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

[Pikey Mikey]

Nothing is impossible.

So transforming a snake into a blue whale using only a lead pipe, a carwheel and 4 marabou chocolatebars is possible? (I'm not being serious)
I don't know what to think about timetravel but I'm pretty sure that I'll die long before it happens

 

[Redingold]

Well, time travel into the distant future is certainly possible, because of time dilation caused by special relativity. However, it's unlikely to happen any time soon, because a huge amount of energy would be required to reach a speed or maintain an acceleration where it would be noticeable. Still, the effects are magnificent. If you were to fly in a rocket that accelerated at 1g for 10 years, then decelerated at the same rate for 10 years, then turned around and did the same again, despite only 40 years having passed for you, 59,000 years would have passed for the people back on Earth.

As for time travel into the past, using black holes, while it is allowed under known physical laws, it would probably be fatal, because of spaghettification. What this means is that because the strength of gravity increases as you approach a mass, when you get really close to something like a black hole, the force on your feet would be so much stronger than the force on your head that you would be pulled apart. Besides, a fatal flaw with these concepts is that you can't travel to any point prior to the device's creation.

 

[Talshere]

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I found your info compelling. I had no idea that we, as a human species is doing so much to propel ourselves outward in time. I also thought String Theory was just that... a Theory. I didn't know there were actual String Particles. I have a very limited understanding, if you have the time and patience, would you be willing to elaborate?

Its not so much to do with propelling our selves forward in time atm rather than just a wish to propel ourselves forward generally. If we are to ever realise the dream of colonising other planets, mastery of lightspeed or indeed faster than light travel is absolutely key. Without it ships will need to pass through limitless generations before reaching their destinations. With light speed travel, to reach the nearest estimated habitable planet we are looking at 12 years for those on the ship, with faster than light travel.... *Shrug*. Currently the most viable technology for long duration space travel is the ion engine. While it provides negligible thrust here on earth, without having to fight gravity, it would slowly build up to incredible speeds while taking relatively little power. Other "currently viable options" include thing such as anti matter propulsion, however at present even production enough to get you tothe edge of the solar system would begger every country in the world. Construction is currently under way to build machines specifically designed to generate anti matter, which will both speed production and reduce costs. Give it another 40 years. We will see.

String theory is currently just that. Much of what we postulate is possible using string theory we are unable to actually prove yet. That which we have tested however has proven to be accurate, and it nicely links many of our outstanding theory's which have proven to be true (Einstein's theory or relativity as well as newton laws of gravity and such) which previously when taken to base maths often declared two different things should happen. Which obviously cannot be so.

As such String Theory is currently our best "Theory Of Everything" theory. No matter how outlandish it may seem. It could be we have the theory right but for all the wrong reasons.

If we ignore the the components of other theories such as all particals much have their opposite, postulated by other theory's, string theorys main new idea is that all particals are linked to another partical. If you have 2 linked particals in different rooms, and make changes to the property of one, it will alter the properties of the other. Instantly transmitting the information between the 2. This is incredably important as if string theory is correct the distance between the 2 particals is irrelevant, it will always be instant, which gives us a means to transmit information faster than light.

This is still baby steps days, however if you will allow me to fantasise here, this technology could be key if we are ever to conquer the stars, as any general will tell you, more important than larger numbers, better trained troops, or even the strategic high ground, is the ability to get real-time information, and be able to send out orders, which will be received promptly and clearly.

 

[PrimoThePro]

EDIT: Grr, double post, how do I delete posts?

You don't my friend.

Its not so much to do with propelling our selves forward in time atm rather than just a wish to propel ourselves forward generally. If we are to ever realise the dream of colonising other planets, mastery of lightspeed or indeed faster than light travel is absolutely key. Without it ships will need to pass through limitless generations before reaching their destinations. With light speed travel, to reach the nearest estimated habitable planet we are looking at 12 years for those on the ship, with faster than light travel.... *Shrug*. Currently the most viable technology for long duration space travel is the ion engine. While it provides negligible thrust here on earth, without having to fight gravity, it would slowly build up to incredible speeds while taking relatively little power. Other "currently viable options" include thing such as anti matter propulsion, however at present even production enough to get you tothe edge of the solar system would begger every country in the world. Construction is currently under way to build machines specifically designed to generate anti matter, which will both speed production and reduce costs. Give it another 40 years. We will see.

String theory is currently just that. Much of what we postulate is possible using string theory we are unable to actually prove yet. That which we have tested however has proven to be accurate, and it nicely links many of our outstanding theory's which have proven to be true (Einstein's theory or relativity as well as newton laws of gravity and such) which previously when taken to base maths often declared two different things should happen. Which obviously cannot be so.

As such String Theory is currently our best "Theory Of Everything" theory. No matter how outlandish it may seem. It could be we have the theory right but for all the wrong reasons.

If we ignore the the components of other theories such as all particals much have their opposite, postulated by other theory's, string theorys main new idea is that all particals are linked to another partical. If you have 2 linked particals in different rooms, and make changes to the property of one, it will alter the properties of the other. Instantly transmitting the information between the 2. This is incredably important as if string theory is correct the distance between the 2 particals is irrelevant, it will always be instant, which gives us a means to transmit information faster than light.

This is still baby steps days, however if you will allow me to fantasise here, this technology could be key if we are ever to conquer the stars, as any general will tell you, more important than larger numbers, better trained troops, or even the strategic high ground, is the ability to get real-time information, and be able to send out orders, which will be received promptly and clearly.

Is it not a law of physics that you can't pass the speed of light? Isn't the energy required to even send one atom to the speed of light like... infinite?
Anti-Matter propulsion... That would be cool for a lack of a better term. To generate it though, you said they were making machines, wouldn't that also take a huge amount of energy? And I thought anti-matter cannot come into contact with matter at all... including air... so I thought it would be dangerous and nigh impossible to generate something like that.

Oh I see, String theory is a way of connecting anything and everything, and if we could harness the string particles we could potentially become Masters of Information. Assuming it even exists. I really appreciate this information, man. It didn't go amiss here.

 

[Talshere]

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Er.....Can we travel faster than light.....Thats a hard one. We have theories saying that its impossible for sub light particals to travel faster than light yes. It would require as you so rightly pointed out infinite energy.

However it is not prevent in ALL our theories. I might be wrong but the infinite energy is pulled from the special theory of relativity, but the general theory have no specific stipulations preventing us from travelling faster than light. There is a drive that has been mathematically proven which would allow you to travel within a bubble on the back of a wave which is generated by locally stretching and compressing space behind and in-front of the ship respectively. Its weird because mathematically many of the functions we usually apply to travelling really fast, such as time-dilation, would not occur. : /

This is part of the problem we have when when postulating theories for travelling faster than light. Some theories say we can, some say we cant, and realistically we do not have the technology to put many of these theories to the test yet.


If we ignore travelling faster than light and go back to string theory, and this is guna be way out there, it is just speculation. If you were to associate enough particals, and then say lock them in a "gate", then lock their counter parts in another "gate", would it be possible to instantly move one object to the others location? After all, we are just information, and as I have pointed out these particals should be capable of mirroring their counterpart over infinite distances. Its more complicated than just moving information but.... Could we actually build a teleportation gate?

Also multiple theorys suggest that the use of wormholes and black holes could be used for either travelling within our space time, or indeed to break time. The larges problem we have here is to our knowledge no force in nature can break the event horizon of a black hole. So while theoretically possible, results would be....difficult to obtain, not in the least because you have to survived being crushed to nothing. Suffice to say you and I and in all likilyhood even our great great great great great great great great great great great great...plus a few more will not see this happen.

As to anti mater you are indeed correct if antimatter and matter ever come in contact you get a rather impressive bang. Even from just 2 particals the energy released is extensive. Fortunately we are more than capable of generating vacumes and these anti particals are still effected by magnetic fields so we can keep them stationary within a confined space, to later be fired into the corresponding "real" (I use the term because I cant think of a better one but its really not appropriate) partical.

It does require MASSIVE amounts of energy to generate anti matter hence the whole beggaring the world thing, pound for pound it is by MILES the move valuable material on the planet. Currently however anti matter is piggybacking off various collider protects and a like. A bi-product we have discovered we can make, which is why its so difficult to generate. These machines were never originally intended for this purpose.

 

[Halceon]

Any probable method of time travel would regardless require being in space, most probably in a spaceship.

Furthermore, most probable theories claim that you can go back no further than the initial creation of your time machine/wormhole. This initial point of exit would be created at a specific point in both time AND space. And you'd probably create it to some extent moving along with the sun.

 

[deth2munkies]

The way I've heard about Time Travel, if we make a time machine, we can go forward as much as we want, but we can only go back to the point where the machine was invented. This is because such a machine would have to disrupt space-time in such a way that it allows for travel and that distortion would not exist in the past, so we couldn't go further back.

I'm no physicist and I hate math, but the dumbass version is that you can use high energy lasers arranged in a vortex to bend space time somehow.

That'd explain the "where are the time travelers" and was one of the better explanations (I heard it first on The Universe on the History Channel).

 

[Sonic Doctor]

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

Yes I fear it, and agree with it.

I was quite surprised, with your post being early on the first page, it took until page five for someone else to quote you(Below this). I think you scared most people into avoiding you because they can't comprehend your answer.

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

This is FACT, time travel is possible, the OP was thinking of traveling Wells style, so the transition happens whilst the machine stays in one position, that was the mistake

I applaud you for your comment and bringing this back where people can read it, because it seems like a lot of people are just ignoring it.

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I, of course, am not a scientist, and that is why I even believe that we might discover more efficient time travel than described above.

The one thing I hate the most is when people comment how something is scientifically impossible, even though our science of today can't totally prove something wrong. Yeah, we might not be able to do something a certain way now, but who's to say that we might not find an alternate way.
On the closed minded thoughts without real full proof, I am talking about the people that are saying teleportation isn't possible. Science hasn't truly fully realized how this might work, even with scientific proof in favor of it in this thread, it is still not enough to say that we really can't teleport people.

Even with time travel, there is a high possibility that we haven't realized the technology to do it.

Something now maybe scientifically impossible, and have facts to back it up, but who's to really say those facts are totally correct. Someone might invent or come up with an idea that blows the facts out of the water.

I do not like rigid unwavering scientists, I think it makes for poor science. I look at being a scientist as like being a creative writer. Creative writers are only as good as their imaginations. The minute creative writers start deciding things aren't possible in what they write, their work will stagnate and become a rut of the same old things over and over again. Some say, "write only what you know," I say leave me alone I will make up my own ideas. The minute people put bars on creativity, that is when things become uninspired and uninteresting.

This will relate to science in that scientists need to have an open mind. They need to question everything, even concepts that have supposedly been proven to be impossible. Like creative writers, scientists are limited by how active their imaginations are, and how accepting and willing they are to use them. If scientists become entrenched in believing something isn't possible, especially if it is something that only has half-facts to back it up, then we might miss something that could be the next great leap forward in science for humanity.

Heck I will even say that something like The Doctor's TARDIS is possible. We truthfully can't say it is impossible; we haven't tried hard enough, if we have tried at all.

I believe that humanity's science is still in its infancy, there are more things to come, possibly more than our minds can imagine at the stage they are in.

Whew! Now that is what I call laying down the law.

Another comment for my gold comment document.

 

[darth gditch]

Ah time travel. There is this one physicist, I forget the name, who is trying to use lasers to create an artificial singularity. He would then use this to warp time around the singularity and be able to travel into the future. Or conceivably even back in time if we ever found a way to control the warping of space-time. (Which just sounds too awesome to be a real word)But yeah, since time is just higher dimensional space (if you uphold string theory) traveling through it is totally possible. Hell, we do it every day. Just only at one speed in one direction. XD

 

[Lyx]

My take is that timetravel is most probably impossible, simply because there is zero evidence for an "External Time" (Time as in "an external dimension" - basically like a vhs-tape). Pretty much everything can be explained simply with externally there only being a changing "current". It according to my info is a bit like the "is there a god"-question: Maybe, but i've seen nothing yet that indicates it.

 

[gl1koz3]

The future is possible, since it's in itself is inevitable. As for past and other dimensions... Not in our current form (bodies).

So, if I fantasise about this topic now... Even if we open a small wormhole to the past, it should work as a wormhole from the past to here, not the other way (can't explain, but it makes sense; somewhat how the time is always going forward and if not going, then spatial movement forward is made otherwise and you observe this something going forward; don't ask).

I have no idea how traveling to the past would actually work. Nor how much of it works at all... But fun topic to think about. Have to be careful not to jump the window embracing the Universe.

 

[Danpascooch]

Time travel is completely impossible, time is just a construct of man anyway, it is a measurement for the activity of the universe, to travel back in time, you would literally have to reverse every chemical and physical process to reverse the entire universe back to that previous state. The thought that we could build a device that could affect the entire universe on a subatomic level to rebuild a perfect representation of a past state is absolutely laughable.


I get that there are other views and that my view may not be correct, but this is my opinion on how time travel would work and why it's impossible (yes I said OPINION as in, cannot be disproven, unless of course you've traveled through time don't bother arrogantly throwing quantum relativity theories in my face or something, the truth is, we really don't have a clue how any of this shit would work)

Not entirely true. Possibly not true at all.

Its already proven that time is relative and so two people can experience two completely different differences in the passage of time. So, seeing as time does not move linearly how can you apply newtonian logic to it?

I don't know if there's actual proof, it's theories right? I mean, it's said that if you travel at incredibly high speeds relative to earth you'll age more slowly, but is there any actual data on that? Anyway, I'm a smart guy, but I'm not going to pretend the nuances of quantum physics don't go right above my head.

 

[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.

With all due respect mate, if you've cracked this, I find it hard to believe that humanity's greatest minds are struggling with it...

I wasn't implying that I have the answer, just read a ton of sci-fi, and was more referring to how we get our minds in one direction when it may be in a completely different direction. Right now, we say it's impossible and give all these reasons but science isn't always about proving but sometimes disproving what we already know. God knows I'm not a scientist, but if Time Travel is possible, then I bet it'll take some scientist outside the box to figure it out.

 

[Danpascooch]

Time travel is completely impossible, time is just a construct of man anyway, it is a measurement for the activity of the universe, to travel back in time, you would literally have to reverse every chemical and physical process to reverse the entire universe back to that previous state. The thought that we could build a device that could affect the entire universe on a subatomic level to rebuild a perfect representation of a past state is absolutely laughable.


I get that there are other views and that my view may not be correct, but this is my opinion on how time travel would work and why it's impossible (yes I said OPINION as in, cannot be disproven, unless of course you've traveled through time don't bother arrogantly throwing quantum relativity theories in my face or something, the truth is, we really don't have a clue how any of this shit would work)

Not entirely true. Possibly not true at all.

Its already proven that time is relative and so two people can experience two completely different differences in the passage of time. So, seeing as time does not move linearly how can you apply newtonian logic to it?

I don't know if there's actual proof, it's theories right? I mean, it's said that if you travel at incredibly high speeds relative to earth you'll age more slowly, but is there any actual data on that? Anyway, I'm a smart guy, but I'm not going to pretend the nuances of quantum physics don't go right above my head.

They flew planes around the Earth and the clocks on the planes said the time was earlier than it was relative to the clock on the ground.

They've found the existence of particles from the sun reaching the earth which should have disintegrated/decayed before reaching us, but due to their high speeds they aged less.

There was an experiment done where a beam was bounced off mercury passing close by the sun. It suggested if not showed that gravity causes time to elongate. So the beam took longer than it should have.

GPS had to utilise Einstein's theories or else they'd have been way too inaccurate after only the first day for any use.

In my opinion rather awesomely, time is not an abstract construct to help explain when events occured, but is a very real part of the universe.

Oh that's right, I forgot that GPS units have to account for gravitational time dilation. That was one of my favorite fun facts, I can't believe I forgot it.

I was running on like 3 hours of sleep when I wrote my OP, lol.

I guess with the presence of special relativity and gravitational time dilation, there is more or less proof of the existence of inherent time beyond just a measurement of activity created by man.

Well argued my good sir!

 

[SomethingUnrelated]

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.

With all due respect mate, if you've cracked this, I find it hard to believe that humanity's greatest minds are struggling with it...

I wasn't implying that I have the answer, just read a ton of sci-fi, and was more referring to how we get our minds in one direction when it may be in a completely different direction. Right now, we say it's impossible and give all these reasons but science isn't always about proving but sometimes disproving what we already know. God knows I'm not a scientist, but if Time Travel is possible, then I bet it'll take some scientist outside the box to figure it out.

Don't worry, I'm not having a go or anything! I'll happily accept that fact that you're suggesting they view time travel from another perspective. That's a pretty strong suggestion. I was simply wondering why it was they hadn't adopted this mindset when viewing time travel, and if there was a reason for that.

 

[Communist partisan]

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.

I can timetravel, Sweden is 8 hrs before US so if I take a plane from Sweden to US I will go back in time 8 hours and if I go from the US to Sweden I go forward in time whith 8 hours.

Isn't that logical..... if we lived in a world where everbody has 85 IQ?

 

[Lord Honk]

I have two theories. First the easy one:
If we think of Einstein's theory, space-time comprises a 4dimensional "thing", space and time being in a konstant relation.
With 3dimensions, we already know of time travel: Get out your holiday videos, a 2dimensional picture changing over time. You can rewind and fast forward in 3 dimensions, why not in 4 or more?

Now the second:
As much as the characters in the video have no option to change the tape speed directly, we probably can't time travel actively, mostly because the reason we travel in time is what we want to change. Here's my favorite scenario:

I don't like Hitler cause he killed lots of dudes. I travel back in time and kill him before he does so. Now there's no reason for me to travel back in time, so Hitler wasn't killed, so he killed lots of dudes, making me angry...

 

[SFR]

Well, we already know you can move forward in time. That doesn't cause a paradox, which is cool. I have my doubts about moving backward. Pretty much any idea that involves backwards time travel requires some sort of infinity (length, energy, etc.) If it is possible, I think the question "Where are all the time travelers?" can be answered: dead in empty space shortly after palm facing.