Do You Believe Time Travel is Possible?

20% chance I steal this idea for a short story or something.

it's funny how no one has explored the religious aspects of time travel. Might make a good short film.. scientist killed by a fundamentalist at the the end.

It may be, but perhaps we will never achieve it.

It may be possible in the fourth dimension. In fourth dimension the perception of time and time itself is no longer linear. Let's say the timeline is just a straight line in 'our' 3D and assume you can't go backwards. Therefore, once you passed any point on it, you can no longer get back to it no matter what you do. You can travel faster (time works differently in space - as somebody mentioned the thing about you in a spaceship and getting back to Earth only to find out everybody you knew is dead), but there's no possibility you can travel backwards. Okay, let's go to 4D now. Our assumption that you can't go backwards is still true, but let's imagine that time itself is no longer a line in 4D, but a circle. As you know, if you start from any point of the cycle, you can get back to it only going forward. You still can't go backwards, but since you used another definition of time, you achieved the possibility to actually reach that point again. Of course, the circle would have to grow bigger and bigger as time passes, but this example is only to prove a point that using other means and knowledge you can achieve something that wasn't possible before. And in this example we were still staying in 2D. What if we used any 3D figure. We would be able to get to the point we wanted to get back to with utmost easiness and we'd also have a very easy time moving in every direction. I know this example may be nonsense, but it's just to illustrate my point.

Now let me give you another example to make you think about it. Take a piece of paper and draw a square. Then draw a circle inside of it and then draw a stickman outside of the square, next to it. Now draw a horizontal line (ground), on which both the stickman and the square 'stays'. From the stickman's point of view, there's no circle. It just doesn't exist. He also only sees at most two 'sides' of the square (because it's way bigger than the stickman itself, so he can't jump over it, so he could see what's on the 'other side'. In other words, from his perspective, there's only a vertical line and a horizontal line (ground) on the same level as the 'foundation' of the square. However, from our perspective (we are gifted with 3D), there is the stickman, ground, square AND the circle. We see more things, because we are in 3D, not 2D as the stickman. Now imagine if we could see in 4D. And think how many new things would there be to behold.

This just reminded me how a kid I knew in high-school first explained "warp drive" to me. (I'm sure everyone's seen this one...)

He put two dots on each end of a piece of paper and a line connecting them. He said the line could represent light years or miles or whatever distance.
He said, "Now what if the line represents 100 miles - how long would it take you to go that distance in a car?"

"About a couple hours," I said.

Then he pushed the two ends of the paper together, bringing the dots close to each other as the paper curled upwards in the middle.
"Now how long would it take you?"

Then he explained that warp isn't a "speed" per se, but that the concept is a technology that bends space the same way he bent the paper, bringing points closer together - so it's not necessarily the ship that would move, but the space around it that would allow it to be delivered from one point to another.

(yes, I hung out with geeks!)

Let's be honest here nobody has the knowledge to know if it is truly impossible or not. You can't prove something is impossible unless it is factual or if there is solid proof in front of you that it isn't, but you can prove it is possible if you actual discover it. You can't prove time travel is impossible, how do you have proof it is impossible? Just because something hasn't been proved yet doesn't make it impossible.

Many times throughout human history we thought there were things we'd never accomplish and we did (Flying is the biggest example. Back before planes were invented the thought of humans flying winged machine's in the air like birds was considered madness to think about, and don't even get me started on space travel). The closest thing scientists have found to any form of time travel is worm holes in space, and those are pretty much just simply taking you to other sides of the galaxy, not actually going into the past.

I think the multiple time-lines/multi-dimensional theory is the only plausible reason to why if someone in the future "does" discover time travel and comes back we wouldn't know as it would create a brand new time line with new series of events set into motion that are different to our own. Like how scientists believe there are vast numbers of other dimensions all around us. I'm not saying time travel is possible, but don't write it off. It may never be discovered in our lifetime, or our children's life time or even their granchildren's lifetime, but you never know.

"By striving to do the impossible, man has always achieved what is possible. Those who have cautiously done no more than they believed possible have never taken a single step forward."

just my little rant on the topic....feel free to call me an idiot. I just feel like thinking something is truly "impossible" just makes the universe feel really dull to me.

__________________
https://t.me/pump_upp

Point taken, AdamUp. But in the arena of debate the burden of proof lies with those making a positive existential claim for something that as yet has no evidence of existing or being possible. So it's safe to use the word impossible for something that doesn't even have a hypothesis or workable theory for being achieved until it is shown to be possible.

Few nice posts, I'm glad topic got some interest.

In addition to what you guys already mentioned...Isn't time travel into the future already proven (in theory) and easy to explain? If you have twins, one stays on Earth and the other one travels at a light speed (or something similar), he would return to Earth that is now 50,100, 1.000+ years older, depending on speed.

__________________
“By definition, you have to live until you die. Better to make that life as complete and enjoyable an experience as possible, in case death is shite, which I suspect it will be.”

Yes.
http://www.movieforums.com/community...89#post1438689

Then we do have a theory, a working one.

Most everyone thinks of time as a measure of units, (calenders, clocks, hours, days, years) but time is a physical force in the universe similar but different to: Gravity, Electromagnetic force, Weak and Strong Atomic force.

Right now it's beyond our grasp to manipulate time, like we do with the other four physical forces. But someday we will be able to do that and then time travel could be a reality.

If someone offers up the evidence time travel can't be real because it would be to ridiculous to travel back and meet yourself, I say that's a limitation on human understanding.

For traveling into the future, but no going back in time.

Traveling into the future isn't a big deal since we're all doing that anyway - but with Einstein's theory of relativity, it suggests that with a fast enough conveyance, people could move into the future at different rates.

There is nothing to suggest that anyone or anything can go back in time, not to mention the issue of creating endless paradoxes.

(Unless, of course, people are going back in time and our reality is constantly changing as a result, but we can't perceive it because we are mutually changed with each reality / time change. Then there was Reed Richard's theory that with each journey backwards in time & the unavoidable changes to the continuity of reality such journeys would create, a new splinter reality would be created with a potential infinite number of concurrent realities. So no backward time-traveler could ever alter their present or future, they'd only create a new additional time-stream.)

Nobody mentioned the grandfather paradox yet?

Sorry but I disagree, traveling into the future is a big deal. Going into the future second by second is not same thing as traveling 1.000 years or any other period of time.

Traveling into the future is still time travel. There is nothing to suggest so at the moment (at least not that I know of), but yet we are developing theories and researching it, that is why I dislike using "impossible".

You mean if you go back and kill your grandfather? That is the tricky part, but I could stand behind explanation that there is just a different time-line where you are not born, you still exist in your own, that is not such an insane theory.

Everything is "time travelling" into the future naturally, but nothing known has ever gone back.

So, regarding the future travel relativity scenario - it's possible, but to what end? I'm not talking in terms of interesting fiction, but in reality, who would it possibly benefit? It's not like the traveler could go to the future, experience what it's like to be a man out of time, then go back to the present and tell everyone what it was like, or bring warnings back on what to avoid to prevent future problems.

It would be a scary & bleak adventure to undertake that would only be attempted by someone very unhappy with life as they know it (and keeping their fingers crossed that an unknown future my be better). That mindset probably wouldn't be ideal for an explorer who forfeits his life just to see the future.

If it ever does happen it will probably be due to an accident rather than intentionally - it would be like sending astronauts to the moon, but telling them they can never come back. No one in their right mind would go.

The intrigue of time travel is to change something or alter something to create a different outcome or avoid disasters - future travel with no chance of return doesn't offer any of that.

No one in their right mind would go to the moon if you told them they could never come back?

Did you miss all that stuff about the Mars One thing? THOUSANDS of applicants that applied to be sent to live on Mars, with no possibility of ever returning to Earth.

Yeah, it's more cost effective to leave them on Mars.

There are probably people who'd go to the moon and stay permanently. Even if it meant they wouldn't live long on the moon.

It's your chance to experience another world. To go to outer space. To look out and see Earth in the sky for a change. And even to die in outer space. Hell, it sounds like a cool way to end your life, actually.

The moon seems boring. Now Mars, that be cool. But nah people will never go to Mars, except in the movies.