Time Travel- Fact or Fiction?

Fuzzle Guy · #1 11-08-2006, 05:32 AM

I didn't know whether or not to post this in my "Wish they were real" thread, but I posted it here because I am not exactly wishing they were real, I am considering the possibility if Time Travel is real.

Has anyone ever thought that Time Travel could be around now?

I mean, the government wouldn't exactly tell us if it had been invented for numerous, pretty obvious reasons.

Imagine if Terrorists got a hold of it. They could whipe out anyone they pleased by simply forcing them never to be born. However, I somehow think the government would use it to wipe out people like Bin Laden and stuff, save lives. However, the tiniest thing could alter history.

EG:

Your brother was killed by a madaxe murderer, and a friend of his was at your brothers funeral. At the funeral, the friend met this woman, who they get married, had several kids. One of these kids became the person to end world hunger because he invented the food replicater (Another thing I wish was real from Star Trek XD).

But, shortly after his funeral, you go back in time, stop the murderer from killing your brother, thus stopping the parents of the person who cured world hunger from meeting, thus, world hunger remaining for many years.

However, there is a theory, that you can only back as far as when the time machine was invented, because when it was invented, was when the time was broken. So they couldn't go back and kill Bin Laden, but they could go back, and stop other nasty things from happening in the future.

I'll give you a while to get your head around that

So, the question is,

Is Time Travel, Science Fiction, or Science fact?

Fuzzle Guy

Hobo · #2 11-08-2006, 06:24 AM

Fiction. Totally.

It's never going to happen. Plus if it did exist it would be theoretically possible to wipe the Human race from existing and thus create a sexy paradox

Fuzzle Guy · #3 11-08-2006, 06:52 AM

But if you wiped out the human race, then you would not have existed in the first place to be able to go back in time and stop the human race from being created.

Havoc · #4 11-08-2006, 07:45 AM

Even if it COULD happen, which Einstein was pretty sure it couldn't but lets assume for the sake of argument that it could, then by going back in time you would end up in a parallel time line (based on the current theories of time and space). So, if someone were to go back in time and alter something then it would only affect that particular time line. It wouldn't affect the time line the person originally started from. Someone could travel back in time, kill Saddam when he was an infant, and save that world a whole lot of trouble. We would still have to execute him though.

I say it's fiction, and I think we should all be glad it is.

Fuzzle Guy · #5 11-08-2006, 07:50 AM

:

I think we should all be glad it is.

Agreed. (ten characters)

Fez · #6 11-08-2006, 11:14 AM

Urgh.

So you go back to stop someone being born.

They arnt born.

Meaning your never sent back to the past coz they arnt born.

Meaning they are born.

Meaning your sent back to stop them being born...

See where I am going with that? Time Travel just wont happen.

***Nate*** · #7 11-08-2006, 02:25 PM

Or you could go back in time to stop every post in this thread making the same paradox point...

magic9mushroom · #8 11-08-2006, 03:00 PM

Time travel, or at least, a time machine, is possible. However, the quantum vacuum effects generate near-infinite gravity which pinches off your time machine before anything goes through it. Paradox happens not.

Arxryl · #9 11-08-2006, 03:26 PM

Hm. Time travel would seem to be a little pointless. I mean you go back and ,say, kill saddam from rising to power. From then, you come to the present again, andthousands of un-foreseen things have changed in your absense. Like, thousands of people don't go over to Iraq and George Bush is not re-elected because a lot of people think we don't need him as president, and then the new president creates some law prohibiting people from driving until they are 25 and because of that and other laws made, (huff, huff, huff...) people start an uprising and throw the president out of office, and the nation becomes an anarchy for a set period of time.

I know that a lot of that wouldn't happen even with the given circumstances, but the point I'm trying to get across would be that something horrible and un-foreseeable would happen and you would go back in time (or someone else would,) and stop the time machine from being created.

possibly.

***Nate*** · #10 11-08-2006, 04:22 PM

So basically what you're saying is that whatever you do, shit happens...

used:) · #11 11-08-2006, 04:27 PM

I don't know and I don't care. However, should the technlogy of time travel surface, I think we should ban it entirely. I believe A Sound of Thunder gives a good explanation on how easily time could be altered.

magic9mushroom · #12 11-08-2006, 05:22 PM

Agreed. I've heard of it.

Facsimile · #13 11-08-2006, 06:39 PM

I think it's fiction. I would love to have like a mini one though, and just go back in time and come up with wittier comebacks.

Mutual Friend · #14 11-08-2006, 06:45 PM

The person who started this thread is a silly bugger.

magic9mushroom · #15 11-08-2006, 07:18 PM

[sarcasm]Let's go back in time and obliterate him[/sarcasm]

Seriously, if you go back in time, say, a minute, there are two of you. Suppose you ask yourself to go back another minute, and there are three. Keep doing this and you have an unlimited number of people. Replace people with photons and you have a problem. Infinite energy=infinite mass=infinite gravity= huge explosion that rips the time machine apart.

Fuzzle Guy · #16 11-09-2006, 01:59 AM

I say Mutual Friend is a silly bugger for saying I am a silly bugger. I don't think time travel is real, I don't even think it's possible, I was merely trying to make conversation.

Hobo · #17 11-09-2006, 10:02 AM

:

I think it's fiction. I would love to have like a mini one though, and just go back in time and come up with wittier comebacks.

I read wittier as: Hitlerier.

What the hell is wrong with me

Fuzzle Guy · #18 11-09-2006, 10:21 AM

:

I believe A Sound of Thunder gives a good explanation on how easily time could be altered.

Blackadder Back & Forth is another perfectly good explination of how easily time can be altered.

:

I read wittier as: Hitlerier.

Lol. Took me a while to get that but I got there in the end.

magic9mushroom · #19 11-09-2006, 12:29 PM

You can build a time machine, but you can't use it. So time travel is fiction to an extent.

Arxryl · #20 11-09-2006, 01:29 PM

:

So basically what you're saying is that whatever you do, shit happens...

Yes. That's exactly what I was saying. If we somehow did have the technology to create such a thing, we would be better off not ever using it.

***Nate*** · #21 11-09-2006, 05:28 PM

We would not necessarily be better off not using it. It's just that there is no way of knowing ahead of time whether we would be better off or worse.

Arxryl · #22 11-09-2006, 08:44 PM

Yeah. I see your point. Like with all things (well, almost all...) we would need to test it first...

used:) · #23 11-10-2006, 05:31 AM

I would rather not test it and eliminate any risk of altering the timeline rather than test it with a risk of altering the timeline. It would be power no one should have.

Now maybe something like a kind of camera that looks into the past would be alright. I mean, observation would most likely be the bulk of how time travel would be used.

Bullet Magnet · #24 11-10-2006, 05:55 AM

But logically, any alterations you did make are exactly what was responsible for the timeline you remember. As in, you had to go back in time to change something, because you already did.

used:) · #25 11-10-2006, 05:59 AM

Or you could just never go back in time. If you eliminate that factor then all will be fine. If you don't go back in time then you were destined not to and reality will stay on its merry course. However your theory works as well. But in the long run it's better to be safe than sorry.

Bullet Magnet · #26 11-10-2006, 06:09 AM

But then, if your time travel was an accident, then you might encounter an interesting dilemma.

An interesting one was posed in a book I once read (can't remember which) when some people ended up in the late cretaceous, on an Earth populated by dinosaurs, and two small alien colonies, one peaceful, the other warlike. They persuaded the peaceful ones to help them steal an item from the warlike ones that would help them return to the present. They one, but they left the planet and redirected an asteroid to impact on the planet, directly on top of the peaceful race. The humans could give their stolen device to them to destroy it, but they realised that this was the very asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and ultimately allowed humans to evolve.

A silly story, but the point is in there. Somewhere.

Arxryl · #27 11-10-2006, 07:30 AM

Ah...I see. I agree with Used, we shouldn't take the chance at all to screw up time. I mean, observing it would be just as good for informational purposes.

Odd how a small poll can turn into a large discussion isn't it?

Fuzzle Guy · #28 11-10-2006, 07:54 AM

Lol, yeah, I was thinking that myself.

A time/history viewer would also proove people guilty in court room, or if someone is lying about somehting you are able to find out. There are only a few downsides to a Time/History viewer.

*Kid snorts drugs*
Mum: what are you doing in there?
Kid: Nothing
*Mum takes out history viewer*
Mum: :-0! Stop snorting those drugs!

Arxryl · #29 11-10-2006, 08:06 AM

...that would be a bad side, but the kid would be less than likely to do drugs again, thus increasing his overall life span. And decrease likelyhood of going to jail sometime in the future.

Munch's Master · #30 11-10-2006, 08:37 AM

:

Even if it COULD happen, which Einstein was pretty sure it couldn't....

Einstein actually proved a way of time alteration. It isn't time travel per se, what it is is slowing the aging process. You get 2 25 year old twins, and shoot one off into outer space at 98% the speed of light. They let 5 years pass on the ship's onboard clock, then turn round and shoot back to earth. The twin who lands is 35 (5 years away, 5 years back0 but the one who stayed on earth is now 70. This is because the faster you travel, the slower time lasts.
This also means if time travel ever were invented, in reality you could only ever go forwards, not backwards, as you cannot go at a - speed. But if we take the TV version of back or forwards in time, I say it could only happen if you could just observe,and not really interact or change things. As if you changed something then you might not ever have existed or been in the right set of circumstances to be there to go back to change it so a parado happens and reality explodes. also a theory states that if time travel is ever invented and you can go backward and forwards in time, then time travel has been a will be invented at every point in history as if you go back to before it was invented, for you to be able to go back and for the machine to exist it must have been invented so by travelling back in time you invent the machine and thus time travel is invented at every possibly point in the history of the universe. God I love these kind of discussions. Theories, space, time travel and paradoxes fascinate me and always have.

And I'm sure I've posted some of that, especially the Einstein bit, before.

EDIT:
Also, the thing about altering history interests me. It technically is impossible to alter history as we will have lived through history already and if you go back to alter it, you actually just set it on the normal course as your future self will already have altered it to create the timeline you know. If this is the case, the only time you could alter the timeline is if you either
a) You don't 'alter'/continue the timeline when you're meant to
b) You alter it incorrectly
Basically, history is ever flowing and ever adapting, so altering it does not alter it, it just makes it continue as it will do because it has already continued like that and is contiuing like that already. Like Bullet said. But then you're getting into the realms of multiple realities/multiple timelines, which is just as intriguing yet far more complicated.