Is "time travel" possible?

[DrPizza]

We no virtually nothing about the universe and how it works and what or what isnt possible in it. To that extent we barely know anything about our own solar system.
Everything they say is a "fact" about the universe is little more than intelligent speculation.

Well, I have absolutely no problem with that statement by itself.
However, such statements are generally followed by "So, I'm going to ignore intelligent speculation and I have some theories of my own..."

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: tvbi

Originally posted by: Chiropteran
Here is how time travel works, explained in a way I hope all of you can "get".


It's the year 2500. You are on earth in your space craft, and you take off. Your space craft accelerates at the rate of 1 lightyear/year per year.

so you travel, with constant acceleration, for 10 years.

Then you switch to reverse thrust to slow down, and constant deceleration for 10 years.

After 20 years you have traveled 100 light years.

Then you turn around and do the exact same thing again, heading back to earth.

Over 40 years you have gone 200 light years... isn't that moving faster than the speed of light?

Well, sort of, not really. You see when you land on earth, it will be the year 2700~, + a bit of time. as if some 200~ years have passed, and it will seem to the people on earth that while you were very close to the speed of light, you did not travel faster than it. While for you, only 40 years have passed- in effect you have traveled some 160 years into the future.

If you spend 40 years away from earth.. the earth then just speed up 200 years? All you did was driving fast in a space craft for 40 years and then go back to the same earth.

It's relative. From your point of view 40 years have passed. From the point of view of the people on earth, you travelled 200 light years so AT LEAST 200 years had to pass before you could return.

 

[Inappropriate4AT]

Time travel in a movie-sense, doubtful. There'd be a seemingly endless timeline from the present up until any point in the future when time travel could be possible. If nobody's come back in time yet, we should already know it's not possible.

 

[PimpJuice]

Originally posted by: gigapet
time travel could be a simple task for something existing outside the dimensions in which we exist and can percieve.

do you ever make sense?

 

[ShadowBlade]

read one of these, I cant remember which one it is
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookse...serid=YG2aWiHCI5&isbn=0375708111&itm=1
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookse...serid=YG2aWiHCI5&isbn=0393325075&itm=1
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bookse...serid=YG2aWiHCI5&isbn=0465078362&itm=5

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: Scarpozzi
Yes it is. I've invented a machine that will take you precisely 1 hour into the future in only 60 minutes.

Read Dilbert much?

 

[tvbi]

Originally posted by: Chiropteran

Originally posted by: tvbi

Originally posted by: Chiropteran

If you spend 40 years away from earth.. the earth then just speed up 200 years? All you did was driving fast in a space craft for 40 years and then go back to the same earth.

It's relative. From your point of view 40 years have passed. From the point of view of the people on earth, you travelled 200 light years so AT LEAST 200 years had to pass before you could return.

But if you are going away from earth at 10 times the speed of light and going back the same speed.. don't those canceled out?

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: tvbi

But if you are going away from earth at 10 times the speed of light and going back the same speed.. don't those canceled out?

No, they don't. It would cancel out if it was two spaceships, one went 100 light years nad then the other one followed behind, but if you go and turn around and come back that is where you have relativity playing it's part.

 

[Soccerman06]

Originally posted by: Chiropteran

Originally posted by: tvbi

Originally posted by: Chiropteran
Here is how time travel works, explained in a way I hope all of you can "get".


It's the year 2500. You are on earth in your space craft, and you take off. Your space craft accelerates at the rate of 1 lightyear/year per year.

so you travel, with constant acceleration, for 10 years.

Then you switch to reverse thrust to slow down, and constant deceleration for 10 years.

After 20 years you have traveled 100 light years.

Then you turn around and do the exact same thing again, heading back to earth.

Over 40 years you have gone 200 light years... isn't that moving faster than the speed of light?

Well, sort of, not really. You see when you land on earth, it will be the year 2700~, + a bit of time. as if some 200~ years have passed, and it will seem to the people on earth that while you were very close to the speed of light, you did not travel faster than it. While for you, only 40 years have passed- in effect you have traveled some 160 years into the future.

If you spend 40 years away from earth.. the earth then just speed up 200 years? All you did was driving fast in a space craft for 40 years and then go back to the same earth.

It's relative. From your point of view 40 years have passed. From the point of view of the people on earth, you travelled 200 light years so AT LEAST 200 years had to pass before you could return.

The only way to actually find out real time would be to completely stop moving. Everything in the universe is moving due to the big bang theory, gravity ect, so you would have to counteract all those speeds just to get an accurate perception of time (relative).

As you move faster, time slows down for you. But time does not slow down for everything else. So it would appear that you were gone for 200 years, but it would have only been 40 years to you. A problem arises though, if your going the speed of light, considering you bypass the infinite mass/energy problem, you would not be able to tell time changes due to it literally stoping from your perspective. That raises a interesting thought, if you go faster than light, would time go backwards in time?

 

[aircooled]

2050 rocks! New New Orleans is kickin'!

 

[Schfifty Five]

Originally posted by: Chiropteran

Originally posted by: tvbi

Originally posted by: Chiropteran
Here is how time travel works, explained in a way I hope all of you can "get".


It's the year 2500. You are on earth in your space craft, and you take off. Your space craft accelerates at the rate of 1 lightyear/year per year.

so you travel, with constant acceleration, for 10 years.

Then you switch to reverse thrust to slow down, and constant deceleration for 10 years.

After 20 years you have traveled 100 light years.

Then you turn around and do the exact same thing again, heading back to earth.

Over 40 years you have gone 200 light years... isn't that moving faster than the speed of light?

Well, sort of, not really. You see when you land on earth, it will be the year 2700~, + a bit of time. as if some 200~ years have passed, and it will seem to the people on earth that while you were very close to the speed of light, you did not travel faster than it. While for you, only 40 years have passed- in effect you have traveled some 160 years into the future.

If you spend 40 years away from earth.. the earth then just speed up 200 years? All you did was driving fast in a space craft for 40 years and then go back to the same earth.

It's relative. From your point of view 40 years have passed. From the point of view of the people on earth, you travelled 200 light years so AT LEAST 200 years had to pass before you could return.

But you went faster than Lightspeed thus what takes light 200 years, only took you 40 years. Like what tvbi said...it's just going really fast and spending only 40 years total.

bah, time travel never made sense to me

 

[guyver01]

Time Travel occus every day..


just the other day... i left new york at 6am... and when i got to Cali, it was only 9am..

however when i called home, it was noon...

My phonecall travelled thru the space-time continnum

:Q

 

[irie]

Sure it is. Just don't forget the Crystals.

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: Schfifty Five

But you went faster than Lightspeed thus what takes light 200 years, only took you 40 years. tvbi said...it's just going really fast and spending only 40 years total.

bah, time travel never made sense to me

Yes, but not really

From an observer on earth, you never went faster than the speed of light.

Actually, if you could travel AT the speed of light from the earth's perspective, a 200 light-year trip would be instantaneous from your point of view, while people on earth would see it as taking 200 years.

And if you could go faster than the speed of light, what would happen? What is faster than instant? Would you travel back in time? No, that wouldn't make sense, nothing would really make sense, which is why I can understand how the speed of light can not be passed.

That is how it works.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: salt9876
Time Travel will never be possible. How are you gonna go back in time. Its physically not possible.

But... if you could send EVERYONE except one person into the future, would it appear to everyone as though that one person was sent into the past?

*EDIT* And if you could send everyone except one person... could you just use the opposite technique to send the one person into the past without sending the rest of them into the future?

 

[Atomicus]

Originally posted by: davidjaii
its possible, just wait until i build my flux capacitor.

I already built one and have traveled back in time

I'll let you in on a secret.... everyone back in 1955 was on fire....

 

[Schfifty Five]

Originally posted by: Chiropteran

Originally posted by: Schfifty Five

But you went faster than Lightspeed thus what takes light 200 years, only took you 40 years. tvbi said...it's just going really fast and spending only 40 years total.

bah, time travel never made sense to me

Yes, but not really

From an observer on earth, you never went faster than the speed of light.

Actually, if you could travel AT the speed of light from the earth's perspective, a 200 light-year trip would be instantaneous from your point of view, while people on earth would see it as taking 200 years.

And if you could go faster than the speed of light, what would happen? What is faster than instant? Would you travel back in time? No, that wouldn't make sense, nothing would really make sense, which is why I can understand how the speed of light can not be passed.

That is how it works.

Why would it be instantaneous from your point? 1 lightyear is the distance light travels in 1 year (a huge distance obviously), so if you travel at LS, it would take you 200 years and it would feel like 200 years to you and to people on Earth.

 

[Miramonti]

Its been done already and this post is proof.

I read this thread when it was originally posted 3 years ago and came back just now to visit soley for the sake of posting proof that its possible.

Btw, make sure you stock up on plenty of N95 masks in the next couple years, I've been going thru them like crazy.

 

[Savarak]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181

Originally posted by: salt9876
Time Travel will never be possible. How are you gonna go back in time. Its physically not possible.

But... if you could send EVERYONE except one person into the future, would it appear to everyone as though that one person was sent into the past?

*EDIT* And if you could send everyone except one person... could you just use the opposite technique to send the one person into the past without sending the rest of them into the future?

wow my mind just blew away there

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: Chiropteran
Your space craft accelerates at the rate of 1 lightyear/year per year.

I'm a little confused here.
If 1 light year is the distance light travels in a year, then travelling "the distance light travels in a year" in a year (in other words, 1 light year per year) is travelling at the speed of light.

And accelerating at a rate of 1 light year per year per year means that after 1 year of acceleration you would be going at light speed and after a second year of acceleration you would be going twice the speed of light and so on.

So you ARE travelling faster than the speed of light in this example.

 

[stan394]

yes, i am from the future

 

[SMOGZINN]

Originally posted by: gigapet
for all of you that say its impossible.....

please remember if you discussed with someone 1000 years ago the idea of putting someone on the moon they would have said the same thing.

Of course if I was talking to someone from a thousand years ago one of had already time traveled!

Originally posted by: gigapet
We no virtually nothing about the universe and how it works and what or what isnt possible in it. To that extent we barely know anything about our own solar system.
Everything they say is a "fact" about the universe is little more than intelligent speculation.

You forget that many of those theorys that you say might or might not be right would have to be right for you to even be able to post this. Computers and complex networks could not be build if the basic mathmatics that we used to design such things were not correct. We may improve on our theorys, changing ever smaller portions of them to account for new knowlege, but most of them are correct.

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: Jzero

Originally posted by: Chiropteran
Your space craft accelerates at the rate of 1 lightyear/year per year.

I'm a little confused here.
If 1 light year is the distance light travels in a year, then travelling "the distance light travels in a year" in a year (in other words, 1 light year per year) is travelling at the speed of light.

And accelerating at a rate of 1 light year per year per year means that after 1 year of acceleration you would be going at light speed and after a second year of acceleration you would be going twice the speed of light and so on.

So you ARE travelling faster than the speed of light in this example.

only RELATIVE speed matters

From your point of view, in the spaceship, you are constantly accelerating but you do not experience travel faster than the speed of light from your own point of view.

if you stopped accelerating after 3 years you would be moving 3c, but from your own point of view you would not be moving at all, you would feel as though you are at rest and the rest of the universe is moving around you. due to length contraction, if you looked back at earth it would look like you didn't really travel 4.5 light years. it would look like you traveled something less than 3 light years.

On the other hand, from the point of view of people on earth watching you fly away, you would be travelling closer and closer to c, but you would never actually move at the speed of light, you would just be getting closer and closer.

 

[Chiropteran]

Originally posted by: Schfifty Five

Originally posted by: Chiropteran
Actually, if you could travel AT the speed of light from the earth's perspective, a 200 light-year trip would be instantaneous from your point of view, while people on earth would see it as taking 200 years.

Why would it be instantaneous from your point? 1 lightyear is the distance light travels in 1 year (a huge distance obviously), so if you travel at LS, it would take you 200 years and it would feel like 200 years to you and to people on Earth.

Nope. Time dilation and length contraction. The faster you accelerate from your own point of view the closer you will come to the speed of light from the point of view of the people on earth. From your won point of view, it wokrs just like normal physics. Accelerate at 10c/year for 5 years, you will be moving at 50c, yet you will not OBSERVE anything moving faster than c in relation to you. Instead length contraction will make the distance seem shorter so that you can travel it without "passing the speed of light". It is only from other's point of view that you can not exceed c.

 

[PatboyX]

time travel rules.