how can we create a time machine that even our body can't handle the speed of light??..

Picture this... Light takes a little over 8 minutes to get from the Sun to the Earth. It takes 4 years to travel to the nearest star Alpha Centauri. So the image we see of it now is actually four years ago. If you could travel faster than the speed of light away from it, it would look like it was going backwards in time.

Time is a unit of measurement, just like litres, gallons, meters, inches etc. So it is simply impossible to travel through "time" as that is saying you can "travel" through a unit of measurement which makes no sense. How can you travel through meters or 10 gallons? And saying you can go back and forward with measurements so therefore you can with time is silly, its just your point of refrence. The only true time travel is in things like video recordings. Time is a human creation. E's relativity to say going faster then the speed of light will allow time travel is only saying that if you travel faster then light, you "beat" the light to where it was going and can re-see what you have already seen as you have already seen that same light in the "past'. Reality is only relative to what we can see, hear or touch etc.

you could travel back in time, but the same space wouldnt be there. I think our conception of time is worthless. We create many of these false structures. You could go to the future, but theres nothing there yet. If you went back in time, I think there would be more space for a new reconing, on a parallel strip to what happend before. Im just talking out of my bum here but im just trying to think outside of the box.

Wesley wrote: #
I'm no physicist and so it's likely I'm wrong on this, but isn't there some idea linked with Einstein's theory of relativity, that if you travel faster than the speed of light, somehow time travel is theoretically possible?

And also, would black holes be worth a mention?

I'm not sure about these though :S

I'm no scientist either but I believe you are correct. In astronomy class I remember hearing about how when light from the sun lets say, travels past a planet, at the point when its curving around a planet it is accelerated, meaning that the light is traveling faster than it does regularly during any other time. In short, light travels at the same speed all the time expect when passing around an object. This somehow contradicts the idea that light is some sort of constant, which would also contradict the idea that nothing can go faster than "the speed of light" because actually light itself can go faster than a constant 186,000 mi/sec or what we call "the speed of light". I could be completely wrong but i thought i learned something to that effect a few semesters ago. In any case, I think we humans are such a young inhibitor that there is much we don't know, and much we are wrong about.

fpi8584760 wrote: #
This is such an interesting subject I read every post... I think that M said something interesting and true.... the people in the future haven't invented the source for the being to get back...or to say go back into the fututure... I for one believe that we as humans don't have the ability to comprehend the burdon of knowing the future....or at least anythinh we have already lived... I think it would drive us insane to go back...
The second part is, that God him self is time... and only he can travel to the past, present or future... and what good will it do humanity if we were to do such a thing, right? anyone that came to us today claming they're from the future we would treat them like crazies!! Lol... I mean what good could we possibly do in the past? Nothing...it already happend, o and I don't think we would be going to an specific time in our lives... I believe there are multiple, infinite dimensions! So for one you wouldn't look the same...two, you would forgot everything, emotions, feeling you've live... and three, you would only have concience of human entity...in other words, it would be like being born all over again... maybe we have already traveled, its just the people who made the trip didn't make it all the way... mentaly or possibly even fully physical...
Given all the theories and good imaginary ideas, its interesting to discuss.... but personality I don't think GOd him self would ever allow it.... that only a characteristic that only the Almighty posses!!!

I think we would have something to show (like an object that was not invented at that time) if where able to go back in time. Like rigth now we could bring with us batteries or something. If the human body can "travel" back in time and stil be in one piece, than i bet almost everything can.

Chad wrote: #
I think you can time travel, but only into the future, and not into the past, this is because time always and must move forward, never backwards. You can time travel to the future by moving close to the speed of light which distorts time for the person traveling at that speed. A 16 year old boy can travel at the speed of light for 2 years, come back and is 18, while all his old friends are now 60. A "time travel machine" -could- be made by creating perhaps a simple chair or pod that vibrates at the speed of light.

I think if you vibrated at the speed om light you would die, your organs would simply be destroyed.. You know, if youre driving a car on a bumpy road long enough some of your organs can separate themselves from your body.. Now thats an interessting fact :D It's nobody living in the future. We live in 2010, and year 2050 have not occured yet. We are the "future". Nobody can go back in time and show/tell us anything, because there is nobody there to do it

if we can travel only forward in time, so how can we come back to our time, if we went to the future? there's something wrong...

I m not going to say Time machine is not a true one... By the Time machine we can go to past in a very few nano seconds. But we can't feel such a changes. This is proved by research.

This is such an interesting subject I read every post... I think that M said something interesting and true.... the people in the future haven't invented the source for the being to get back...or to say go back into the fututure... I for one believe that we as humans don't have the ability to comprehend the burdon of knowing the future....or at least anythinh we have already lived... I think it would drive us insane to go back...
The second part is, that God him self is time... and only he can travel to the past, present or future... and what good will it do humanity if we were to do such a thing, right? anyone that came to us today claming they're from the future we would treat them like crazies!! Lol... I mean what good could we possibly do in the past? Nothing...it already happend, o and I don't think we would be going to an specific time in our lives... I believe there are multiple, infinite dimensions! So for one you wouldn't look the same...two, you would forgot everything, emotions, feeling you've live... and three, you would only have concience of human entity...in other words, it would be like being born all over again... maybe we have already traveled, its just the people who made the trip didn't make it all the way... mentaly or possibly even fully physical...
Given all the theories and good imaginary ideas, its interesting to discuss.... but personality I don't think GOd him self would ever allow it.... that only a characteristic that only the Almighty posses!!!

What about phrophets that see into the future? personally I think that the unused part of the human brain could be the key to 'time travel' in a mental state only, i dont think the technology exists yet or in our lifetimes that will allow a person to physically travel to the past or future. and also i think the implications could be drastic as said before it would possibly mean the reversing of a raindrop, what would the limits be and what would the effect be on our present day if somebody accomplishes to travel back? I have enjoyed reading these posts today good brain food

Think of time as your creation.

As we know it we beleive that there is only one time line in the universe. The only way to travel back in time is to be able to make a copy of our timeline and be able to pick a specific date to go to in the new timeline. This would create an alternate timeline that would be different to ours.

Saying this means that there must be a theory of the "first ever" time line. This will be the only time line that cannot be changed - unless it is moved forward in time.

So the only way that we will be able to go back in time is for someone to be able to save every action in the universe onto some sort of harddrive which can then be accessed by a time machine of some sort. - So the real question should be how are we going to record and save our time line before its too late?

Wesley Harper wrote: #
@ Daniel: Time does exist. How else can one ever explain any sort of progression, from the smallest level to a cosmic level?

One of the most fundamental properties of the universe is change, which defines time. Obviously the universe now is very different to how it was 13 billion years ago, and this is surely not possible without time.

Time is not merely a subjective, human concept. Time passes objectively and indisputably, which is why processes such as red shift are detectable.

As for your second statement, 'of course you can't travel through [time]', every single person who is alive at this moment is doing just that.

Actually, one could say that time does not exist. Time is only the thought of what we cannot comprehend. We as the human race have given such a simple meaning and explanation to the word we call "time" that most cannot accept the fact that it does not exist. A simple example is that our definition of time is only constant to use because of the gravity vortex that controls each planet. There are so many variables that make up "time" that it is nearly impossible to explain exactly what or how to control it. Time travel is a very interesting subject, but until we can conceive how time itself works we cannot even begin to understand how to manipulate it.

Time is itself a measure. It is the measure of change. No change is a state of timelessness, which does actually exist like the breaks in a movie. Planck's time of approximately 10 to the minus 43rd power can be called a "time quanta" and is the measure used for time. In between the different states of a time quanta is the state of timelessness or 'infinity,' as in 'zero' time.

Reverse creation of change? Possible?

Maybe the humans would've been extinct by then. You never know...

that is quite interesting, but we are not talking about cheating time as in your watch. we are talking about reliving a certain moment.

so, ur plane theory is just as good as me setting my watch forward and claiming that i have travelled in time.

People time travel all the time. Only by little amounts, but you can. Moving in a plane and changing time zones allows you to step a little amount into the future. Therefore time travel isn't impossible, and is infact achieved every day of the year.

Sure, not to the extent you guys are talking like 100 years but perhaps in some way using the plane/ time zone concept it could be achieved. I have no idea, but I reckon it could be.

btw, to add a comment on the whole unconventional part of the debate...

anyone considered a polycosmic theory?

not gona explain it, i feel that anyone who has a valid comment will understand what it is.

I would like to point out a diferant angle to view. Firtsly my spelling is ****, so pls excuse.

what is time? it is how long we have to wait to percieve something with our senses. it describes when we pick up something with any of our senses.

so. to simplify il use light as eg.

light travels to u in x seconds, u percieve it. bam, its day. awsm. wp.

now u move towards it and u percieve it, sure, u reach in a faster time than x. obviously, its like running towards an aporaching ball.

but, just because u reached the ball quicker than u would have when not running (going at the speed of light aplicable to time travel) does not meen u have traveld back in time.

i therefore believe that time travel is imposible simply because things happen and then they are over and done with, u cannot go back in time by traveling faster than light, because light travels in only 1 direction.

I would like to give pro time travelers the fact that, if my statement is correct (and i realy think it is, coz logicaly it is extremly sensible.) that it implies that u can achieve time traveling, by actualy moving forward in time, this up the stream of light, to go back. which is still quite interesting in itself. I doubt that this is plausable tho, becase of the fact that light disperses.

I can see what people mean by the mirror thing (putting a giant mirror X lightyears away so we can see dinosaurs, for example), but I would not call that time travel. Doing that is merely seeing light, light that still reflects images of millions of years ago. No time travel has been performed at all.

If time is something bound up with the dimensions, surely there's some way to manipulate it, at least in theory? In fact, popular concensus would seem to suggest that time is a dimensional thing in itself - the fourth dimension.

Just some more thoughts.

:)

Did you ever think of maybe, traveling to a parallel universe. if the time traveling will ever be invented, we can easily say that it "is invented" or "has been invented" because, in this case, the time will be relative, as the position of a mass body in space... i hope you understand my idea.

The idea of traveling to a parallel universe would be easier to understand because then, the time-space continuum would not be altered. And every universe would have it's own continuum.

Best!

In fact you can travel forward in time but not what people consider "time-travel" as per science fiction. If it was possible to travel faster than the speed of light then you would be travelling to the future but only you not the world around you. I.e. when you stop your journey everything is still as you left it and not the "future". hope this makes sense as I tried to not get too technical.

travel back in time is almost impossible due to the infinite amount of paradox's that come from even the thought of travelling time, seriously though think about it, if you invented a time machine you would go back in time to change your future and by doing so you wouldn't need to create the time machine in the first place hence paradox. the only plausible way would be to go back and do absolutely nothing at all making time travel pointless and useless to man or beast.

There is only NOW and what you are creating.