It is roughly based on the idea of quantum interconnectivity.

 

[TheNextEra]

It is roughly based on the idea of quantum interconnectivity.

No it's based on make-believe from sci-fi shows.

You might as well tell me unicorns travel you back and forth through time since they are the same thought process as "multi-verse".

 

[TNAR]

No it's based on make-believe from sci-fi shows.

Seriously? The classical universe theory has essentially been abandoned in favor of the quantum. There continues to be quite a bit of discussion as to how precisely this affects things, but the limitations of "macro" physics have been all but universally acknowledged.

 

[Binary_Digit]

- The hands on a clock appear to slow down as an observer accelerates away from it. But this is not time travel, it's the observation of time (light from the clock) that is being skewed.

- Atomic clocks on airplanes flying away from each other will eventually report slightly different times. This does not indicate time travel either. Again, it's the observation of time (radioactive decay in atomic clocks) that is being skewed.

Just because our methods of observing time start acting squirrelly when velocity is involved, doesn't mean time itself is changing pace. I say that time travel is not possible.

 

[calamity]

You look at a star and the light you see is perhaps a million years old. So, I see no reason we can't travel back...I just have no idea how.

 

[TNAR]

You can look at an old photograph too, but it doesn't get you any closer to travelling through time.

 

[rhinefire]

It seem archaic to say what we will not be able to do in the future because the future is what we do NOT know in the present. Solving or understanding time is being studied as we write this thread. Man has a destiny so hang in there and someday we may realize it or we may not.

 

[Helix]

the first time traveler had better be a pretty good astronaut, because the earth is moving at 66,000 MPH, while the solar system itself is moving at 560,000 mph.

even if you were just going back to Christmas, the earth would be nowhere in sight when you got there.

 

[Hicup]

the first time traveler had better be a pretty good astronaut, because the earth is moving at 66,000 MPH, while the solar system itself is moving at 560,000 mph.

even if you were just going back to Christmas, the earth would be nowhere in sight when you got there.

This is essentially what led Einstein to realize that space and time are the same thing. I also thought about this conundrum at an early age about travelling through time, which also meant you needed to travel through space, and for one to travel back to a time location would require that one also simultaneously travel a distance relative to one's location in time. What I mean to say is that, whatever the equation, space is =/= to time. Einstein famously quipped once that time travel was impossible due to the uncertainty of space. He said that the uncertainty, although quite small, would over time increase exponentially as to be virtually unnavigable.


Tim-

 

[Peter Grimm]

Even though you are in the past, the time machine would already have been built.

Now this is quite smart. You're making me think.

So the time machine, and the time traveler for that matter, are operating on a different temporal plane from their surroundings. So essentially, if you were going to travel back in time, you would have to warp reality in such a way that in a given space, the "time" that occupies said space is not synchronous to the time occupying surrounding space.

Wild.

I imagine, then, a time machine would most likely have to be built that could "project" something from the future back in to the past.... warping space/time somehow..... it wouldn't exactly be a delorian with a flux capacitor buzzing around to different years....

 

[TNAR]

even if you were just going back to Christmas, the earth would be nowhere in sight when you got there.

This assumes that a time traveler would only be able to isolate the time function from the space function. Speed and distance are all relative. The earth is not moving in relation to my house. We could say it rotates, but not much else in comparison to the moon. The speeds get higher as we move the reference to larger bodies. Even if we figure that the Milky Way galaxy is moving it must be in relation to something. Even the inky blackness of the universe itself is moving.

The most logical form of time travel - assuming that it is even possible - would not simply consist of going forward or backward on a linear time scale. Rather, it would be to a specific point in time (which necessarily includes a physical location). So time travel would be better used for traveling large distances as opposed to going back in time to kill Hitler. But I don't foresee time travel as a possibility in the latter sense. I understand time travel as more of a "time compression" or other such concept.