Theoritically is it possible to travel back in time, come back in the present and then change the course of humankind for the better?
2006-11-28 11:33:37 · 6 answers · asked by ibid 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Theoretically, no, not according to our current understanding. In fact, that would violate causality, because an effect would then predate it's cause
2006-11-28 11:37:25 · answer #1 · answered by Gary H 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. At least, not at the macroscopic level.
The main reason why is because our universe is non-deterministic. Without going into a lot of details, this means everything affects everything else.
This means if the simply "observing" the past alters the state of the future. This doesn't mean watching recorded video though. This means opening a hole in space-time would alter the past immediately, thus altering the future.
To get an idea of this kind of feedback, hook up a video camera to a TV, then point the camera at the TV. Every single jiggle and shake of the camera alters what's on the screen, which in turn alters what the camera sees, which in turn alters the screen, so on and so forth.
Even if time travel were possible, you would have no way to predict what kind of drastic effects your actions would have on the future. A common example is to go back and kill Hitler.
With Hitler dead, supposedly you saved the lives of thousands. But that's thousands of people who did not live before. There is no telling if one of them becomes a leader and does something 100 times worse. Or if one of them develope the atomic bomb and sells the technology to Mussolini (since without WWII, the US probably wouldn't have invested as much research into it).
With all that said, there are some theories that state under extreme circumstances that time may not behave "correctly". For instance, no one is quite sure what happens inside of a singularity (black hole) where space-time can be folded over itself. Also, it may be possible that extremely high energy particles could "tunnel" through the light barrier.
~X~
2006-11-28 20:45:33 · answer #2 · answered by X 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, what you describe isn't possible. Time is not a NATURAL feature of our universe but simply a concept invented by humans to separate events into past, present and future. There's no physical "past" following along behind us, nor any physical "future" up ahead waiting for us to get there. The closest we can get to a kind of time travel is under the terms of relativity.
2006-11-28 19:41:00 · answer #3 · answered by Chug-a-Lug 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
First ask, what is time?
Is it real or just man made.
If you rewind your watch, will you go back in time?
Time is just a mathimatical measurement created by humans to measure the movements of celestial bodies, like the rotation of Earth on its own axis, or its orbit around the sun. How long is day and night.
Time measures events, and events that have past cannot be undone.
The past can only be seen, like everything you see in the sky, you are seeing the past of that object, since stars and galaxies are some light years away, you are seeing what that looked like those moments light years away in time.
Traveling faster then the speed of light does'nt take you back in time, it just gets you to where you want to go alot faster, enen faster than you image may travel, making you vertually invisible.
Soo, time travel is only posible in hollywood and science fiction novels.
2006-11-28 20:14:45 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
theoretically yes - but just on quantumn level
physically no, cause mankind not yet figured how to determine a subatomic particles speed and location at the same time
the only yet known way timetravelling would possibly work is travelling into the future by speeding yourself up to a good portion of the speed of light.
to our misfortune even that is impossible with current technology
there is a small chance scientists figured a way sending back information in time.
2006-11-28 19:47:13 · answer #5 · answered by blondnirvana 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
If you move faster than the speed of light past the point where you would move forward in time. It's weird but you have to travel forward to go back.
Say a spaceship it traveling faster than the speed of light. In one light year, the people on the spaceship will have aged 1 year, while everyone else on Earth would be long dead.
If you spin a cylinder clockwise at the speed of light, and you move counterclockwise around the cylinder at the speed of light, theoretically, it is possible to travel backwards in time.
Good Luck though!
2006-11-28 19:40:58 · answer #6 · answered by Jerse 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋