A Way to Make Time Travel Work

[deadman]

First of all, I want to say that everything time travel that I have seen from most sci-fi shows and movies are so far off that it is laughable. Most of this is due to the fact that they are taking matter and energy from one time in the universe and sending it to another, disrupting the natural balance that the universe established, which I believe would have disasterous results.

The idea that I have would involve the natural energy field that is theorized to exist in space, the Zero Point Energy. For time travel to work, a time traveler would need to take a certain amount of energy from that field that is equal to all the energy and energy stored as the matter that makes up his or her ship and everything inside of it, and teleport it, for the lack of a better term, to their time. At the exact same time they do this, they would have to travel through time and go to the exact time that they took the energy from, therefore keeping balance.

Now how to do this, I'll have to do some thinking, but I have to say that the show that looks like it would probably have it right is Doctor Who.

But what do I know, maybe by time traveling that woud happen naturally. Discuss.

[Jimbo-DR]

Time travel is impossible by all modern day standards, and of all the impossible things sci fi shows do, I think it's the one we understand the least. So there's no need to critiscize those shows because this topic is so far beyond us it's almost pointless to even guess.

[Rivalen]

I've done a lot of reading into this topic in particular. As such, much of that reading has lead to black holes, space-time warping, and faster than light travel. With modern day theories of relativity it is often thought that one could travel to the distant future by reaching speeds near the speed of light. Time for the traveler would slow down exponentially the closer he got to the speed of light and the rest of the universe would mosey on at a considerably faster pace. A degree of control inconcievable by us would be required to actually get to 99.999% the speed of light (or even more .999's to travel further into the future, faster). Some speculation exists that to break the speed of light would allow one to "lense" the space-time continuum and travel backwards through time (think Paycheck with Ben Afleck... i know not the best movie, but similar theories). Sadly, the energy required to actually reach the speed of light is faaaaar beyond us. The faster we go, the more energy required to go even faster. Again, an exponential curve in energy output is required to reach even faster speeds. The energy required to travel faster than light would be near infinite. Please keep in mind that this is travel w/o the aid of subspace, warp fields, hyperspace, etc. The ideas behind time travel aren't impossible, just improbable considering the power required. All of this is not even mentioning the paradox effects that time travel would have. I think that in order for time travel to even truly be possible, the traveler would have to exist outside of our space time, and the space time he traveled to in order to allow the changes he made to be permanent. Example, the ever popular granny paradox. Say you travel back in time to kill your grandmother so you'll never be born. You go and do it, granny dies, and you suddenly cease to exist. If you never existed in the first place, you never went back in time to kill your grandmother. If you never went back in time to kill your grandmother, then granny lives again. If granny lives again, so do you, and so does your desire to never have existed. Then we reach an endless cycle of granny dying, you never existing, and starting all over again. In order to make the change permanent one would have to somehow (i'll leave that to imagination) remove themself from their space-time, and the space-time of the destination and forever stay stuck there to ensure a paradox loop doesn't occur. Sort of ironic that in order to keep yourself from being born, you'd have to live forever outside of space time to make sure it happens...or doesn't.... whatever.

[IcyNeko]

1.21 Gigawatts + 88MPH + Flux Capacitor + Mr. Fusion = possible!

[wolfax]

1.21 Gigawatts + 88MPH + Flux Capacitor + Mr. Fusion = possible!

You forgot the empty beer can for fuel

[Rivalen]

You forgot the empty beer can for fuel

That's the 1.21 gigawatts. ROFL that delorean reference made me happy.

[Emperor Tippy]

Time Travel is theoretically possible. Going faster than the speed of light in normal space is theorized to move you backward in time but it is also accepted as impossible to travel FTL in normal space. Time Travel to the future appears to happen the closer one comes to the speed of light but this isn't really time travel, it is more akin to stasis in the objects frame of reference.

Frame Dragging is also theorized to be able to send messages back in time to the point the machine was activated.

Wormholes, if they work as predicted, would also allow time travel but time travel to the past is a stupid idea, you could never change anything that happened. You could take a nuke back to Washington DC in the year 1900 and attempt to detonate it and it would fizzle, or have total existence failure, or any number of other improbable events would happen to ensure that the nuke never goes off.

[jenks]

Wormholes, if they work as predicted, would also allow time travel but time travel to the past is a stupid idea, you could never change anything that happened. You could take a nuke back to Washington DC in the year 1900 and attempt to detonate it and it would fizzle, or have total existence failure, or any number of other improbable events would happen to ensure that the nuke never goes off.

Why?

[Rivalen]

I believe the why comes in with the paradox involved. It could also be adapted to say that at any given time there is x amount of matter in the universe. Time travel would change that x amount and cause all kinds of "complications" that wouldn't allow the bomb to operate.

[Emperor Tippy]

Why?

I believe the why comes in with the paradox involved. It could also be adapted to say that at any given time there is x amount of matter in the universe. Time travel would change that x amount and cause all kinds of "complications" that wouldn't allow the bomb to operate.

Nope.
Let's assume that you plan on setting off a nuke back in 1900 because you feel like it. So you go back in time and set off the nuke. If it works normally and detonates then you would have had no reason to set off the nuke at taht specific time in that specific place. Not to mention that setting off the nuke could change the timeline so that you aren't in the same position that you were before (you are never born for example). If you weren't born than you could never have set off the nuke. And if the nuke doesn't go off than you will be born. The only way to keep the timeline constant is for the nuke not going off. You will still go back in time but you will never accomplish what you set out to do.

The only way to change the past would be to have a consciousness that existed outside of time.

Time Travel paradoxes are a *****

[Rivalen]

Nope.
Let's assume that you plan on setting off a nuke back in 1900 because you feel like it. So you go back in time and set off the nuke. If it works normally and detonates then you would have had no reason to set off the nuke at taht specific time in that specific place. Not to mention that setting off the nuke could change the timeline so that you aren't in the same position that you were before (you are never born for example). If you weren't born than you could never have set off the nuke. And if the nuke doesn't go off than you will be born. The only way to keep the timeline constant is for the nuke not going off. You will still go back in time but you will never accomplish what you set out to do.

The only way to change the past would be to have a consciousness that existed outside of time.

Time Travel paradoxes are a *****

I said paradox... where's the nope coming from? =oP

[Starrtom]

time travel gives me a headache.

[wise one]

just fly around the earth really fast and see what happens

[Wraith_Boy]

th modern day theories of relativity it is often thought that one could travel to the distant future by reaching speeds near the speed of light. Time for the traveler would slow down exponentially the closer he got to the speed of light and the rest of the universe would mosey on at a considerably faster pace. A degree of control inconcievable by us would be required to actually get to 99.999% the speed of light (or even more .999's to travel further into the future, faster).

An easier method is to get close enough to a black hole, the time-dilation will kick in, time will slow down. Then you come out & fly back to Earth. Future here you come!

There are actually a couple of solid theories on backwards time-travel that's being studied. The biggest problem with the mainstream theories is that you can't travel back in time to a point before the machine was actually developed. Say it's created in 2010. Then you could never go back beyond that point. That for me is the biggest downer, the fact that even if we built one, we can't ever go back to explore out history throughout the past.

There has to be a way to get back to whatever peiord you wanted, sadly it just seems that it won't be happening for the forseeable future.

[jenks]

Nope.
Let's assume that you plan on setting off a nuke back in 1900 because you feel like it. So you go back in time and set off the nuke. If it works normally and detonates then you would have had no reason to set off the nuke at taht specific time in that specific place. Not to mention that setting off the nuke could change the timeline so that you aren't in the same position that you were before (you are never born for example). If you weren't born than you could never have set off the nuke. And if the nuke doesn't go off than you will be born. The only way to keep the timeline constant is for the nuke not going off. You will still go back in time but you will never accomplish what you set out to do.

The only way to change the past would be to have a consciousness that existed outside of time.

Time Travel paradoxes are a *****

Only if the timeline is perfectly linear. Most theories about time travel maintain that going back in time would create an alternate timeline, and the old one would either be destroyed or carry on without you.