Author Topic: Time travel impossible?  (Read 12288 times)

Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #15 on: July 17, 2010, 08:02:55 am »


eRe4s3r, i get the feeling you look at time as an artificial construct (as in, it's something we humans invented to make it easier to do things regularly), in which case you're right and time travel is impossible. However, if time is a separate dimension, then it might be possible to travel back along it (to an earlier state, as you said), without any duplication of energy.

Yes if that turns out be true that be a pretty amazing thing ;)

There is no point to fantasize...

Of course there is!  :D

Indeed - but not to explain physical reality ;)
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Offline Frozen Critical

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #16 on: July 17, 2010, 09:22:35 am »
Personally ,i don't think eRe4s3r Thinks that Time is Not Natural's Work

but however , its impossible to determent if Humanity invented Time itself Or Nature Did it , So Move on and lets stop arguing over shit that ain't going to happen , And stay on what the OP was trying to do , 'kay?
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Offline soMe_RandoM

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #17 on: July 24, 2010, 05:27:52 am »
well what do you think
if you do this:
you go back to save ur GF from dying But no matter what you cant change it.

you time travel back in time before you go into the room.
you then baricade the room from stoping your self from getting into room
but it fails.

you go back intime to suicide your self as being murded is an larger payout from insurance for your family and you want to die
but shot miss and you spend some time in prision for attempted murder.

you go back in time to shag brittney, but when you do you then dont have an recall of the event as it never happen

you go back in time to stop ur parents from shaging as you are the brother of some one like hitler that massed killed alot.
but it fails. (it was motive)

so what u think imposible for anything other than sight seeing and you where sent by force? as since it not the reason you are in the past thus meaning what ever done stays that way>?


Why can't you save your gf?

How does it fail?

Third one I just don't get the point. It's a statement.


blame time travel movies/ his reason to go back in time in the first place was to save her thus moment he does it :D well he didn't have an reason to go back their in first place did he :D

edit:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Scarybug/chronotron PERFECT game with if u stop reason for u being there first place you will not be there :D
« Last Edit: July 24, 2010, 11:22:30 pm by soMe_RandoM »
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Offline tamsber8221

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #18 on: August 02, 2010, 07:30:56 am »
What I know is going forward in time is the only thing that is possible.

Offline Fiskbit

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #19 on: August 04, 2010, 02:31:48 am »
I am under the impression that this user is a spammer; I removed the website links from the profile just to be sure, but I don't want to ban a potentially legit user, however unlikely it may be that they're actually here to contribute.

Carry on!
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Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #20 on: August 04, 2010, 11:20:26 am »
It haz to be a spammer because no female would ever invade our geeky time travel related off-topic discussions ;p
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Offline Ozymandiaz

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #21 on: August 06, 2010, 07:08:24 pm »
It haz to be a spammer because no female would ever invade our geeky time travel related off-topic discussions ;p


Indeed. :)
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Offline Ktoff

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #22 on: October 14, 2010, 07:22:06 am »
It haz to be a spammer because no female would ever invade our geeky time travel related off-topic discussions ;p


Hey eRe4s3r,

your argument is slightly flawed as it has a lot of unspoken assumptions. You assume that future self would not need to send the battery once past self has received it (assuming you have a single time-line). If this is not so, the net-energy balance remains equal. Also you neglect any energy costs for time traveling. Maybe you get a mass related energy cost at the entry/exit points (with possibly destructive consequences).

Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #23 on: October 14, 2010, 04:51:23 pm »
If my assumption is true then you would no longer be yourself when stepping through a time portal as there is no way one person can have 2 personalities that would still be connected when split by a time paradox. Also if we think about it in a other way, if you bring a battery from the past in the future it would likely not work anymore as the entropy would have likely decayed the energy charge. If you do it the opposite direction the energy did not yet exist so the battery would be discharged, and likely stop existing entirely (ie, as if you had never taken it with you). ;)

Meaning, the you before and after a time travel event would be a paradox if they reconnect. Though you have a point that if, Time is Linear (like Doctor Who) the net energy balance would be the same and meeting your old or future self would be part of your time-line. It would however, if possible at all, likely cause massive damage to the universe and reality itself not to mention to your sanity.

Obviously, this post is full with assumptions and half-knowledge as i do not claim to understand how reality of time and space works. But the current knowledge humans have is entirely nonsense anyway as it does not explain the existence of time, gravity, and space or why atoms and assorted things have a mass at all and why mass produces gravity effects to begin with.

Mhh, i would love to skip ahead 5000 years to see what the answer to that is ;p
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Offline Kron

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #24 on: October 28, 2010, 01:58:53 am »
Egads! I can't believe I missed this thread the first time around!

Personally, I think time travel is possible. Why? It's simple, I'll run you through the logic:

There's nothing within our current models of physics that prevent it.

This may sound deceptively simple, but sometimes life actually is fairly simple. Take the example of airplanes; before the Wright Brothers, we had no examples of motorized flying machines (that didn't use gas balloons) at all. Does that mean that airplanes are impossible? No! Nothing in physics prevented it, and we capitalized on some neat aerodynamics hacks to achieve it.

There was an earlier post here about wormholes. That's one possible way that time travel may be implemented.

Time travel is impossible - because traveling back would involve generation of infinite energy.

Why? You take a battery from the past - reload it in the future and leave it in the past - that means you just spend energy in the past that does not exist, and thus would need to be generated out of thin air. And time travel would thus require *more energy* than all the universe contains at a given point in time - a paradox.

Since magical energy does not exist - time travel is absolutely impossible.

An interesting line of logic, but I can spot two errors within it:
  • Energy is only conserved within the system of the entire universe. For example, I can transfer energy into my laptop; while this violates local conservation within the context of my laptop, it's a part of a larger system. Why not just extend the system to the entirety of spacetime? Rather than picking a random spacelike slice.
  • Your logic does nothing to disprove possible time machines that swap matter / energy, leaving the net mass-energy totals equivalent on both times (arrival and departure).
An example of the latter would be wormholes again. Wormhole mouths have some fairly interesting properties behind their geometry, and one of those properties is that they act like massive objects.

Wormholes have mass, momentum, etc. When an object moves through a wormhole, the entry mouth "grows" by an equivalent mass and the exit mouth "shrinks" by an equivalent mass. Net mass is balanced on both sides. (If the size-differential between both mouths gets too large, the wormhole will collapse... so it helps to send back counter-balancing matter in the opposite direction you traveled)

It haz to be a spammer because no female would ever invade our geeky time travel related off-topic discussions ;p

*cough*
Time travel in the classic sense has no place in rational theory, but temporal distortion does exist on the quantum level, and more importantly it can be controlled.
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #25 on: October 28, 2010, 03:35:56 am »
It haz to be a spammer because no female would ever invade our geeky time travel related off-topic discussions ;p

*cough*
*rofls*
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Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #26 on: October 28, 2010, 07:38:32 am »
Wormholes are a Speculation and if they exist, likely impassable to us as the connection between 2 places in space time while probably "possible" in terms of Quantum Theory likely has a problematic value.

When i learned about Wormholes they were a myth. But i always thought the center of a wormhole is literally the center of a blackhole - except its 2 ways. As time relativity would cause a massive energy imbalance inside the wormhole you'd likely enter as solid matter and exit as quantum sized dust. If at all.

More to the point, while its possible wormholes connect 2 places to the center there is NO proof whatsoever that it is physically possible that you can actually cross over to the other exit of a wormhole. You would have to pass through a zone were Time does not exist.. and I needn't tell you thats VERY bad indeed for your health.

It haz to be a spammer because no female would ever invade our geeky time travel related off-topic discussions ;p

*cough*
*rofls*

I stand corrected and my world view bios has been updated to revision 2.42a. From now on i shall expect females to enter the most geeky time travel discussions. Tis a good thing mind you ;)

Quote
Energy is only conserved within the system of the entire universe. For example, I can transfer energy into my laptop; while this violates local conservation within the context of my laptop, it's a part of a larger system. Why not just extend the system to the entirety of spacetime? Rather than picking a random spacelike slice.

Interesting but that would beg the question where "all that time/energy" is stored. We are not talking batteries after all. Time is basically just stuff we made up to frame our existence, but its still a fact that time travel would involve KNOWING where everything was at that specific point in subjective time. And Quantum theory tells me thats physically impossible.

Quote
There's nothing within our current models of physics that prevent it.
One could argue that this merely means that our current models of physics are wrong ;)

Quote
our logic does nothing to disprove possible time machines that swap matter / energy, leaving the net mass-energy totals equivalent on both times (arrival and departure).
Mhhhh... You leaving specific time with matter/energy swap means you do no longer exist in the timeline you just left. So this is assuming linear time. If time is indeed an self-updating non-linear construct then "swapping" yourself into another time would likely involve you arriving in an alternate reality and not an alternate time.

Of course, speculation on my part ;)

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Offline Lancefighter

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #27 on: October 28, 2010, 07:43:42 am »
Theory states that if time travel is achieved, it is achieved at all times simultaneously. Because this hasnt happened, I'm going to believe that time travel doesnt work.
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Offline Kron

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #28 on: October 28, 2010, 01:36:47 pm »
Wormholes are a Speculation and if they exist, likely impassable to us as the connection between 2 places in space time while probably "possible" in terms of Quantum Theory likely has a problematic value.

... Wormholes have absolutely nothing to do with quantum mechanics. They are General Relativistic constructs.

Are you confusing wormholes with quantum tunneling?

When i learned about Wormholes they were a myth. But i always thought the center of a wormhole is literally the center of a blackhole - except its 2 ways.

... No? That's not how a traversable wormhole metric works. You may be confusing with another metric, as "wormholes" are basically a family of similar equations.

As time relativity would cause a massive energy imbalance inside the wormhole you'd likely enter as solid matter and exit as quantum sized dust. If at all.

What is "time relativity"?

Also, I think you are talking about some specific non-traversable metrics. I've seen the "you get disintegrated as you go through" versions. (It's interesting to note that information can still be pushed through these wormholes, so time travel is still technically possible...)

More to the point, while its possible wormholes connect 2 places to the center there is NO proof whatsoever that it is physically possible that you can actually cross over to the other exit of a wormhole. You would have to pass through a zone were Time does not exist.. and I needn't tell you thats VERY bad indeed for your health.

I really have no idea as to what you're talking about. Time exists within a wormhole's throat... and at its mouths... and basically everywhere within its structure.

It's how wormholes can be used for time travel; you manipulate its temporal nature to shift the mouths up and down time relative to each other.

Furthermore, you say there's no proof that we can build a physically traversable wormhole... and yet there's no proof that we can't. I'll place the burden of evidence on you here, since history has shown us that if something isn't impossible, it's possible... maybe even doable.

I stand corrected and my world view bios has been updated to revision 2.42a. From now on i shall expect females to enter the most geeky time travel discussions. Tis a good thing mind you ;)

I was actually confused as to whether you were a guy or a girl until I asked on the IRC channel! I was reading your earlier posts in C2's voice!

Interesting but that would beg the question where "all that time/energy" is stored. We are not talking batteries after all. Time is basically just stuff we made up to frame our existence, but its still a fact that time travel would involve KNOWING where everything was at that specific point in subjective time. And Quantum theory tells me thats physically impossible.

I have no idea as to what you're talking about here. Can you elaborate on this?
  • Why does the law of conservation imply knowledge of the location of all matter and energy in the universe?
  • Why do you reject the reality of the dimensionality of time? Minkowski Space is basically the foundation of relativity.
  • You keep attributing really weird characteristics to time travel. "KNOWING where everything was at that specific point in subjective time"? Why? It's not like you need to know this to travel through space.
  • "Quantum Theory"?! ... I do not think it means what you think it means.
Moving on...

One could argue that this merely means that our current models of physics are wrong ;)

Are you actually arguing that you know more about physics that our current physicists?
  • Not only is this somewhat arrogant and almost certainly wrong (taking into account all the research and experimentation done by the theoretical physics community)...
  • ... This line of reasoning makes argumentation impossible. We might as well get into a "No I'm right!" slap-fight about who knows the real physics.
To me, this looks like someone who's letting common sense get in the way of the logic of physics.

Physics is not intuitive. Look at relativity or QM.

Mhhhh... You leaving specific time with matter/energy swap means you do no longer exist in the timeline you just left. So this is assuming linear time. If time is indeed an self-updating non-linear construct then "swapping" yourself into another time would likely involve you arriving in an alternate reality and not an alternate time.

I don't think you know what "swapping" implies. I mean that you exchange an equal amount of matter when you time travel.

If you go to any point in spacetime, and equivalent amount of matter will travel from the vicinity of that point to your departure moment.

Whether you believe in a single timeline or multiple, this soundly fixes any conservation issues.

Theory states that if time travel is achieved, it is achieved at all times simultaneously. Because this hasnt happened, I'm going to believe that time travel doesnt work.

How do you know time machines will allow us to project matter / energy / information past the construction date of the device?

Take wormholes for example: You can't use it to travel to before you created the wormholes.

Of course, speculation on my part ;)

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« Last Edit: October 28, 2010, 01:45:00 pm by Kron »
Time travel in the classic sense has no place in rational theory, but temporal distortion does exist on the quantum level, and more importantly it can be controlled.
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Offline Lancefighter

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Re: Time travel impossible?
« Reply #29 on: October 28, 2010, 01:49:32 pm »
I can make up rules too? I propose that no time machine can travel ahead in time and see its own future.
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