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

There is one possibility, and I think it has been mentioned somewhere else in this forum (sorry, can't be arsed looking it up again), that if someone travels back in time, a parallel universe is automatically created, thus scuppering his/her plans to change this one.
'G'

Well, you all seem keen on this idea don't you. Time travel huh?

Well here is a little poser for you. The universe is ever expanding, the galaxies are swirling, the planets are revolving around the sun etc etc. If you picked a point in time to travel to and you have actually managed to make a device making it possible to travel in time and you travel to your disired moment in time what will be there? Travelling from one point in time to another point in time will merely place you in the same space in a different time. You'll never hit the spot you left from, as the universe expands. So, you go back to kill Hitler and you end up suffocating to death in the vacumm of space ... splat!

Well, you all seem keen on this idea don't you. Time travel huh?

Well here is a little poser for you. The universe is ever expanding, the galaxies are swirling, the planets are revolving around the sun etc etc. If you picked a point in time to travel to and you have actually managed to make a device making it possible to travel in time and you travel to your disired moment in time what will be there? Travelling from one point in time to another point in time will merely place you in the same space in a different time. You'll never hit the spot you left from, as the universe expands. So, you go back to kill Hitler and you end up suffocating to death in the vacumm of space ... splat!

And what happens if you travel back in time to before the Big Bang???

Where would you be?

And if you travel forward to the next 'Cosmic Egg' when the universe has contracted back on itself. Where would you be then?????
'G'

Actually, at the moment, many cosmologists now think the universe will NEVER suffer the "big crunch." They're looking at the possibility that it will just keep on expanding forever. This isn't as optimistic as it sounds, though, because the ever-expanding space will dilute the matter and energy contained within it, eventually condemning all lifeforms to a Frosty Death(tm).

fatlock, you are correct with your idea....
but an easy way around this problem would be to calculate the exact position of where your past destination is in space, then travel there, then go back in time. But that in itself would be very difficult for any scientist to do in the near future because we have no completely accurate means of telling where the hell we are in relation to the rest of the universe. We know that we move around the sun.... but that really doesnt help because our sun moves around the center of the galaxy.... but that doesnt help either because the galaxy is expanding along with the rest of the universe.
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and back up to the original posting which spoke of a time-trapping stasis field or something..... what would happen to the time that was trapped in the stasis field after you went back in time???
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and those who argue that time travelers would come back to see significant events in the past may be correct, BUT, consider that maybe nothing really significant has actually happened yet and that there are many things to come.
this also suggests(at least in my mind, i could be wrong) that our universe is not going to last forever. If it did then this would give time travelers an infinite amount of time to go back and see our current present.... maybe they never got around to it and then it was just to late.

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and just so everyone knows.... I believe that traveling through time is most definately possible

uuuhh gandalf... i could be wrong here as well, but i do not think that there is any time before the big bang to travel to. Therefore it would be impossible (am i making any sense at all?, i notice many people asking this when they are talking about a subject that is difficult for many to understand)

fatlock, you are correct with your idea....
but an easy way around this problem would be to calculate the exact position of where your past destination is in space, then travel there, then go back in time. But that in itself would be very difficult for any scientist to do in the near future because we have no completely accurate means of telling where the hell we are in relation to the rest of the universe. We know that we move around the sun.... but that really doesnt help because our sun moves around the center of the galaxy.... but that doesnt help either because the galaxy is expanding along with the rest of the universe.
---------
and back up to the original posting which spoke of a time-trapping stasis field or something..... what would happen to the time that was trapped in the stasis field after you went back in time???
---------
and those who argue that time travelers would come back to see significant events in the past may be correct, BUT, consider that maybe nothing really significant has actually happened yet and that there are many things to come.
this also suggests(at least in my mind, i could be wrong) that our universe is not going to last forever. If it did then this would give time travelers an infinite amount of time to go back and see our current present.... maybe they never got around to it and then it was just to late.

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and just so everyone knows.... I believe that traveling through time is most definately possible

sorry i accidentally posted my message twice... i guess you page editors can delete it or something if you want to.

Aside from time travel being currently impossible in either direction, I recommend you check out the Fred Pohl novels HeeChee Rendezvoous, HeeChee Gate(sic) and something or other else HeeChee. These deal with the actual events inside a black-hole ....which is pure speculation as not only have we not been able to reach any (even the now known holes), nobody's actually been inside, checked them out and returned to talk about it.

The only known way to travel 'backwards' in time is to cross from West to East, crossing the International Date line, thereby ending your trip before you left....but that's not the kind of time travel you're talking about, is it?

Additional suggested reading: a short story by Robert Heinlein whose title escapes me at the moment. As usual, his is close to the final word in logic and intelligence.

Fruitbat

Hey, Flying Sperm Whale: Don't worry too much about accidently posting things twice on the forums. It happens, and it's so minor that I don't think the page editors are concerned enough to go in and adjust it.

There a guy out on the web that says that he has traveled in time and space and he is willing to sell you the technology and information on how to do it. He is selling a "Hyper Dimensional Resonator", not sure of the price. Just do a search on "Hyper Dimensional Resonator", it will only being up four or five site.

If anyone has some extra cash give it a try and let us know if it works or if it is a fake.

There is another site that sells the plans for flux capactors, Telsa coils, the resonator and other time traveling gaggets. I believe its http://www.futurehorizons.net.

Lets us poor people know if this is a fake or the real thing, (my pardons to Coke Cola)

Consider this: What if time is merely just another dimension, such as X, Y, and Z in a co-ordinate plane? Wouldn't it stand to reason then that as you can move in any direction in 3D space, you could also move through time as well? The question would still remain however how to manuever yourself through time successfully.

We only consider time to be linear, because we don't know how to change its path. We don't usually consider time to be a dimension because all we can see is a single time-slice, where everything exists with the same time "co-ordinate". If what I have said previously is true, then time travel would be possible.

To expand upon what was said in the last posting, Your time "co-ordinate" would change but what we know as location would not change. Therefore you could very easily find yourself adrift in the vacuum of space. Before time travel could ever be used we would have to find a way to maintain your position relative to everything else first.

I think I understand what I just said. If anyone else does, could they try to explain in simpler terms for everyone else?

Sorry, my last posting was about posting 20, hope no one was to confused.

Sorry, my last posting was about posting 20, hope no one was too confused.

Anyone ever read Heinlein's "The Door Into Summer"? I believe that it's a good look at what havoc time travel might cause...

To me, the most comprehensible time travel theory is the "multiple universes" one which has been discussed very much throughout this conversation.

But time travel doesn't seem like too smart of an idea to me...

If you're that keen on spending money on useless crap, I've some beachfront property in the Bikini Atoll to sell you.

Do you honestly believe this stuff is real?

(I apologise for the tone of this entry; I also have trouble with the numbers of people that believe the Inquirer is doing legitimate reporting, that Scientology has a foundation in reality, and that because something's on television that makes it worth having. Please, THINK before spending money on this stuff: if it really existed, wouldn't Popular Science have a huge spread on it? The major papers be doing cover stories on it? Wouldn't science be shouting black's white that it is rewriting the book on everything, and Stephen Hawking being kept up all night replacing circuits in his voice-computer?)

Fruitbat

ni

fruitbat, sorry to insult you but your entry was totally uneducated. The reason it isnt talked about in the media is because we dont know enough about it quite yet and people are afraid of the subject.
Also.. travel into the future already exists through high speed travel, so time travel into the past could very well exist.

I'm not insulted, just a little amazed. Okay, if time travel exists in any form, perhaps you could point me to the papers that have been written about it, toward legitimate scientists or technologists that are making it happen, or something to both 'educate' me or give me reason to believe that this isn't more UFOlogists who desperately WANT something to be real which therefore MAKES it real.

What high-speed travel are you referring to? Specifics, please.

Many people are afraid of that which they don't understand, yet computers are talked about all over the media; the film A Brief History Of Time was made and many didn't get it even after watching it....sorry, mate: I don't buy that excuse.

If time-travel (beyond that which we are all doing anyway, through each moment) really existed, we'd all be seeing something happening like the public madness depicted in "Contact"; as lame as that film was, they did get SOME stuff right.....

Fruitbat