Some thoughts

[mapuc]

In Denmark we have a saying:

You can't eat your cake and stil have it

Under this circumstances we are living under these days it is true

If we could time travel what then??

Let say I take a bite of a very delicious cake and eat it and then I travel 3 minutes back in time to the same spot. Now here's my thoughts

1. Will the cake be there untouched?
2. Will I see my self standing there drooling
3. The bite I had eaten in the future, will it still be in my stomach or have it disappeared during my time travel

Markus

[Wolferz]

Oh Noooooo!
PARADOX!
:haha:

[u crank]

Mmmm..I like cake.:D

[August]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3a. Yes
3b. No

:salute:

[MH]

In Denmark anything is possible.

[Raptor1]

1. Will the cake be there untouched?

Yes.


2. Will I see my self standing there drooling

Yes.


3. The bite I had eaten in the future, will it still be in my stomach or have it disappeared during my time travel


It'll still be there. In diverging timelines stopping yourself from eating it will not effect the original timeline in which you ate the cake. In a deterministic timeline you can't stop yourself from eating the cake no matter what you do. In an overwriting timeline it has already been determined that you've eaten the cake, so despite going back you haven't stopped yourself from eating the cake.

[Red October1984]

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FOVKVSTenE8/URg2aQ9j2tI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/egDnFCAfZo0/s1600/mind-blown.jpg

[Mittelwaechter]

The real question is:

would you eat the cake at all, with yourself popping out of the future, telling you the story of the cake, just because you are curious to see what happens if you don't eat it?

[August]

If we're going back in time can I bring this weeks winning lottery number with me?

[Wolferz]

If we're going back in time can I bring this weeks winning lottery number with me?
And become Biff tannen? I think not.:hmmm:

[August]

And become Biff tannen? I think not.:hmmm:

:) Biffs mistake is he went back too far. A week or two, a month at the most would be all you'd really need.

[mapuc]

My friends thanks for your answer to my thoughts

However, every answer could be correct of wrong and we do not know until we invent the time machine-what is correct and not regarding those theories

Markus

[Nippelspanner]

My friends thanks for your answer to my thoughts

However, every answer could be correct of wrong and we do not know until we invent the time machine-what is correct and not regarding those theories

Markus

Time travel is not possible, it would make the universe implodite...
It is the same with Google. If you enter the word 'Google' in Google you would destroy the internetz!

[Mittelwaechter]

We are timetraveling all the time, but the speed and direction seems to be fixed.

[Red October1984]

It is the same with Google. If you enter the word 'Google' in Google you would destroy the internetz!

I do that all the time. The internet doesn't destroy itself

[u crank]

I do that all the time. The internet doesn't destroy itself

Stop rolling the dice man! :O:

[Platapus]

First invent the time machine, then worry about cake. :yep:

[Jimbuna]

First invent the time machine, then worry about cake. :yep:

Preferably :yep:

[Red October1984]

Stop rolling the dice man! :O:

But WHY!?

I'm good at it. :)

[u crank]

But WHY!?

I'm good at it. :)

I hope so. :sunny:

[Red October1984]

I hope so. :sunny:

Gonna roll them again (http://bit.ly/tcnhB5) :woot:

[mapuc]

Here's an another theories I once have read.

If we ever should invent a time machine we will not be able to use it for two reasons

1. The past is gone and can't be reached or changed
2. The future haven't been written yet, therefore traveling to a spot that doesn't exist is impossible
(can't remember the exact words)

Markus

[Red October1984]

Okay...that truly is something to think about.

:hmmm:

[Sailor Steve]

Larry Niven once wrote a treatise called The Theory and Practice of Time Travel. In it he examines the Grandfather Paradox and much more. The fun part comes at the end when he poses a world where time travel was common. People travelled back and forth, changing things constantly, creating messes and cleaning them up. Then he considers that one of them travels to just the right time and kills the only man who ever could have invented a time machine.

He ends with "Maybe that's what happened."

[BrucePartington]

Time travel is not possible. The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined so.

[Sailor Steve]

Tell it to Gary Seven. :O:

[Mittelwaechter]

An "event" is defined by timestamp and location.
If you want to reach an event at any other timestamp but the actual one, you would have to reach it's location too.

If you want to jump back in time, you would have to push back the location of the event either. A local yesterday event happened a few hundred thousand kilometers back on our planets orbit.

If you could jump in time forward, you would end in empty space, waiting for the location to catch up.

[Red October1984]

This thread is deep...

This has me really thinking... :hmmm: I can't grasp onto a concept because once I have an idea I see a new post and it shatters it with a new concept.

[TorpX]

Time travel is not possible. The Vulcan Science Directorate has determined so.
Shhhh......

Time travel may not be possible, but profitable science-fiction books, movies, and television shows are possible.

The fun part comes at the end when he poses a world where time travel was common. People travelled back and forth, changing things constantly, creating messes and cleaning them up.

This reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Homer travels back in time to when dinosaurs roamed the earth, he sneezes, and then they start falling over dead, like lead bricks....

[Red October1984]

This reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Homer travels back in time to when dinosaurs roamed the earth, he sneezes, and then they start falling over dead, like lead bricks....

A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury...

Look it up. :up:

[troopie]

How about, if I travel back in time three years, i'll be three years younger and me and the Earth will be at whatever places we were three years ago. If I travel back one hundred years i'll not exist to witness it?

Kinda like hitting rewind.

So, then, If I traveled forward in time, i'd be quite familiar with where ever I ended up as id've allready experienced all that fell between?

Fast forward.

[Mittelwaechter]

I guess you won't be younger, but older by the time your time journey would take.

Not only our little earth would have to be where it was three years before, but the whole universe would have to shrink again.
Quite a job to do. Not to mention the light to be put back into its emitters.

[Sailor Steve]

How about, if I travel back in time three years, i'll be three years younger and me and the Earth will be at whatever places we were three years ago.
You'd have to ask Billy Pilgrim about that one.

[troopie]

Quite a job to do.

Time itself would take care of that; running forwards, it does all that anyway, run it backwards and it'd take no more effort. Time's speed and direction, I suspect, are merely an aspect of perspective.


For some reason Milton has just popped into my head, now I'm gunna have to go and boot up SH4 :haha:


I still love watching that intro.....Fly, envious Time,....

[Platapus]

Once I put Instant Coffee in the Microwave. I almost went back in time.

[mapuc]

Here's anothert thing to think about:

You can only travel back in time to the date, hour, minute, second your timemachine was build. You can't go further back because your timemachine wasn't invented/build then

If we should ever invent such a think, it will be goodbye to betting that's for sure.

Markus

[Sailor Steve]

I disagree. The point of having a time machine is to break the laws of time. If I can't visit Nefertiti, Cleopatra, Lucretia Borgia and Mata Hari, why bother?

[August]

Exactly. Not to mention the idea that if the machine can't exist prior to it's creation date neither could it's passengers, their clothes and effect or anything else.

Kinda defeats the purpose of a time machine,.... Except of course for playing last weeks lottery numbers! :D

[Red October1984]

I think this thread has left me mentally dead.

This is more mental exercise than taking the ACT. :hmmm: Just figuring out how it would work and exist. :dead:

Of course I know exactly what I would do with a time machine.

[BrucePartington]

To go back in time you'd have to be able to manipulate the timeline. Since time is part of the Space-Time continuum, this means you'd have to fiddle with both.
And space itself has been determined to be ever expanding and accelerating, from no point in particular. It is just dilating and accelerating doing so.
This also means time is also expanding and accelerating. You just cannot notice it because you are inside of it (the space-time continuum, that is).

Now, reversing the accelerating expansion of the S/T continuum would create a severe unbalance in this particular universe, since while progressing normally, the S/T continuum counters the effects of its Nemesis: anti-space/anti-time continuum.
Now you'd have two anti-space/anti-time continuum, instantly disrupting and bursting this universe, seriously reverberating through contiguous universes, thus creating a S/T continuum Black Hole in the multiverse.
No one would ever notice we came in and out of existence without even have existed at all, since our time was simply erased by S/T continuum overload.

RO, RO! Are you alright?
Medic! MEDIC!!!

[Red October1984]

RO, RO! Are you alright?
Medic! MEDIC!!!

http://www.nlgroup.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/mental-health.jpg

[Jimbuna]

To go back in time you'd have to be able to manipulate the timeline. Since time is part of the Space-Time continuum, this means you'd have to fiddle with both.
And space itself has been determined to be ever expanding and accelerating, from no point in particular. It is just dilating and accelerating doing so.
This also means time is also expanding and accelerating. You just cannot notice it because you are inside of it (the space-time continuum, that is).

Now, reversing the accelerating expansion of the S/T continuum would create a severe unbalance in this particular universe, since while progressing normally, the S/T continuum counters the effects of its Nemesis: anti-space/anti-time continuum.
Now you'd have two anti-space/anti-time continuum, instantly disrupting and bursting this universe, seriously reverberating through contiguous universes, thus creating a S/T continuum Black Hole in the multiverse.
No one would ever notice we came in and out of existence without even have existed at all, since our time was simply erased by S/T continuum overload.

RO, RO! Are you alright?
Medic! MEDIC!!!

Righteo then :hmmm:

[Mittelwaechter]

Time is only a concept. It's a rhythmic interpretation of the natural pulses we observe. Aeons or moments are structured events - a string of it or a single one. We use this concept to organize, to structure our lifes and thoughts.
We observe different pulses - external (i.e. rotation of the planet) and internal ones (i.e. heartbeat). We can't flee them.
We norm them, scale them, to gain some kind of control over our existence.
We have standardized a certain amount of events to be a second, a day or a year.
That's way it seems to 'be' constant and flowing - to be a line.

A moment in time is like an idea. It pops up and from this moment it can be remembered. We can think back to the moment of its appearance. An idea can't be pushed around, neither back nor forward. We can imagine the appearance of a new idea, but we have to wait until it starts to exist. We can't jump to it.

Our Existance is right now - any other moment is nonexistent and can not be conquered by us. We only can remember events gone by and we can imagine events to come.

Sorry for that.

[Red October1984]

Time is only a concept. It's a rhythmic interpretation of the natural pulses we observe. Aeons or moments are structured events - a string of it or a single one. We use this concept to organize, to structure our lifes and thoughts.
We observe different pulses - external (i.e. rotation of the planet) and internal ones (i.e. heartbeat). We can't flee them.
We norm them, scale them, to gain some kind of control over our existence.
We have standardized a certain amount of events to be a second, a day or a year.
That's way it seems to 'be' constant and flowing - to be a line.

A moment in time is like an idea. It pops up and from this moment it can be remembered. We can think back to the moment of its appearance. An idea can't be pushed around, neither back nor forward. We can imagine the appearance of a new idea, but we have to wait until it starts to exist. We can't jump to it.

Our Existance is right now - any other moment is nonexistent and can not be conquered by us. We only can remember events gone by and we can imagine events to come.

Sorry for that.


You should do the opening for a science fiction movie. :har:

Time is a concept...

[Mittelwaechter]

Guess what - I did it.

The movie was a prologue for a show event at a convention of my company.

The fate of the company in some distant future. It was one of a few remaining players that made it into space, 76 years after the first contact.

[August]

http://www.nlgroup.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/mental-health.jpg

Watching all those end of the world movies is doing it to ya... :yep:

[Red October1984]

Watching all those end of the world movies is doing it to ya... :yep:

Nah....

Playing DEFCON with HunterICX and Raptor1 did it to me. :rotfl2:

[Cybermat47]

This is more mental exercise than taking the ACT.

By 'taking the ACT', do you mean 'invading the Australian Capital Territory'?!

:hmmm::stare:

[Red October1984]

By 'taking the ACT', do you mean 'invading the Australian Capital Territory'?!

:hmmm::stare:

Nah...the ACT Test for College stuff.


Invading Australia sounds like a pretty good idea anyway...but sorry..have to pass. :arrgh!:

[Sailor Steve]

Sorry for that.
Why? It's a good observation.

[Red October1984]

Why? It's a good observation.

There have been many good observations in this thread.

I think I'm starting to get this.

I couldn't explain it in my words....but I can kinda start to understand. :timeout:

[TarJak]

Invading Australia sounds like a pretty good idea anyway

You might learn the secret of making nice beer.:O:

[Jimbuna]

You might learn the secret of making nice beer.:O:

http://www.lovemarks.com/media/image/fosters_html.jpg (http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&docid=Pne2z0Cb-7IykM&tbnid=0IrcLicIYkBI7M:&ved=0CAUQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lovemarks.com%2Fnomination%2F 968&ei=sC3EUauvOuiy0QWByIGgBg&bvm=bv.48293060,d.d2k&psig=AFQjCNEGNIfTJNbJyF78Djzqtd79jug7dA&ust=1371897622898982)

[Spiced_Rum]

318

No one wants to drink a warm tinny:sunny:

[Wolferz]

318

No one wants to drink a warm tinny:sunny:

Me old china plate does.:shucks:

[Wolferz]

Now you must wrestle with the menu decision...

Morlok or Eloi?

[Mittelwaechter]

Now let me confuse you.

Time is totally irrelevant.

Every location follows a path through space. Our planet follows its orbit around the sun.
Dublin follows a funny swirl on the surface of the planet along its path around the sun. Ok?
Dublin follows a location-string through space.

How do we meet in Dublin for a pint of beer without the concept of time?

We name a position in space where Dublin's location string will travel through.
If we manage to connect our own location-strings at the right position we will meet.

Assuming one of us doesn't connect Dublin's string at the correct position, but hits the string at an other location.
If this location is somewhere ahead the correct position, he will be in Dublin, but will have to wait until Dublin reaches the correct position. (In time-speak: he is early)
If this location is somewhere behind the correct position, he will be in Dublin, but would find the other one waiting for him. (in time-speak: he is late)
Our strings will be connected along the location-string of Dublins route through space. We may have arranged a certain distance to be travelled together.
If we reach this point and want to part, we simply disconnect our location-strings.

If you have to report to your wife, you can tell her the correct position in space we disconnected, to explain the trouble you have had following your own long and winding location-string back home.


You're still with me, right?

Yesterday 1400 describes a location.

[Red October1984]

Now let me confuse you.

Time is totally irrelevant.

Every location follows a path through space. Our planet follows its orbit around the sun.
Dublin follows a funny swirl on the surface of the planet along its path around the sun. Ok?
Dublin follows a location-string through space.

How do we meet in Dublin for a pint of beer without the concept of time?

We name a position in space where Dublin's location string will travel through.
If we manage to connect our own location-strings at the right position we will meet.

Assuming one of us doesn't connect Dublin's string at the correct position, but hits the string at an other location.
If this location is somewhere ahead the correct position, he will be in Dublin, but will have to wait until Dublin reaches the correct position. (In time-speak: he is early)
If this location is somewhere behind the correct position, he will be in Dublin, but would find the other one waiting for him. (in time-speak: he is late)
Our strings will be connected along the location-string of Dublins route through space. We may have arranged a certain distance to be travelled together.
If we reach this point and want to part, we simply disconnect our location-strings.

If you have to report to your wife, you can tell her the correct position in space we disconnected, to explain the trouble you have had following your own long and winding location-string back home.


You're still with me, right?

Yesterday 1400 describes a location.

I follow you.

God...what is that movie called!

The one where the guy and the girl are two years apart and they communicate by that mailbox.....

:/\\!!

It makes perfect sense!

[TarJak]

Now let me confuse you.

Time is totally irrelevant.

Every location follows a path through space. Our planet follows its orbit around the sun.
Dublin follows a funny swirl on the surface of the planet along its path around the sun. Ok?
Dublin follows a location-string through space.

How do we meet in Dublin for a pint of beer without the concept of time?

We name a position in space where Dublin's location string will travel through.
If we manage to connect our own location-strings at the right position we will meet.

Assuming one of us doesn't connect Dublin's string at the correct position, but hits the string at an other location.
If this location is somewhere ahead the correct position, he will be in Dublin, but will have to wait until Dublin reaches the correct position. (In time-speak: he is early)
If this location is somewhere behind the correct position, he will be in Dublin, but would find the other one waiting for him. (in time-speak: he is late)
Our strings will be connected along the location-string of Dublins route through space. We may have arranged a certain distance to be travelled together.
If we reach this point and want to part, we simply disconnect our location-strings.

If you have to report to your wife, you can tell her the correct position in space we disconnected, to explain the trouble you have had following your own long and winding location-string back home.


You're still with me, right?

Yesterday 1400 describes a location.

Remember that this only works if you are both in the same universe at the time of your locations strings meeting. Otherwise your pint will get warm.

[Mittelwaechter]

The Lake House

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410297/

[Red October1984]

The Lake House

YES! That's the one.

I saw the last half hour of that. I had a friend who had seen it explain the rest of what happened in the movie.

[Mittelwaechter]

The one behind the mailboxes position couldn't leave a message for the one ahead.

Behind can connect to a position ahead, but ahead can't connect to a position behind.

The location-strings expand in only one direction.

At least if we respect there is only our common event horizon - to support TarJak's comment.

[Red October1984]

The one behind the mailboxes position couldn't leave a message for the one ahead.

Behind can connect to a position ahead, but ahead can't connect to a position behind.

Point being, if a time machine were to be invented we can only go to the future if I understand this correctly?

If a string connected that went both ways...wouldn't it work the same? :hmmm:

Something like this:

Two people in the same universe.

Exactly one year apart.

One travels back and the other travels forward and they meet in the middle...in...oh...say St. Louis underneath the Gateway Arch. (Appropriate enough)

If what you say is being interpreted correctly, the person in the future who traveled back would be underneath the arch....but couldn't be there at the exact location-time as the person from the past... :hmmm:

And this is assuming that no events have been changed by other time travelers.... Maybe I'm thinking too much again. :hmmm:


Another question:

How the hell do you people know so much about something that isn't possible? :hmmm:

[Mittelwaechter]

We do live in a "time machine" that travels into the future - using common terminology.

You want a mechanical or electronical device that sends you through time, but time, future or past is only a concept based on our existence here and now - following our path through space - to there and then.

If we invent a time machine that works to your liking, it would work to your liking and send us around in any direction and to any event. Your question is a paradox.

If there exists a parallel universe, or even multiple ones and if we were able to get access, there is no guarantee it or they would be a copy of our universe just in different timeframes behind or ahead of us.

The longer a universe exists, the more random events occur. I guess this would be true in any more or less consimilar recognizable universes. A second later the bus would have hit the tree, you know. And that planet would have hit that star...

Two people in the same universe, exactly one year apart?
Wouldn't this make them simply of different age?

If someone from a non existent future jumps into our timeframe to a certain location and someone who started yesterday and traveld through time - maybe even at normal speed (!) - to this exact same location - and both try to conquer suddenly the exact same space?

This must be the moment my wife understands the offside rule, I guess.

Joke aside, I don't know why you doubt it. You and me - from our timeframe - can't conquer the exact same space. Wherever we go, we push the surrounding media away. Radiation waves float though us, but I think they conquer only empty space between our atoms.

A moment is the description of the location of every object - no matter how small or huge - in the universe. If you alter this description, it would not be that moment any more.

Assume it's like a photo shot.

And this leads us to a kind of "time machine". You want to manipulate a moment in the past? Photoshop is the closest thing to a time machine we have. It manipulates the conservation of a moment in time, but doesn't have to destruct the original.

Remember, this knowlege is only theory. At least for those of us who didn't jump though time.


Edit: https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2013/Q2/temporal-cloaking-could-bring-more-secure-optical-communications.html

[Platapus]

How the hell do you people know so much about something that isn't possible? :hmmm:

Try not to think of taxpayer money being given to scientists to generate these rules for something that has not been proven can even be done. :D

[Red October1984]

Try not to think of taxpayer money being given to scientists to generate these rules for something that has not been proven can even be done. :D

TRY NOT TO READ THIS.....TRY NOT TO READ THIS.....

AH! I READ IT!

:/\\!!

We do live in a "time machine" that travels into the future - using common terminology.

You want a mechanical or electronical device that sends you through time, but time, future or past is only a concept based on our existence here and now - following our path through space - to there and then.

If we invent a time machine that works to your liking, it would work to your liking and send us around in any direction and to any event. Your question is a paradox.

If there exists a parallel universe, or even multiple ones and if we were able to get access, there is no guarantee it or they would be a copy of our universe just in different timeframes behind or ahead of us.

The longer a universe exists, the more random events occur. I guess this would be true in any more or less consimilar recognizable universes. A second later the bus would have hit the tree, you know. And that planet would have hit that star...

Two people in the same universe, exactly one year apart?
Wouldn't this make them simply of different age?

If someone from a non existent future jumps into our timeframe to a certain location and someone who started yesterday and traveld through time - maybe even at normal speed (!) - to this exact same location - and both try to conquer suddenly the exact same space?

This must be the moment my wife understands the offside rule, I guess.

Joke aside, I don't know why you doubt it. You and me - from our timeframe - can't conquer the exact same space. Wherever we go, we push the surrounding media away. Radiation waves float though us, but I think they conquer only empty space between our atoms.

A moment is the description of the location of every object - no matter how small or huge - in the universe. If you alter this description, it would not be that moment any more.

Assume it's like a photo shot.

And this leads us to a kind of "time machine". You want to manipulate a moment in the past? Photoshop is the closest thing to a time machine we have. It manipulates the conservation of a moment in time, but doesn't have to destruct the original.

Remember, this knowlege is only theory. At least for those of us who didn't jump though time.

So....

A time machine in the common sense cannot exist?

[Wolferz]

"We" are the time machines.
Think about it.

[Spiced_Rum]

Is it Fate or Destiny. Do we have Free Will? Are the choices you make really choices. What do the voices in your head tell you to do?

Edit: Whichever choice I make, the queue I join is always the slowest one even if it is shorter than the others.

[Mittelwaechter]

So....

A time machine in the common sense cannot exist?

As far as I know, we don't know.

You may already have observed, in theory there is no difference between theory and praxis.

Maybe some people send information through time right now, manifesting itself as little voices in Spiced_Rum's head?

Stay curious!

[Sailor Steve]

How the hell do you people know so much about something that isn't possible? :hmmm:
They don't. We don't. I don't. It's all speculation. What is being discussed is the possibilities. Mittelwaechter doesn't know any more about time travel than you do. He just thinks about it more. This is a good thing. :sunny:

[Sailor Steve]

Edit: Whichever choice I make, the queue I join is always the slowest one even if it is shorter than the others.
Murphy's Laws for lines.

1. The line you're in is always slowest.

2. Switching lines makes the one you were in speed up an the one you moved to slow down.

3. Switching back makes both lines stop and everybody mad at you.

[Platapus]

I am still waiting for someone to invent a device that can simply detect time.

I am not even asking to measure time, just detect "time".

[Oberon]

I am still waiting for someone to invent a device that can simply detect time.

I am not even asking to measure time, just detect "time".

It's a bit like the wind, you can only detect it through its interaction with another object.

[Red October1984]

"We" are the time machines.
Think about it.

Wait.... whoa....

They don't. We don't. I don't. It's all speculation. What is being discussed is the possibilities. Mittelwaechter doesn't know any more about time travel than you do. He just thinks about it more. This is a good thing. :sunny:

Mittelwaechter makes it sound like he's an expert....

The way some of this is worded give the impression that some people have seriously pondered this subject. :hmmm:

[Wolferz]

by Red October1984... Wait.... whoa....

Step into my Delorean.:D
http://i205.photobucket.com/albums/bb295/Wolferz_2007/DSC04221.jpg

[TarJak]

Step into my Delorean.:D

That sounds a little creepy.

Like space, time is more of a concept than an actual object or element. If you think in terms of strings being created by objects in space that cannot be looped back on themselves with current known technology, you'll start to understand what Mittelwaechter is taking about, The strings may cross at various points in both space and time.

You perceive your string being intercepted by other objects via your senses. Your brain interprets their inputs and in some cases stores them for later recall. Not always efficiently, however in very great detail which in some cases can be recalled even after your string has traveled a great distance past the points. This whilst not travel in the strictest term is the only way I'm aware of in being able to "go back in time".

Your brain is the time machine that lets you replay your perception of events along your string.

[Mittelwaechter]

@ Red October1984

Sorry if my language, my wording sounds weird to you. My mothers language is German.
It's advantage is to be very precise in describing and I simply tried to translate it into English. A complex theme in simple words would make me talk endless to make sure you're able to get my point.

I'm not an expert for time mechanics or time travel or space theories. You watched my theory unfold in it's original timeframe. If it sounds convincing to you, I take it as a compliment. As I mentioned, this all is theory - not knowledge.

I'd like to encourage you to challenge everything said about time travel and come up with something more plausible.

:salute:

@ TarJak

Well said, Sir.

[Sailor Steve]

It's a bit like the wind, you can only detect it through its interaction with another object.
That's especially true if you're in a balloon. You can see the ground pass, but you can never feel the wind at all, because you're carried along with it.

The way some of this is worded give the impression that some people have seriously pondered this subject. :hmmm:
A great many people have seriously pondered it. Not necessarily time travel, but the passage of time, and what it means.

A wonderful series of short stories are contained in Larry Niven's book The Flight of the Horse. A future world is ruled absolutely by the United Nations. The only problem is that the Secretary General is a hereditary title and the current one has the mental capacity of a five-year-old. There is a contest between the Ministry of Space and the Ministry of time for funding, so the main character, Hanville Svetz, is tasked to bring back a real live horse. The fun starts when it turns out that H.G. Wells invented the concept of time travil, so you can't actually travel into the past beyond the 1890s. If you try you end up in a fantasy realm. Poor Svetz goes after a horse and ends up with an angry unicorn in his time machine. Go looking for a whale and find the biblical Leviathan - a creature so huge it eats whales for lunch. Brilliant stuff. And don't get me started on his Teleportation series...

[BrucePartington]

I am still waiting for someone to invent a device that can simply detect time.

I am not even asking to measure time, just detect "time".
The tricky part is that for you to create a detector, you need a reference, in this case, the absence of time, if such thing even exists in our universe (I know it did in ST-DS9).

I seem to remember reading somewhere that GPS satellites had to adjust for time warp while sending data to our GPS receivers. This is to compensate for the space-time warp caused by Earth's gravity.
And this time I am *not* making things up just to tease Red.

Edit: here it is on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqlUNGb_aQ4

[Red October1984]

That sounds a little creepy.

STRANGER DANGER! :o

@ Red October1984

Sorry if my language, my wording sounds weird to you. My mothers language is German.
It's advantage is to be very precise in describing and I simply tried to translate it into English. A complex theme in simple words would make me talk endless to make sure you're able to get my point.

It doesn't sound weird. I'm just trying to put it in my own words and understand it all. I'm getting there. :O:

I'm not an expert for time mechanics or time travel or space theories. You watched my theory unfold in it's original timeframe. If it sounds convincing to you, I take it as a compliment. As I mentioned, this all is theory - not knowledge.

It does sound convincing. It makes sense. :yeah:

I'd like to encourage you to challenge everything said about time travel and come up with something more plausible.

I can try. :hmmm: It's a lot to think about. I'd rather listen and learn some more before I try to get a theory of my own.

That's especially true if you're in a balloon. You can see the ground pass, but you can never feel the wind at all, because you're carried along with it.

Really good example. :yeah:

A great many people have seriously pondered it. Not necessarily time travel, but the passage of time, and what it means.

It is truly something to be curious about... :ping:

[August]

I am still waiting for someone to invent a device that can simply detect time.

I am not even asking to measure time, just detect "time".

How do you measure something without being able to detect it?

[TarJak]

How do you measure something without being able to detect it?

With great difficulty, however you may be able to measure it if you can detect and measure the effects it has on other things which are more readily observable.

[Mittelwaechter]

By the way, this thread itself is some kind of time machine.

You can jump back to the original posting and follow the thread providing several conserved moments in time. You can travel along this string from pearl to pearl in both directions, reconsuming a small portion of reality at its recorded location.
The very same way as you did consume it the first time.

The documentation of information given at a moment - the storage of an event - seems to be the key for time travel.

If we were able to store all the information of our senses or sensors - all the locations of any objects in reach - and replay them with our device, we could travel through our recorded sections of time. Back and forward.

We would have to store and recreate the part of the universe we want to observe.
We could not travel back to Cleopatra, because we didn't record her existence.

During our trip we would miss the information of our real time string. To catch up, we would have to speed consume a record of our absence, until we synchonize with real time. Or we would have to accept a gap, but this is quite common I guess.

In real time we chose what string to follow and accept to miss the events of an other one. We chose to read this post and accept to miss the brilliant information on channel 9.

We obviously create a time machine without realizing it. All documentation, all stored information is a try to enable us to travel back in time. We have developed different languages and techniques to store "time" - "information" - "location" of relevance or importance. Everybody records his own experience and knowledge of the universe if he wants to. Our devices to record and replay grow better and better.

Uk and Plett were only able to remember the information their fathers had taught them and they could only tell it to their children.
Some generations later they invented writing and reading and were able to store small parts of information about their universe. Following generations could come back and read or "re-live" this experience. Gutenberg enabled us to store more information, enabled more poeple to store their personal experience and to share it with those to come. Paintings, photography and movies, songs and records, tales and books, harddrives and clouds - all to store and replay information of more and more complex, filled up and concentrated parts of the universe.

Google Street View is a sort of time machine of stunning quality. We may jump to a certain location and look around. Jump to a connected location and look around.
Thousands of CCTVs stored data are a kind of time machine. We have no common access to these records, but that's only an artificial restriction. We would need a common viewer technology to "travel in time".

[Oberon]

The tricky part is that for you to create a detector, you need a reference, in this case, the absence of time, if such thing even exists in our universe (I know it did in ST-DS9).

I seem to remember reading somewhere that GPS satellites had to adjust for time warp while sending data to our GPS receivers. This is to compensate for the space-time warp caused by Earth's gravity.
And this time I am *not* making things up just to tease Red.

Edit: here it is on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqlUNGb_aQ4

In which case, one has to wonder what is at the centre of a black hole, because if gravity affects the passage of time then the rapid increase of gravitational fields would also affect time (a bit like the episode of Stargate when an off-world team dials back in from a planet that is being devoured by a black hole. [A Matter of Time]). Is the center of the black hole made up of anti-time or an absence of time?

[Platapus]

How do you measure something without being able to detect it?

that is my point exactly.

We are talking about "traveling through" something we can't measure nor detect.

[BrucePartington]

In which case, one has to wonder what is at the centre of a black hole, because if gravity affects the passage of time then the rapid increase of gravitational fields would also affect time (a bit like the episode of Stargate when an off-world team dials back in from a planet that is being devoured by a black hole. [A Matter of Time]). Is the center of the black hole made up of anti-time or an absence of time?
I feel inclined to agree with the common proposed concept: gravity inside a black hole is near infinity, hence it voraciously devours matter, light, and time-space from all around it, creating the Singularity. So I would think time inside a Black Hole is stopped in relation to outside time.
I am comfortable with this.
What really bugs me is not knowing whether it will keep on growing, or will it satiate itself one day and finally take a nap.
The first possibility leads me to think there will remain only Black Holes in the Universe that devour each other, creating a singularity so massive it will explode and create a new Big Bang. Scientists agree that existing Black Holes are at the limit of the laws of physics, suggesting they will grow no further.
The second possibility leaves the universe free to keep expanding.
And this is the point at which my mind starts to warp.

And gravity is a very weak force in our universe. For it to bend and even stop time, time itself must be even weaker.

Mind warpers for you to enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ds47ozzSrU
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130321-will-we-catch-gravitys-waves
http://www.space.com/828-leaking-gravity-explain-cosmic-puzzle.html

[August]

that is my point exactly.

We are talking about "traveling through" something we can't measure nor detect.


But we do measure time all the,... erm, time! Clocks, TDR's, sundials, hourglasses. All devices for measuring time.

[Red October1984]

Indeed... :hmmm:

[Mittelwaechter]

The circumference of the planet is about 40 000 km at the equator. Any location on the surface moves around the planets axis in 24h.
It moves about 20 000 km in 12 h when using the am/pm system.

Let's scale it down to your watch:

a 4 cm diameter x 3.1415 results in about 12.5 cm circumference. So roughly every centimeter a mark will space your marks into 12 hours.

We construct the gear to move your watches short hand those 12.5 cm in half a day (12h)

Now, what you do when kooking at your watch is scaling down your position on the planet in relation to its rotation, represented by the short hand of your watch.

You don't read the time, but you check your location in relation to the sun.

Edit: I guess mankind started with a constantly repeating phenomenon to be observed by everyone: the sun rising, travelling over the sky and disappearing under the horizon. The geocentric sundial positions a shadow in relation to the position of the sun.
The heliocentric system moves the surface of the planet in relation to the fixed sun, so the shadow represents the movement of the planets surface, the location of the sundial itself.

[Oberon]

But we do measure time all the,... erm, time! Clocks, TDR's, sundials, hourglasses. All devices for measuring time.

Well, to be fair, they're not so much measuring time as they are measuring the effect of time on other objects, such as the rotation of the Earth, the decay of matter, so on.

[BrucePartington]

Well, to be fair, they're not so much measuring time as they are measuring the effect of time on other objects, such as the rotation of the Earth, the decay of matter, so on.
Exactly my thinking. We observe the effects, or the time pulses, from our perspective, which is in turn relative.
A rough analogy would be to compare the main 3 different temperature scales: where Celsius and Fahrenheit are relative to common things on our planet (water freezing point for Celsius, and brine for Fahrenheit), as opposed to Kelvin, where " absolute zero (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_zero), the temperature at which all thermal motion ceases in the classical description of thermodynamics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamics)." (wiki).

While we have watches, we still don't have an "absolute zero" measuring system for time. And we may never have. For those who haven't viewed the youtube video I posted earlier, time has finally been determined to exist before the big bang.
The big problem is, all this is speculation based on clever thinking and mathematics. No tangible hard evidence exists for us, mere by-products of the vibration of strings. You know those delicious BBQ ribs and that ice cold beer you just had for lunch? They never existed, they were just string vibrations, and so are you :haha:

[Mittelwaechter]

So what is the Matrix?

[BrucePartington]

So what is the Matrix?
Finally:sunny:
I was hoping, itching, that someone other than me would thump that ball into the field. I loved the first movie. It is a spiritual story. Science fiction is just the background that makes the concept tangible to us unaware sleeping beauties. In the grind of day-to-day life, we tend to take things for granted, using ourselves as reference. We have difficulty grasping big picture outside references, they are out of reach for us.
I could imagine that while connected to the Matrix, our perception of time would depend on the time pulses provided by the Matrix itself. Remember Spectrum and Basic? We could write plain text code and define the amount of time a command would wait, or last. It's still done today, even monitoring how fast you repeat key strokes on your keyboard.

Everything is relative, even time.
Our perception of reality, and time, is dependent on the outside Matrix, as well as the Matrix inside everyone of us.
And you can choose to perceive time as a predator, or a companion (Star Trek - Generations movie)
How does one define reality? The sum of how the brain interprets the electrical pulses received from our senses?
Are we nothing but vibrations? Or individual pieces of software in a virtual world?
We do seem to exist, apparently...
We could even be living vibrations, called spirits or souls, and have been linked to a Matrix that makes us feel and believe we live in a material world, as the only viable way of experiencing specific things, enabling the other spirits outside the Matrix to better understand the Universe, or should I say, the Multiverse.

(cough cough....I gotta quit smoking this stuff)

[Oberon]

Who is to say that things we see as ghosts or UFOs are not objects or creatures on a different string wavelength to us that just happen to vibrate at just the right frequency for whatever reason briefly enough to bleed through? :hmmm:

[BrucePartington]

Who is to say that things we see as ghosts or UFOs are not objects or creatures on a different string wavelength to us that just happen to vibrate at just the right frequency for whatever reason briefly enough to bleed through? :hmmm:
Well, it seems you've been smoking the same stuff I have...
Good stuff, isn't it:rock:

[mapuc]

I'm really amazed about your response to my thought about a cake and time travel. We have been around this theory in many way.

I think it's a very interesting thing this theory about time travel. However I'm not that much into it like our friend Mittelwaechter is.

Markus

[Platapus]

But we do measure time all the,... erm, time! Clocks, TDR's, sundials, hourglasses. All devices for measuring time.

None of them measure time. All of them measure physical changes which some people have decided represented time periods.

[Platapus]

Well, to be fair, they're not so much measuring time as they are measuring the effect of time on other objects, such as the rotation of the Earth, the decay of matter, so on.

This is why I am one of those people who believe that "time" is a human perception of a pattern of observable physical changes.

While humans may have similar perceptions of time each is different. That is why we make clocks -- so that we can sync our personal perception of time with that of an agreed upon standard.

[August]

None of them measure time. All of them measure physical changes which some people have decided represented time periods.

But isn't detecting one thing by the physical changes in another thing a common scientific method?

[Mittelwaechter]

Time describes the movement of any location in relation to a fixed position.

Platapus - you're absolutly on the right track.
Our personal experience of time may differ, we all know this phenomenon of slow flowing time while being bored or fast flowing time while being exited.
But we agreed upon a standard that describes our local position (on the planets surface) in relation to the sun.

That's why we would have to translate our concept of time for an alien that refers to his own concept.
The terran day is different to the aliens day.

Not sure right now (my location will soon move into the lit section of our planet), but I think we measure motion in relation to the sun.

Time is motion - commonly in relation to the sun.

Edit: our "regular" motion is related to any other fixed position (in the solar system).

We may move ourselves in relation to Dublin.
This motion in relation to the sun is called time.

Bingo!

Edit: Bingo? Wrong! My sleepy brain is trickin' me. I'll be back later.

[TarJak]

But isn't detecting one thing by the physical changes in another thing a common scientific method?

Yes, Its the only way we determine the existence of planets in other solar systems as they are not readily observable from our location in space... at this time... Can we expect to ever be able to detect and measure time directly? I don't know.

Speaking of observing stars, there is another example of time travel. The light we see from distant stars and solar systems is actually millions of years old having crossed extremely long distances to reach us, so we are observing in some cases things that occurred well into the past when we observe pulsars and supernovae.

[Mittelwaechter]

A story of time?

One Day is the complete rotation of our location around the earth's axis.
This is the basis for our concept of time. Our longitude moves along our latitude.

It started with the observation of a regular pulse: the sun rises, moves over the sky and sinks under the horizon every day - the stars follow a certain path too.
Living at one location - and the people were pretty local - it was a matter of practise to read the position of the sun. It was important to know how long it will take the sun to disappear, because darkness was dangerous and we would have to make it to a save place "in time". The stars told us how far the next sunrise was away.
We realized the shadow of a tree/stick moved through the marks on the ground around it. The first rather precise local clock was invented.

But the sun can hide behind the clouds and so do the stars.
I guess we observed, that water constantly dropping from the ceiling of the cave makes a repeatable rhythm. Dropping into a bowl rises the waterlevel to a certain mark over time. A stopwatch was invented.
The size of the bowl to be filled was variable, the drops could be counted. For cooking an egg to soft, the sun dial was pretty useless, but 85 drops would have been a great mark.

We started to abstract the daily rhythm into shorter pulses, to fit our demand. We became independant of the visible sun and stars - at least at our standard location.
With more mobility, longer trips and sailing across the seas, we needed reliable clocks to be carried around. A stick aboard a ship is useless as a sundial. Where is east or west for the correct setup of our mobile sundial? How to move the cave with the drops around?

Somehow we realised, we could use sand as a replacement for water. We let it flow through a little opening between two containers and made it a nice abstraction of the "time flowing".
Of course these first sand glasses were not made of glass. They were to be opened carefully to check the sand level.
It took centuries to reach a point, were mankind was able to build a mechanical clock. The first ones were huge and local, but we managed to make them portable. The were not very precise and we had to synchronize them regularly with the real local time. The bells of the church made us check our pocket watch to show the local time.

We worked on more reliable and precise time interpreters. It was very important for the naviagtion at sea. To check our local position at sea, we need a precise clock. Well, I guess I don't have to tell you that, Herr Kaleun.

There were no regulated time zones. Every major location - village or town - had their own local time. With a more global view we invented the grid of longitudes and latitudes representing the change of our location under the sun. The Greenwich longitude moves along its latitude around the earth's axis in 24 hours. Greenwich 12.00 o'clock AM translates into our given local time zones around the globe.

Over time - many rotations of our longitudes - we were able to build more precise clocks. Today we synchronize our computers and digital watches with the constant pulses of atoms. But while checking the time, we still check the position of the sun - or better our location in relation to the sun. And a certain amount of time is still an abstract of our longitude moving around the earth's axis. To measure time intervals is to measure motion, relative to a given location.

Never say never, but this special time machine we all are thinking of is impossible. We are commonly not aware of our own concept of time - of how it works. We are used to live with this translated, abstract view of time and its flow. Everytime we don't understand how something works we start to dream, to believe, to imagine possibilities. The evolution of god and our interpretation followed a similar concept.

We wish or want to believe, there is a way to travel back and change events - maybe mistakes we made - or to observe and witness the great moments of history we are told.
We dream to jump into the future to discover these awesome worlds we settled, the brilliant technics we developed, the smart way of future living.
So let's dream on, it doesn't hurt. One day we may be able to leave this cage of time concept and float forward and backward through space and time. Who knows?

[troopie]

Great post! Not sure about your sig though.

[BrucePartington]

A story of time?

Never say never, but this special time machine we all are thinking of is impossible. We are commonly not aware of our own concept of time - of how it works. We are used to live with this translated, abstract view of time and its flow. Everytime we don't understand how something works we start to dream, to believe, to imagine possibilities. The evolution of god and our interpretation followed a similar concept.

We wish or want to believe, there is a way to travel back and change events - maybe mistakes we made - or to observe and witness the great moments of history we are told.
We dream to jump into the future to discover these awesome worlds we settled, the brilliant technics we developed, the smart way of future living.
So let's dream on, it doesn't hurt. One day we may be able to leave this cage of time concept and float forward and backward through space and time. Who knows?

Time travel: the Holly Grail of Physicists.
I think of it as a pixel living inside a monitor. It will never be able to leave the monitor to look at it as a whole from outside. And if it did, it would no longer be a pixel. It would die as such.
However, time is a blessing, as it lends order to our universe. Without it, we would never exist. We are the universe looking back on itself.

[Platapus]

That's especially true if you're in a balloon. You can see the ground pass, but you can never feel the wind at all, because you're carried along with it.



Except that when in a balloon you can feel the wind. I did when I took my hot air balloon ride. Now what you feel is not the true speed of the wind, but the air was not perfectly calm in a hot air balloon.

[Platapus]

I experience a "traveling" though time independent of my perception every night. So does everyone else -- sleep.

I go to sleep at 9:00pm. I sleep until my frickin alarm clock wakes me up. I have no real idea of what "time" it is. All I know is that it is too early. :)

So I look at my socially approved time reference machine "clock" and it allows me to re-sync my perception of time to 5:00am

At several periods during the day, I also lose my perception of time. Fortunately, I have a portable socially approved time reference machine "wrist watch" that enables me to re-sync my perception of time to match my co-workers perception of time so that I can show up to my stupid meetings on .. well.. time.

Without these electronic and mechanical socially approved time reference machines I would have a much harder interacting with others in today's social/work environment.

It is my belief that the concept of "Time" was invented by humans as a method of coordinating activities or communicating disparate information/patterns to other humans to a precision not normally available to humans in nature.

This is why primitive tribes can coordinate using sun angles and "civilized" tribes have to use quartz electronic clocks. It is all a matter of what level of precision is needed.

[Mittelwaechter]

You describe the grown effect of this concept on you and others.

It is my belief that the concept of "Time" was invented by humans as a method of coordinating activities or communicating disparate information/patterns to other humans to a precision not normally available to humans in nature.

That's what I described in my last posting.
But the concept was not suddenly invented with this effect in mind. It evolved over time to serve the necessities of the people at their time.

The primitive tribe slowly evolved to a "civilized" tribe. A primitive concept of time was adapted accordingly into our "civilized", more precise and more dominant version.

[mapuc]

If you could travel back in time to "repair" you fault that you have made. You just make some new one and then you have to travel back again to "repair" this fault a.s.o a.s.o


Markus

[Platapus]

But if you "traveled" back in time, your "mistake" would make just as much sense as it did the first/second/third/... time you made it. :D

Why would we assume that if we "traveled" back in time that we would maintain our "current" state of understanding?

So if I know today's lottery numbers, when I did not know them yesterday, if I traveled back in time to yesterday, I still would not know "tomorrow's" numbers. :D:D

[Sailor Steve]

Why would we assume that if we "traveled" back in time that we would maintain our "current" state of understanding?
If that's true then there's no point in assuming we're not travelling back and forth in our own timeline all the time, on the basis that we wouldn't know if we were. The point of time travel is to figure out how to travel independent of our own timeline. If we can't do that then there's no point in trying to travel in time anyway.

[Wolferz]

Ain't nobody got time for dat.:D

[Platapus]

If that's true then there's no point in assuming we're not travelling back and forth in our own timeline all the time, on the basis that we wouldn't know if we were.

Steve, I believe you already made that point next year.

[Sailor Steve]

Steve, I believe you already made that point next year.
I believe you are projecting. I'll let you know for sure yesterday.