Time travel science

[Pikamemnon]

(not sure if this is the right section or not)

Up until now most if not all examples of time travel that I have seen ended badly in one way or another. Then I started watching Quantum leap and was almost ready to declare that the trend had been broken and that it could indeed have a positive outcome. The hero of the show Dr. Beckett, strives to put right what once went wrong and often accomplishes a lot of good deeds. But then I got to the final episode, which leaves the answer as somewhat unclear..

Spoiler

While Sam Beckett does help a great deal of people, his story does not have a happy ending according to the stated goal in the opening credits. It even appears to be one of those cases of self sacrifice for the greater good or something like that. Nevermind the question of what becomes of Sam's original timeline once he makes the major change to Al's life. It is quite the conundrum..

Philosophical disscussion?

[Providence]

It's very hard to have a philosophical discussion about something that no one seems able to discuss with basis.

[JoeTang]

Pikamemnon thread.

[Justin]

Y'know, there WAS a reason no one replied to this thread for 3 days.

[Hanabira.Kage]

Y'know, there WAS a reason no one replied to this thread for 3 days.

c

[Pikamemnon]

I am more interested in if anyone has examples of when time travel does not end in diasaster because even in science fiction, it seems to rarely have a positive effect.

Pikamemnon thread.

Wrong section for spam bud.

[Words]

I am more interested in if anyone has examples of when time travel does not end in diasaster because even in science fiction, it seems to rarely have a positive effect.

Even if it doesn't end in disaster the universe would autocorrect itself as if nothing had happened.

[Unauthorized Intruder]

I thought it was proven time traveling is impossible.

[Words]

I thought it was proven time traveling is impossible.

That's one way the universe autocorrects itself.
Or prevents stuff from happening, sort of "preventing autocorrect".

[IllegallySane]

I thought it was proven time traveling is impossible.

For us, maybe. There's a whole universe out there that we can't be the ONLY sentient beings. And alien technology, enough said.

[Luxeraph]

I am more interested in if anyone has examples of when time travel does not end in diasaster because even in science fiction, it seems to rarely have a positive effect.

The only place where time travel always ends up in disaster is on science fiction since its used to make a story interesting, as I think anyone seeing enough time travel stories would know that if time travel was possible there would be only two logical scenarios the first being that you're in your timeline and no matter what you do, you wont change the future because your present has already been changed by you in the past and second you can change EVERYTHING but thats because is a parallel universe/timeline and it wont affect your own time, anything outside that is nonsense used by writers to make their dull story interesting.

[ChaosCorpse]

As of now there is a sound theory that can be used to travel to the future, but the past is something completely different. In order to travel to the future (relative), you need only travel really fast; such as being in a marginally safe orbit of a black hole. ... Though now that I think of it, wasn't general relativity broken a while back? I never kept up with that story.

I shame myself by not keeping up with this stuff; as a former founder of a theoretical physics club and all.

[Celan]

time travel is not possible.
As example:
You travle back into the past a minute. that's when you decided you will timetravel.
You would move the timetravel itself, because your past you would go into the time machine later than you did. So basicly, you pineapple up your own mind.
And timetraveling into the future to see your future's self is also not possible. You went into the time machine, trough a time and space paradox, AND faster than time. You would basicly disappear for the time between your time and the destiated time. Because you would age as fast as time.
Sooo that's it. Time travel not possible. At least not untill timespace manipulation.

[Razmos]

'Time' as we know it is a human concept. Scientists saying things are impossible is bullpomegranate because there are clearly things we don't understand or are learning every day. Things which you could think are impossible (like organisms which can live without oxygen) become possible with each new leap in technology and understanding. Even our most basic of laws like gravity are being challenged with new findings.

Time travel in many forms could indeed be possible somewhere in the universe, but i seriously doubt any of us will see it in our lifetime.

[Thugnificent]

To be honest I think time travel is possible. However, it is only relative to oneself and one can only "travel" to the past. To accomplish this time travel one must simply remember their past. If you recall a past memory you can basically reappear in the past, only thing is that you cannot interact. Just my thoughts on time travel.

[Alloy]

Too many theories. So many possibilities. Let's list a few.

1. Time is prone to change. Changes apply instantly. If those changes imply a possibility of that time travel to have never suceeded, unstable time paradox happens, terminating existence of time further ahead.
2. Time is unchangeable. Traveling back to the past was already predestined, and would have happened regardless. thus being unable to change anything.
3. Time is branchable. Traveling to the past creates an alternate timeline where you coexist with your past self. Going further ahead back to the present would have your own alternate present self if you forced the time travel to never happen. No way to return to your original timeline.
4. Time is both unchangeable and branchable. If there's a main timeline, unchangeable, and possible branches caused by time travelers going back to "mend" the timeline, thus redirecting the main one, there'd be a main "story", unalterable.
5. Time travel is impossible. It is completely impossible to change the coordinates of your current place in time. Even though it has been proven that certain particles can hop small gaps backwards or forwards in time.

What to think of all this? Nobody has a definite answer yet, so it's up to you. For now.

'Time' as we know it is a human concept. Scientists saying things are impossible is bullpomegranate because there are clearly things we don't understand or are learning every day. Things which you could think are impossible (like organisms which can live without oxygen) become possible with each new leap in technology and understanding. Even our most basic of laws like gravity are being challenged with new findings.

Time travel in many forms could indeed be possible somewhere in the universe, but i seriously doubt any of us will see it in our lifetime.

Fun fact. If time travel exists, you could technically see a time traveler anywhere in the timeline, technically.

[Razmos]

Fun fact. If time travel exists, you could technically see a time traveler anywhere in the timeline, technically.

It's also technically possible that the time that's already passed and the time that the time traveler arrives in could be different. The timeline would split just from that person being there, no matter how careful they are, they would affect the future. If we haven't seen any time travelers its probably just because they are in a different reality of sorts.
That's my theory.

The way that i see it, each second of every minute is lost forever once it passes, a good example would Stephen Kings 'The Langoliers' where the plane travels backwards in time to a hollow second which has already passed and is decaying into nothing. So i don't think travelling back in time to a point that has already passed is possible, because that implies that time is a tangible thing, which it isn't.

[Holypie]

My personal favourite time travel theories are the branching timelines one (this avoids paradoxes), and Homestuck's version with stable timeloops and doomed timelines (basically what happens is that basically instead of time being in a single dimension, it can sort of be "wrapped back" and then a later future version of the time traveller coexists with the present version, who will later become the future version. Any deviation from this (for example, the "present self" doesn't travel back in time to become the future self) will result in a doomed timeline where all inhabitants are destined to die. (that was badly explained, but whatever)).

[Alloy]

The way that i see it, each second of every minute is lost forever once it passes, a good example would Stephen Kings 'The Langoliers' where the plane travels backwards in time to a hollow second which has already passed and is decaying into nothing. So i don't think travelling back in time to a point that has already passed is possible, because that implies that time is a tangible thing, which it isn't.

Time is as tangible as the lenght of an object.

Consider that as you wish.

[FallenStar]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uwuLxrv8jY