If so, how come? Can you give any reasons? And if not, why not?
2006-08-29 22:52:52 · 15 answers · asked by Jaded 7 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Wow, thank you everyone for your cool answers. I needed to read all them over a few times before i could even follow lol. Thanks guys! :))
2006-08-30 05:10:05 · update #1
You haven't defined time travel. Technically, we are all time travelers... we're all moving forward in time, at the same rate.
But I know what you mean. No, backward time travel will never, ever be possible.
Ever.
The reason is that the more we understand the universe and physics, the more we discover that "there ain't no free lunch." There are laws that the total amount of energy in a system remains constant, laws that say the amount of spin in a closed system cannot change, etc. It goes on and on. I'm not a physicist, but I play one on TV ;)
My feeling is that time travel, as you mean it, would result in free lunches, composed of information if nothing else. Which industries to invest in, who should get married so they can give birth to you. There are too many paradoxes to solve. I believe the universe just wouldn't allow it.
I read a science fiction story a long time ago. Aliens figured out how to make a real, working time machine. They gave the plans for it to their wartime enemies. Why? Because the enemies tried to build it, and ...coincidentally... awful things kept happening to them, because the universe wanted to keep time travel from occurring. Cool story.
2006-08-29 23:00:37 · answer #1 · answered by KALEL 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Time travel may be possible. Unfortunately, our current understanding of engineering does not allow us to construct the necessary machinery.
Once a person moves backwards in time it may be impossible to return to the original time-stream where the person started. They will have moved back to what is essentially a bifurcation point, and the future to which they might return will have been altered by their presence in the past.
With a minimum of meddling, the future to which they return may resemble the environment from which they began their journey. However, it will not be exactly the same.
edit 1: I dislike the word impossible. While it may be impossible to return to the time-stream of origin with the effects of tampering with the past in place, I do not see a reason to preclude the possibility of returning to the origin of a backwards journey. The person would return to where and when they started with no changes to the past. I do not know if a person could retain the memories of their trip, but wouldn't this possibility present some interesting vacation options?
edit 2: Sure, why not. Throw in a future capability to tamper with our memories, and we may discover that we have merely been sent to the time and place where we find ourselves to teach us a lesson or two. What will we take back with us when the memories of our other "lives" are returned to our conscious minds?
2006-08-29 23:02:48 · answer #2 · answered by El Gringo 237 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There was some scientist that stated that if you had a spaceship that were able to travel at the spead of light, and you took to twins... Put one on the ship, and lunched it out in space for say 20 years, while the other stayed on Earth. When the ship gets back, the one that was in the ship would be younger. It is very possible, just not probable...
Go to www. pbs.org/wgbh/nova/time/think02.html
2006-08-30 00:09:46 · answer #3 · answered by Joe K 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not possible, because time is connected to experience; it's the element in experience that allows the mind to put things in order. If it were possible for something from a later time to get into an earlier time, there wouldn't be an unambiguous way to order the experience of observing that, and time would not be time but a kind of space. Something else would have to be time instead.
2006-08-29 23:05:06 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
For now, no.
Because time is the 4th dimension, and the ability to move from point to point in the forth dimension requires the power to fork time, which is the 5th Dimension.
Theories abound that Light is time, where speed gets nearer to light, the more time slows, and when velocity= light the object moving at light speed is basically stand still in time, so to move into the past, it is required for an object to move faster than light.
However, physical laws dictate that when speed= light, mass/weight = infinity and will be instantly destroyed
2006-08-29 23:02:05 · answer #5 · answered by shadow 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it depends on ur definition of time travel. is it go back in time? go into the future? or simply slow down time?
for the 1st 2 scenarios i think it's nt possible...
if it is...then we should be getting visits by people from the future...
for the 3rd scenario, it has already been proven that when we are traveling at high speed(speed of light), time would slow down. By about a factor of 7. Which means 7 second at normal speed would be equilvilent to 1 second at high speed..
2006-08-29 23:03:14 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No not possible, our molecular structure is made up of atoms the same as atoms that make up light. We would stretch out to follow light atoms and could not be reconstructed to our original form, as our atoms would disperse in all directions and dimensions.
2006-08-29 23:04:09 · answer #7 · answered by wolfs_on_mars 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You need a flux capacitor, some Plutonium, and a stylish Delorean that hit at least 88 MPH and produce 21.1 gigawatts of electricity.
2006-08-29 22:58:42 · answer #8 · answered by Nemesis 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
No.
Its science fiction.
Its the same with flying cars and laser guns and swords, its not feasible.
2006-08-29 23:32:37 · answer #9 · answered by Saffren 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No.
if it was possible shouldn't we be meeting people from the future !!
2006-08-29 22:55:59 · answer #10 · answered by srihari_reddy_s 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋