Time Travel Thought Experiment

[NeoShinGundam]

So here goes: You invent a time-machine (watch/belt/phone booth, whatever). You travel exactly one day into the future and rob a bank of $2000.

You then return to the present day with your money, and invest it in the SAME bank. Now, since you already have $2000 in your account, you no longer have a need to rob a bank for cash. Therefore, will your robbery of the bank still occur?

So how do you guys think this paradox will work itself out?

My best idea is that when your other self arrives in the future to steal the money, the teller will hand over a bag of exactly $2000 in cash. Why? Because it was the deposit you made the day before and they hadn't processed it yet. Therefore, you just stole $2000 of your own money!

 

[theheroofaction]

It would only work if you returned to a point after you left

 

[hittite]

To use one of Terry Pratchett's favorite terms, you simply went down a different leg of the Trousers of Time. One event has no bearing on the other.

 

[RobCoxxy]

It turns out (somehow) that it was your $2000 stolen?

You end up at square one, universe is in balance again?

 

[Novania]

Why not steal it from a different bank then put it in your bank...then you aren't stealing your own money when your yesterday's self comes to rob the bank from yesterday.

 

[[.redacted]]

It turns out (somehow) that it was your $2000 stolen?

You end up at square one, universe is in balance again?

Except there was a magical $2000 that appeared out of nowhere...

 

[Monshroud]

Depends on how you view time as linear or ever-branching. Also, you wouldn't be stealing your $2000. In the US, when you deposit money and you have a deposit slip, that money is insured by the FDIC. It is protected. Even if the bank were to default, you would still be given back all the money in your account up to $250,000 per account.

Also, banks are required by law to keep a certain percentage of available funds in their locations at all times, so just because you deposited $2000 in cash, that doesn't mean they wouldn't just keep it there and not send it off to another facility.

 

[Aiden_the-Joker1]

Well by robbing the bank then travelling back in time you have switched into a different lane of the time line where the bank was not robbed. Thus causing the bank to have $2000 more than it should have thus causing a rip in the time line due to the hornax effect. Making the universe unstable and possibly destroying all life in the universe......SCIENCE.

 

[Teh Roflchoppa]

Ouch, this is a good one. Well the answer is you won't be strapped for cash, because your plan already failed, if your future self didn't already succeed in robbing $2000 and putting it in your bank account today, when you were thinking of the plan, you will go and attempt to rob and fail. You are not the first you, or the last, there is already a future you, doing what you just thought about doing, or not...

 

[Jumplion]

Here's my thoughts on time-travel.

I think it is impossible to hit time in reverse. However, you can still drive time backwards on the track.

Imagine, if you will, a simple race track. Now, put a racer car on that race track and go into bird's eye view. The race car drives along the track in a counter-clockwise motion, and continues to do so infinitely. A lap around the track could represent a year, a month, a day, a minute, it doesn't matter, all that matters is that the race car keeps going around and around on the track (infinite fuel).

Now, here's the thing, the car can't put it's gear in reverse. To go in reverse, it'd have to come to a complete stop, but time can't do that. It may slow down, or speed up, but never stop. But it can turn around and make a U-turn in the track.

Now, maybe by slowing down a bit, the car can turn around. Time still goes forward for the car, but they travel backwards in time until they are at the point they want to stop in. Now, the car is back in time and it can drive fast enough to get back to it's previous state in time.

So yeah, under my model I'd probably still be able to do the robbery. Probably. Whatever.

There's probably a dozen holes in this theory, as how this will work, or how a time machine could do this, I have no idea, but that's how I think of time travel. I love teh whole concept in general, it's pretty fantastic.

 

[Raven's Nest]

Hate to put a downer on everyone's theories but travelling backwards in time is an actual impossibility. You can technically travel forward if you travel fast enough around a large enough gravity well i.e travelling fast enough in a spaceship to avoid being sucked into a supermassive black hole... But that probably won't help you rob a bank... Nor will the $2000 quite cover the expenditure required to do so... Just Sayin...

 

[NeoShinGundam]

Thanks for all the input guys. This came out of a story idea I had, and I wondered if it was too convoluted to work (it still looks that way). Still, I'm going to write up a version and see if I can't get an answer from Michio Kaku or Carl Sagan. See what the big-wigs think.

 

[Antari]

Hate to put a downer on everyone's theories but travelling backwards in time is an actual impossibility. You can technically travel forward if you travel fast enough around a large enough gravity well i.e travelling fast enough in a spaceship to avoid being sucked into a supermassive black hole... But that probably won't help you rob a bank... Nor will the $2000 quite cover the expenditure required to do so... Just Sayin...

You don't need some massive gravity well ... Speed is all you need to slow time.

 

[Grescheks]

Thanks for all the input guys. This came out of a story idea I had, and I wondered if it was too convoluted to work (it still looks that way). Still, I'm going to write up a version and see if I can't get an answer from Michio Kaku or Carl Sagan. See what the big-wigs think.

If you're planning on getting a comment from Carl Sagan, you might want to start with creating a working time machine yourself, or perhaps find a helpful necromancer...

 

[Raven's Nest]

Hate to put a downer on everyone's theories but travelling backwards in time is an actual impossibility. You can technically travel forward if you travel fast enough around a large enough gravity well i.e travelling fast enough in a spaceship to avoid being sucked into a supermassive black hole... But that probably won't help you rob a bank... Nor will the $2000 quite cover the expenditure required to do so... Just Sayin...

You don't need some massive gravity well ... Speed is all you need to slow time.

Well no, but it'd take considerably less effort to orbit a black hole than to accelerate to near light speed in order to slow the passage of time...

 

[Antari]

Hate to put a downer on everyone's theories but travelling backwards in time is an actual impossibility. You can technically travel forward if you travel fast enough around a large enough gravity well i.e travelling fast enough in a spaceship to avoid being sucked into a supermassive black hole... But that probably won't help you rob a bank... Nor will the $2000 quite cover the expenditure required to do so... Just Sayin...

You don't need some massive gravity well ... Speed is all you need to slow time.

Well no, but it'd take considerably less effort to orbit a black hole than to accelerate to near light speed in order to slow the passage of time...

Yes but then you run into alot of problems with surviving the whole event.

 

[NeoShinGundam]

Thanks for all the input guys. This came out of a story idea I had, and I wondered if it was too convoluted to work (it still looks that way). Still, I'm going to write up a version and see if I can't get an answer from Michio Kaku or Carl Sagan. See what the big-wigs think.

If you're planning on getting a comment from Carl Sagan, you might want to start with creating a working time machine yourself, or perhaps find a helpful necromancer...

lol, my bad ^^; I saw his books in Barnes & Noble but didn't realize he had already passed on. Thanks for the tip.

 

[WolfThomas]

Comics tells me that if time travel was actually possible it would create a new alternative timeline.

 

[photog212]

Thanks for all the input guys. This came out of a story idea I had, and I wondered if it was too convoluted to work (it still looks that way). Still, I'm going to write up a version and see if I can't get an answer from Michio Kaku or Carl Sagan. See what the big-wigs think.

If you're planning on getting a comment from Carl Sagan, you might want to start with creating a working time machine yourself, or perhaps find a helpful necromancer...

lol, my bad ^^; I saw his books in Barnes & Noble but didn't realize he had already passed on. Thanks for the tip.

Better yet, check out Dr. Ronald Mallett. Might be more interesting to you.