Is it possible to travel to the past and "back" to the future again?

Question

My basic question is this. Suppose you build a time machine and travel back 40 years in the past as a 50 year old man, Will you still be a 50 year old person in 1966 or will you be a boy of 10? If somehow you make it to the past, is it possible to travel "back" into the future? Or is it impossible because the future hasn't happend yet? I am just curious and this is strictly theoretical!

Thanks!

Answer 1

the only way to travel forward in time is to reach and pass the speed of light, 186,000 miles/second. if you left the planet faster than the speed of light and went to the moon it seems to me that you could watch yourself approach your target. that would make you younger than when you left i think. physics does not allow this so far. the other possible way would involve the use of "worm holes" which are not yet proven to exist .....yet. Although in the movie Back to the future, they somehow did it! LOL. good question!

Answer 2

Popular Science had an article on time travel a year or so ago. The conclusion was that time travel to the future is accomplished by relativistic time dilation, and to the past is possible via wormhole, BUT the wormhols must be set up first. That is, if we set one up today, tomorrow you could travel back to today, but you could not get to yesterday because there was no wormhole yet. This is nice because it explains why we have seen no time travellers yet.

I looked, there is another article which seems to suggest there is not this limit: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/83c4e288d12c6010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html.

As to your question: the point of time travel would be to move you, with your personal time line, into a previous one, so you would remain your current age. Moving back to your start position would certainly be possible - as above, we know how to do that now - but whether it would be the same future or some "Back to the Future"-like parallel future I cannot tell.

Answer 3

Going forward is the easy part. You can do that now. Time dilation will slow down your experienced time to a crawl as you approach the speed of light. If you approach it closely enough, you will effectively stop aging as the universe spins past. The energy cost is enormous, however.

As far as going backward... I tend to believe that the past doesn't really exist. There are theories involving the use of wormholes, but I think these really just involve a more complex sense of 'now' rather than actual travel in any direction other than forward (even forward travel can be thought of changing now instead of actually moving in time).

No time machine ever accurately theorized to date will allow transport to a time before the machine came into operation... so even if you are liberal about such things, we aren't going to see anyone from the future until we can go there ourselves. Nor will your example even be possible.

Of course, since your entire time machine is completely hypothetical, you can have it operate in any hypothetical manner you choose, if you like. ( :

Answer 4

I guess it all depends on your theoretical machine. But if it's like the one proposed by HG Wells, you'll be a 50 year old man that will be able to get out of the machine and talk to your 10 year old self. Give youself some stock tips while your at it.

Answer 5

Ok..your first question. If you traveled back in time 40 years, you would still be the same age, because you, yourself went back in time. You could even visit your younger self. But I wouldn't advise doing that because you could alter your future that way. Your second question: I would imagine if you were able to travel back in time that it stands to reason that you could travel back to the future as well. Because remember, the future has happend, it just happens in the future.

But in all actuality I don't think time travel is possible. I don't think the universe would allow it. The reason why is because what if you went back in time and killed your younger self? Then your younger self would not have had the opportunity to grow older, and travel back in time to kill the younger self. So how would the younger self have gotten killed? And if he did get killed, how would he be able to kill the younger self again? It's a paradox. It can't happen, so nature restricts that situation from being even close to happening by not allowing time travel in the first place.

Answer 6

Sure. I moved from a technologically advanced major metropolitan city to a small rural town. It's at least 50 years behind our current times. I go back & forth to the big city 50 yrs forward and back at least once a week and I'm still the same age.'

Answer 7

Here's a paradox for you on time travel.
Suppose you traveled back in time and killed your grandfather before he met your grandmother. As a result, one of your parents (and by extension, you) would never have been conceived, so you could not have traveled back in time after all. In that case, your grandfather would still be alive and you would have been conceived, allowing you to travel back in time and kill your grandfather, and so on. According to this theory you would be stuck in an endless time-loop from which there would be no possible escape. You would, however, never know of this loop.

Answer 8

It's impossible to go back to past or go to future. So, whatever you say here is imaginary.

It's impossible to go back to past or go to future because either past or future doesn't exist. They are just names and human use it just to refer time. Just like you can't go to a place which doesn't exist.The imaginary of going past and future is based on the belief that they exist eternally.In raelity, they don't exist eternally. Clear?

Answer 9

One theory I heard was that you can only travel forward in time then back no early to when the machine was created.

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Answer 10

Using what they have now, you go back thru a warp or breach in time. Your current age is your age when you arrive. If you want to come back, just comeback. The future you left must still exist, otherwise, how did you leave it to go back.