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

[Atmos Duality]

Page 7 (or possibly 8), so my reply is irrelevant.

But I would like to point out that Velocity has a correlation with Speed OVER TIME.
If you went 1 second back in time, you would in fact be right back to where you were 1 second ago.

All you are doing with Time Travel in that instance is tacking on a minus sign to the Time part of the equation, and running your tiny part of the Universal Function again with slightly new circumstances (your knowledge of the original perceived future).

And depending on which theory you subscribe to, that last bit is also likely to be impossible.

 

[zfactor]

Oh shitpickles. BLOCK OF TEXT INCOMING!!!

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...

Firstly, to address the continuity of time: My idea of time travel is everything would happen the same. If you went back in time to kill Hitler, you would be unable to succeed because it already happened . Get it? You can't change anything because it already occured. That's what happened in the Harry Potter that involved time travel, they never changed anything, just did some other stuff than when they were there first.

Of course you can always argue going back spawns an alternate reality (see Back to the Future pt2 and JJ Abrams) but it is my opinion that you cannot change anything because it happened already. So going back in time is useless except to observe some events.

Secondly, to address its posibility: Well, fuck if I know. Theoretically you can if you ever go faster than the speed of light because the speed of light [c] must always be the same in your local space, as you approach it your time [t] slows to keep c the same; therefore going faster than the speed of light would cause a reverse in time (-t) to allow c to ramain constant. This implies some equation relating speed and t to c (maybe speed ^ t = c ?, just guessing here didn't do any research...). What I found out a while ago this can be true, super-ultra-hyper-sonic (really fast) planes were flown around the world and their clocks are slightly fast when compared to clocks on the ground (meaning their second was less than the ground's second, time for them slowed).

The reason this is never looked at in Star Trek (they might have ignored it, but then it would be an accidental truth...) is space itself can travel faster than light with no effects on on time. The principle of the warp drive is shrink space in front of you and expand it behind you, propelling you foreward, possibly faster than light. The distinction between objects and space is important, they interact, but are not the same (take gravity for example: a large object dents the fabric of space causing other objects to fall towards it, the objects and space interact).

-snip-
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.

Sorry, just had to point out your error here. We (the earth) are in a non-inertial refrence frame. We are currently moving at that fantasically high speed relative to the center of the universe. However, this does not need to be taken into time travel calculations because we are already moving at that speed. Do you take into account the same speeds when throwing a ball? No, they do not effect the outcome bacause the ball was already moving at that speed. So going back in time would move around the universe a large distance, but it doesn't matter because you were going that speed too. Reversing time would reverse all speeds causing you to move at the same rate the universe is moving.

You can only reverse time, not time travel, there is a subtle difference. Time travel is going from point a to point b on a timeline and not going through any of the point between (since time is one dimensional, only forward and back, we can "draw" it as a line). This is impossible, you have to go through points inbetween to get there, you can only reverse time, reversing all effects on you, negating any displacement issues.

That took a looooooooong time to type and think out. Hope you read it.

EDIT: The poll is half and half... Interesting...