Thread: Time Paradox

A year or so ago I read in some magazine that a reputable Japanese physicist was trying to take advantage of what he thinks may be a possible time-travel loophole in quantum physics. I can't remember where I read it (might have been Discover Magazine or Scientific American), and I don't even remember what the proposed quantum loophole is based on (!), but here is my take on the scenario as I do remember it.

I have built a time machine, but it can only receive messages from the future. My plan is I will turn it on at 12:00 noon Monday. The next day, at 12:00 noon Tuesday I will drop a message into the input saying, "It is now 12:00 noon Tuesday". What happens?

As soon as I turn the time machine on i get the first message, "It is now 12:00 noon Tuesday". Great, it works! ...But now I have an idea: one minute after I recieve the first message, I destroy the input part of the machine. It cannot be repaired in just 24 hours. As I stare at the broken part, I wonder what the consequences are of what I have done.

The paradox I'm trying to imply is, I get a message from myself from tomorrow, but when i break the input today after I recieve the message, tomorrow I'm unable to send the message. So, who is the me of tomorrow who sent the message that I've already recieved?

Another way of telling my story is: I turn the machine on Monday at noon, I recieve the message the future me sent Tuesday at noon, put it in my pocket, wait 24 hours, and Tuesday at noon I don't send the message. Again, who sent the message that I have in my pocket?

All this presupposes that the future already exists in some way. Many scientists of reputation think it does, Kurt Godel comes to mind as one. Space and time being inseperable as the spacetime continuum, if all space exists all time must exist also. If this is true, all possibilities would exist in this Time Dimension. All the choices we may make in the present moment already exist there as sets of possibilities, and when we choose A instead of B, both A and B are existant possibilities in Time, and in choosing we select one pre-existing timeline over another.

Only way for time travel in that sense to work I believe would be an infinite number of dimensions. Otherwise if there was just one they would conflict with each other. That is if time travel in that sense is possible at all, or maybe it would just cause a big black hole and tear the universe apart :-D .

Theoretically if you could maneuver between the event horizons of a Kerr-Newman black hole, you may be able to travel through time.

Of course, the understanding of how to control this is even less understood than how one could maneuver in the void between the horizons.

Hello to you!

I focused on that paradox as well. I but thought differently. I figured I could, on this planet,
travel back in time but not in to the future on the same planet an meet myself.

I prerequisite a kind of machinery (technology ) to make it. If there was the machinery as
kind of a link to yet past times, the same machinery could easily take me to times yet to
come.

There was no doubt about it. So, now its getting heavy. Its kind of all thought at the same
moment but at the end the machinery taking us to multiple times must have its origin in
programming engines of space ships that were build to taking us to other worlds and that
seen from to day could also take us to other galaxies in which our same planet was again
present.

Thinking about an itself repeating systematic nature of space has to be the cornerstone
of traveling thru times. Otherwise never ever will be in position to event machinery taking
us back and forth in time. My thoughts relating to the issue so far.

Steve

Hopefully we'll never figure out time travel. The less ways humanity has to screw things up, the better.

Time travel is crackpot nonsense. Really.

Originally Posted by Farsight

Time travel is crackpot nonsense. Really.

Given that time dilation is an accepted scientific fact then it seems clear that it will be possible to travel into the future if spacecraft ever travel at speeds close to that of light.
Even if this is never possible (and I think it will happen one day) this does not make the idea of time travel "crackpot nonsense". It simply means that we will never be able to make spacecraft move at the speeds necessary for such travel.
However I have to admit that I do not really understand how travelling to the past will ever be possible outside of science fiction and the human imagination. Surely this idea implies that the past still exists "somewhere".
Can anyone explain?

I think in physics time is considered a fundamental quantity in the universe. It's used in mathematical equations, in Special and General theories of Relativity time is not considered as a duration in absolute terms, but as flexable according to one's frame of reference. Also, space and time are combined into a single construct, spacetime. The universe having three spatial dimensions and one time dimension, in which all four dimensions are inseperable. For example, when you are at some place in space you must also be at some place in time. If you are standing at the corner of 5th and Main, you also must be standing there at some moment in time. So in general, time seems to be a real quantity as is mass, energy, etc.

There is a line of reasoning that the time dimension exists in as real a sense as the space dimensions. You cannot be somewhere in the spatial dimensions without being somewhere in the time dimension.

Psychologically we experience time as moving from past to future. Time in the past is experienced in our mind as memory, and future time is not experienced at all until it becomes the present moment, then it becomes the past in our memory.

However, our psychological experience of time may be due to the way our brain functions, and not a true awareness of time as a dimensional reality. If all space exists, perhaps all time exists as well. The time dimension may be like a railroad track with every moment existing at points along the track. There is no real 'past' or 'future' here (past and future only exist from the perspective of our minds). If we could walk along this time track we could freely visit any moment in time as easily as we can visit any place in space along a spatial railroad track.

So, the 'past' and the 'future' may exist in a very real way in the time dimension. A time machine would be a vehicle in which we could travel back and forth in this time dimension (as envisioned as the time-railroad track).

StarMountainKid,

If in future time-travel could have been possible some people from future might have visited us or some of the person should have been missing present as the people who come from future might have taken it but infact this this does not happen.

According to me I view the time as the property which governs the mass.
for e.g human being weren't there when earth was born ,time passed ,changed and let this to happen. In this case time has governed the mass.

And talking about the time dialation may be ,human's are the masses that has a little property to control time.For e.g when we are with our loved ones time passes so quickly it seems, but when we are with the stanger there is a little change with controllng but anyway time passes,i think this happens because we are able to control time at certain circumstances.

According to your post on may 16 i wonder what was the machinaries used to built the time machines.And in that case in 2nd paragraph you talked about you controlling the time and the next, time governing you ,i wonder what might be the concequences.

But anyway this was an interesting paradox.

Originally Posted by StarMountainKid

Psychologically we experience time as moving from past to future. Time in the past is experienced in our mind as memory, and future time is not experienced at all until it becomes the present moment, then it becomes the past in our memory.

However, our psychological experience of time may be due to the way our brain functions, and not a true awareness of time as a dimensional reality. If all space exists, perhaps all time exists as well. The time dimension may be like a railroad track with every moment existing at points along the track. There is no real 'past' or 'future' here (past and future only exist from the perspective of our minds). If we could walk along this time track we could freely visit any moment in time as easily as we can visit any place in space along a spatial railroad track.

So, the 'past' and the 'future' may exist in a very real way in the time dimension.

An interesting description of how our minds may not yet be aware of the real nature of time altho' the idea that " if all space exists,perhaps all time exists as well" is still in the realms of scientific speculation/conjecture.
As far as travel, into the future, is concerned it would seem that the barriers, to such travel, are about whether we can solve very difficult practical (engineering,technological) problems and have nothing to do with violating scientific laws.

First to the paradox:

I am confused as to why this is a paradox. IF you break the machine, you won't get the message in the first place, right? Having a working machine is a prerequisite to getting the message. So, if you broke the machine after you got the message, but you still got a message, a signal had to come from some future time, which means that the machine worked. I've always been a bit slow when it comes to these paradoxical things.

Second, GR tells us that we live on a very specific type of manifold, and that manifold has a direction which is labeled time. We know it is time because it has a different sign in the metric, and velocity vectors which point along this ``time'' direction move at the speed of light. So time really is different from space, in the sense that the metric has a different signature (and not in some wacked out sense that Farsight may try to convince you of).

The fact that time moves more quickly when I'm with my woman just means that I don't see her as often as i want to.

Aside from this, GR does admit solutions which are closed, time-like curves. Even Einstein had to admit this when Goedel pointed it out to him. As for why we haven't seen any time travlelers, perhaps there is a law in the future which prohibits them from interfering with our lives. Who knows? Maybe we're just not interesting enough.

BenThe Man,
The paradox you commented on in your fist paragraph is this: I turned the machine on, recieved the message then broke the machine. The next day when I was supposed to send the message the machine was still broken, so I couldn't sent the message. Yet, the message I recieved yesterday before i broke it is in my pocket.

One can go on and on with this, designing little scenarios, but in every scenario I am dividing myself into different time-lines, or creating closed time loops, or...I don't really know what's happening.

Einstein said he walked every morning to the Institute for Advanced Study just so he could walk with Godel and have conversations with him. Godel considered the dimension of time as a kind of special spatial dimension, in which all time exists. 'Past and 'future' are created by our brain, and only exist in our minds in a psychological way. We percieve the 'past' as memory and the 'future' as what has not yet happened in our particular 'present moment'. This concept of time we experience is due to the way our brain percieves experience.

If all time exists in its own dimension, there is no 'past' or 'future' in this time dimension. Time in our universe just extends from the BB to the point where our universe ceases to exist...if that ever occurs. It's like a road in a spatial dimension, every spatial point on the road exists. In the time dimensional road, every point on the road is a temporal moment, and every moment exists.

We experience the universe as evolving in our psychological time, when actually all time already exists. We don't have the perceptive abilitly to experience this time dimension, so our brain fools us into percieving time as duration from past to future.

I don't see a paradox either. Something's missing. In order to send the message to yourself on the Tuesday you would first have to travel to that time from monday. How did you get to Tuesday and then get back to monday?

I assume you got in you TM and roared off into the next day by traveling at a very high speed while barely aging. When you slowed your TM it was tuesday. In this scenario your time line is not broken, you merely got to tuesday with next to time elapsing for you and your ship. Now you send the mesage but you must get back to read it but you have to take your tm with you so on monday the message you sent tuesday will be there.

I think what you are saying is the TM stays put on monday while it whisks only you into tuesday. If so, how do you input a message into the TM tuesday when the TM didn't go with you?

I think the confusion here is my fault in not describing my time machine well enough. Sorry. My TM is just a box-like structure that's bolted to the floor of my lab. It has an input slot and an output slot for sending and recieving messages written on pieces of paper. Myself nor the TM travels in time, it only has the capability for sending and recieving messages. It's the type of TM that can not recieve these paper messages from the past but only from the future.

I apologize for leaving out these details in my original post. With this updated description hopefully you can now understand the nature of these paradoxes I've described.

You would have never received the message from your future self today unless the TM was in working condition tomorrow? I don't think it possible for you to receive a message from your future self unless the TM was in working order. The Monday message is the first step in a chain of events that depended on a working TM. If your intention was to disable the TM after your future self sent a message to you then it couldn't have happened. That's how I see it.

zinjanthropos,
Since there is no real TM as I have described we don't know what actually would happen. You may be correct in your statement that I would not have recieved the message today unless the machine was in working order tomorrow. However, I DID recieve the message. Then I DID break the machine. So where did the message come from I have already recieved? If there is only one time line, in breaking the machine I suppose the message would disappear and also I would have no memory of recieving it because now it was never sent.

If there are multiple possible time lines, then I think after breaking the machine I would still have the message I recieved in my pocket. I would have split into two future time lines, one time line in which the machine is in working order tomorrow when I sent the message that I recieved before I broke the TM, and one time line in which tomorrow the machine is broken so I can't send the message. Yet in both cases, I still have that message I recieved before I broke the TM in my pocket.

My personal opinion is that physically, time travel into the past is impossible. That does not mean the ancient past cannot be viewed, possibly by some means we don't understand. We already observe the past and technically speaking, travel into the future.

This gets me to thinking. If you were to send a message to me right now then I would receive it in your past. However if you sent a message to yourself right now then you would receive it in your future or present, which in this case is the same thing.

So when you send a message to yourself, it travels with you into your future to your present. Does this mean you can never send a message to yourself in the past? My head hurts!

My favorite line in science fiction is in H.G. wells 'Time Machine' The friend of the time machine creator is amazed by the demonstration of time travel he has just witnessed. He asks the creator how it works. I was expecting a bunch of pseudo-science gobbleygook. Instead the main character states calmly:

"Push this lever forward to go into the future and pull it back to enter the past'.

Time travel...no problemo. :wink:

zinjanthropos,
My head hurts as well! I think you can send a message to your past only if you use the US Postal Service.

I've read about a fictional device called a Temporal Viewer, with which one can only view the past or future, like a tv set. Your third paragraph is interesting. I think 'past' and 'future' only exist in our brain, from our own psychological perspective as always existing in the 'now' or present moment. So I'm not sure if you can send a message to yourself in the past. Maybe we can think of some way to do this.

A curious thing is, from a photon's perspective time for the proton has come to a complete stop relative to the rest of the universe. When a photon travels across space and interacts with matter, from the photon's point of view it is stationary and it's the universe that is moving, and the piece of matter it collides with is travelling to the photon. So I think the photon experiences everything happening at once, as for it no time elapses between events. I think I'm correct in this.

It sounds simple but I think the reason you can never send a message to yourself in the past is because you are no longer there. In fact the past is probably gone forever and there is nowhere for a message to go other than the present. Any message sent then defaults to the present of the receiver.

As I stated earlier, I really do not think it possible to travel into the past, let alone send a message. If 10 million people entered a TM at any time in the future and they all went to Christ's crucifixion (all I could think of) for example. Don't you think that might have been recorded somewhere or at least be a little crowded?

If I was a betting man, I would bet on Stephen Hawking's chronology protection conjecture. Saying that other ideas have been proposed which avoid paradoxes such as the grandfather paradox by using the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics in saying that it is possible to travel back in time into other universes but not the one in which you exist. However, I dont agree with the many worlds interpretation, mainly because of its lack of respect for the projection amplitudes of the eigenstates in the quantum formalism, so any such ideas are, to me, pointless.

http://www.physorg.com/news63371210.html

Interesting

Originally Posted by Naz

....lack of respect for the projection amplitudes of the eigenstates in the quantum formalism, ....

Um, would you care to explain what this phrase means? This is not a trick, I really don't understand it. It may be common currency in quantum physics, but could you explain it to the rest of us, please?

Basically since the formailsm of quantum mechanics, well the common one anyway in the language of hilbert spaces, expresses a quantum state as a linear superposition of the possible measurement eigenstates with the mod squared of the amplitude of each eigenstate giving the probabilty of the state vector collapsing to that eigenstate on measurement. These projection amplitudes are essentially the testable part of the theory.

According to the many worlds interpretation, all possible measurment outcomes are realised. If this is the case, then it pointless to talk about the probability of a measurement outcome being realised because all are realised, so the projection amplitudes lose their significance.

In saying that I don't know much about many worlds and this is just my thinking so it's possible that these things have been worked out. After all, there are far greater physicists than me who subscirbe to this interpretation.

Originally Posted by StarMountainKid

A year or so ago I read in some magazine that a reputable Japanese physicist was trying to take advantage of what he thinks may be a possible time-travel loophole in quantum physics. I can't remember where I read it (might have been Discover Magazine or Scientific American), and I don't even remember what the proposed quantum loophole is based on (!), but here is my take on the scenario as I do remember it.

I have built a time machine, but it can only receive messages from the future. My plan is I will turn it on at 12:00 noon Monday. The next day, at 12:00 noon Tuesday I will drop a message into the input saying, "It is now 12:00 noon Tuesday". What happens?

As soon as I turn the time machine on i get the first message, "It is now 12:00 noon Tuesday". Great, it works! ...But now I have an idea: one minute after I recieve the first message, I destroy the input part of the machine. It cannot be repaired in just 24 hours. As I stare at the broken part, I wonder what the consequences are of what I have done.

The paradox I'm trying to imply is, I get a message from myself from tomorrow, but when i break the input today after I recieve the message, tomorrow I'm unable to send the message. So, who is the me of tomorrow who sent the message that I've already recieved?

Another way of telling my story is: I turn the machine on Monday at noon, I recieve the message the future me sent Tuesday at noon, put it in my pocket, wait 24 hours, and Tuesday at noon I don't send the message. Again, who sent the message that I have in my pocket?

All this presupposes that the future already exists in some way. Many scientists of reputation think it does, Kurt Godel comes to mind as one. Space and time being inseperable as the spacetime continuum, if all space exists all time must exist also. If this is true, all possibilities would exist in this Time Dimension. All the choices we may make in the present moment already exist there as sets of possibilities, and when we choose A instead of B, both A and B are existant possibilities in Time, and in choosing we select one pre-existing timeline over another.

Thats a stupid paradox because the answer is simple....if you break the machine and it cant be repaired then noone could have sent the message therefore you would not recieve the messege !! If you DO receive the messege then the machine will still be fully operational tommorrow.

The best paradox is.......What if I travel back in time and kill either of my parents before they meet ? what then ?
at first it would seem a paradox, but it actually isnt, and I can explain why.

leohopkins,
If I break the machine after I recieve the message the TM will remain broken so I won't be able to send the message tomorrow. But, tomorrow as I stand before the broken machine and therefore can't send the message, I DO have the message in my pocket I recieved yesterday before I broke the machine.

Please explain why traveling back in time and killing your parents before they met would not create a paradox.

Originally Posted by StarMountainKid

Please explain why traveling back in time and killing your parents before they met would not create a paradox.

1 such way involves the many worlds interpretation.


________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________
________________________________________

Pretend there is an infinite amount of the lines I drew above.
Each represents a parallel timeline of the same universe. Where every possible outcome is realized.

If you traveled back in time in this interpretation you would come from a different time line then you end up in. Thus it would NOT be YOUR parents.

If you killed your father you would not cease to exist becuase you came from another parallel reality.

Have you watched the movie De ja vu? Very cool good watch. This is an example of how if things can change then they cannot change in the reality YOU came from if you are the time traveler.

IE parallel dimentions

I believe time travel is impossible for the following reason:

Originally Posted by I

If we were to time travel, it would first of all be impossible to travel to the future, unless we're traveling back to the future. Secondly, we would have to re-arrange every particle in the Universe so as to make everything as it was in the past; even then, we wouldn't be certain whether things would progress the way they previously progressed. The reason we would have to take this route is that time is nothing more than a measure of progression. If things do not progress, then there is not time (in other words, if everything lost its kinetic energy and the universe just froze--no motion whatsoever--there would be no time). Thus, to reverse time, we'd have to reverse progression, and in doing so re-arrange every atom in the universe.

If you go forward in time from wherever or whenever you left, then you are no longer there. I think some people believe that if they go into the future then they could bump into themselves. Nope, you would have been recorded as missing from the time you exited the past. But....

If you go back into the past, could you meet yourself? Well for one thing, you should have a memory of such an event. I think that would be hard to forget. Have not heard of anyone meeting their future selves as of yet.

The universe seems to us to be evolving in time. Considered this way, there is no real existence of the past or future, only the present moment exists. But if the present moment only exists and this is what the universe is, its physical existence is expressed only in this present moment, then there must be some finite duration for the PM. The smallest unit of time duration.

Time in quantum mechanics is considered continuous, but everything else is quantized, so why not time? A proposed quantum unit of time is the chronon which is about 2 x 10^-23 seconds.

In physics the Planck time is the time (5 x 10^-44 seconds) it takes a photon to travel across the Plank length (1.6 x 10^-35 meters). One second is 5 x 10^43 Plank times. So we may also think of this Planck time as the smallest unit of time.

My contention is that if time is a physical unit of duration, then it would be logical to assume that all of time already exists in its time dimension. All physical units of the spatial dimensions exist, and space and time are inseperable as the spacetime continuum, so all time must exist as well. So if this is the case, then if you could travel into the future or past you could meet your future or past self if you could stay in the same timeline. Your future and past selves already and always exist in the time dimension. However, perhaps this paradox is prohibited and traveling into the future or past would split your timelines, and in doing so you would create a new timeline for yourself.

Originally Posted by StarMountainKid

All physical units of the spatial dimensions exist, and space and time are inseperable as the spacetime continuum, so all time must exist as well. So if this is the case, then if you could travel into the future or past you could meet your future or past self if you could stay in the same timeline. Your future and past selves already and always exist in the time dimension.

That would establish a limit to how far into the future you could travel....up to the time of your death. I think not. Travel into the future means you leave the present and at speeds approaching c, you travel back & forth to Earth only to return in the future. This is a known condition. You have aged slower than your Earthly counterparts and return in the future. You will not bump into yourself and will not find your grave since you haven't died. I think it will be more possible for people of the future to suddenly have someone from the past visit them instead of vice versa. Future pioneers of spaceflight approaching c may as part of their testing lose a few individuals who will then appear as if nothing happened on their return to Earth, but will be visitors from the past.

Originally Posted by zinjanthropos

My personal opinion is that physically, time travel into the past is impossible. That does not mean the ancient past cannot be viewed, possibly by some means we don't understand. We already observe the past and technically speaking, travel into the future.

This gets me to thinking. If you were to send a message to me right now then I would receive it in your past. However if you sent a message to yourself right now then you would receive it in your future or present, which in this case is the same thing.

So when you send a message to yourself, it travels with you into your future to your present. Does this mean you can never send a message to yourself in the past? My head hurts!

no u can't cuz when you hear it from yourself it will be in the future. ahahahahaha!

Originally Posted by StarMountainKid

A year or so ago I read in some magazine that a reputable Japanese physicist was trying to take advantage of what he thinks may be a possible time-travel loophole in quantum physics. I can't remember where I read it (might have been Discover Magazine or Scientific American), and I don't even remember what the proposed quantum loophole is based on (!), but here is my take on the scenario as I do remember it.

I have built a time machine, but it can only receive messages from the future. My plan is I will turn it on at 12:00 noon Monday. The next day, at 12:00 noon Tuesday I will drop a message into the input saying, "It is now 12:00 noon Tuesday". What happens?

As soon as I turn the time machine on i get the first message, "It is now 12:00 noon Tuesday". Great, it works! ...But now I have an idea: one minute after I recieve the first message, I destroy the input part of the machine. It cannot be repaired in just 24 hours. As I stare at the broken part, I wonder what the consequences are of what I have done.

The paradox I'm trying to imply is, I get a message from myself from tomorrow, but when i break the input today after I recieve the message, tomorrow I'm unable to send the message. So, who is the me of tomorrow who sent the message that I've already recieved?

Another way of telling my story is: I turn the machine on Monday at noon, I recieve the message the future me sent Tuesday at noon, put it in my pocket, wait 24 hours, and Tuesday at noon I don't send the message. Again, who sent the message that I have in my pocket?

All this presupposes that the future already exists in some way. Many scientists of reputation think it does, Kurt Godel comes to mind as one. Space and time being inseperable as the spacetime continuum, if all space exists all time must exist also. If this is true, all possibilities would exist in this Time Dimension. All the choices we may make in the present moment already exist there as sets of possibilities, and when we choose A instead of B, both A and B are existant possibilities in Time, and in choosing we select one pre-existing timeline over another.

Einstein was the loop hole it wasnt that long ago less than a year.

If we ever invent a time machine that can go BACK in time, I'm freaking going back to the dawn of the human race to figure out wtf went wrong...

I'm convinced our ancestors ate something they shouldn't have...or stood out in the sun too long.

A "paradox" in logic is a signal that you are not thinking logically or carefully. There are no actual paradoxes.

Time travel is a fantasy for making fun stories and motion pictures. Time is not a dimension that can be traveled. It is only called a dimension because it is something used to measure change.

Time is a measurement of the rate of change, nothing more. Time slows only when the rate of change slows. To travel back in time implies that all changes are being reversed. That would be a monumental and impossible task to cause for the physical universe. All electrons would reverse direction of travel and spin. All light would leave its destination to return to its source.

Trying to reverse all momentum would require reversed momentum to be applied. That reversed momentum would have to exist in all places and would in itself be the universe being reversed. Thus such a reverse momentum cannot exist without immediately destroying itself.

The box that receives messages from the future cannot exist for the same reasons. Information must have physical form and be made of physical items. Those items obey physical laws. For the information to pass into its past, it must reverse the entire remainder of the universe back to a prior state while maintaining the integrity of the message material.

If anything is removed from the effort to reverse all momentum, a growing "missing momentum" must cause a rip in the real former situation and thus not really find itself in the real past, but at best something closely resembling it.

Social time travel can be done by reversing mankind's social structure and erasing his accumulated knowledge.

The rest of this topic is as someone earlier said, simply non-sense.

but makes a fun fantasy

As far as I know, there is no scientific significance to be given to the terms, "past", "present" and "future". There is a scientific distinction between earlier than and later than, but past, present and future seem to be entirely subjective notions.

They're relative to the focus of discussion and study.

For instance, T=-N can be "past," T=0 can be "present," and T=N can be "future," in relation to T at T=0.

Such terminology is proper when working within a relative event time-frame.

I don't think "time travel" is simple. It's not like you go to another time and then you can do whatever you want while you're there.

The laws of causality can't be done away with. You can rearrange those laws so they work in a different pattern or direction, but all equations eventually have to even out. This doesn't mean you can't travel time, however. It just means you can't violate the laws of causality when you do it.

So the question here is: Does time travel always have to violate the laws of causality?

I would take a guess, that time travel (in the same universe) is impossible. If time is a measurement of motion, then i would say "time" travel would actually be more like "dimensional" travel.

You would be recieving a message from another dimensional you.

But this is assuming that there is a universe for every possibility.
Without that assumption i dont think that theory holds water.

However if time is an intrinsic property of this universe and not of another dimension, you could in theory transition from one frame of time to another.

Although, if "time" is purely an entity existent only in the conceptual mind of the observer, referencing the incremental continuation of all things, then there's no way to escape time. If that's the case, then there is no way to time travel, because you cannot escape your own frame of reference. In essence, time is intangible.

can i put a complete novices view on time travel, i see the speed of light the speed at which things happen. the faster you go, say the speed of light, you are travelling at the same speed as things are actually happening, therefore the outside world appears to be completely still, if you were to go faster, you would be travelling quicker than things were actually happening. you would then be travelling into the future to a place where things from your datum point hadnt happened yet. this is time travel.yes?

well i killed that one

Originally Posted by beats666

can i put a complete novices view on time travel, i see the speed of light the speed at which things happen. the faster you go, say the speed of light, you are travelling at the same speed as things are actually happening, therefore the outside world appears to be completely still, if you were to go faster, you would be travelling quicker than things were actually happening. you would then be travelling into the future to a place where things from your datum point hadnt happened yet. this is time travel.yes?

Have you never studied relativity? If you havent and this is purely from your own thoughts, It is brilliant.

I personally think you are being modest about an osmosed scientific understanding ir so,ething to that effect.

no no im a firefighter from birkenhead, im 38 and ive only the last 5 years needed to know more. i watch in on debates but i lack confidence sometimes. ive no qualifications, just a basic need to know more. thanks for your comment, im afraid i have to simplify things if i stand any chance of joining in. will try more. thanks

Well its a bit rough around the edges but you have just stated the effect of travelling into the future by approaching the speed of light in accordance with special relativity. you are seriously claiming you have never studied the subject( even from a coffee table book)?

well probably watchin documentaries, ill find a subject was interesting and read up on it on the net or forums like these. my wife just said im self taught. i seemed to have developed a need to learn about time, space, the universes, the atom, quarks...and im not even sure what one is yet but im getting there. strings, im finding them very hard. i am genuinly interested in the same things you guys are, you are a lifetime ahead of me, but ive still got my own thoughts....................and thats why im here. im flattered by your comments.paul

Dont put yourself down, you have understood from a documentry what some of these idiots never get in a lifetime immersed in Physics.

The contemporary story of physics is one of the "longest" number-theory Days Of Our Lives the planet has ever witnessed, except for Egypt: the plot, the axioms, haven't changed basically, from about 1000 or so BC........."time" as we know it has continued to be an assumed "one dimensional construct".

Even Judaism has been given a revision.........some even confuse the Kabbala for the secret mysteries of Judaism's axioms of belief.

Anyway, I think we can hold our head up high and walk ahead in proposing new theories for time (in regard to space). I think, I really do, that over the past 3000 years we have evolved well enough to be bold enough to have a go at upgrading our understanding of "time".

We often confuse ourselves in arguments that really fail to achieve our passions because we are using faulty tools of understanding in the first place. Maybe our problem is "time"......maybe our "timing" is all out........and indeed is not science populated by men who really fail in the "timing stakes"?

i think youre just down on men

It would be cool if there were more Physicists of the fairer sex.

Without being too repetitive, could one consider "time" to actually be a circular thing, with associated equations, as opposed to "linear" and "one dimensional"?

Would a theory that proposes and proves time to be circular (with associated equations of the circle) be in any way "interesting" to the scientific community?

Originally Posted by streamSystems

The contemporary story of physics is one of the "longest" number-theory Days Of Our Lives the planet has ever witnessed, except for Egypt: the plot, the axioms, haven't changed basically, from about 1000 or so BC........."time" as we know it has continued to be an assumed "one dimensional construct".

This is incorrect. Please identify which Greek philosopher identified time as a dimension. You will have a hard time. Our view of time has undergone significant changes in the last three millenia.

Originally Posted by Wolf

Hopefully we'll never figure out time travel. The less ways humanity has to screw things up, the better.

I agree with wolf, what’s the fun in living if you knew will happen tomorrow.

From what i can see, there is no paradox at all.
You never sent the message, therefore you will not receive it. You broke the machine, therefore stopping yourself from sending it the next day. Your intention was not to send it, and to try to create a paradox. Therefore, ruining the paradox.
If I wanted a CD, and told myself I would buy it tomorrow, and didn't, it wouldn't be there the day after. As I never did the action.

If for some reason it did magically come over, then the only option I can think of is a parallel universe, where you didn't break the machine, and its somehow managed to get to this universe. Though this is unlikely, verging on impossible.

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

Originally Posted by streamSystems

The contemporary story of physics is one of the "longest" number-theory Days Of Our Lives the planet has ever witnessed, except for Egypt: the plot, the axioms, haven't changed basically, from about 1000 or so BC........."time" as we know it has continued to be an assumed "one dimensional construct".

This is incorrect. Please identify which Greek philosopher identified time as a dimension. You will have a hard time. Our view of time has undergone significant changes in the last three millenia.

I was being inaccurate, I agree, if not nice. I don't think they had a theory for time. But, technically, neither do we. We use time as a linear standard that associates itself in a very indifferent manner to the mechanics of space......like a line drawn in sand.

Basically, in having discovered a new theory for time, one-dimensional time does seem very "line drawn in sand".

Is it possible to standardize time to a repeating atomic cycle?

.....maybe with a cyclical equation to match?

I know it is possible........but that's using another theory of space-time.

I think you should ask one of the more learned physicists whether their axioms allow for that.

You know what I mean: repeating atomic cycles.......re-re-re-peating.

Because, if we can esstablish a re-re-re-peating atomic cycle, as a fun-fun-fun-damental law, we could act-act-act-ually have "time" as law itself of sp-sp-sp-spaaaace.

Are you trying to impress me?

You're in-in-in-terested?

It was just a quest-quest-quest-ion.

I'm wondering where your question came from.

It's like you have read my work, and then decided to land in..........by being all charming.

I'm a cha-cha-cha-ma?

Look, I have been hassled so many times. If you want to name a price to review my theory, send it to the PM feature..........you know, if you are "legit", and can cease the entertaining, advertising, whatever you call it.............

Oh, and "I'm paying".........because clearly science is preoccupied with teaching, and being paid for that, as opposed to keeping up with the greater jigsaw.......yet, offering money to children putting together pieces I will.

OK.

But you are using my char-char-char-isma............

....my cha cha cha rmmmm?

I did ask a question.

A-a-a-tomic...........time.

You find that charissssssmatic?

If you are serious about your "atomic time" suggestion, put up (with me) or shut up...........where's YOUR proof?

You've proved me wrong..........I don't know-no-no.

A question though, that keeps such a one on the hooo-hooo-hooo-kkkk...........can identify a de-deeeesire..

Maybe.........May.....ma-ma-ma........maybe...........you can t'-t'-t'-tell me more?

In an wolrd in witch rules you do not comprehand everything is posible.

When you travel in time laws of physics have other meanings then normal laws and it will take a huge amount of cinetic energy to keep the body of the traveler in one pice on the same sytem of referance that he exits.

Rules in our univers change evolve in better so the pattern of existance chage in ways you now cannot imagine.
yes time is a propery of the actual rules and can be modifyed.

No we are not able to chage the syntax of that rules , we do not have the knolge for now about what we are made of ,we argue and dream odd dreams making our imaginary univers guverned by our rules and points of view and that puts us in the wrong diraction and distracts us makig us see what in not here only what we wanna be here.

Yet for now we do not the have the capacity to make things happend by our will when it comes to modifying the rules of the system in witch we live (this univers in our cause)

We are a consequence of this ruls without them we will not be here to live in the way that we do now (we will not see the light feal thw wind etc.)

Time traveling has it's own set of rules and all of the travels have to read cinectic information keep the curent system and reintragte that cinetic information in the new iducted system (set of rules) the systen in witch will arive.
That can be made yes only with deep knolage of the system with deep knolage of binding 2 sets of difrent systems together.

The time stream as you call it present past future all exist in the same system and can be worked on.

Premonitions are the capabilty of some to read the future stream of time.

This stream of time are all over ,we live in it ,is like a fog and reprezents one rule of manny that binds the system together.

This systen in with we live has a way to preservate itshelf such as time paradox not to happen .
Why? because is an evolving system.
Yes was a time when this rule did not exist so as some of you sayed movin back in the past and in the future distroyed all things because the system crashed so it was recrated rebuild and added new rules to it to make it more stable ...
that mutch i am allowed to say for now without repercusions hope you all take what i sayed and use it in a good way

..........you as well?

Originally Posted by streamSystems

..........you as well?

8)

...........you are not about to start a war with "mr maxHead..........".........I am already in enough trouble.............

>>>>>>>>what have I got myself into..........can I use some type of theory that was left to me?

.......ar you "shor....shor........shor.......aaaaaaa........bou t..........being so....................."heeeeelp"

Originally Posted by streamSystems

...........you are not about to start a war with "mr maxHead..........".........I am already in enough trouble.............

>>>>>>>>what have I got myself into..........can I use some type of theory that was left to me?

what do you mean?

I mean...........no one wants to think, any more, about what matters...........to me, about stuff that almsot seems relevant to 80's "shit"............

............isn't that "right".........mr "headRoom"?

Have you given someone the right to use your theory, is that it?
You know what? Comes last has least.

No.........

The "right" will.......I hope..........eductate..........educate.........." at least Me".

.......what I can explain...........don't you think i am more entranced in....in...."being TOLD"......

...........I mean...........we're all here for a reason...........to sa-sa-sa-ve something..........or........so-so-so-oneone........

some.....1.

........is that a q...q....q...."question"?

If you want to call on me..........I guess I have to be "relevant" to st-st-st-uff like atomic t-t-t-ime....

This isn't a roleplay board right - it's a science board? Or am I in the wrong place.

Honestly streamSystem, you should not call higher powers for some common sence. If that's what you are doing. I don't see anything in it for you.

streamSystems: chat by PM from now on........with m-m-m-eeeeeee.

Folks, lets bring some meaning back to this thread or I shall consign it to the trash can.

Go to where you are headed..........

experience the pleasure of just sending with no scientific "pass-pass_port"...........other than "if I do not undersatnd and no one else with me in this ship is doomed if anything NEEEEEEWWWWWW comes alongghggggg......."...............

amazing - 36 posts and not one iota of sense

Originally Posted by DoctorFate

In an wolrd in witch rules you do not comprehand everything is posible.

When you travel in time laws of physics have other meanings then normal laws and it will take a huge amount of cinetic energy to keep the body of the traveler in one pice on the same sytem of referance that he exits.

Rules in our univers change evolve in better so the pattern of existance chage in ways you now cannot imagine.
yes time is a propery of the actual rules and can be modifyed.

No we are not able to chage the syntax of that rules , we do not have the knolge for now about what we are made of ,we argue and dream odd dreams making our imaginary univers guverned by our rules and points of view and that puts us in the wrong diraction and distracts us makig us see what in not here only what we wanna be here.

Yet for now we do not the have the capacity to make things happend by our will when it comes to modifying the rules of the system in witch we live (this univers in our cause)

We are a consequence of this ruls without them we will not be here to live in the way that we do now (we will not see the light feal thw wind etc.)

Time traveling has it's own set of rules and all of the travels have to read cinectic information keep the curent system and reintragte that cinetic information in the new iducted system (set of rules) the systen in witch will arive.
That can be made yes only with deep knolage of the system with deep knolage of binding 2 sets of difrent systems together.

The time stream as you call it present past future all exist in the same system and can be worked on.

Premonitions are the capabilty of some to read the future stream of time.

This stream of time are all over ,we live in it ,is like a fog and reprezents one rule of manny that binds the system together.

This systen in with we live has a way to preservate itshelf such as time paradox not to happen .
Why? because is an evolving system.
Yes was a time when this rule did not exist so as some of you sayed movin back in the past and in the future distroyed all things because the system crashed so it was recrated rebuild and added new rules to it to make it more stable ...
that mutch i am allowed to say for now without repercusions hope you all take what i sayed and use it in a good way

This is the closest to my view.

Common science fiction about time travel always asks the question: "What if we could change just that one thing, and nothing else?".

You can't. If you change one thing, it always impacts other things. If you alter the laws of physics that prevent you from going back in time, you will alter other laws as well.

The side effects of time travel prevent you from changing anything that has already had an impact on your own history. You can't kill your grandfather, for example.

You might be able to kill some random guy you've never met or heard of, however. If so, then you're creating original history, not changing it.

When you get back to the future, you're not going to find out that there was ever any alternate version of that event. (but you will remember that you're the one who did it)

Originally Posted by kojax

Common science fiction about time travel always asks the question: "What if we could change just that one thing, and nothing else?".

You can't. If you change one thing, it always impacts other things. If you alter the laws of physics that prevent you from going back in time, you will alter other laws as well.

I don't believe that question is that deep, kojax.

It's purely a philosophical study, not a scientific matter. What it means is, if you had a time machine, yet only had the opportunity to make one change in history, what would it be? It's not a statement that you would be making one stand-alone change, it's an question of what change would you make that would change history.

For example, would you go back in time and assassinate Hitler?

The question does not intend that if you, for instance, assassinated Hitler, that nothing at all would change in history. It's a question concerning the fact that there are many choices available, so which one would you choose, if you were given the opportunity to change only one.

I don't mean one change to history. I mean one change to the laws of physics. (Without side effects)

They always ask, "What if you could just change your place in time, but leave absolutely everything else about the way the laws of physics apply to you the same?"

I'm suggesting that you can't just change your place in time, without changing other things about the way the universe interacts with you.

They always look at it like you're going to go back to a previous time, and then be just as free to move around as though you were from that time. IE. the only thing you changed was your place in time.

I'm pretty sure if time travel is possible, you'd change other things as well. For example: maybe you'd arrive, but be ethereal, unable to interact with any of the matter around you.

In that case, the hypothetical actually sets up the rules for itself.

It says "What if you could..."

Assuming that if it were possible, what would you...

Similar to "What would you see if you could walk on the surface of the Sun?"

Obviously you can't walk on the Sun, but in the hypothetical question, you can still provide an answer of what you might see from that level.

So what would you change in the laws of physics, if you could change only one thing and nothing else was effected? Reality aside.

Perhaps you could flip the color spectrum? Or something or other. It's just fun.

Yes, exactly.

Science fiction about time travel is pretty much always based on a hypothetical assumption about time travel that doesn't necessarily have to be there.

There's no need to assume that time travel doesn't have side effects, but all of science fiction does. It assumes that you could change your temporal perspective, but leave all your other perspectives (like your spatial perspective, or your perception of mass and gravity) intact.

I really don't think that's the case.

Time travel may actually be possible, only so long as it's understood that in the process of accomplishing it, you never get just that one effect all by itself.

A lot of people that believe in UFO's believe they may use a form of time travel to allow them to travel the distances in space.

That's one reason I suggest that the whole thing might be more complicated than we like to think.

All of the issues are intertwined: light speed, perception of time itself, gravity, force, mass, ........ etc. They're all part of one whole picture we're only able to see part of. But, there's no way to change any one part of that picture without changing all parts of that picture.

If you could travel backwards in time, there is one other obstacle.
You would remove all the events that contributed to your knowledge from that time period to now. You would have no idea why you were there other than your thoughts then, and would just form a similar history.

The space-time of physics is a mathematical construct/model for the real world. The world line/geodesic is a historical relationship of an object relative to another object. The object only has one position for each interval of time, the time being a periodic reference event.
The events happen once and then are gone. The objects whether particles or galaxies are in another state. This is the 'now' of relativity. The past is perceived and stored as memory or has still to be perceived if at great distances. The 'future' is potential/possible states.

Actually, I guess what I believe is just a slightly varied from what you just said.


I believe that space-time is a 4 dimensional thing and a line going through space time cannot touch itself.

What you seem to be saying is that a line going through space time can't ever move in a negative direction along the temporal axis, and this is what I disagree with you on.

I think itt can move backward or forward along the temporal axis, as long as it isn't crossing itself along any of the other 3 axis at the same time.

These "lines" aren't objects. They're events. An "event" in this sense, is considered to include all of its causes, and all of its effects in one event.
The line that defines this event in 4D space-time can't ever touch itself, but it wiggle any number of directions or any path that doesn't involve touching itself.

So, if my decision to go back in time is caused by a desire to change a past event, I won't be able to. That's because my decision is part of the event that I'm attempting to interact with, and that would mean I was breaking the rules.

I could, however, go to Alpha Centauri 10,000 years ago and look around, because I'm probably not intertwined with any event that happened on Alpha Centauri 10,000 years ago.


----------------------------------------
A rule we're familiar with: 2 objects can occupy the same location at different times, or the same time at different locations, but not the same time at the same location.

A time travel rule: 2 stages of the same event can occupy 2 separate locations at the same time, or 2 separate times at the same location, but they can't both occupy the same time at the same location.

Just quickly, let me propose what some Churches and associated faiths might find interesting about "time" and the relevance of science to a possible "immortal being".

OK.......through the eyes of the Saint, there is an immortal being. This being is meant to represent all time and space, yet would according to our perception exist only in our own current time dimension.

Now, this is the thing.........according to that immortal being, time would exist before this NOW zone we live in, and ahead of this NOW zone we live in. Time, to that immortal, as faith would understand it, would represent two tracks, one of the past, the other of the future, and yet for us in the "present", another track that cuts it. There would be two false times, before and after, two "snakes" so to speak, and one time that cuts it, the NOW zone we live in.

Time like space would have three dimensions.........

I could go on about how space would be regarded by the immortal, but maybe I should wait for someone to sake me about sails (ship sails, two dimensional constructs, that catch wind to produce the third dimension of volume).

Mmmmm: two snakes and a sword..........sounds like a caduceus.

Remember, this is how science would make sense to the immortal.

Now, continue with your science chat.

[quote="kojax"]Actually, I guess what I believe is just a slightly varied from what you just said.

What you seem to be saying is that a line going through space time can't ever move in a negative direction along the temporal axis, and this is what I disagree with you on.

For me there is no line (it's a fiction), and no space-time. One event follows another, time is a process of transforming from one state to another from the particle level to the cosmic level.
If you plot the temperature of something every minute for an hour, you have a line on paper representing the variation to a reference.
The temperature now is the real value, the line is a history, those values
do not exist except as a record. There is no temperature 'line' that exists in space! This would be true for all measurements, once they are done, it's history. The same with perception, once you see it, no matter how far away, it's history.

I could, however, go to Alpha Centauri 10,000 years ago and look around, because I'm probably not intertwined with any event that happened on Alpha Centauri 10,000 years ago.

Since AC is about 4.5 light yrs away, that's as far back as you can see.
All events there prior to that interval have been perceived here and are spreading out into the rest of the universe.

I don't think anything happens twice or that history is ever remade, but an event doesn't have to happen at a later time than its cause.

A practical example: A man takes out a loan to buy a house. The cause of his ownership of the house is the (hoped for) fact that he will make payments in the future. It's not because he already made the payments.

It's not a perfect example, because there's still a chance he won't make the payments, but I think when a time traveler travels time, it works pretty much like this example (other than the chance the future will be different than anticipated).

I don't see why reality/existence/the laws of physics would bar us from changing up the order in which things happen, so long as every cause still leads to its effect, and every effect proceeds from its cause.

Time like space would have three dimensions.........

I hadn't really considered that possibility. 3 dimensions for time, and three for space. I guess this is the sort of thinking that leads physicists to be able to come up with so many dimensions for their models.

I'm going to stick with 4 for now just because I think that's all I can handle, but if the technology to travel backward through time ever is discovered, I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with viewing time the way you seem to be suggesting.

It's not possible to travel backward in time using time as three dimensionsal, as the theory I use suggests.

Basically, with all things considered, for the theory to be holistic, there is a general "rotation" of space-time that represents how time and space flows in that overall one direction.

My point is, 3-dimensional time does not automatically warrant backward time travel.........I have tested it (the theory.......and the proof was deriving the equations for a circle, sphere, and pi).

Check the theory out for yourself if you wish at the www feature below: add to it if you want.

Basically, back in 1999 I was working my way through the algorithm of perception following my departure from my medical studies, bilogical sciences, belated at that.........and I continued joining the dots with that theoretical algorithm of perception, and was able to construct a tyype of virtual reality a virtual perception would perceive..........and it was remarkably similar to our own reality........broadly, and atomically. Yet, I wanted proof. The proof I was able to achieve was the formulation, using those new axioms for time and space (points), of the equations for a sphere and circle, including pi. I thought, "that's something we know.....we know those equations in using lines in space, not new point-coordinates of time.....does that make this theory valid"???

It's interesting that you use that word "perception". It's the fact that so many mystics (or claimed mystics, as there's no telling how many real ones there are, or if there are any) seem to refer to it as important in what they do.

My personal theory is that most psychic abilities and/or paranormal things stem from our ability to tap into a time travel technology yet to be invented, but which we'll all have access to someday.

You can't change what you've already perceived, because it's already part of your history, but if you haven't perceived it yet (or perceived one of its results), you can still change it, even if it's actually in the past. It didn't happen to you yet, so it's not in *your* past.

This is why faith is essential in order to tap into any of that stuff. You have to make the decision to use mystical stuff before you know the result.