Poll: Time Travel is Impossible, or at the Very Best, Highly Unlikely

[PrimoThePro]

Okay, so the other day I was in my backyard raking, when out of the small forest behind my house come a Coyote pack. Me and my dog fight 'em off, but one gashed my ear open. This made me ponder time travel. And I thought, with all the variables of time travel, I think it is utterly impossible we could get it working. Consider this. The Earth is currently spinning. No argument there. If we were to go back in time, we would move. If you were standing on the equator, you are moving 1,674 km/h. The Earth is also orbiting around the sun at an astonishing speed of 107, 229 km/h. And on top of THAT, our solar system is revolving around the Milky Way at approximately 719,000 km/h! And if you want to get REALLY technical, (Which we do) The Milky Way itself is moving at an astonishing rate of approximately 200 kilometers... A SECOND...
Now we put all of those things together, and assuming you are standing at the equator, you are moving at a ridiculous pace of 2,160,000 km/hr. Yes. It's over 2,000,000! (Crush Scouter)
Moving back in time... for even 1 second... Will send you so far in space that it makes my head spin. Of course, science being what it is, there is always a way to work around that, but I'm just going to assume that the power consumption to send someone safely back in time would probably be equivalent of the sun. That is just a guess of course. Please, Escapist, discuss, and tell me how you think that Time Travel could work, and how Science may work around such obstacles. Or go ahead and throw in some more facts that say Time Travel can never happen. It's all in your personal opinion.
No joke poll options up in this thread!
EDIT: Okay guys, I'm seriously enjoying the discussion we have going on. I read a little about Multi-Dimensional travel. Do multiple dimensions even exist? And if so, how could we even get to them?
P.S. Somehow, this thread went into Gaming Discussion. I am not sure how. Bit spooky, considering the topic. Mods, if you would be so kind, could you please move it? Or would that be breaking the laws of physics! ^_^(I AM SO WITTY)
EDIT2:So I had dinner, and I spoke with my dad on the phone about this, and he told me about electrons. Pure energy. If we made a ship out of electrons (Bare with me here) We could potentially move really close to the speed of light and therefore... travel through time. Also I found interesting was the Multiple Dimension idea as I mentioned before. After learning a bit about it, it made me ponder if we could, I don't know, touch or move to other dimensions. Would this be considered Time Travel?
Thanks to @crudus for telling me more about Multiple Dimensions.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

Why must you ruin the fantasy and imaginative qualities of time travel by using science...with all that technical mumbo jumbo you've made it sound boring.

 

[PrimoThePro]

Why must you ruin the fantasy and imaginative qualities of time travel by using science...with all that technical mumbo jumbo you've made it sound boring.

Yes, I know, I feel terrible about ruining it, and I dearly hope someone can prove me wrong, but it just had to be said.

 

[Hawk of Battle]

I think most time travel theories/fictions are already aware of this very obvious fact. Fortunately science tells us that time and space are inextricably linked anyway, so moving through one also moves you through the other, which makes landing back on earth much easier so long as you have a machine that can send you through time in the first place.

It's obviously way more complicated that that, but I don't feel like writing a 300 word essay on the nature of time travel right now. Needless to say that yes, at the moment time travel is unlikely, but so was flying around the world and going to the moon 100 years ago.

 

[Lukeje]

I fail to see how that prevents travelling back in time being viable. It just means that we would be unlikely to meet anyone that had travelled back in time if it is possible.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

This is assuming you travel in time on the spot.

Since time travel is currently not something that can be done by any logical law, we would have to assume that if you could time travel then however you do so works outside of logical reasoning.

Meaning if you are travelling back in time, the sky can be pink and elephants can float... cause it all makes about the same amount of sense.

 

[PrimoThePro]

I think most time travel theories/fictions are already aware of this very obvious fact. Fortunately science tells us that time and space are inextricably linked anyway, so moving through one also moves you through the other, which makes landing back on earth much easier so long as you have a machine that can send you through time in the first place.

It's obviously way more complicated that that, but I don't feel like writing a 300 word essay on the nature of time travel right now. Needless to say that yes, at the moment time travel is unlikely, but so was flying around the world and going to the moon 100 years ago.

I like the way you put that last bit. And I see what you are saying by time and space. But how can we harness the individual variables of "Time" and at the same time use "Space" it just seems like we would need a lot of energy to do both.

 

[PoliceBox63]

Whatever way it will be managed, an object isn't hooked to one point in space relative to let's just say "the centre" of the universe. Einstein said that time and space are closely linked so...
I wonder if the gravitational fields of Earth and the Sun, having certain values, could be used as reference points for movement. However, I agree that there is a high probability that the means to do so will require large amounts of energy.

 

[thespis721]

I think a lot of scientists spend their time focusing on the speed aspect of travel... in the future, they may find a way, and I'll be surprised if it has NOTHING to do with speed or movement at all.

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

I think if time travel ever existed, it would be more like inter-dimensional travel where you don't travel along your own timeline, but that of an alternate one in a parallel universe.

 

[HT_Black]

We'll talk more about it when tachyons are proven to exist. 'Till then, I got squat to say about it.

 

[Aiden_the-Joker1]

Time travel is extremely possible. Here is how it would and does work.Time slows down when near EXTREMELY large objects (Suns, black holes, planets) but the larger the mass the slower time goes. If you were to go to the black hole at the centre of the galaxy and enter its orbit.Which is possible but just very difficult. Time only travels half the speed it does here, because it is so large. So spend five years there and ten years will have passed here but you have only experienced five of them. and once you return to earth you will have travelled forward in time. This was discovered first by Einstein and has recently been updated and proved by many other scientist including Stephen Hawking. The proof is that the satellite that revolve around the earth are further away from it than we are so time is very, very, slightly faster and thus they have to be set back annually.Fear my....SCIENCE

 

[Ashcrexl]

time travel just SOUNDS like a totally impossible science fiction thing. the fact that people still have hope for time travel is kinda depressing. also, wasn't this a game discussion forum?

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Nothing is impossible.

 

[joemu362]

Er, what does this have to do with Gaming Discussion, exactly?.

 

[Mr Snuffles]

Actually both are theoretically possible. Travelling forward in time is seen as something humans could achieve within the next 1000 years if we continue to expand our minds exponentially.

Basically, you could use velocity based time dilation, by travelling very close to the speed of light, or you could bend the space time continuum by residing for a period of time within a very dense, hollow object (a sphere of dark matter?). Time travels faster outside than inside as the continuum is warped and space is much more condensed compared to time within the sphere compared to outside it.

Time travel to the past is hypothetically possible, but isn't seen to be possible for humans to achieve. To travel to the past you need to travel faster than the speed of light, and to do this you need a black hole. Supposedly nothing can escape from a black hole, not even light, so if we managed to reside in the outer parts of the black hole, where it spins, we would not be travelling close to the speed of light in the normal universe, but relative to the still light at the centre of the black hole, we would be moving a lot faster. Then, somehow if we managed to escape the black hole, we would have travelled back in time!

Hooray for scientific knowledge gained from somewhere or other in school...

 

[Hawk of Battle]

I think most time travel theories/fictions are already aware of this very obvious fact. Fortunately science tells us that time and space are inextricably linked anyway, so moving through one also moves you through the other, which makes landing back on earth much easier so long as you have a machine that can send you through time in the first place.

It's obviously way more complicated that that, but I don't feel like writing a 300 word essay on the nature of time travel right now. Needless to say that yes, at the moment time travel is unlikely, but so was flying around the world and going to the moon 100 years ago.

I like the way you put that last bit. And I see what you are saying by time and space. But how can we harness the individual variables of "Time" and at the same time use "Space" it just seems like we would need a lot of energy to do both.

Oh undoubtedly, though I'm not a scientist so I can't speculate one what kind of energy source would be required, or really even the actual mechanism for the time travel itself. As far as I'm aware though, the 2 most prominet ideas around right now are

1) Warping space (and therefore time)

and

2) Utilizing string theory and quantum physics and faster than light travel (without actually travelling faster than light)

In the case of 1, it has been shown that high powered lasers, arranged in the right manner, and under the right circumstances, can warp space, though not enough to warp time just yet, at least not on a level that can allow something to pass from one point in time to another. Other ideas involve using gaint spinning gyroscopes to warp space in the same way, though that idea seems to require far more energy.

2) is a far more complicated idea, and is one of the things that research at CERN might uncover, assuming we can figure out how to create entangled particles to transmit information faster than light, and can prove string theory and other such things right. Basically it involves understanding how every atom, strand of energy, natural force and spacial dimension in the universe works and then making reality our *****.

 

[Verlander]

Time travel exists. We are traveling through time right now. Beyond that, no. And even if it did, no one would do it. If they did, they deserve to die-the only time I condone capital punishment.

 

[The Bandit]

Here's another soul crusher- we'll never colonize other planets, because we lack the capability to travel faster than light, and there is no physical way to travel faster than light.

You won't get to be Han Solo. Ever. Even if you were born five hundred years from now.