Do you think time travel is possible?

Question

Just got done watching an interesting video on YouTube about Time Travel so it sort of sparked this question.

I've read some Physics books, and watched a movie on Quantum Physics, but the question boils down to this - is time travel possible?

Answer 1

Yes, I think it is. I don't know if you can go FORWARD in time, but BACKWARDS seems logical. Of course, how do we know that someone from the future has gone back in time and changed the past? If it was done once, why not twice? Three times?

Answer 2

I contend that people do it every day. Since time travel is about relativity, our reality of time is different than the people traveling in airplanes and cars.

Two examples:

With respect to someone in California, if a person boards a plane in Boston and flies for 8 hour at 600 miles per hour to the spot in California, what is the time change relative to the person in California? If you do the math, the person in California actually experiences a tiny bit longer day than the flier.

For fun, consider the following scheduled flight from Tokyo to San Francisco:

United 9690
Operated by All Nippon Airways
Depart: NRT Dec 22 05:05 PM
Arrive: SFO Dec 22 09:10 AM

The flight lands in San Francisco almost 8 hours before it departs Tokyo. Do you know how this time travel is possible? (The flight crosses the International Date Line).

Enjoy

j

Answer 3

Not with our current technology. maybe not ever. There are some expert opinions you should be aware of. One is that of Larry Niven, a well known science fiction author, who presented a paper at MIT titled The Theory and Practice of Time Travel.

In it, he postulates Niven's Law, which states:

If the universe under discussion permits of time travel, eventually there will be so much changing of the past due to time travel that time travel will not be discovered.

There is a corollary to this:

If time travel is not inherently impossible, there may be a inertia to time, such that it resists being changed. Bad things happen to those who try, to prevent them succeeding.

There is also a scholarly paper titled Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation, which Niven stole for one of his stories. This paper has to do with frame dragging, etc.

Niven's story is an example of the corollary in effect, where people find a way to time travel, but their sun (with no prior symptoms) goes nova to prevent them from succeeding.

Answer 4

Possible? Yes
Applicable or Viable? No....not in the forseeable future.

Although tachyon particles travel through time on a whim, regular matter cannot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon

There have been several different theories on how time travel could become viable, but I personally do not believe it will ever be accomplished.

As proof of time travel never being usable try this experiment. Note the date and time of you reading this statement. Make a reminder to yourself that if you (or your decendents) are ever able to use a time machine, they will return to this exact place and time and prove that time travel is possible. If you are serious about your reminder, a time traveler and machine should now appear in your room........
*Wait*
*Wait*
*Wait*

Did one appear? If so, then time travel is possible.
However in the more likely situation that no time machine suddenly appeared, then time travel must not be viable in any forseeable future.

Hope that helps

Answer 5

No. There is nothing to return to or to move ahead to. All that exists is present time. There is nothing else. Notice in the physics trilogy that the only value that remains unchanging is that of "c2". E = mc2, m = E/c2, and c2 = E/m. This is the value that our universe and all in it is composed of - physical time. Were all the mass of our universe reduced to this value, physical time would equal zero. Then there would exist no such concept as past and future, for these concept relate only to that of mass.

Answer 6

we were told once that man cannot travel faster than fifty miles per hour. those speeds are nothing now.... it only a matter of time before we find how. although we shouldn't be messing with time. altering time is dangerous. you should wonder, if it were possible, someone would ve been here by now. so i guess that's a bummer.

Answer 7

No.
You might be able to get into a temporally suspended state, so as to travel forward in time, but to go backwards again?? no way. There is only one reality, and once its gone by, there's no revisiting it.
So make your first trip around this life count.

Answer 8

no