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Time traveling / theory / physics

Blogs > Ghardo
Post a Reply
1 2 Next All
Ghardo
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
Germany1685 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-05-22 15:04:15
May 22 2009 13:24 GMT
#1
just watched the new haruhi episode and it ended up in an discussion with a friend on what happens when you time-travel.

we didn't really succeed in solving this on a common ground so maybe someone from here could explain it to me:

when you travel back in time three years and WAIT there until you are in the present again (let's say you are frozen so you don't age), is there an alternate reality from where you departed which WENT ON (without you because "time doesn't wait" - my friend's argument) or is it just ONE reality/present which you "reach again" after three years (so for someone from the present where you departed and who observes it it would look like the second you departed you pop up again)?

so the question is, are there multiple realities which alternate in their structure, so multiple arrows of time or is there just ONE arrow. (do you reach your one present where you departed vs are you in an alternate reality and the reality where you departed you don't exist anymore because the time doesn't wait).

I hope I could make clear what I mean / what our controversy was about and maybe someone who studies physics, or just someone who can think logically very well can make clear to me what's the right perspective to view this.

feel free to discuss! (watching the new haruhi episode isn't necessary if you have understood the basic problem).

Piy
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
Scotland3152 Posts
May 22 2009 13:46 GMT
#2
Well, if you go back in time and killed your grandfather (the old thought experiement) would you cease to exist?

The answer is no because as soon as you travel back in time you enter a parrallel universe in which you travelled back in time, and you can do anything because in this universe the future (that you travelled back from) doesn't eist yet and can be altered by you in any means that you see fit.

So an easier way of looking at it is that at any point in which you exist, the future does NOT exist yet, so it is subject to change.

So yeah in a sci-fi world time can have many lines rather than one continuous one.
My. Copy. Is. Here.
inReacH
Profile Blog Joined August 2008
Sweden1612 Posts
May 22 2009 13:48 GMT
#3
Here watch this !
Guilford
Profile Blog Joined August 2008
Australia290 Posts
May 22 2009 13:49 GMT
#4
Quantum physics does mention something about this and that there are multiple possible futures for one reality but only one past for each reality. It is not possible to know which future one reality would have but maybe you can work to establish a future that you want to happen.

I think that people still know about your existence in the dimension that you departed, you just lose your presence there and time will still flow in that dimension. You might not reach the same reality because it is in a totally different dimension.

Being forgotten is worse than death.
Origami
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
United States266 Posts
May 22 2009 13:51 GMT
#5
The way I tend to view it is that it must be different universes or time travel must be impossible.

If time travel was possible in a single universe system, all it takes is one guy with bad intentions to kill us all and I don't think I'm dead yet.
Rev0lution
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
United States1805 Posts
May 22 2009 13:52 GMT
#6
What if you could time travel 1 hour ago?

Would go appear at the same universe that you came from? Wouldn't you see yourself and cause a paradox?

If you can see yourself and interact with your past self, doesnt that mean that you are now in a universe where you were meant to appear at that given time?

You can confirm you are not in the same universe that you were 1 hour ago because you never saw yourself appear out of nowhere 1 hour ago, remember?

So for time travel to be possible you must be able to time travel to another universe where you were meant to come to existance at that precise time.

My dealer is my best friend, and we don't even chill.
2nd1rst
Profile Joined April 2009
United States40 Posts
May 22 2009 13:53 GMT
#7
Well you guys are arguing about something theoretical so there is no real answer. But i would think that unless you did nothing to effect the time period you traveled to, then there would be an alternate reality. But i don't think your original time period would go on without you. the time period you traveled to would have two of you and when you got to the exact time that you time traveled the other copy of you would disappear and you would be the only one there.... oh but wait if you messed up the the......fuck if you time traveled the universe would implode and we would all cease to exist.
Navane
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
Netherlands2749 Posts
May 22 2009 14:15 GMT
#8
Or as I read somewhere, you can only travel foreward. In that book the only thing you could do which looked like traveling backwards is looking. You couldn't interfere, obs only.
EsX_Raptor
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
United States2802 Posts
May 22 2009 14:17 GMT
#9
time travel, as much as you make theories and stuff like that, literally doesn't make any sense at all!
Aegraen
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States1225 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-05-22 14:49:35
May 22 2009 14:48 GMT
#10
First off, theoretically, time travel is possible, however it is not presented at all how you all think it is.

You have to understand how time functions and the way gravity effects time. In order to travel in the past, you would have to create a wormhole (You do this by colliding two sub atomic particles (think large hadron collider except 50x as large and it has to be built in space) until it creates a super heated plasma which is around 10 trillion degrees, when this happens you would have to increase the energy to the ball by using lasers this then allows the wormhole to exist eternally), one in which is at 'normal' time (what we know of as time on this planet) and then the other is somewhere with huge gravitational time distortion (effect of slowing time). At this point, the wormhole is as small as sub-atomic particle, this is when you would have to enlarge it by feeding it more energy. In this light you can see how at one place you have two different times, one going on as normal 'present' the other going much more slowly and 'in the past'.

It is the same as looking out into the stars. What we see is the past. This is how we are able to use doppler effect and other measurements to create a picture of the universe.

Anyways, it is impossible to 'go back in time' like they do in Sci-Fi. It doesn't work that way.
"It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost." -- Murray N. Rothbard -- Rand Paul 2010 -- Ron Paul 2012
Caller
Profile Blog Joined September 2007
Poland8075 Posts
May 22 2009 14:49 GMT
#11
From what littler about quantum physics that I understand, it is technically possible to time travel if one were able to travel faster than the speed of light. Because of relativity, as traveling close to the speed of light causes time in realspace to rapidly "slow down," some theorists believe that surpassing the speed of light would allow one to travel backwards in time compared to realspace. Of course, it would also depend how fast compared to the speed of light one is traveling.

Of course, traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible.
Watch me fail at Paradox: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=397564
EsX_Raptor
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
United States2802 Posts
May 22 2009 14:50 GMT
#12
haha that got me thinking.

so i guess 90% of the stars we see when we look up may be already dead? o,o
Aegraen
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States1225 Posts
May 22 2009 14:50 GMT
#13
On May 22 2009 23:49 Caller wrote:
From what littler about quantum physics that I understand, it is technically possible to time travel if one were able to travel faster than the speed of light. Because of relativity, as traveling close to the speed of light causes time in realspace to rapidly "slow down," some theorists believe that surpassing the speed of light would allow one to travel backwards in time compared to realspace. Of course, it would also depend how fast compared to the speed of light one is traveling.

Of course, traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible.


It is not impossible (theoretically anyways). The universe expanded, and is expanding faster than the SoL.
"It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost." -- Murray N. Rothbard -- Rand Paul 2010 -- Ron Paul 2012
ghermination
Profile Blog Joined April 2008
United States2851 Posts
May 22 2009 16:09 GMT
#14
what i have to say about time travelling is that most likely it would kill you. Consider that you somehow had a physical portal to one hour ago. It is anchored in time at exactly one hour ago. Now, while we generally count time in the seconds, time constantly passes by. As you stuck your hand through the portal, the first cells to go through would end up in a different place than the cells behind them and so on and so forth. This is really hard to explain, but basically you would end up as a bunch of cells seperated by nanoseconds in time. The only way to survive time travel would be to go through instantly, everything at the same time.
U Gotta Skate.
Night[Mare
Profile Blog Joined December 2004
Mexico4793 Posts
May 22 2009 16:19 GMT
#15
i'd be happy to time travel just 1 hour ago, so i could see what the numbers of the lottery will be.
Teamliquidian townie
aqui
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
Germany1023 Posts
May 22 2009 16:29 GMT
#16
On May 23 2009 01:09 ghermination wrote:
what i have to say about time travelling is that most likely it would kill you. Consider that you somehow had a physical portal to one hour ago. It is anchored in time at exactly one hour ago. Now, while we generally count time in the seconds, time constantly passes by. As you stuck your hand through the portal, the first cells to go through would end up in a different place than the cells behind them and so on and so forth. This is really hard to explain, but basically you would end up as a bunch of cells seperated by nanoseconds in time. The only way to survive time travel would be to go through instantly, everything at the same time.

no, the entrance and exit of a "wormhole" would have the same eigentime. But the TNG episode with the warbird is nice, i agree
Aegraen
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States1225 Posts
May 22 2009 16:30 GMT
#17
On May 23 2009 01:09 ghermination wrote:
what i have to say about time travelling is that most likely it would kill you. Consider that you somehow had a physical portal to one hour ago. It is anchored in time at exactly one hour ago. Now, while we generally count time in the seconds, time constantly passes by. As you stuck your hand through the portal, the first cells to go through would end up in a different place than the cells behind them and so on and so forth. This is really hard to explain, but basically you would end up as a bunch of cells seperated by nanoseconds in time. The only way to survive time travel would be to go through instantly, everything at the same time.


Wrong. Read what I explained earlier. That 'portal' you are talking about is called a wormhole. Time is based around gravity. Special Relativity and General Relativity, couple that with reading about gravity will give you a greater understanding of time, time dilation, (there is actually, no time at the center of a black hole).

It is impossible 'to go back in time' like you think about in Sci-Fi. You wouldn't be going back '1 hour' of time in that space, you would be slowing time down, so that 1 hour in that time dilation field, is actually say, 5 years at 'earth time'. It's a complicated mess.

You can't 'rewind' time.
"It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost." -- Murray N. Rothbard -- Rand Paul 2010 -- Ron Paul 2012
aqui
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
Germany1023 Posts
May 22 2009 16:38 GMT
#18
On May 22 2009 23:50 Aegraen wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 22 2009 23:49 Caller wrote:
From what littler about quantum physics that I understand, it is technically possible to time travel if one were able to travel faster than the speed of light. Because of relativity, as traveling close to the speed of light causes time in realspace to rapidly "slow down," some theorists believe that surpassing the speed of light would allow one to travel backwards in time compared to realspace. Of course, it would also depend how fast compared to the speed of light one is traveling.

Of course, traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible.


It is not impossible (theoretically anyways). The universe expanded, and is expanding faster than the SoL.

its impossible, what makes you say "theoretically anyways"? your example is flawed. spacetime does expand not any mass or something. its pretty simple, you cant accelerate any reel mass on the speed of light. since we have mass, gg. you also cant move detectable information faster than light.
Klive5ive
Profile Blog Joined January 2008
United Kingdom6056 Posts
May 22 2009 16:40 GMT
#19
Time travel in films doesn't make sense because they move to the position they were at the time.
For instance if you went back in time merely a few minutes. You would reappear in the middle of space and die very fast, because the Earth is constantly moving.
Don't hate the player - Hate the game
Aegraen
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States1225 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-05-22 16:51:47
May 22 2009 16:50 GMT
#20
On May 23 2009 01:38 aqui wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 22 2009 23:50 Aegraen wrote:
On May 22 2009 23:49 Caller wrote:
From what littler about quantum physics that I understand, it is technically possible to time travel if one were able to travel faster than the speed of light. Because of relativity, as traveling close to the speed of light causes time in realspace to rapidly "slow down," some theorists believe that surpassing the speed of light would allow one to travel backwards in time compared to realspace. Of course, it would also depend how fast compared to the speed of light one is traveling.

Of course, traveling faster than the speed of light is impossible.


It is not impossible (theoretically anyways). The universe expanded, and is expanding faster than the SoL.

its impossible, what makes you say "theoretically anyways"? your example is flawed. spacetime does expand not any mass or something. its pretty simple, you cant accelerate any reel mass on the speed of light. since we have mass, gg. you also cant move detectable information faster than light.


Scharnhorst Effect for one.

Coupled with the Casimir Effect, and Alcubierre drive, the theories are there.

When we finally figure out dark matter, and dark energy, I'm sure there will be ways. This is how the universe is expanding FTL. Dark energy/matter will be the secret mark my words. (That and manipulation of time space)
"It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost." -- Murray N. Rothbard -- Rand Paul 2010 -- Ron Paul 2012
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