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RE: Time Travel a la Stephen Hawking
August 8, 2010 at 3:07 pm
I always thought Michael Crichton brought up an interesting method in Timeline (decent book, god awful movie). The quantum hole theory of the multiverse is an interesting one that hasn't been refuted, nor has the idea of the infinitely repeating universe. There is just so much we don't know in this realm that it's wondrous. If the universe is tied up in higher spatial dimensions and and space-time is a manifestation of the very fabric of space then I have seen some very intriguing physicists theorize that "time travel" in so much as travelers could harness these wormholes Hawking speaks of to travel between these different universes and if we could locate correctly then we could end up in a universe of any form we like, at any point in time.
I also think that the argument of the past paradox is one the universe may not allow. The idea that we can't know if there has been past manipulation because we have no way of knowing what the original timeline would have been, so as they say, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Certainly there is little evidence to conclusively support any method, but I have read too many instances of scientists saying things are impossible when they are achieved only a hundred years later to write-off these ideas!
My religion is the understanding of my world. My god is the energy that underlies it all. My worship is my constant endeavor to unravel the mysteries of my religion.
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RE: Time Travel a la Stephen Hawking
August 9, 2010 at 6:55 am
(August 7, 2010 at 11:01 am)Paul the Human Wrote: I've always disliked the idea of time travel, because I've never encountered an idea that actually worked without creating hypothetical paradoxes. If I had to say one way or the other, I'd have to say that I do not believe time travel is possible. 'Time is the name given to our linear perception of existence', is one thing I've heard (somewhere) that makes sense to me. 'The Past' is not a physical location, therefore one cannot physically travel to it.
Let's say that I was able to travel 20 years into the future. The 'future' that I would find would not be the same 'future' that would have been had I not time traveled. Instead, it would be a future in which my personal influence had disappeared on the day I left, i.e. a future in which I have not existed for 20 years.
QFT
The way I see it, IF it were possible (and personally I doubt it is) then if you were to “Travel” in time it wouldn’t be time but simple moving between dimensions/branes/worlds or what ever you want to call it.
So you disappear from this reality to appear in another one. This also neatly avoids the paradox issue as the reality you left no longer contains you and the one you are going to never did contain you!
"A man who keeps one eye on the past is blind in one eye. A man who ignores the past is blind in both."
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RE: Time Travel a la Stephen Hawking
August 9, 2010 at 11:53 am
(August 9, 2010 at 11:12 am)Paul the Human Wrote: (August 9, 2010 at 6:55 am)AnunZi Wrote: This also neatly avoids the paradox issue as the reality you left no longer contains you and the one you are going to never did contain you!
But would it contain everyone else you know? If so... why? Why not you? Could you only travel to timelines/dimensions in which you had already died or had never been born? In that case, doesn't it stop being time travel and simply become dimensional shifting?
Heheh. All hypothetical, but exactly why I do not (at this time) believe that it is possible.
I don’t think it could. Because if it did contain you (even if you’d died) then you have the matter you are created from in 2 different places (even if one of those places was in the ground being eaten by worms). I'm fairly sure you can’t do that without getting all quantum.
If someone who actually knows could correct me please but I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that you cant have the same “thing” (matter, atoms, quarks, mesons whatever) in 2 different places at once…… help?
And nothing wrong with hypothetical Mr.Human, its where the fun usually starts
"A man who keeps one eye on the past is blind in one eye. A man who ignores the past is blind in both."
