h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Travelling light?

Perhaps more like traveling lite?? Light moves to fast for me!

Wow .... I used to be much more of a smartass than I am now. Too bad, I could learn from the old me!

Okay, so somewhere along the lines of this convo we lost track of the physics involved and it became purely jokes. This saddens me because, as much as I love a good joke, my uninspired hope for a get-rich-quick time machine to spawn from a British forum has continued unrealized!

*sulk*

Oh yeah .... I used to be Euphoric .... if you were wondering.

Time travel is occureing at this very moment. We are all travelling or moveing or waddling through time. Can I see 8million years ahead, maybe, but I do not believe that I can physically move to that space and time.The Future is unwritten, yet what we do and how we do to others in this day is what can make a possible better future outcome. It is a fancifull notion, and one that I have toyed with in my mind.
Now as to the first line, 4 minutes have elapsed on my watch since I started tapping these keyes, so yes, I have traveled in time, and that makes it a reality.

How about .... time travel within our control, rather than the automatic roll forwards? I could put a platform on wheels and watch it roll down a hill but I wouldn't use that as proof that I can drive it around. Similar concept applies..

If you travelled back in time to say the year 1066 to the Battle of Hastings could you actually take part in the battle or could you only observe?
Could you communicate with William of Normandy or would you simply be there as a silent invisible form, a kind of ghost?

You'd have to travel to the point in 3-dimensional space where the Earth was on the relevant date in 1066 but how could you ever find that exact point?

Well, if you read back in this forum, you will see that under the name "Euphoric One" I pointed out my suspicions that travelling back in time would not change anything that had not already been changed. So in theory, you could interact with the battle, but whatever you did would already have been done and therefore have no effect on history.

About the coordinates in space .... well, that's a tricky one.

Toynbee the Euphoric One,
That's the "can't go back and kill your ancestors otherwise you wouldn't even be here theory" although when travelling back through unlimited parallel universes (which you might have to do to reach those coordinates in space that I mentioned) strange and unexpected possibilities might present themselves.
LL

See earlier opinion on timelines.

Wow, this time travel blows my mind.. In order to understand the least thing about it, I will have to turn my brain backwards and think with the left side going south to east..

Time travel is all well and good, but if my calculations are correct, you would be as a ghost, and you would not be able to interact with your surroundings, and people would not be able to see you. On the other hand this has its uses...

I believe I once saw a time traveller who had travelled forwards in time from ancient Celtic times to the 20th Century. The interesting thing about him was that he was only 2-dimensional and had no legs (or maybe I couldn't see them). I don't know if he could see me. I had the feeling he kind of looked through me.

speaking as a particle wave, I......

(conversation inexplicably interrupted...:rolleyes:

All time occurs simultaniously. Why ? You can contnue dividing a second indefinitly.

well, excuse me could anyone tell me wat do u mean by time travel?

liveonon, it's your shout - if time exists - or if spacetime only exists - it may make difference - H G Wells wrote a story about a machine that could do all this stuff quite a long time go - relatively speaking. Didn't Doctor Who do it as well in his policeman's phone booth? I say policeman's because in those days policewomen who were on 90% pay were basically kept off the streets.

I am just talking off the top of my head here but didn't Einstein suggest that as a body approached the speed of light then its time slowed and this was experementally proved by having two atomic clocks where one was kept here on earth and the other was on a moon mission. upon their return there was a difference and that the clock that had been traveling at high speeds on the moon mission was noticably slower than its stop-at-home twin. This means that we could theoretically travel forward in time by traveling at speeds close to the speed of light and then returning to an older earth. I said theoretically as I think mass increases ans velocity increases which may well limit the effect.
Ah well, another idea consigned to the dustbin of life.

If all time takes place simultaneously (nearly gave up there) - does that mean cause and effect is a myth, and I was more than justified in giving up chemistry at the age of fourteen? Thank you God!!!

To next thursday, but the day you landed on was already booked for a frog called kevin to enter the spacetime continuum (have i spelled this right?) At the same place you did, so spare a thought for that frog which you pushed in to another time frame... On the motorway next week in three years time from tomorrow before 5 years ago today...
Confused yet?

"The angels have the phone box!"