Wormholes and time travel

[brian]

Okay, here's a link to a ercent article in Nature magazine about Wormholes - everyone's favourite* method of Time Travel.

Making a wormhole just got easier...but it's no simple matter.

*meaning most scientifically plausably practical.


So, to open up the discussion - Time Travel - possible or not?

If there is Time Travel then obviously none of us can go back in time and alter the past. Or could we? OR would the future then be part of the past and thus not negatable?

Is time even linear (past, present, future)?

Or wuold Time Travel actually never achieve more than travel into infinite possible universes where the past is like our own, only the future has not occurred - and if so, how would you know?

Or is Time Travel itself not even remotely likely in any of the above scenarios?


Comments, if you will. ;D

[nemesis]

If time travel were possible we would have met the future by now. The ability for humanity to invent time travel as fiction would have us believe is disproven by the conspicuous absence of time travellers.

[X Q mano]

"Time-travelling" forward wouldn't be impossible I think, but back again? Hmmm...

I suppose, if you could make a ship travelling at far above light-speed or something, then time would be different for the occupants on that ship compared to earth. But back again, that would be a problem methinks...

And there are people who claim to be time-travellers... But more often than not we lock them up in rooms with padded walls...

[chronicles]

I like the idea that if time0travel were possible, it has alerady been accounted for by time, and hence the time travellers are here but are unable to change the past because the past always involved them and they were always unable to change whatever it was they wanted to change!

[nightwalker]

It can't be done. If it could there would be no future to create time travel because there would always be someone changing the timeline. People could time travel to prevent the time machine being built and so create a parado,,,,I think.

[X Q mano]

Anyone read Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy series?

There you are presented with an interesting problem when it comes to time-travel... i think it's in the Restaurant at the end of the universe book...

[brian]

Saw the BBC TV series but remember little of it, other than as a kid I just didn't "get it".

Would you care to enlighten as to the restaurant at the end of the universe issue? Intrigued.

[X Q mano]

I would have to grab my book at home... I'll see if I can do it tomorrow ok? It's really funny...

[X Q mano]

Ok, here goes... This is a quote from the book "The Restaurant at the end of the Universe" by Douglas Adams. If I'm doing something illegal here, I apologize. It's a really great book and a great trilogy (of five books) and it is highly recommended.

ONe of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of accidentally becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem involved in becoming your own father or mother that a broadminded and well adjusted family can't cope with. There is also no problem about changing the course of history - the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.

The major problem is quite simply one of gramma, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own mother or father.

Most readers get as far as the Future Semi-Conditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up: And in fact in later editions of the book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.

[brian]

That's actually pretty good.

[dwndrgn]

The Guide is hilarious! I recommend it to anyone who just needs a chuckle to make a bad day better. ;D

As for time travel...well, I'd like to believe it but it just doesn't fit into my own personal form of logic. Just the fact that time itself is an idea, not a fixed thing sort of makes the logistics a little weird. My brain is wiggling just trying to think about it.

I find the idea of *place* travel much more plausible - that there are parallel universes/realities that could be *jumped* to, as depicted often in fantasy novels. I couldn't really tell you why this seems more plausible ??? Maybe I am just more fascinated by it so want to believe it.

[chronicles]

Would anybody actually want to go back in time and intentionally change the past?

[X Q mano]

It would be tempting sometimes... But I have made up my mind to never regret anything... So I would try not to change anything either...

[brian]

Ah - but what about regretting what happens to other people, though? For example, I figure a lot of people would want to prevent the implementation of "the Final Solution" the Nazis. However, wouldn't stopping that have an inadvert negative impact? In the realm of genetics that we currently explore, the whole issue of Eugenics has been thoroughly destroyed precisely because of the Nazis. However, before them it was an entirely respectable field. Without Hitler, we could be stumbling into a whole different Eugenics nightmare right now - and with far, far, more powerful tools.

[Arch]

I would go back in time, collect some items I know are rare in the present day, and then bury them. Then I would return to the future to where I buried those things and then unbury them! Hence I become rich and the world and is enriched by my new discovery!