I was thinking (because of Gug's post about elements), if it were possible to travel back in time, would it even be possible to alter the past? I don't think it is. Wouldn't you simply cause an infinite loop? The timeline would've already accounted for your meddling, and therefore history would be as is.
A poorly drawn example:
**********___________________
*********/*******************\<---Time loop
Re-Entry-->\*******************/<---Exit
-------------------------------------------------------------------->
^
Timeline
A better example (if you've seen the movie The Twelve Monkeys ):
In the movie The Twelve Monkeys, at the end. Bruce Willis is chasing the man with the virus, and Bruce Willis as a kid sees him. This time travelling didn't affect history at all.
ID:4545
 Oct 13 2005, 1:57 pm
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What you stated was on of Einsteins theory, which most scientists belive. And as people reach the speed of light, their mass is increases due to energy being converted into mass (E=MC<superscript>2</superscript> states this). I think that if we accelerated beyond the speed of light we would either be crushed, have every atom in our body split, or have all matter in our body to be converted into energy.
Also, I don't think time would actually go in reverse, we would just see the light from the past, like when you look at stars (you aren't seeing the stars as they are, but as they were several million/billion years ago). And none of that even answer the question I asked. :/ | |
Oh sorry about that. I reckon IF one was able to travel back in time (once again, compeltely impossible in my opinion) and change it - then obviously it would have some sort of effect back in the future. Of course, there's many paradoxes (plural of paradox = ?) that make it all the more confusing, like what if you went back and killed your grandfather - you wouldn't even exist to be able to go back in time... meaning in turn that you wouldn't have been able to go back and kill him - meaning that you would exist again! Yay!
The concept of time travel is - although interesting - ridiculously complicated. However, not as complicated as that twelve monkies movie. :/ | |
Therefore if one was to exceed the speed of light (utterly impossible even if we had the technology to go that fast - we'd be crushed) then time would actually go backwards. o.o First off you can't push a physics equation to it's breaking point and expect meaningless results. According to the equations traveling at the speed of light would result in infinite mass, length, and time to be not moving for the object. So you have something with infinite mass, force, and it's already traveld an infinite distance in zero time! Traveling faster would not result in negative values for these but imaginary values. If you get imaginary values in a physics equation that generally means the problem is impossible. For instance if you try and solve the angle to fire a projectile to hit a target but don't have enough initial velocity to hit the target from any angle you'll just end up with an imaginary angle. Therefore if one was to exceed the speed of light (utterly impossible even if we had the technology to go that fast - we'd be crushed) then time would actually go backwards. o.o Velocity does not equate to force. If you are travel 2 times the speed of light and aren't accelerating you'd feel the same as if you weren't moving at all. You just need to get past the speed of light with a reasonable acceleration. And second of all changing the past is impossible because it has already happened including any meddling due to time travel. So since I'm already here I know that no one can kill me in the past because if they did it would have already happened and I wouldn't be making this post. | |
"According to the equations traveling at the speed of light would result in infinite length"
"If you are travel 2 times the speed of light.." I am no physicist... but wtf! XD Einstein began with the experimental observation that light always has the same speed, and developed a number of unusual consequences: 1. The faster an object moves, the shorter it becomes. Nothing can travel faster than light. | |
"1. The faster an object moves, the shorter it becomes."
The faster it moves the greater its mass becomes. | |
O.o right light and all that stuff. Pff who cares. Would you really want to go as fast as light O.o. Yea right ok I can see it now it would be like sending some one into a black whole. Uhh ok u fly on into that black whole thing. And we will try and figure out what is going to happen when it does. :) sounds like a monkey being set in a seat. With a giant red button near it that says dont press. As for einstins theorys and stuff. He said that light is the constant not time right? Thats the whole point for E=Mc^2. But Im not sure I agree. Well I kinda do in that light is a constant, but time I think is an even faster constant. In the way to look at it is. Light years from planets. Time moves at a faster speed than light. Thuse while in light it appears a planet to be so long ago. It actually is a time = to ares.
Now with your time stuff. The theory of every thing you could do back in time has all ready happened seems more likly. But I would have to go with the changing the past effects the future. Why? Free will. | |
I've already thought all of that through. That there are several layers of time. For one layer to affect the layer below it(assuming the lower layer is the past), then each layer would in turn do the same thing, meaning that nothing is actually being changed, but being modified to consistency.
Let's see...an example....Aha! Harry Potter(in one of those books) traveled through time to fight off those pesky Dementors or something(it's been a while). In order for Future Harry to have survived that incident, Future Harry had to have his own Future Harry come back and save him from the same situation. Hence, this infinite loop you speak of. Yeah. =D | |
Same thing in The Twelve Monkeys. So, according to this theory, its okay to meddle in time.
But what about the future? Do the same prinicples apply? I geuss they would. | |
Say we did actually achieve the ability to go back in time:
1. If you kill your grandfather, you should technically just vanish and cease to exist period, but that wouldn't bring your grandfather back to life. He's already dead, even if you stopped existing. 2. Go back in time to when you were say 5 years old and give your kid-self a scar. Technically one should magically appear on your future-self body, right? 3. Given these two things, its like you're playing god. What if when people die and no one knows what happened, their future self came and killed them? Haha...technically its suicide. Yet it would seem like someone else did it, therefore we never know who did it. O_o 4. Given how many problems and how much drama is in the world today, I'm quite sure that eventually enough people in the future would go back and change so much crap that the future world wouldn't exist. 5. How the hell would you get back to your time? 6. Freezing yourself and going to the future would be way cooler anyway. [EDIT!!] 7. I just realized, that some evil son-of-a-bitch could go back in time and kill Adam or Eve and fuck over all of humanity, granted that you believe it turned out that way. :P | |
7. I just realized, that some evil son-of-a-bitch could go back in time and kill Adam or Eve and fuck over all of humanity, granted that you believe it turned out that way. :P If someone where to have traveled back in time that would be before now meaning it would already have happened. So it didn't because clearly you're here. Any tampering due to time travel in the past has already happened so if you aren't already screwed you won't be. This is quite moot any way as there is no evidence to suggest time travel is even remotly possible nor would it make any logical sense. You might as well be speculating what would happen is gravity pulled only half as much or what would happen if a dragon were loose in LA. | |
IF time travel were possible, either an infinite loop/paradox would happen or a new dimmension would be created
= equals original path - equals new path ` (ignore this. Only used because spaces don't work) =================================== ````````````````````````\ (change) ````````````````````````----------- The result being that in one reality the history is unchanged, but a new reality is created where the change did happen. Now, this could give whoever manages to gain the power of time travel the ability to create a world that is perfect in his eyes. Of course, we don't have to worry about this because 1: It would not effect us in any way, just our alternate selves and 2: All of this is impossible anyway. | |
What about going into the future? =p
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Well, in order fo you to go to the future, the future would have had to of happened already. Otherwise, it won't exist and it is impossible to go somewhere that doesn't exist.
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Well, in order fo you to go to the future, the future would have had to of happened already. Otherwise, it won't exist and it is impossible to go somewhere that doesn't exist. The future is very possible to travel to and simple at that! Just have to wait :P. | |
"The future is very possible to travel to and simple at that! Just have to wait :P."
You may arrive in the future, but by the time you get there it is not the future anymore. It is the present for one fraction of a second and then it is the past. | |
You may arrive in the future, but by the time you get there it is not the future anymore. It is the present for one fraction of a second and then it is the past. Well then the same is true for the past. If you were to go back in time then it wouldn't be the past anymore but your present. So time travel is impossible because you can be in no time other than the present! | |
In comparison, it would be someones past and another persons future.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Novikov_self-consistency_principle
I found this link today in school when I was bored. It explains exactly what I was talking about in my (old) blog post. | |
Think of time as a point on a constant moving graph, always moving forward at a constant speed. Some scientists believe the faster one is moving - time slows down. Therefore if one was to exceed the speed of light (utterly impossible even if we had the technology to go that fast - we'd be crushed) then time would actually go backwards. o.o
Well it's a dodgy theory to say the least - but how else would one acheive time travel? Certainly not by altering protons and neutrons!