The Impossibility of Time Travel
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The Impossibility of Time Travel
Throughout time, people have dreamed about time travel. They have wished they could go backwards or forwards in time to correct some wrong or just for the hell of it.
It is only now that people are learning to accept that time travel as we
want it will never be possible. This can be seen as a good thing though: If
time travel were possible, the world is likely to be a big mess right now.
Or would it be? It's easiest to think of the process as the trousers of
time. Every time a decision is made a new trouserleg is added at that
point. A new path. Many millions of trouser legs are being added every
second across the globe. In fact, an infinite amount are added constantly.
Time is merely a method of measuring this process. Time will always pass,
but only once. If you travel back in time, it is still taking time to do
so. If you find a way to freeze time then time is still passing. If you
froze time you would freeze too, so your project may have succeeded but you
would never know about it because you would have been frozen while it
worked. It wouldn't have even worked in the first place as the item that
froze time itself would have stopped as time did.
Here is an example of how going back in time would be impossible, if time
travel were indeed possible:
Say you wanted to go back in time to kill one of your school bullies. You
go back, kill him or her, and return to your original time... Problem 1: If
your school bully was killed before he had a chance to give you
psychological problems, then you would have no motivation to go back in the
first place, so you wouldn't have gone back in time to kill him, as he
didn't exist, and because you didn't go back to kill him, he still exists,
therefore returning you to your original situation. Problem 2: How on earth
are you going to be able to direct yourself back to the right time? Problem
3: How are you going to manipulate time?
There are of course, more basic ways to Travel through time:
Walt Disney had his head frozen when he died, so that in the event that we
one day discover how to re-animate frozen heads we can return him to the
land of the living. Austin Powers persued a similar aim, as did his
arch-enemy Dr. Evil. And look what it did to his cat.
Of course, using this method, you can only travel forward in time by
'switching yourself off' for a few decades. You'd wake up in a considerable
debt problem as the freezing process would cost quite a substantial amount
of money.
The safest and most apprpriate way for people to travel back in time is
through media records. Perhaps one day man will develop a totally immersive
way of recording media so that sights, sounds, smells and events can be
recorded which a person can re-watch and experience what was recorded at a
level of realism comparable to real life.
Be thankful that time travel is not possible!
Throughout time, people have dreamed about time travel. They have wished they could go backwards or forwards in time to correct some wrong or just for the hell of it.
It is only now that people are learning to accept that time travel as we
want it will never be possible. This can be seen as a good thing though: If
time travel were possible, the world is likely to be a big mess right now.
Or would it be? It's easiest to think of the process as the trousers of
time. Every time a decision is made a new trouserleg is added at that
point. A new path. Many millions of trouser legs are being added every
second across the globe. In fact, an infinite amount are added constantly.
Time is merely a method of measuring this process. Time will always pass,
but only once. If you travel back in time, it is still taking time to do
so. If you find a way to freeze time then time is still passing. If you
froze time you would freeze too, so your project may have succeeded but you
would never know about it because you would have been frozen while it
worked. It wouldn't have even worked in the first place as the item that
froze time itself would have stopped as time did.
Here is an example of how going back in time would be impossible, if time
travel were indeed possible:
Say you wanted to go back in time to kill one of your school bullies. You
go back, kill him or her, and return to your original time... Problem 1: If
your school bully was killed before he had a chance to give you
psychological problems, then you would have no motivation to go back in the
first place, so you wouldn't have gone back in time to kill him, as he
didn't exist, and because you didn't go back to kill him, he still exists,
therefore returning you to your original situation. Problem 2: How on earth
are you going to be able to direct yourself back to the right time? Problem
3: How are you going to manipulate time?
There are of course, more basic ways to Travel through time:
Walt Disney had his head frozen when he died, so that in the event that we
one day discover how to re-animate frozen heads we can return him to the
land of the living. Austin Powers persued a similar aim, as did his
arch-enemy Dr. Evil. And look what it did to his cat.
Of course, using this method, you can only travel forward in time by
'switching yourself off' for a few decades. You'd wake up in a considerable
debt problem as the freezing process would cost quite a substantial amount
of money.
The safest and most apprpriate way for people to travel back in time is
through media records. Perhaps one day man will develop a totally immersive
way of recording media so that sights, sounds, smells and events can be
recorded which a person can re-watch and experience what was recorded at a
level of realism comparable to real life.
Be thankful that time travel is not possible!
