Time

[DLFlux]

After watching alot of Doctor Who, playing Prince of Persia, and just generally being in geek mode.

If it were possible to travel in time, say for example to the past and change something, ultimately changing the course of the future, would an alternate time line be created?

For example, I was born in this timeline, but if I went back a changed the past, which stopped, say a grand parent meeting the other grand parent, stopping one of my parents being born, stopping me being born, yet I still exist because I'm in the past, would that create two seperate time-lines, or two seperate dimensions? Because if I travelled back to the future, I shouldn't exist because I was never born, but yet I'm still living, breathing and fucking with time. So if I was able to create a dimensional shift device, and used it, would I be able to come back to the time-line where I was born?

If this makes any sense what-so-ever or if you see what I'm trying to get at, what do you think?

Would I just fade away in the past, or because in my time I was born and travelled back, would've I created two seperate time-lines, parallel if you will.

 

[Ness]

I'm of the opinion that the current timeline cannot be altered in any way.

I believe in the concept known as "tenseless time". Tenseless time is the idea that every event has already taken place. Past, present, and future events already exist. The idea is that our conception of "time" is our inability to perceive everything at once. This is based off of the idea that Time is a dimension which we travel through (something I believe myself). We travel along the time continum at regular speed, and we perceive what we consider to be the future, even though the events already exist.

Ergo, it would be impossible to change or alter our timelines, because they are already fixed. If you managed to change/reverse the speed which your body travels through the time continum (time travel), and stopped your grandparents from meeting, the idea would be that you would still be born regardless; not only because you managed to travel back in time yourself, but because all events are fixed.

 

[Gabranth]

If it were possible to travel back and forth and change past and future events, then I would say no, you would still exist because you existed in the first place...so if you stopped yourself from being born in the future by traveling in the past....then you shouldn't have been born in the first place.

I believe in Einstein's theory on 'General Relativity', which states that accelerated motion and being still in a gravitational field are identical. This means gravitational pull has an effect on many things; one of them, being time as we see it. In true essence, time cannot be changed, however, it can change the way we see it as - during the presence of gravity. If we were in a vacuum, that is the closest to what we could see as 'True time', however, the stronger the gravitational field, the slower time will be in the form of light rays. As you may know, gravity has an effect on electromagnetic waves, so everything would slow down as we see it. Effectively, this is 'time travel' even though its impossible to travel at the speed of light. Though of course, this is all according to the base 10 decimal system.

As for your theory on our fates and future already fixed, I have to say, I partly agree with it. No matter what we do - even if we try to change it, it will happen.

 

[DLFlux]

I'm of the opinion that the current timeline cannot be altered in any way.

I believe in the concept known as "tenseless time". Tenseless time is the idea that every event has already taken place. Past, present, and future events already exist. The idea is that our conception of "time" is our inability to perceive everything at once. This is based off of the idea that Time is a dimension which we travel through (something I believe myself). We travel along the time continum at regular speed, and we perceive what we consider to be the future, even though the events already exist.

Ergo, it would be impossible to change or alter our timelines, because they are already fixed. If you managed to change/reverse the speed which your body travels through the time continum (time travel), and stopped your grandparents from meeting, the idea would be that you would still be born regardless; not only because you managed to travel back in time yourself, but because all events are fixed.

So for example, the Terminator movies, because time is fixed and the events happened, each Terminator sent back to kill Sarah/John Connor would've always had no chance of succeeding in their missions?

Sticking with the Terminator example, T2, they think they'd prevented Judgement Day by stopping the cybernet research before it was completed, meaning the nuclear strikes didn't happen on the date they should've. But because time is fixed, it happened anyways in T3, so there was only a subtle change in the timeline, but because it had happened in the future, it was always going to happen, no matter what they did in the past.

That a good analysis of what posted? Or have I missed something.


Stuff like this really interests me, maybe something we never ever get our heads round because it will probably always be impossible to go back/forward in time.

 

[FF7Guru]

A time loop would be created. Having effectively killed yourself as a child, you wouldn't have lived to go back in time, so you would have been able to effectively kill yourself, so you wouldn't have been able to kill yourself, then you would have been able to kill yourself, then you wouldn't have been able to kill yourself, then you would have been able to kill yourself, then you wouldn't have been able to kill yourself, then you would have been able to kill yourself, then you wouldn't have been able to kill yourself, then you would have been able to kill yourself, then you wouldn't have been able to kill yourself, then you would have been able to kill yourself. See where this is going. Time wouldn't allow a parodox, such as meeting yourself, so Bill and Ted's excellent adventure has a time loop. The example given here would stop time, and end everything, as time wouldn't be able to fix the problem. The time loop would never end, as there would be no time. It makes sense. Eventually.

 

[Ness]

So for example, the Terminator movies, because time is fixed and the events happened, each Terminator sent back to kill Sarah/John Connor would've always had no chance of succeeding in their missions?

Sticking with the Terminator example, T2, they think they'd prevented Judgement Day by stopping the cybernet research before it was completed, meaning the nuclear strikes didn't happen on the date they should've. But because time is fixed, it happened anyways in T3, so there was only a subtle change in the timeline, but because it had happened in the future, it was always going to happen, no matter what they did in the past.

I think in the case of movies, most are operating off of a particular theory of time. But, if you applied the idea of tenseless time to the Terminator series, you wouldn't necessarily say that the Terminators would not succeed, but that they already had not succeeded, and had just not been able to perceive their failure yet. The issue of changing the future I think deals more with the idea of fate than the nature of time, but that's another thread. =P

Stuff like this really interests me, maybe something we never ever get our heads round because it will probably always be impossible to go back/forward in time.

True enough, but it's still fun to talk about, right? =)

A time loop would be created. Having effectively killed yourself as a child, you wouldn't have lived to go back in time, so you would have been able to effectively kill yourself, so you wouldn't have been able to kill yourself, then you would have been able to kill yourself, then you wouldn't have been able to kill yourself, then you would have been able to kill yourself, then you wouldn't have been able to kill yourself, then you would have been able to kill yourself, then you wouldn't have been able to kill yourself, then you would have been able to kill yourself, then you wouldn't have been able to kill yourself, then you would have been able to kill yourself. See where this is going. Time wouldn't allow a parodox, such as meeting yourself, so Bill and Ted's excellent adventure has a time loop. The example given here would stop time, and end everything, as time wouldn't be able to fix the problem. The time loop would never end, as there would be no time. It makes sense. Eventually.

I don't know if time can be broken. In that view, it's as if time is some kind of cosmic machine. Time, if viewed as a dimension, simply is what it is. It's like saying we can break one of the other lower-order dimensions by moving an object around or changing it.

 

[FF7Guru]

It wouldn't be broken, merely delayed in it's quest for reaching it's end. If you really think about it, and bend it a bit, a person wouldn't do the same thing twice in a row. However, I am applying the Tenseless Time idea, and if all things have happened, and will always happen, then Time wouldn't have let it happen. Time is a really tough thing. If Churchill wore a 'tash, would things be different today? No. If Hitler hadn't been chucked out of that Austrian college, would there have been WW2? Yes, just in a different time/place. It all springs out eventually. But if someone went back in time and killed the first rabbits, would time spring back? No. Would you go back to kill a non-existent creature? No. So we get a time loop. Once time fixes, it continues to the next problem. Like me in a maths test. Solved problem, on to the next. You see yet?

 

[strifehart]

I agree with ness on most of what he's said so far.

this is just a theory that i like:

keeping in mind that the universe is just an arrangement of mass and energy in a certain proportion at any given time. that is, if you were to take a snapshot of the universe, a certain amount of it would be energy and a certain amount mass. it's all arranged in a certain way and that's how we perceive the universe. that being said, the next snapshot you take would be slightly different. maybe some mass has been converted to energy or maybe some energy back into mass. regardless, there's a fixed amount of it in the universe whether it be in the form of mass or energy. so it can be reasoned that there is an infinite number of ways that mass and energy can be oriented in the universe. now that's just for one snapshot. if you consider that time is constantly flowing, then for every moment in time, there are an infinite number of parallel moments with different combinations of energy and mass distributed differently throughout the universe. as they all happen in parallel, then yes this could be construed as parallel universes. but the issue with this theory is that there's no way to tell for sure that they occur in sequential order. that is, who's to say that they make sense in reference to eachother? one person or entity will experience a different 'moment' with that specific orientation of mass and energy at a time. we travel through this space time field experiencing moment after moment.

thus far, (in this thread) we've only really considered time as a line. but why not consider it in more than just one dimension. if you are travelling along the spacial time field, and you manage to somehow turn around, go back and change the orientation of some energy and mass (in this case, making it so your grandparents never meet), then you shift yourself horizontally or vertically in the field. your new time vector is no longer in line with the original time vector. so it's not like you would create a new universe or an alternate reality, more like you'd experience new moments in the universe that you hadn't previously experienced. if you were to relive a day (think the movie groundhog day) and you did things differently, they would be parallel moments of the same time frame. the moments you experienced previously wouldn't disappear, they'd just have a different orientation on the time 'map'.

the interesting conclusion is, we travel through time experiencing certain combinations of mass and energy, one for every moment of time. what if you were to hold time still. and then experience all the different combinations unique to that particular moment? you'd experience everything from the entire universe being a giant ball of energy, to the entire universe being a giant ball of mass and everything in between. incredible.

 

[Casanova]

What?

You ask those questions as if time travel is entirely possible and someone here must know the answers. Time travel (as far as the general public of the world are concerned) has never been accomplished and so there is absolutely no way that anyone can know if travelling to the past and undoing the future really changes anything, or creates a split time line, or another dimension.

I firmly believe that time travel will never be accomplished and it will never cease to be a fairy tale concept. When anyone tells you that going back in time and changing something changes the future they are lying to you because they just don't know that. Time travel is not possible and they cannot say for certain. For all we know, traveling back through time will turn you back into a sperm cell, or give you an extra arm, or even undo the very fabric of time itself.

Plus, if time travel was ever accomplished and someone did manage to go back in time and stop their grandparents ever meeting or w/e, who is to say that the grandparents wouldn't meet some other time? You can't predict that kind of thing.

I'm not saying that we all have an inevitable fate that can't be changed, a set path given to us at birth that we all walk blindly until our death. I'm saying that the ways of the world are a mystery to the human populace and there is no way of predicting anything.

Even the all-mighty weather man gets it wrong.

 

[strifehart]

What?

You ask those questions as if time travel is entirely possible and someone here must know the answers. Time travel (as far as the general public of the world are concerned) has never been accomplished and so there is absolutely no way that anyone can know if travelling to the past and undoing the future really changes anything, or creates a split time line, or another dimension.

I firmly believe that time travel will never be accomplished and it will never cease to be a fairy tale concept. When anyone tells you that going back in time and changing something changes the future they are lying to you because they just don't know that. Time travel is not possible and they cannot say for certain. For all we know, traveling back through time will turn you back into a sperm cell, or give you an extra arm, or even undo the very fabric of time itself.

Plus, if time travel was ever accomplished and someone did manage to go back in time and stop their grandparents ever meeting or w/e, who is to say that the grandparents wouldn't meet some other time? You can't predict that kind of thing.

I'm not saying that we all have an inevitable fate that can't be changed, a set path given to us at birth that we all walk blindly until our death. I'm saying that the ways of the world are a mystery to the human populace and there is no way of predicting anything.

Even the all-mighty weather man gets it wrong.

what?

first of all, when you formulate theories or speculate, you usually take into consideration some variable assumption. assumptions have been made and implied in this thread, so why are you asking base questions?

it's like, when someone first speculated that the earth was round, you would have been the person to say "well, we'll never know cuz no one will ever be able to travel all the way around it".

many theories are derived/incorporate other theories in their fundamental basis. such as the theory of relativity.

i'll give you an example. we know that when an object moves at incredibly fast speeds, that the size of the object actually changes (this is explained by light wave physics). of course, there is no experimental evidence of this, because there's no way we can get an object to move that fast. but we accept it as true. the scientific community accepts it as true.

the point is that a lot of truths have been derived by looking at things we already know. just because you've never seen 1 million dollars, you can assume it's possible based on the 20 dollars you've got in your pocket.

 

[DLFlux]

What?

You ask those questions as if time travel is entirely possible and someone here must know the answers. Time travel (as far as the general public of the world are concerned) has never been accomplished and so there is absolutely no way that anyone can know if travelling to the past and undoing the future really changes anything, or creates a split time line, or another dimension.

I firmly believe that time travel will never be accomplished and it will never cease to be a fairy tale concept. When anyone tells you that going back in time and changing something changes the future they are lying to you because they just don't know that. Time travel is not possible and they cannot say for certain. For all we know, traveling back through time will turn you back into a sperm cell, or give you an extra arm, or even undo the very fabric of time itself.

Plus, if time travel was ever accomplished and someone did manage to go back in time and stop their grandparents ever meeting or w/e, who is to say that the grandparents wouldn't meet some other time? You can't predict that kind of thing.

I'm not saying that we all have an inevitable fate that can't be changed, a set path given to us at birth that we all walk blindly until our death. I'm saying that the ways of the world are a mystery to the human populace and there is no way of predicting anything.

Even the all-mighty weather man gets it wrong.

I know it's not possible, and probably never will be (I did say that in an earlier post) it's just purely speculation. What people think would happen, it's something to rattle your brain over if you tend to think about these sort of things. There isn't any right or wrong answers because we simply don't know, so theories and speculation is all we have, provides good food for thought.

 

[Gabranth]

Actually the size of the object does not change - the size from which we see it does. Most materials just burn up at such high speeds - There is evidence of this from comets and fireballs hitting our Earth. They're usually the size of grain of dust but it looks huge from our eyes. Yes, they'll warp and be distorted, but the actual size does not change - only the mass.

As for -

it's like, when someone first speculated that the earth was round, you would have been the person to say "well, we'll never know cuz no one will ever be able to travel all the way around it".

The Earth is actual matter whereas time isn't. It has been theorized that you'll travel through time by breaking the speed of electromagnetic waves - light waves to be exact. However, we won't 'travel' through it, it would look like we are. That's based upon Einsteins general relativity.

 

[strifehart]

Actually the size of the object does not change - the size from which we see it does. Most materials just burn up at such high speeds - There is evidence of this from comets and fireballs hitting our Earth. They're usually the size of grain of dust but it looks huge from our eyes. Yes, they'll warp and be distorted, but the actual size does not change - only the mass.

As for -
The Earth is actual matter whereas time isn't. It has been theorized that you'll travel through time by breaking the speed of electromagnetic waves - light waves to be exact. However, we won't 'travel' through it, it would look like we are. That's based upon Einsteins general relativity.

yeah i didn't quite remember the exact theory. i remembered some of it from quantum.

but the earth being round thing wasn't in reference to time or travel or anything like that. it was just an analogy to how he was looking at the situation.

 

[Gabranth]

Well, scientists are almost certain that time travel exists....but is not possible. If we agree on the fourth spacial dimension of space-time, then that means gravity distorts EM waves; this in turn affects our thinking. If you think about it, we see everything in 3D, but say if we drew a '3D cube' on some paper. Is it 3D now? No, but its difficult for us to tell the difference. (yes I know its many atoms thick but that's an example) That's because we're used to seeing everything in 3D. What if we were used to seeing everything in 4D, or even space-time? It would be difficult to see 3D wouldn't it?

So if gravity affects EM waves, it affects time itself. For example: If someone were to go near a black hole, they would go slower and slower until they would stop, and disappear into a singularity. This means matter affects space-time, or even 4D. You might ask what gravity is - its the affect upon space-time we see from matter.

So no living being can travel through time, but particles can. However, if look upon it from another angle, we're traveling through time faster than a particle is near matter than has larger mass than us. The larger the mass, the larger the affect upon space-time. A larger scaled example would be particles being sucked into a black hole - we're traveling faster than the particles.

 

[Ness]

I think it could be argued that we are moving through time right now. Even as I type this response, and as you read, we are moving forward slowly, second by second.

Then again, is time anything but a human construct? Where did the idea of a second come from? I know how a second is measured in modern times, but where did the idea to separate time into periods of different sizes originate? Did humankind just make these distinctions arbitrarily?

 

[Gabranth]

It relies upon the base 10 decimal system. Technically, everything is based on 0-10, numbers, liters, miles etc. They're all interrelated, so if everything were to be settled upon say....a 71 system, then every second would account for the same amount of time, just it would be 71 seconds when compared to our system.

If we were to move to the Sun (I know we can't, but lets say we can) we would age slower due to the Sun's large mass. But we can only compare the results if someone stays on Earth. say if someone went to the Sun for 50 years then came back - they would look as if they were 40 years old or something.

 

[Cactuar]

Time is a dimension guys remember.
I believe that to travel in time one would need a time machine at both ends, if this was not so, we would have already seen people from the future. If time travel is at all possible, when our first time machine is switched on, it would be that point in time that we could travel back to if we were in the future

Say someone had just built a time machine, assuming he hasn't immediately destroyed it he could travel into the future, however he would have to wait at least the minimal amount of time before he could travel into the past, as far as to the point of creation of his own time machine.
So, in theory if time travel is in fact possible, the second we build a successful time machine, someone should come through it from the future

 

[reddas]

I've always found this topic interesting, but never taken it seriously. There are so many films and TV programmes like Dr Who (of which I'm a big fan) and waching them pretty much explains everything. I remember in an earlier episode of Dr Who, Rose saves her Dad from being hit by a car. As he was supposed to be killed at that moment, and she stops him, this completely screws up time... sorry, I'm going completely off the subject here, but yeah, the only way I think time travel would be possible, is IF there are paralel universes that are behind ours, or in front, then perhaps traviling to them... Maybe?

 

[DLFlux]

I've always found this topic interesting, but never taken it seriously. There are so many films and TV programmes like Dr Who (of which I'm a big fan) and waching them pretty much explains everything. I remember in an earlier episode of Dr Who, Rose saves her Dad from being hit by a car. As he was supposed to be killed at that moment, and she stops him, this completely screws up time... sorry, I'm going completely off the subject here, but yeah, the only way I think time travel would be possible, is IF there are paralel universes that are behind ours, or in front, then perhaps traviling to them... Maybe?

Funnily enough, that episode was on yesterday on BBC3. Really good episode, that.

You see them go back, Rose messes up, so they go back again, see themselves there at that same moment. Pretty cool stuff.

 

[Cactuar]

I've always found this topic interesting, but never taken it seriously. There are so many films and TV programmes like Dr Who (of which I'm a big fan) and waching them pretty much explains everything. I remember in an earlier episode of Dr Who, Rose saves her Dad from being hit by a car. As he was supposed to be killed at that moment, and she stops him, this completely screws up time... sorry, I'm going completely off the subject here, but yeah, the only way I think time travel would be possible, is IF there are paralel universes that are behind ours, or in front, then perhaps traviling to them... Maybe?

Funnily enough, that episode was on yesterday on BBC3. Really good episode, that.

You see them go back, Rose messes up, so they go back again, see themselves there at that same moment. Pretty cool stuff.

Funnily enough, you both forgot to mention that messing with a timeline results in summoning a horde of scary demon-harpies.

Like in that episode.

Perhaps we shouldnt mess with time travel =P