Is Time Travel (going backwards) Possible?

Bullgrit · Oct 16, 2012

In your opinion or educated knowledge, is it possible to travel through time (backward and forward again)? [I don't mean possible with current science, but possible to do at all, even in the far, advanced scientific future.]

I'm not talking about dual timelines, or splitting timelines, or anything other than true travel up and down our "real" timeline.

Bullgrit

Scott DeWar · Oct 16, 2012

I don't think so, just because if you travel forward, you would be able to change it, changing it possibly creating a paradox.

Hand of Evil · Oct 16, 2012

Guess it depends on your view of time, is it linear or a ball of string that is always looping back on itself?

If linear, I don't think so. You become part of the timeline or are unable to because time would be a barrier.

If a ball of string, you create alterations (loops and alternates) and overall the time line is not impacted, just the period you are there.

Morrus · Oct 16, 2012

No, because Hitler existed. If time travel were ever to become possible, his bedroom would have been be filled every night with thousands of would-be asssssins from the future.

I guess it's possible that time travellers from the future are very circumspect when they go into the past, but that doesn't seem likely to me. Humanity doesn't exactly have the "circumspect" trait down as as a species. And it would only take one or two idiots out of potentially millions upon millions of future time travellers.

So, in my opinion, if time travel is ever going to become possible in the future, we'd know about it now.

Stumblewyk · Oct 16, 2012

Morrus said:
So, in my opinion, if time travel is ever going to become possible in the future, we'd know about it now.

This. I honestly believe if it were possible to travel backwards in time, someone, somewhere would turn it into a vacation of sorts. You'd see time travelers visiting key points in history to "be there" and witness it in person.

Hell, I'd pony up the dough to do it. Wouldn't you like to have been there when the Declaration of Independence was signed? Or the Magna Carta, or the Treaty at Versailles? Witness a pyramid be built, see ancient Greece in all it's glory? Be at a safe distance when Mt. Vesuvius erupted?

And with all these vacation destinations available to future society, don't you think one of the morons they send back in time would screw up, would reveal that though they're dressed in a appropriate garb and trained to speak in a language or accent appropriate for the time period and place (or given a "babel fish" of some sort), that one of them would give up the goat and pull out a future cell phone to take a picture for that future Facebook page?

And if one idiot would do it, it stands to reason that thousands, maybe millions would as well.

No, time travel back in time is not possible. If it was, we'd know all about it because some idiot from the future would have let the secret slip out.

Kaodi · Oct 17, 2012

Morrus said:
No, because Hitler existed. If time travel were ever to become possible, his bedroom would have been be filled every night with thousands of would-be asssssins from the future.

In my view this is actually completely incorrect. Going back in time more than a couple months has potential to be FAR more evil than even a combination of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the like.

When you go back in time and change things, you completely alter the outcome. Going back in time to kill Hitler (or do anything else for that matter) would also have the effect of murdering almost every single person who was born after that; billions of people.

Edit: Also, I cannot think that "space" travel ~~has~~ does not have to be taken into account during time travel. And that could just lead to wacky things, like it being impossible: either physically or in terms of surviving it.

RSKennan · Oct 17, 2012

I agree that same-timeline backwards time travel is almost certainly impossible, but forward time travel isn't. Just approaching the speed of light should do it.

And despite the OP's prohibition, there's less of a case against time travel that *does* split the timelines. Sure you can kill Hitler, but there's an infinite number of other Hitlers left. Assuming the Many-Worlds theory is true, which I like to believe it is, if only because it's cool.

Hand of Evil · Oct 17, 2012

RSKennan said:
I agree that same-timeline backwards time travel is almost certainly impossible, but forward time travel isn't. Just approaching the speed of light should do it.

But you are not travelling in time, you are just viewing it.

RSKennan · Oct 17, 2012

Hand of Evil said:
But you are not travelling in time, you are just viewing it.

How do you figure? Travel near c time slows down for your frame of reference. Stop travelling near c, and bam, you're in the future. Sure, you pass through the intervening time at an accellerated rate, but you still get to the future in a shorter period of time than it would take if you had stayed "still" and waited it out.

Morrus · Oct 17, 2012

RSKennan said:
How do you figure? Travel near c time slows down for your frame of reference. Stop travelling near c, and bam, you're in the future. Sure, you pass through the intervening time at an accellerated rate, but you still get to the future in a shorter period of time than it would take if you had stayed "still" and waited it out.

Yup. You're time travelling into the future right now. Bam - now you,re in the future - you travelled forward a second! It's easy! Accelerating lets you do it faster than other people, of course, and that's the only context in which it makes sense here.

Time travel without space travel? You're safe in a TARDIS; not in a DeLorean (unless Doc Brown was keeping the teleportation power secret). The Earth is millions and millions of miles away from where it was in 1942 (heck, not just its orbit - how far does the sun move in the time?). You'd find yourself floating in space.