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Time Travel


Katarn07

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Me and some friends argued about this for nearly a week at lunch last year. That starship topic got me thinking about this once again. The age old story of time travel. Can it really be done or is it just fantasy? Part of that question is answered with the theory of relativity. If we ever develop the technology to travel at the speed of light, travelling into the future is possible. But it's a one way ticket; there's no way back.

 

Or is it? Are there theories out there that explain how one might go back in time. I read Sphere a long time ago and could've sworn they explain it in there, but skimming it I can't seem to find it. That book and movie sucked so I really don't wanna waste my time and read it again and the movie probably doesn't go into the depth the book does. I know it had something to do with a blackhole. Was lightspeed a factor in there? Any info would be helpful.

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It's all in the wormholes! If you take a ship, point it at a point in the universe and shoot it there, it comes back and supposing that the passengers have aged only forty years, but here on earth, it's some 40 million years!

 

Past travel, I believe is impossible, since Time is impossible to stop or reverse.

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I don't care to get into some sort of deep philosophical discussion but if you could travel into the past in the same dimension I don't think you could change anything because maybe something is the way it is because you went back in time. If you were able to chang things you would probably do some sort of dimensional changing thing.

We boiled it down to three posibilities.

 

1) You go back, change things, but because you tried to cange them, they end up exactly how it was (but doesn't that eliminate free will?)

 

2) You go back, change things, but when you come back, no one notices but you. (History may have been changed many times, but we are not aware, because our memories change with it)

 

3) You go back, change things, but the new events has their own timeline, so when you return, everything is as it was. (that would mean that there exicts thousand of different dimensions, where things have happend differently.)

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I read Sphere a long time ago and could've sworn they explain it in there, but skimming it I can't seem to find it. That book and movie sucked so I really don't wanna waste my time and read it again and the movie probably doesn't go into the depth the book does. I know it had something to do with a blackhole. Was lightspeed a factor in there? Any info would be helpful.

 

I saw a film 'bout three days ago witch clamied that if you had a vessel that could run at lightspeed and you went through a blackhole in space then insted of dieing (nothing can emerge from a black hole even light) you would escape and would have been pushed back in time. I carn't remember what the film was called though It could have been Sphere, I dunno.

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That's of course possible, who really knows.

 

Personally, I believe it's a body of matter so densly packed the gravitational pull it causes is off the scales, pulling everything close enough to it, even light out to a certain distance.

 

Perhaps it will continue to grow in power and eventually suck everything in, or perhaps it'll reach a critical point where it just explodes, scattering matter again.

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The theory of travelling backwards in time has been pondered by some of the most intelligent scientists of our civilization. I saw a science show (Nova) quite a while ago and they came to the conclusion that while a time traveller may slow time, the possibility of travelling backwards is an imposibility. For in order to travel backwards, time must be slowed, then once that is achieved, you must stop time, then proceed to travel backwards. At the point when time is stopped, all seizes to work. You become frozen in time, the fuel source necessary to continue the travel become inoperable. That single molecule, atom, sub-atomic particle of fuel necessary to boost your path to travel backwards in the timeline stops. All, everything on the ship(form of travel) stops. Scientificaly at this time in our civilization there is no possiblility of creating a time machine ala the chair in the movie/book "the Time Machine" or The delorean in "Back to the Future"movies. The problem is figuring out how to continue direction after time is stopped.

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I agree with you InsaneSith, our civilization is still in its embryonic stage in accordance to our universe, let alone, the universe in general. I'm not sure if you recall the movie with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour(Babe!) called "Somewhere In Time". In that film, the main character hypnotizes himself(willed) to travel back in time. He broke barriers of time and space thru sheer willpower. I don't know if in the concept of the writer(Richard Matheson), the character actually traveled back in his own time line or possibly traverse to a different timeline taking place parallel to his own, only the time line he travelled to has evolved slower in time.

 

Example: the lines correspond time in different parallel dimensions. The time traveller jumped from one line to the other. There is no need to go backwards but only to move to a different timeline. Yes I know, like Sliders.

 

__________1800_______________ Target timeline

 

__________1980_______________ traveller's timeline

 

 

It's a concept , with possibilities, and Black holes ,warped space or even something we cant even fathom could eventually provide the answers.

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In a sense, we're already travelling through time. As I type this message, seconds go by. And even you could travel back in time, it would only be logical that you would start to get younger. And is it possible for time travel to be within time travel? If you don't get younger when travelling back in time, you age by a couple seconds.

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That's if you could survive entering a black hole at all. I believe Stephen Hawking described what would happen to your body if you were able to somehow jump inside one (I guess wearing a space suit) as "turning into spagetti."

 

No joke!

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  • 2 weeks later...
If someone will invent a way to travel back in time there'd be time tourists everywhere.

 

Reminds me of that short story, Sound of Thunder, which I hear is being made into a movie. Can't wait to see that! I loved that story. The gist is as follows. It may spoil the movie so I'll get the tag on it.

 

 

There's a Prehistoric Safari company and a guy runs off the path after being told not to along with a bunch of other rules. He steps on a butterfly. When they go back to the present, everything has changed.

 

 

Wonder how that'll be made into a 1.5-2 hour movie.... Badly I'm sure, but I wanna see it anyways :p

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Me?

 

I don't know, but I recall seeing a movie (B-movie by the way :) ) years ago, about people going back in time and having to stay on a raised path. Of course, someone couldn't listen and stepped off. :)

But I can't remember having seen dinosaurs. Though this is many, maaany years ago, and with my goldfish memory ..... well, you get the picture. :p

 

I think it was an old movie, maybe from the 70's.

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Lets consider this possibility: History abhors a paradox and the irritant is ALWAYS removed.

 

For instance, I go back in time and kill Hitler before he has a chance to do his thing. Everyone is like 'Good thinking'. Lets say I succeed. The Holocaust never happens because Hitler is dead and cannot order it. But nothing happens. Why is that?

 

I go back in time with a cause: Prevent the holocaust. In 1940 or whatever, I succeed but the future does not change. Because I succeeded, here in 2005 I never had a reason to travel back in time, thus I never did, thus Hitler never died, thus the Holocaust happened.

 

The irritant is ALWAYS expelled.

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