Time Travel

[TG Moses VI]

I doubt you could travel back that far.

[Guest]

@Deviant:Scripter:

Well F_alk, I hate to use Stephen Hawking again, but I think I must:

Hawking realized that if a particle/anti-particle pair came into existence near the event horizon of a black hole, one might fall into the hole before annihilating its anti-particle. The other particle could then escape the gravitational clutches of the black hole, appearing to an outside observer as radiation."

Which is an “out-dated theory” / “popular science explanation”. It’s wrong, i once knew the correct mechanism, and could surely find the FAQ where that was explained correctly.

[Guest]

@TM:

For example, traveling back further back in time we would open ourselves to many different paradoxes. What would happen if I traveled back in time to killed my father, heaven forbid?
…
Time no longer follows a straight line but branches off into many different universes.

To the second: That’s probaly what is called the Many-worlds-theory, first mentioned by Everett and Wheeler. This actually would allow time travel without paradoxa: If you travel backwards, you will not end up in the “world” that you actually came from. You could kill your father there, and never be born in that world, but still you will be born in yours.

But there are other things which are opposing time travel:
Anyone, as a living being, consists of matter. Matter and Energy are equivalent. Now suddenly (as you travel backwards) the universe lends itself energy from the future? I think the conservation of energy (or any other conservation laws) ís the most powerful argument against time travel.
Another example: We believe (and have good reason to do so), that the overall universe is electronically neutral: same amount of positve and negative charges.
Now, (after having splitted a H atom) if you take with you (going back in time) a single electron, and leave the proton “in the future”, you violate that law for some time.

I grow more and more opposed to time travel :)

[Guest]

now the objective of the terminator doesnt make sense. cus if he kills jon conner the humans lose but then it erases the reason for the T1000 to come in the first place so he realley doesnt die cus the T1000 cant come so there for it is impossible for jon connor to die and the terminator is on a lost cause ;)

[TG Moses VI]

I grow more and more opposed to time travel

Nah, I’m sure we can get time travel to work. However, you can’t go back any further then when you stepped into the time machine - ruling out the idea of T1000 going into the past. :-?

[Guest]

@TG:

Nah, I’m sure we can get time travel to work. However, you can’t go back any further then when you stepped into the time machine - ruling out the idea of T1000 going into the past. :-?

Well, of course, i am opposed to travel backwards. Forwards is no problem, we do that all the time :).
And what use is a time machine, when you can’t get out “before” you got in?

[TG Moses VI]

Do a lot of things at once within a short amount of time –- or even no time at all? :-?

[GeZe]

what about stoping time?..…

[TG Moses VI]

Might work… though there are problems when dealing with it. (ie what happens to your mass?)

[Guest]

Problem is, you can stop “your” time, but not “the time around”.
If you did that, that would be effective time travel, as you could travel faster than the speed of light.

[TG Moses VI]

Heh, traveling faster than the speed of light… Probably can’t be done.

[GeZe]

there stuff inside light that goes faster then the speed of light,the problem is you can’t get it out

[EmuGod]

Time travel cannot be done because of the second law of thermodynamics.

[GeZe]

I thought enstain said it as posible?

[TM Moses VII]

I am sorry, Sir GeZe, but Einstein said Time Travel should not be possible. In Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, it states that nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

Einstein showed that was no such thing as instantaneous interaction in nature, but only a maximum possible speed of interaction. This is the speed of electromagnetic interaction, which is the speed of light or 300,000 kilometers per second. The second part of the Theory of Relativity states that the speed of light is universally constant and the same for all inertial observers no matter how they move.

As an object nears the speed of light, its relativistic mass increases until, at the speed of light, it becomes infinite. Accelerating an infinite mass any faster than that is impossible, or at least it seems to be right now. However, there is a mathematical possibility of particles that travel faster than the speed of light, called tachyons. There is mathematical evidence for this, though we have yet to detect any of them. Tachyons cannot slow down to below light speed, just as we cannot accelerate to above the speed of light. Perhaps, Herr F_alk could tell us more about this? :(

[TG Moses VI]

No, Einstein was all wrong. :-? Time travel IS possible.

[GeZe]

@TM:

I am sorry, Sir GeZe, but Einstein said Time Travel should not be possible. In Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, it states that nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

Einstein showed that was no such thing as instantaneous interaction in nature, but only a maximum possible speed of interaction. This is the speed of electromagnetic interaction, which is the speed of light or 300,000 kilometers per second. The second part of the Theory of Relativity states that the speed of light is universally constant and the same for all inertial observers no matter how they move.

As an object nears the speed of light, its relativistic mass increases until, at the speed of light, it becomes infinite. Accelerating an infinite mass any faster than that is impossible, or at least it seems to be right now. However, there is a mathematical possibility of particles that travel faster than the speed of light, called tachyons. There is mathematical evidence for this, though we have yet to detect any of them. Tachyons cannot slow down to below light speed, just as we cannot accelerate to above the speed of light. Perhaps, Herr F_alk could tell us more about this? :(

ah shoot :( oh well I can still dream

[Guest]

@TM:

I am sorry, Sir GeZe, but Einstein said Time Travel should not be possible. In Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, it states that nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

that is correct.

Einstein showed that was no such thing as instantaneous interaction in nature, but only a maximum possible speed of interaction. This is the speed of electromagnetic interaction, which is the speed of light or 300,000 kilometers per second. The second part of the Theory of Relativity states that the speed of light is universally constant and the same for all inertial observers no matter how they move.

That is not totally correct. There is instantanous interaction (see: Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen; entangled states), but you cannot use this interaction to transmit information or even matter, but technically it still is an interaction. This is a quantum effect, that is not covered by the Theory of General Relativity.

As an object nears the speed of light, its relativistic mass increases until, at the speed of light, it becomes infinite. Accelerating an infinite mass any faster than that is impossible, or at least it seems to be right now.

This is technically speaking incorrect, though a polular interpretation.
Plus of course: The first only holds for objects with a finite mass at rest. Photons for example move at the speed of light, and have no “rest mass”.

However, there is a mathematical possibility of particles that travel faster than the speed of light, called tachyons. There is mathematical evidence for this, though we have yet to detect any of them. Tachyons cannot slow down to below light speed, just as we cannot accelerate to above the speed of light. Perhaps, Herr F_alk could tell us more about this?

Sorry, not too much, except that that is true. Tachyons are theoretically predicted, but i don’t know if there is any way or proposal of how to detect them. Therefor, they will stay where they are: in the space of theoritical objects.

[cameron]

hmm… i’ve been reading scientific american september 2002 this weekend which is a special issue all about time…
one of the articles descibes a number of possible methods of time travel… and also makes reference to: “einstein confessed that he was troubled by the thought that his theory might permit travel into the past under some circumstances.”
the main example of travelling back in time involves the use of wormholes…
1. find or make a wormhole [with a particle accelerator]
2. stabilize it [read: don’t let it become a black hole] by infussing it with negative energy
3. drag one end of the wormhole to a neutron star where the intense gravity will cause time to pass more slowly. because time passes more quickly at the other mouth the two mouths to the wormhole will be separated by time and space…

[TG Moses VI]

Sorry, not too much, except that that is true. Tachyons are theoretically predicted, but i don’t know if there is any way or proposal of how to detect them. Therefor, they will stay where they are: in the space of theoritical objects

Heh, super-fast particle accelerator. :)