Wormholes and time travel

[Harpo]

Originally Posted by Harpo

"Time-travel will never be invented because we can't see any time-travellers" goes the argument against.

But what if, instead of a time-machine being a machine which travels through time, it is a machine in which people can travel through time (within the operational lifespan of the machine).

This way, time-travellers will be able to travel into the past as far back as the day the first working time machine gets switched on.

Suppose that day is December 21st 2012 - when the Mayan Calendar says our concept of time will change.

I'm looking forward to it.

Is it too late for me to patent the idea?
Time Travel Machine Outlined - Yahoo! News

"Ori emphasized one significant limitation of this time machine—"it can't be used to travel to a time before the time machine was constructed." "

Does my post from last september count as copyright for the idea?

[Interference]

Originally Posted by Harpo

Does my post from last september count as copyright for the idea?

Sadly, and I weep for you, but no, unless you've invented a time machine and can go back even further in time to be the first one to think of the idea.

I'm afraid your idea has been pre-dated and was the basis for the fictional fundament of Quantum Leap - it wasn't the basis for QL, just for its underlying limitation theme.

I think you'll find a semi-whimsical reference to the limitation of time travel to the life-span of the time machine in A Brief History.... and if I had a more encyclopaedic memory I'd tell you where else I've read the proposition, I'm sure I've read or read about or seen on telly the same or a similar notion. It's certainly one I've been aware of for a number of years as I have tried to circumvent it in notes I made in 1995/6, and I know I didn't come up with it myself.

Of course, fiction-wise, it's an annoyingly limiting concept. If you've read any Jenny Randles, you might come round to the idea that time travel isn't such a big deal, anyway, and with the right conditions, anyone might do it. Now, that's an idea I'd love to find out was real.

[andrew.v.spencer]

You need to end this conversation now. In three days it leads to a schism in the etheric consciousness of the disaggregated and naive human sub-culture. Two days after that demented warpuls breach the D wall and infect all six toed people, violence ensues.

Only by hopping in my time kettle and steaming back to today can I save you all.

[Interference]

Have you done it yet?

Have you done it yet?

Have you done it yet?

Have you done it yet?

Have you done it yet?

[ghost8772]

ok, on the original idea of time trasvel, possible or not. and all that jazz. there are too many possible things that have been shown could happen. one COULD make changes, butterfly effect stuff, that alters the future from that point, creating what could only be called an alternate timeline from where the traveller started. another view is that history is set, and that any changes that were made in the past HAD to be made, and if they weren't then the fabric of the universe would self-destruct, fire, brimstone, and all sorts of bad things would be incurred at that point. another possibility would be that the person travelling back in time could not interact with the past, but would be only an observer, with nobody being able to perceive his/her existence at that time..... hmmmm... maybe the reason for ghosts?

[Harpo]

........ghosts in historical costume though?

[Interference]

Originally Posted by Harpo

........ghosts in historical costume though?

Personally, see no reason why not. Even interacting with them might be possible. Replays of a cosmic tape loop caught up in the granite - just realised I can't spell granate (or grannut, for that matter) - is one proposed explanation, but time slips aren't cosmologically impossible. Spacetime is a whole bunch of stuff. I hate to harp on about things we all know, but if we did meddle in our own history, even the history of our planet, would it matter a jot in cosmic terms? Seriously, I doubt it. Some say "There must be safeguards", but whom will these safeguards protect? A bunch of carbon-based organisms whose time on this planet and contribution to the Universal All is as important as the next word I type.

[ghost8772]

historical costume? maybe, maybe not. after all fashion trends ARE cyclical.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by ghost8772

historical costume? maybe, maybe not. after all fashion trends ARE cyclical.

Hmmm! Maybe, it's an interesting proposition you make. Ladies dressed in green are common ghosts in Scottish castles - maybe this is a fashion trend of the future? But I think I can bring down your argument with the ghosts dressed in suits of armour - I'm not sure that they will be the de rigueur clothing for future time travellers.

[ghost8772]

well another supposition could be time travellers taking an effort to arrive surreptitiously, so they DO travel in era clothing, but need to have their machine calibrated. maybe several attempted trips that drift the traveller into then back out of where they were supposed to go, but at the wrong time. once they make it to the correct time they are either commited forever. they die in that time or something like that. operating backwards in time though makes it that they are sighted sfter their death on their journey backwards. like I said in the original post, to many ideas/theories/possibilities on what might happen if persons had the technology to travel at will through time.

Of course the possibility that one would end up in hard vacuum with the earth being light years away because they didn't travel in space during their travel in time must be considered also.