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

Time travel, like History is Bunk. No not some double decker bed arrangement for children
and Hostelers. Though the sprung mattress theory of spacetime recieved
some deserving attention from X-Files viewer, this is mainly due to the amount
of time they spend in YMCAs, and the natural affinity they feel toward substandard beds.

It is nonsense, twaddle, bunkum, tomfoolery and fiddlefaddle. Simply stated time is Borg-like in its
inevitability. There are two strains (well it is for me) of thought that irrefutibly prove
this fact.

One. If a time machine could be invented its presence would inevitably seep into all time.
A stolen machine here, an unlicenced factory in prehistory there, smuggled chronokarts all
over the Timescape. "Clocking" taking someones time with out consent would be rife. Thus:

If a time machine was invented it would exist in all times. It does nto exist now, and therefore can't.

The other and more prosaic argument is that in order for people to travel in time the would have had to have done it
already. They haven't, so you can't, so phthhhh to you, Mister H.G.Wells.

So to all you X-Files fans out there (aren't they precious), there aint no time travel. And just to make your
little pointy heads droop even more, there ain't no space travel either. Why, well it's obvious. If you want an explaination
you'll have to wait until I manage to write in word of less than three syllabuls.

P.S anyone know who to spell syllabul?

Thanks for the potted break down of time-travel - albeit a fairly limited one.
Firstly you fail to discuss the possibility that time is actually non-linear. Time is experienced at different rates by different objects depending on the speed at which they are travelling; time slows down as you approach the speed of light. If your velocity=c (symbol for the speed of light used hereafter) then the chemical reactions of your molecules cease. You are effectively in stasis. Thus the obvious way to travel forwards in time (which is incidently what we all doing anyway) is simply to speed up. However, because the speeds that humans tend to travel at are far lower than c we do not notice them; though high precision tests on time in certain space-craft has proved this point.
If there was a method of breaking the speed of light then it is possible that the object would begin to travel back in time. It is also possible that something unbelievably & unimaginably peculiar would happen. Yet, you can probably rest easy as current thinking believes that travel faster than c is impossible due to the fact that force exerted on an object increases as it speeds us, reaching an infinite force at c. Therefore you requirte an infinite force to travel at c and a force greater than infinite to break it. The othert problem being that if one was to travel backwards in time then the chemical changes in one's own body may start running backwards; you would get younger and younger and end up degenerating into your chemical components.

Time travel forward is wholly possible and necessary. Travel back probably, and only probably, impossible.
See Einstein, avoid the X-files.

On time-travellers:
if a creature was travelling in time (especially backwards) then it is more than likely that they would go to great lengths that their identity remained confidential - thereby reducing the risk that they would change the future and return home to a different world. This relies on the pretence that time is mutable. This may also be wrong. It is equally possible that the past having been a series of definite (though probably irretrievable) events so is the present and equally the future. Time-travellers also run the risk of being classed as mad-men by the societies which they visit and thus run the risk of being forcably excluded or killed.

Energy, matter and time are all linked, relative and necessary to one another - be very careful what you do with yours'.

I'm an X-files fan, but I agree with you up to the point about the mutability of time. Also, for a good explanation of time travel, go to http://www.h2g2.com/A274105 or http://www.h2g2.com/forumframe.cgi?forum=19585&thread=1858.

The second hyperlink dosn't work. Sorry. I ment to link to the conversation "Anything about Time travel", which is related to the article "Ask the H2G2 Community". If you want to see it, go there.

I agree with yarga on the time travel issue.
I belive time is a current (completely linear) and time in relation to speed or distance is purely a perception. For example, looking at distant stars is in fact looking way back in time because the image we see has taken that long to reach us, the same as if we could travel faster than light we would arrive at our destination in time to see the image of ourselves leaving, reach the point at which we stop. The people back on earth would still be living their lives and experiencing time the same as we do now, the only difernce is you would see it long after it has happened.

As for the experience whilst moving at high speed, i would imagine that it would be no different inside the vessle because the surrounding environment would be stationary in relation to the people inside. Outside however images coming towards you from the front may appear bigger in the same way that a sound moving towards you sounds higher in pitch. And images origionating from behind would be seen when you have stopped and they are allowed to catch up.

On the issue of whether light speed travel is possible I would say it is. Light travels at different speeds through different mediums, in a perfect vacuum it travels at roughly 300,000km per second. But why is it limited? I have a theory that the limitation is caused by energy existing in space creating resistance.
If there were absolutly no resistance of any sort then with one small burst of energy, any vessle regardless of size could travel indefinatly at a constant speed, any addition of energy would result again in acceleration meaning that even without using some spectacularly powerful engine there would be no limit on the speeds achievable.

The answer is to find a way to create a bubble around the vessel which redirects any matter or energy around it. Which is not as far fetched as it sounds, it has already been proven that gravity has an effect on light therefore one way to do this would be to create an antigravitational field aorund the ship creating a true frictionless environment for the vessle to travel in.
Another, easier way might be to create a magnetic field consisting of every existing frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum which would direct any incoming energy around the field.

With enough time and enough thought travelling great distances can be acheived, take for example the sound barrier, to break the sound barrier in space (by which i mean the speed that sound travels through air) would be childsplay.