You find out how to time travel, do you tell anyone?
- Thread starter TheScottishFella
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Jim Gaffigan quote FTW!FirearmsKill said:
OT: I wouldn't tell a soul, I wouldn't trust anyone but myself with that technology. Imagine if some power hungry politician used it. Scary stuff there.
If I'm able to time travel I might as well invent something to be invisible. So I would just go back and observe people. Not that stalking kind of thing, just watch people go through their daily lives. Actually screw the time machine, I want to be an invisible spectator!
Invent time travel = create alternate universe?Rellik San said:Ah but then that requires a belief that time is constant and things are preordained. How do we know you just wouldn't create fractal universes when you alter something, or that maybe you're meant to go alter a specific event? But then that requires a belief in predestination, in which case, what's the point of time travel? Time is not a linear concept on a universal scale.Arqus_Zed said:
I've heard that one before, but I'm not sure how I feel about that theory...
Would be awesome though
I don't believe in preordained things, fate or destiny, that kind of stuff. I see life as a game, there are certain rules that can't be broken, but anything can happen and stories are written as they go.
And yes, I've heard the whole "time is not like the flow of a river, more like the expanding ripples in the water after throwing a rock in a lake" story before.
I just don't believe it's possible to invent time travel and then go to a period when time travel didn't exist yet. One could also presume that's the reason why we haven't seen time travelers yet.
i'd find a hot twenty-something, and go around preventing disasters.
also, i'd find the outfit that stood out most anywere.
also, i'd find the outfit that stood out most anywere.
Time travel is a funny concept. When you think about it there is no reason to really attempt it all you have to do is consider how you would begin making it and then consider the thought that if you succeed you would travel back and give it to yourself. Thus if you were going to create it it would simply appear before you. Also if anyone ever created a time travel machine chances are for some reason they would come back to this time, therefore if time travel did ever exist we would already know about it. Hell we would probably have known about it for years. So unfortunately I already know I won't invent it.
Back to the Future part 2.Arqus_Zed said:Invent time travel = create alternate universe?
I've heard that one before, but I'm not sure how I feel about that theory...
Would be awesome though
I don't believe in preordained things, fate or destiny, that kind of stuff. I see life as a game, there are certain rules that can't be broken, but anything can happen and stories are written as they go.
And yes, I've heard the whole "time is not like the flow of a river, more like the expanding ripples in the water after throwing a rock in a lake" story before.
I just don't believe it's possible to invent time travel and then go to a period when time travel didn't exist yet. One could also presume that's the reason why we haven't seen time travelers yet.
Why does existence need rules, sure on a moral value and such, but why should our existence be bound by anything but our understanding of the universe, if we learn to manipulate time, who's to say where and when we can't travel.
There was a time travel experiment a fairly famous one, I'll look for the information on it and post it when I found it, but scientists sent a particle back in time by one second... but in that second before it arrived, it hadn't yet been sent back, so for that one second time travel wasn't invented, when it had arrived.
I'd don't think I would tell anyone or use it myself seeing as if my theory is correct you would never be able to get back and permanently erase your place in the world and everyone you know if you make any changes in the past. See here for details:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=3367
Basically even a change that set someone's day by a few seconds would change the person they give birth to, as which sperm is the one to fertilise an egg is massively random and changing that could change the gender and attributes of the offspring, and the ripple effect would end up making that everyone you know.
Even if you only went back a few hours you would remove your future self's reason to time travel, meaning you won't have a place to return to where there is only one of you.
[note all this assumes you are immune to the changes you make to the timeline, if you aren't it would be even more useless].
Winning the lottery might at least mean you could start a new life somewhere, but that might be influenced by your past tampering too. Bloody butterfly effect...
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=3367
Basically even a change that set someone's day by a few seconds would change the person they give birth to, as which sperm is the one to fertilise an egg is massively random and changing that could change the gender and attributes of the offspring, and the ripple effect would end up making that everyone you know.
Even if you only went back a few hours you would remove your future self's reason to time travel, meaning you won't have a place to return to where there is only one of you.
[note all this assumes you are immune to the changes you make to the timeline, if you aren't it would be even more useless].
Winning the lottery might at least mean you could start a new life somewhere, but that might be influenced by your past tampering too. Bloody butterfly effect...
Oh, I actually got it from a Thorgal comic bookRellik San said:Back to the Future part 2.Arqus_Zed said:Invent time travel = create alternate universe?
I've heard that one before, but I'm not sure how I feel about that theory...
Would be awesome though
I don't believe in preordained things, fate or destiny, that kind of stuff. I see life as a game, there are certain rules that can't be broken, but anything can happen and stories are written as they go.
And yes, I've heard the whole "time is not like the flow of a river, more like the expanding ripples in the water after throwing a rock in a lake" story before.
I just don't believe it's possible to invent time travel and then go to a period when time travel didn't exist yet. One could also presume that's the reason why we haven't seen time travelers yet.
Why does existence need rules, sure on a moral value and such, but why should our existence be bound by anything but our understanding of the universe, if we learn to manipulate time, who's to say where and when we can't travel.
There was a time travel experiment a fairly famous one, I'll look for the information on it and post it when I found it, but scientists sent a particle back in time by one second... but in that second before it arrived, it hadn't yet been sent back, so for that one second time travel wasn't invented, when it had arrived.
That said, I can see you have a typical scientific understanding of time travel: try to go as far and deep as possible, with nothing but good intentions. That's a wonderful thing, but it's kind of like dynamite and nuclear fusion/fission: imagine how such power could be perverted.
I know particles that travel back in time are known as tachyons. But I thought those were only used in hypothetical situations, you know, thought experiments and stuff...
I'd enlist a series of attractive British women as companions. Other than that, I don't think so.
Nope, I just make sure to know some bitchin' lottery numbers to pick out, win, and leave it at that.
Were I to invent time travel I'd probably end up having to put together a team of special forces-esque people with extremely high moral standards from history to protect the time line from all the douchey corporate execs trying to make money by exploiting natural resources from 66 million years ago.
I wouldn't tell anyone, nor would I touch history. Too much that could get screwed up with the tiniest of actions. I'd definitely go into the future, though, and then come back and see what I could do to change things for the better. Even moreso if I could get some crazy cool implants and such to use and muck about with in our present.
Well it's a fairly popular theory I suppose.Arqus_Zed said:Oh, I actually got it from a Thorgal comic book
That said, I can see you have a typical scientific understanding of time travel: try to go as far and deep as possible, with nothing but good intentions. That's a wonderful thing, but it's kind of like dynamite and nuclear fusion/fission: imagine how such power could be perverted.
I know particles that travel back in time are known as tachyons. But I thought those were only used in hypothetical situations, you know, thought experiments and stuff...
But anything can be perverted, even the internet as it exists now is a target for perversion. In the end its a risk/reward scenario.
Nope they actually managed to find a particle and send it back, I'm purusing the vaults of El Reg where I found the article.
