-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Do you think time travel is even theoretically possible?
- Thread starter nightfly
- Start date
The Cockatrice
Member
Only if we find/receive alien technology or discover magic. Until then, no.
bitbydeath
Gold Member
If we could get cryogenic freezing working well, you could technically time travel into the future.
Nobody_Important
“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
Depends on your definition of "Time Travel" I guess.
Daneel Elijah
Gold Member
Yes. No reason to believe othervise. Time is not uniform. So I can imagine that a particle that move trought time can exist. But time travel like in the movies/comics ? NO.
JimmyRustler
Gold Member
I think a read a physics book once that claimed it's possible in theory.
Fools idol
Banned
Black holes are the key to it.
When gravity force is great enough we have observable evidence that spacetime distorts. Time dilation is very real and a mind boggling concept to understand.
TLDR, In physics and relativity, time dilation is the difference in elapsed time as measured by two clocks. It is either due to a relative velocity between them or to a difference in gravitational potential between their locations.
So, with that in mind, theoretically speaking with enough energy one can manipulate space time, which in essence, is time travel.
The movie Interstellar did a pretty good job showing that a few minutes spent in one place with an extreme gravitational effect when it is observed from a place which has a lesser gravitational effect, those minutes become months or even years and decades.
Space times and black holes are weird and scary.
When gravity force is great enough we have observable evidence that spacetime distorts. Time dilation is very real and a mind boggling concept to understand.
TLDR, In physics and relativity, time dilation is the difference in elapsed time as measured by two clocks. It is either due to a relative velocity between them or to a difference in gravitational potential between their locations.
So, with that in mind, theoretically speaking with enough energy one can manipulate space time, which in essence, is time travel.
The movie Interstellar did a pretty good job showing that a few minutes spent in one place with an extreme gravitational effect when it is observed from a place which has a lesser gravitational effect, those minutes become months or even years and decades.
Space times and black holes are weird and scary.
Wildebeest
Member
If you mean getting into a time ship and travelling on the time ocean to the past, then it seems to be not a thing worth thinking about. In terms of Einstein, everything is relative, so there is nothing you think of as a universal now. You can take a trip apart from someone and time will have passed differently between you, even if it is the slightest difference. But nobody really knows what is going on at the very smallest scale. You could potentially have a future interpretation of physics at the very smallest scale where information is always flowing backwards in time as well as forwards, but most physicists would not enjoy using a system like that as it would be incredibly hard to work with.
Badlucktroll
Member
Not time travel, but i imagine they’ll discover some crazy properties in space which would make warp drives possible.
IDKFA
I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Sort of?
Traveling into the future is possible thanks to time dilation. Although, to travel far into the future you'd need a craft that can get close to light speed, which isn't possible yet.
Traveling back in time is more difficult. It is theoretically possible to travel back in time. Nothing in general relativity prevents this. However, it's a lot more complex than traveling forward in time and just because GR doesn't prevent this doesn't mean we're going to have time machines soon.
For a very brief run down on traveling back in time, have a look at the physics section here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel
Traveling into the future is possible thanks to time dilation. Although, to travel far into the future you'd need a craft that can get close to light speed, which isn't possible yet.
Traveling back in time is more difficult. It is theoretically possible to travel back in time. Nothing in general relativity prevents this. However, it's a lot more complex than traveling forward in time and just because GR doesn't prevent this doesn't mean we're going to have time machines soon.
For a very brief run down on traveling back in time, have a look at the physics section here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel
kraspkibble
Permabanned.
i don't think we'll be able to travel into the past but i do think travelling into the future will be possible. im not an expert but i am thinking of something along the lines of interstellar when they go to that planet and like every hour there is like 10 years on earth (can't remember exactly what it was).
so i guess if you travel fast enough or can bend time with gravity or some shit then we can time travel. on one timeline you (in a spaceship) might only perceive an hour of time passing but for someone else on another timeline (earth) then time would pass normally. you could travel to say the year 2122 and it would only feel like 10 hours had passed.
that would probably also explain why we haven't met any time travellers. if we could time travel into the past then surely someone would have came back. IF time travelling to the past is possible i'm sure governments would already know about it.
so i guess if you travel fast enough or can bend time with gravity or some shit then we can time travel. on one timeline you (in a spaceship) might only perceive an hour of time passing but for someone else on another timeline (earth) then time would pass normally. you could travel to say the year 2122 and it would only feel like 10 hours had passed.
that would probably also explain why we haven't met any time travellers. if we could time travel into the past then surely someone would have came back. IF time travelling to the past is possible i'm sure governments would already know about it.
Last edited:
nkarafo
Member
Depends what you mean with "time traveling". No, i don't believe it's possible the way science fiction shows it.
However, a form of traveling to the future is possible but it's not like the future is predetermined so you can go there. It's more like you slow down the time for you so when you arrive to a certain destination, it feels like you traveled to the future. It's a similar scenario to freezing yourself and waking up 100 years later. It would still feel/look like time travel to you and the "future people" you meet. But instead of freezing yourself to cover a big distance, you use physics to do it faster and relativity will still cause the same result, meaning you will reach your destination 100 years after you took off.
Traveling to the past though, it creates a ton of paradoxes. If you accept it's possible, then you must accept other things along with it, like "it's possible to bring people back from the dead". If you can travel to the past, it means you can interact with people who have been dead for a long time. How exactly is this possible? And how does that feel from the perspective of the people who you just resurrected because you traveled back to their time? Not to mention your past self?
Sure, there is the explanation of "infinite parallel universes" with "unlimited copies of yourself" but i feel like these are concepts that created to solve these paradoxes. I don't believe anything is true.
However, i do believe you can take a peek to the past, without interacting with it. Meaning you can see/hear the past in the same way you can when you watch a movie. Which is something you can easily do right now. Just look at a star in the night sky and what you see is it's past. The further the star is, the older it's image in the sky is. It's possible that a star had died millions of years ago but you can still see it now. That's because the light travels with finite speed and that speed is too slow relative to the size of the universe.
So if you think about it, the light of the past events on Earth is still traveling in space. Every second of it. The images of the dinosaurs or the human history are floating in it right now. So, if we had a way to capture them, it would be like watching our past, which is a form of time traveling i suppose.
However, a form of traveling to the future is possible but it's not like the future is predetermined so you can go there. It's more like you slow down the time for you so when you arrive to a certain destination, it feels like you traveled to the future. It's a similar scenario to freezing yourself and waking up 100 years later. It would still feel/look like time travel to you and the "future people" you meet. But instead of freezing yourself to cover a big distance, you use physics to do it faster and relativity will still cause the same result, meaning you will reach your destination 100 years after you took off.
Traveling to the past though, it creates a ton of paradoxes. If you accept it's possible, then you must accept other things along with it, like "it's possible to bring people back from the dead". If you can travel to the past, it means you can interact with people who have been dead for a long time. How exactly is this possible? And how does that feel from the perspective of the people who you just resurrected because you traveled back to their time? Not to mention your past self?
Sure, there is the explanation of "infinite parallel universes" with "unlimited copies of yourself" but i feel like these are concepts that created to solve these paradoxes. I don't believe anything is true.
However, i do believe you can take a peek to the past, without interacting with it. Meaning you can see/hear the past in the same way you can when you watch a movie. Which is something you can easily do right now. Just look at a star in the night sky and what you see is it's past. The further the star is, the older it's image in the sky is. It's possible that a star had died millions of years ago but you can still see it now. That's because the light travels with finite speed and that speed is too slow relative to the size of the universe.
So if you think about it, the light of the past events on Earth is still traveling in space. Every second of it. The images of the dinosaurs or the human history are floating in it right now. So, if we had a way to capture them, it would be like watching our past, which is a form of time traveling i suppose.
Last edited:
One possible problem is that you might be able to travel back in time, but not space at the same time. The solar system is constantly moving. So if I traveled back to 2,000,000 bc from where I'm at on earth, the earth wouldn't be there in 2,000,000BC.
Woody Nvincible
Member
Unless it makes separate time lines, and we are the base time line, we would have surely seen evidence of time travel.
But then again, we do have mandela effects.
But then again, we do have mandela effects.
Last edited:
FunkMiller
Gold Member
In terms of the way it's depicted in every piece of fiction ever: no. Not at all.
In terms of how spacetime can warp the passage of time due to gravitational forces or dilation due to relative speed, yes.
But no one is ever going to be able to travel back to the stone age, or go back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor. Cause and effect is a thing.
In terms of how spacetime can warp the passage of time due to gravitational forces or dilation due to relative speed, yes.
But no one is ever going to be able to travel back to the stone age, or go back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor. Cause and effect is a thing.
Last edited:
Maiden Voyage
Gold™ Member
Back in my party days, I would call blacking out time traveling.
Dreamin
Member
Kind of. I don't think I could erase what's already happened but I do think another branch could be made, probably happens constantly.
let's say I go back 10 years. It wouldn't overwrite what I already experienced, the date may have gone backwards but I'm still going forward on my own personal timeline. I wouldn't be able to change my own past, what I've experienced would be set, it'd be like replaying a level, maybe I do it differently so the future is changed but it doesn't change the fact that I've already done it before. So I haven't really changed the past I've just made/joined another one.
I expect everyone's on their own timeline that isn't necessarily locked into a group timeline, just appears to be.
let's say I go back 10 years. It wouldn't overwrite what I already experienced, the date may have gone backwards but I'm still going forward on my own personal timeline. I wouldn't be able to change my own past, what I've experienced would be set, it'd be like replaying a level, maybe I do it differently so the future is changed but it doesn't change the fact that I've already done it before. So I haven't really changed the past I've just made/joined another one.
I expect everyone's on their own timeline that isn't necessarily locked into a group timeline, just appears to be.
Davesky
Member
Maybe in a higher dimension where the past, present and future all exist simultaneously. I think the past could be partially influenced from the future, through emotion kind of like at the end of Interstellar with dreams, synchronicity and weird events.. But if the future is already written then why even bother?
MaestroMike
Gold Member
Slow your metabolism down and you slow down time 
that’s why tortoises can live centuries we think they’re moving slow as hel! But that speed is normal for them
that’s why tortoises can live centuries we think they’re moving slow as hel! But that speed is normal for them
Tams
Member
Define time travel.
'Going' backwards is for certain impossible as far as I can tell. Not only from there being no known way, but also because there is zero evidence that people have done so to change history, and you just know some would if they could.
'Going' 'fowards' is. You still travel through time as everything else, but how you percieve it can vary. Therefore, in a way, when you grow older and time seems to go faster then that's in a way 'time travel'.
But that's not what we consider 'time travel'. So therefore cryogensis would be one form of 'time travel'. As would travelling faster than the speed of light.
Though theoretically I have my doubts about the latter. Just because the light of distant galaxies hasn't reached us yet, doesn't mean events that light shows have just happened. No, that light shows the past. Well, all light shows the past technically (as do all our other senses).
'Going' backwards is for certain impossible as far as I can tell. Not only from there being no known way, but also because there is zero evidence that people have done so to change history, and you just know some would if they could.
'Going' 'fowards' is. You still travel through time as everything else, but how you percieve it can vary. Therefore, in a way, when you grow older and time seems to go faster then that's in a way 'time travel'.
But that's not what we consider 'time travel'. So therefore cryogensis would be one form of 'time travel'. As would travelling faster than the speed of light.
Though theoretically I have my doubts about the latter. Just because the light of distant galaxies hasn't reached us yet, doesn't mean events that light shows have just happened. No, that light shows the past. Well, all light shows the past technically (as do all our other senses).
Last edited:
LaughingStock
Member
Yes. And the grey aliens that have been visiting us for so long are humans from the future.
Fuz
Banned
What you're thinking is: making everything else travel back in time except you.
I remember years ago reading about some research/experiment/whatever where some scientists succesfully sent an atom back in time... the expression "back in time" was for shock value, of course, the correct term would have been "rejuvenating" an atom. [DISCLAIMER: I might be misremembering something, don't quote me on that]
Edit: yeah, misremembering a little: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/science/quantum-physics-time.html
I remember years ago reading about some research/experiment/whatever where some scientists succesfully sent an atom back in time... the expression "back in time" was for shock value, of course, the correct term would have been "rejuvenating" an atom. [DISCLAIMER: I might be misremembering something, don't quote me on that]
Edit: yeah, misremembering a little: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/08/science/quantum-physics-time.html
Last edited:
jufonuk
not tag worthy
*Nightwing
Member
Ulysses 31
Member
To the future once we can travel near the speed of light.
I believe in quantum mechanics there are particles that can travel back in time.
I believe in quantum mechanics there are particles that can travel back in time.
Last edited:
FatallyYours
Gold Member
How far back you wanna go?
EverydayBeast
thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Time travel has been in the works before.
Trogdor1123
Member
I was going to say this too. To think there isn’t at least some way to speed up, slow down, or reverse it is high hubris.
We already know how to do the first two and have several theories on how to do the third.
It might not be feasible or even reasonable to try, but it’s likely possible, at least to some degree
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
To further this point - the first "time travel" will be of datagrams, not people. Someone will invent a "time machine" that is essentially an email server that can accept messages from the future and deliver them to the present. They'll know that it works because when they initially turn it on there will be an absolute flood of messages.
Last edited:
Thirty7ven
Banned
Time travel isn’t just a possibility it’s a fact, the only consideration is what can travel through time, that’s the only question that needs to be determined.
MastaKiiLA
Member
No. Time rolls steadily forward. Also, we have no confirmed time travelers in our midst. Unless time travel has a limited range, it implies that we never discover how to trave backwards in time. Leaping forward is possible if we discover how to hibernate people like in sci-fi. That would be the only way IMO. I very much hope to be proven wrong before I die.
