Proof there's no time travel?

[lockeslylcrit]

Time travel cannot exist because there is no time. Time is merely something humans use to record their daily or yearly habits. The whole origin behind time is the rising and setting sun. Years are marked by seasons, which are simply a result of the Earth's revolutions. Even the simple act of human aging is caused (in theory) by DNA damage.
Now go into deep space without a clock. Without a modern timekeeper, or a sunrise/sunset, the only thing you have left to keep time is your own body telling you how tired you are or how hungry/thirsty you are.

 

[Xanadu84]

Well, first there's physics, which generally says that time travel is possible, but your in a different, alternate universe. But to look at this hypothetically, then time travel would still be possible. We are just destined to invent and execute time travel in such a way that we only cause those events that have actually, already happened. Think 12 Monkeys. As for why we havn't seen any time travelers...well, who says time travel has to be invented soon? Maybe its invented so far in the future that our future human race doesn't give a damn about traveling to our time. Maybe in 30,000 years, some time travelers from even further in the future travel back to 32,009 AD, and start sharing there super advanced technology, which eventually accumulates in time travel. Makes even more sense given the ludicrous amount of energy required for time travel, and assuming it takes a greater investment of energy to travel back further.

This is entirely hypothetical, and based on the premise that science fiction time travel is possible, which it likely isn't.

 

[ThatJagoGuy]

Another theory would be that whenever you timetravel you create (or use an already excisting) alternate universe where the things you do really take effect, but it would only change that particular universe's future.

This.

When considering alternate realities, it must also be considered that perhaps we exist in a reality where there are no time-travellers, no aliens, etc. However, in other realities, they could or even should exist!

 

[Kpt._Rob]

*other words were here*

That makes no sense. How can you travel through time when there is no future?

This makes one very big assumption, that being that the universe is not diterministic. It seems to me that the universe is probably diterministic for the most part, with exception to potential interference from outside causality. If this is the case, my assumption (again, a big assumption, but a reasonable case can be made for it) implies that all time exists as a dimension before the first dimension, and therefore all time exists at once. We can only percieve it going in one direction, but that does not mean that it actually does go only in one direction. If you've read the comic for Watchmen, Doctor Manhattan does a pretty good job of explaining that view of time.

How would the universe be deterministic? There is nothing to determine, what I mean is, a being must determine something.

Also, the universe cannot be deterministic, because the actions of billions of people, even with binary (did [name] do [action]? 1/0 (yes/no)) is mind-boggling.

First off, the human brain is a series of electro-chemical impulses. The reason humans make choices are because of these electrochemical impulses. These impulses are reflective of thoughts, many of which are influenced by other humans who also made various decisions based on electrochemical impulses. Theoretically it should be possible to formulate a mathematical formula which would predict all human action.

Your second "proof" of why the universe can't be deterministic is so badly formulated that it's hardly worth addressing, suffice it to say that whether I'm wrong or right the way the universe works isn't going to change based on whether or not you or anyone else find it to be "mind-boggling".

 

[person427]

Time travel is possible...technically. By traveling faster than the speed of light, you can travel into the future. But of course there are 3 problems:
1)We have not found a way to travel faster than the speed of light.
2)If we did find a way to travel that fast, going that fast would cause us to expand until we explode.
3)If we somehow found a way to get past these two problems, we would still only be able to go to the future.

 

[HT_Black]

Time travel is, at its core, presumably possible. Everyone in the future is just having too much fun using their Phasers on one another to bother coming back here.

Or maybe Skynet's finally risen.

Or maybe Cthulu has.

 

[I Stomp on Kittens]

TV=Time Travel
Book=Time Travel

 

[Macgyvercas]

I like the Doctor's description of time: It's more of a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey...stuff.

Basically, time is a lake, not a river.

 

[Kriptonite]

Time is something invented by humans. It is not a natural thing. Yes time(as we define it) will pass(again as we define it). You can't physically travel to an idea(the future). yes there is a future, but only as we say it is. I guess I can't really convey what I'm thinking. Maybe later, but for now I'll leave it as 'time' travel is impossible. Only because time is made up by people, like colors. There really is no such thing as blue, it's just what we call it.

 

[Sieg The Bum]

Time travel is possible...technically. By traveling faster than the speed of light, you can travel into the future. But of course there are 3 problems:
1)We have not found a way to travel faster than the speed of light.
2)If we did find a way to travel that fast, going that fast would cause us to expand until we explode.
3)If we somehow found a way to get past these two problems, we would still only be able to go to the future.

This is all according to Einstein's general theory of relativity:
You only need to approach the speed of light in order to increase the flow of time for the person/object traveling. Even traveling at a slower velocity would cause time to slow but at an immeasurable rate.
Also it is not possible to travel faster then the speed of light.
And how would one explode by increasing there velocity? I have all ways read that the inertia would liquidate you or the friction would light you on fire or rip you apart.

What theory are your assumptions based on?

 

[NeutralDrow]

Just because people in the future may develop time travel doesn't necessarily mean we'd run into them if they came back here. Since we haven't encountered them so far, they're not part of our causality.

 

[Sieg The Bum]

Time is something invented by humans. It is not a natural thing. Yes time(as we define it) will pass(again as we define it). You can't physically travel to an idea(the future). yes there is a future, but only as we say it is. I guess I can't really convey what I'm thinking. Maybe later, but for now I'll leave it as 'time' travel is impossible. Only because time is made up by people, like colors. There really is no such thing as blue, it's just what we call it.

Time is just as real as mass. What you're thinking of is the measurement of time. I guess kilograms will disappear when we die off.

And time travel has all ready been proven by shooting decaying particle at speeds approaching the speed of light and then measuring how much of the mass has decreased. The particles had more mass then they should have, proving that time traveled slower for them.

 

[person427]

Time travel is possible...technically. By traveling faster than the speed of light, you can travel into the future. But of course there are 3 problems:
1)We have not found a way to travel faster than the speed of light.
2)If we did find a way to travel that fast, going that fast would cause us to expand until we explode.
3)If we somehow found a way to get past these two problems, we would still only be able to go to the future.

This is all according to Einstein's general theory of relativity:
You only need to approach the speed of light in order to increase the flow of time for the person/object traveling. Even traveling at a slower velocity would cause time to slow but at an immeasurable rate.
Also it is not possible to travel faster then the speed of light.
And how would one explode by increasing there velocity? I have all ways read that the inertia would liquidate you or the friction would light you on fire or rip you apart.

What theory are your assumptions based on?

I don't know. This whole thing came from a conversation with a teacher.

 

[dantheman931]

Time is something invented by humans. It is not a natural thing. Yes time(as we define it) will pass(again as we define it). You can't physically travel to an idea(the future). yes there is a future, but only as we say it is. I guess I can't really convey what I'm thinking. Maybe later, but for now I'll leave it as 'time' travel is impossible. Only because time is made up by people, like colors. There really is no such thing as blue, it's just what we call it.

Time travel cannot exist because there is no time. Time is merely something humans use to record their daily or yearly habits. The whole origin behind time is the rising and setting sun. Years are marked by seasons, which are simply a result of the Earth's revolutions. Even the simple act of human aging is caused (in theory) by DNA damage.
Now go into deep space without a clock. Without a modern timekeeper, or a sunrise/sunset, the only thing you have left to keep time is your own body telling you how tired you are or how hungry/thirsty you are.

Time still exists, even without people to measure it, because cause and effect still exist; even in deep space, the universe still expands at a constant rate, light still travels at a constant rate, and so forth. For that matter, the particular wavelength of light that constitutes blue still exists, even absent of words like "blue" or "azul" or what have you, but that's another story; the point is, humans didn't create time, we simply created various means of measuring its passage. So the argument that time travel is impossible because "humans invented time" is ridiculous. (edit: ninja'd)

TV=Time Travel
Book=Time Travel

Huh?

I think time travel is possible, but whether it's a good idea is another matter; it's entirely possible that alternate universes exist, but without knowing for sure, do we really want to put it to the test? That's a hell of a thing to be wrong about when the alternative is a universe-rending paradox, no? Also, read this: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1247/is-time-travel-possible

 

[ddon]

well lets say you could travel back in time you couldn't do anything. ok lets say you go back in time and kill Hitler then he would never do all of the stuff that caused you to go back in time to kill him so you would have never gone back that means you would never kill him so he is now alive and has done all the stuff he did so you would go back to kill him so he would be dead and so on and so on.

paradox!

 

[Mozared]

For as far as I know (though my knowledge is fairly limited), time travel is possible (it involves getting two black holes together and going through both or something) but only to the future anyway.

If that's a horrible explanation of how the real physics work, it's still got your answer.

 

[ArcWinter]

Alright I'll try this again. I'm just repeating someone else said, but I will anyway because it is correct. There is no time. There is passing of seconds, minutes, hours, but no time. I cannot delve any further into the subject because I know nothing of quantum mechanics except one fun fact (it's mathematically probably that there are 11 dimensions!), but for most people, time does not exist. It is not a matter of physics, it is a matter of perspective, in that if time travel was possible, it wouldn't matter. If time did or did not exist, it wouldn't matter. Because everything would be exactly the same.

 

[DestinyCall]

I have yet to hear a theory of time-travel that isn't riddled with paradoxes and wild assumptions about the nature of time or the universe. It makes for interesting theoretical discussion, but it isn't good practical science. I think part of the problem is that our concept of "time" and what it means to "travel" through it is pretty subjective and heavily influenced by works of fiction.

 

[Sieg The Bum]

Alright I'll try this again. I'm just repeating someone else said, but I will anyway because it is correct. There is no time. There is passing of seconds, minutes, hours, but no time. I cannot delve any further into the subject because I know nothing of quantum mechanics except one fun fact (it's mathematically probably that there are 11 dimensions!), but for most people, time does not exist. It is not a matter of physics, it is a matter of perspective, in that if time travel was possible, it wouldn't matter. If time did or did not exist, it wouldn't matter. Because everything would be exactly the same.

I'm reasonable sure that time is the "passing of seconds, minutes, hours"
It still sounds like you are confusing the measurement of time and the actual property.

And the theory you are eluding to (I think) is the super-string theory which also is based on the fact that time is real to get past the third dimension.

What education have you had on this subject anyways?

 

[ArcWinter]

Alright I'll try this again. I'm just repeating someone else said, but I will anyway because it is correct. There is no time. There is passing of seconds, minutes, hours, but no time. I cannot delve any further into the subject because I know nothing of quantum mechanics except one fun fact (it's mathematically probably that there are 11 dimensions!), but for most people, time does not exist. It is not a matter of physics, it is a matter of perspective, in that if time travel was possible, it wouldn't matter. If time did or did not exist, it wouldn't matter. Because everything would be exactly the same.

I'm reasonable sure that time is the "passing of seconds, minutes, hours"
It still sounds like you are confusing the measurement of time and the actual property.

And the theory you are eluding to (I think) is the super-string theory which also is based on the fact that time is real to get past the third dimension.

What education have you had on this subject anyways?

I think it's quite obvious - none. I believe to key to winning arguments is to know nothing about it, that way you can just make up random crap. It doesn't even have to sound smart!

And yes, that is the theory. However I said probable.