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Author Topic: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel  (Read 11152 times)

justboatonic

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Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« on: February 13, 2010, 12:34:42 pm »

OK, I think we provided a robust argument to explain why the galaxy isnt teeming with intelligent civilisations. People can argue we havent been looking long enough but the fact remains, if there were so many, we'd be falling over them.

But I digress. There are a number of other simialr scenarios which, for whatever reason, people like to believe are possible. Like the Kennedy assasination conspiracy, people seem to have no problem whatsoever in believing in them or, that one day they will become possible.

Take for example time travel. Well founded in sci fi. It happens oh so easily in Doctor Who, Star Trek and goodness knows how many other forms of the sci fi genre. Time travel isnt possible. It never will be possible. Why? Well if time travel is possible, where are all the 'time tourists'? Oh another they cant make themselves known argument.

But again, like the populuos galaxy, they would give themselves away. Intentional or not, they'd make mistakes. They would interfer just like an erant driver on a motorway may unintentionally cause a traffic jam by having a break down in the middle lane. The knock on effect would become apparent.

They wouldnt just travel to our time, they'd go further back. So how do we know our history hasnt been changed many times?

How, because we have consistent recollections of history handed down to us. We know that ancient Greeks didnt make the leap of discovering steam mechanics. We know the Roman Empire still fell. We know the Renaisance still happened. We know two world wars were raged.

If time travel was possible even way in the future, they havent come this way.

Of course there are theories that you cannot go back in time before the 'time machine' was made. But all you have to do to get around this, is find those other advance intelligent civilisations in the galaxy and 'borrow' their time machine that was built long in our past.

Even so, there are still no time tourists because time travel will never be possible.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #1 on: February 13, 2010, 01:00:22 pm »

That's that then!
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Roger in France

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #2 on: February 13, 2010, 01:13:01 pm »

But surely in an infinite universe and in infinite time everything is possible, it was, is and will be?

The reason we do not know about or detect these things is because they are all an infinite distance and an infinite time from us, perhaps?

Roger in France
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Bunkerbarge

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #3 on: February 13, 2010, 01:33:29 pm »


If time travel was possible even way in the future, they havent come this way.


How do you know that?  How do you know that this generation's knowledge of history hasn't already been rewritten by a time traveller who has already changed it?  We would never know, and that is why we will never know whether any one has travelled back in time or not!

Time travel is only not possible within our current range of perception which clearly dictates that matter cannot be either created nor destroyed but who is to say that this will not change in thousands of years to come?  There again maybe we will destroy ourselves long before we discover how to achieve time travel.

Also from what I remember according to Einsteins theory of relativity didn't he prove that time travel was possible?

I still think that people are restrained by thier current learnings and most people find it difficult to understand the concept of infinity.  If our existance is within an infinate space then who is to say what is outside our current experience?  It is a bit narrow minded to think that we have decided that there is nothing else out there because we haven't experienced it yet just as much as it is to say that something cannot possibly happen in the future because we cannot imagine it.  Time will stretch on infinitely forward as it has stretched on infinately behind us and we cannot possibly even imagine what lies ahead millions of billions of years from now.

I think we are now considering time travel within the popular concepts provided to us by the media and we find ourselves restrained by thier shortcomings.  Concepts such as 'Time Tourists', "making themselves known' and 'making mistakes' are all concepts generated by current media and we have to think considerably further outside the box than that.  Until you really start to think this way tou will always follow the popular arguments and be restrained by them.

Lets try this, how do we know that we will be able to see time travellers?....or hear them.  How do we know that in the future time travel isn't common but only possible as a spirit form?  How do we know that the world should have been devastated yesterday by a nuclear holocaust but the few survivors went on to create a far greater civilisatiion which, many thousands of years in the future went back in time to prevent it happening and that is what we now see as yesterdays history?

I would say get away from the media driven theories and think a bit more abstract about it all.
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malcolmfrary

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #4 on: February 13, 2010, 02:36:26 pm »

"They" might have been here from whenever, and convinced us that time travel is impossible. And very convincingly, so we can't twig the secret.  On the other, more likely, hand, since time travel is impossible (apart from forward, at the rate we are going) "they" probably haven't.

And on the other, third, hand, Julian May's Exile Saga is a good yarn, cheerfully explaining much of Celtic mythology.
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toesupwa

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #5 on: February 13, 2010, 03:14:01 pm »


People can argue we havent been looking long enough but the fact remains, if there were so many, we'd be falling over them.


Imagine the Galaxy as the Atlantic ocean...

Imagine the radio waves we are sending out looking for other intelligent life forms (non here!) as the ripples on the water from the stone we just threw in to the sea at Newquay Harbour 10 seconds ago...

Just put's it in perspective eh...  {:-{
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toesupwa

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #6 on: February 13, 2010, 03:14:54 pm »

Time travel?...

Oh yeah!, some are still in the stone age...  ;D
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tobyker

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2010, 11:09:29 pm »

On a point of order. Hero of Alexandria did build a steam engine among other things, but most of his inventions were suppressed by the Romans, who a. had a very severe case of "not invented here" syndrome, and b. needed to keep the women and slaves busy and weren't about to allow steam powered washing machines and temple door opening devices to be manufactured.
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dodgy geezer

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #8 on: February 14, 2010, 01:42:59 am »

OK, I think we provided a robust argument to explain why the galaxy isnt teeming with intelligent civilisations. People can argue we havent been looking long enough but the fact remains, if there were so many, we'd be falling over them.

I'm not at all sure that you did. You just paused for a while...

Time travel isnt possible. It never will be possible. Why? Well if time travel is possible, where are all the 'time tourists'? Oh another they cant make themselves known argument.

Well, it's a bit out of my specialist area, but I might hazard a guess that, in the same way that space is very, very big, time might also be very, very big.....


We know that ancient Greeks didnt make the leap of discovering steam mechanics.

I think that tobyker has already pointed out Hero's steam turbine (though I don't know of any evidence that the Romans suppressed any use of such machinery). I might add that Ctesibius's steam engines predate Hero's work by some 200 years, and that both are mentioned with some admiration by Vitruvius, who was a 1st century Roman and certainly not in the business of suppressing engineering inventions.

Steam engines were never suppressed, and have been available to humans ever since antiquity. They were never extensively used until the Industrial Revolution, but that doesn't mean that they didn't exist. Every so often someone tried to develop the idea, but the economics rarely added up. Since this is a marine forum, have a look at Blasco de Garay's 1543 demonstration of a steam paddleship in Barcelona harbour, which is a few hundred years earlier than Newcomen and Watt...

 

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PMK

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #9 on: February 14, 2010, 02:20:27 am »

Even so, there are still no time tourists because time travel will never be possible.

Not so.
For herein, on our planet, grows a particular weed, which, if taken in copious amounts, will take you to just about anywhen you so desire.
Me, I left for planet Pluto roughly twenty minutes ago, and, when I next looked at me watch, it was next Friday already.
Be prepared to lose unexplicable time losses if you wanna get into the realms of time travel.

On the plus side, you do get to learn other little gems, such as the answer to the largest number, etc.
...and things such as what becomes of men when they forget their missus on Valentine's Day.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #10 on: February 14, 2010, 09:24:09 am »

Time travel is perfectly possible - it's just that it is only in one direction....

Oh, and the Romans had heavy artillery using wood and horesehair technology but no less effective for that.

Colin
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dodgy geezer

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #11 on: February 14, 2010, 10:48:51 am »

It is odd to note that the title of this piece is "Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel".

While time travel may be PRACTICALLY impossible (apart from Colin's comment that he can manage 1 hour per hour!), and it is certainly practically impossible for us at the moment, it has been noted for a long time that our current understanding of the laws of physics do NOT forbid time travel, and many people have proposed theoretical techniques to achieve this - things like wormhole manipulation and Tipler cylinders (which Hawking believes won't work)

So the one thing we can't show at the moment is that Time Travel is THEORETICALLY impossible - indeed it seems to be theoretically POSSIBLE. People have recoiled from the paradoxes involved, and suggested that it must be theoretically impossible, but these suggestions are mere conjectures, and nobody has yet been able to show how it can be THEORETICALLY ruled out.

If Justboatatonic does have a theoretical approach which will achieve this, I respectfully suggest that Mayhem is not the ideal place to publish it - for one thing I'm not sure we all have the necessary maths fonts loaded on our systems to be able to view the proof....
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #12 on: February 14, 2010, 11:14:43 am »

There is also another commonly perceived paradox.

If you put an old person and a young person together, time will pass much more quickly for the former than it does for the latter but they will both start and finish at the same point relative to the outside world.  %)

Colin
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bigfella

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #13 on: February 14, 2010, 11:50:12 am »

All depends on what you define Time as. We only know time in seconds minutes hours days etc. What is time??? Time could be something that we just don't know the full extent of, what if there was more to it. Humans are only just starting to reach their true potential and anything is possible.

Regards David
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dodgy geezer

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #14 on: February 14, 2010, 12:37:31 pm »

There is also another commonly perceived paradox.

If you put an old person and a young person together, time will pass much more quickly for the former than it does for the latter but they will both start and finish at the same point relative to the outside world.  %)

Colin


Alas, Colin, you are talking about perception rather than the physical entity that time actually is.

You will find a lot of this covered in Edmund Husserl's 'Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness' - a seminal book in the field and one that caused me a lot of headache as an undergraduate. Heidegger's ' Being and Time' is also worth a glance (or a decade of study, depending on how good you are at following ideas expressed in a technical philosophical language which is a mixture of classical Greek and German.  {:-{ )

Compared to the philosophical school of Phenomenology, relativistic maths is comparatively easy...   
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #15 on: February 14, 2010, 01:08:32 pm »

Quote
Alas, Colin, you are talking about perception rather than the physical entity that time actually is.

Of course I was aware of it, just seeing if somebody would take it seriously - and you did!

I think, therefore I am, I think - maybe? But not too much on a Sunday morning. I'd rather just read the papers...

Colin
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dodgy geezer

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #16 on: February 14, 2010, 02:38:50 pm »

Of course I was aware of it, just seeing if somebody would take it seriously - and you did!

I think, therefore I am, I think - maybe? But not too much on a Sunday morning. I'd rather just read the papers...

Colin

Ah - I apologise - I'm heavily autistic, and only ever consider things seriously...

If you want a bit of light reading on some aspects of Husserl's comments on time, there is a one-pager here:

http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~davidt/TimeHsrl.html

More Sunday afternoon in the pub than Sunday morning..... :-)
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malcolmfrary

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #17 on: February 14, 2010, 05:39:51 pm »

Quote
I think, therefore I am, I think - maybe?
or even - "I think I am, therefore I might be"
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dodgy geezer

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #18 on: February 14, 2010, 07:06:02 pm »

I think I am Dodgy Geezer, therefore I am Dodgy Geezer....

Yup, seems to work...
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #19 on: February 14, 2010, 07:25:29 pm »

But you could be Geezer Dodgy - how would we know?
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justboatonic

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #20 on: February 14, 2010, 09:26:26 pm »

How do you know that?  How do you know that this generation's knowledge of history hasn't already been rewritten by a time traveller who has already changed it?  We would never know, and that is why we will never know whether any one has travelled back in time or not!

Time travel is only not possible within our current range of perception which clearly dictates that matter cannot be either created nor destroyed but who is to say that this will not change in thousands of years to come?  There again maybe we will destroy ourselves long before we discover how to achieve time travel.

Also from what I remember according to Einsteins theory of relativity didn't he prove that time travel was possible?

I still think that people are restrained by thier current learnings and most people find it difficult to understand the concept of infinity.  If our existance is within an infinate space then who is to say what is outside our current experience?  It is a bit narrow minded to think that we have decided that there is nothing else out there because we haven't experienced it yet just as much as it is to say that something cannot possibly happen in the future because we cannot imagine it.  Time will stretch on infinitely forward as it has stretched on infinately behind us and we cannot possibly even imagine what lies ahead millions of billions of years from now.

I think we are now considering time travel within the popular concepts provided to us by the media and we find ourselves restrained by thier shortcomings.  Concepts such as 'Time Tourists', "making themselves known' and 'making mistakes' are all concepts generated by current media and we have to think considerably further outside the box than that.  Until you really start to think this way tou will always follow the popular arguments and be restrained by them.

Lets try this, how do we know that we will be able to see time travellers?....or hear them.  How do we know that in the future time travel isn't common but only possible as a spirit form?  How do we know that the world should have been devastated yesterday by a nuclear holocaust but the few survivors went on to create a far greater civilisatiion which, many thousands of years in the future went back in time to prevent it happening and that is what we now see as yesterdays history?

I would say get away from the media driven theories and think a bit more abstract about it all.

Some very abstract 'what if's' there BB! So, not only are time tourists possible but, they also have the ability to be invisible and unheard. Hmmmm.

Nope. as with all these things, occam's razor applies even before we go on to consider the physics involved.
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dodgy geezer

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #21 on: February 14, 2010, 09:47:28 pm »

But you could be Geezer Dodgy - how would we know?

More to the point, how would I know?

I know, I'll ask the wife....
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DARLEK1

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #22 on: February 14, 2010, 09:56:25 pm »

Who cares???

 Paul... %)
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malcolmfrary

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #23 on: February 15, 2010, 07:02:10 pm »

Quote
Nope. as with all these things, occam's razor applies even before we go on to consider the physics involved.
Would that be the one with 5 blades, or the electric version?
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justboatonic

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Re: Theoretical impossibles - Time Travel
« Reply #24 on: February 17, 2010, 08:25:52 pm »

Would that be the one with 5 blades, or the electric version?

Erm, the simplest one  :-))
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