RWTK: Time travel do you think its possible.

[XSorXpire]

I travelled a few minutes in time reading this thread, therefore time travel is possible.

[Magilla]

On the other hand, many in the scientific community believe that backwards time travel is highly unlikely. Any theory that would allow time travel would require that problems of causality be resolved.

I hate this kind of reasoning, because it is incredibly arrogant. "<Thing or action in physical universe> is highly improbable because we can't think of how it would work."

I'm sure that the Norse thought that space flight would be highly unlikely.
I'm sure that the Apache thought an automatic weaving machine would be highly unlikely.
I'm sure that Perth City still thinks that efficient traffic flow is highly unlikely.

Inability to work out the specifics has no bearing on physical reality.

[Huntsman]

I hate this kind of reasoning, because it is incredibly arrogant. "<Thing or action in physical universe> is highly improbable because we can't think of how it would work."

I'm sure that the Norse thought that space flight would be highly unlikely.
I'm sure that the Apache thought an automatic weaving machine would be highly unlikely.
I'm sure that Perth City still thinks that efficient traffic flow is highly unlikely.

Inability to work out the specifics has no bearing on physical reality.

I agree, we wouldnt have gotten anywhere if we stopped trying when we thought something was impossible, or couldn't think how it would work.

I definately think that time travel is possible, but it's just a theory and an extremely difficult one to prove at that. Forward (relatively speaking) is possible. But backwards would require something a lot more difficult (supposedly), on a scale of tearing apart the space time fabric. We can control our travel in 3 dimensions, it is possible that the 4th dimension (time) can be controlled/altered, but how/why are for minds much greater than mine.

[filbert]

i travel back in time quite regularly, when my watch battery is going flat i can end up 3 minutes back in time on any given day.

[g0zer]

all matter time space its is just vibration and motion and therefore its impossible to ever reverse that motion.

i dont think time travel is the same thing as "reversing the motion". you also are not creating two people (past you and future you). the future you is removed from the future to the past, so net mass of the universe (average of all time) stays the same.

its the same old paradox of time travel, watch bear shit in woods travel back in time, shoot bear bear cannot shit in the woods. at a fundamental level, given everything exists as collapsed probability waves there is no need to worry about reversing motion.. which is newtonian mechanicistic universe thinking. the net energy of a dead steaming bear carcass or a live bear and a steaming pile of poo is unchanged. clearly the people who didnt step back in time would no longer see the bear shit in woods.. while you could have, but thats ok cos you are older than they are.

[mekon]

Time travel is real. This thread has travelled to Friday.

[Skut]

I say no.

If time travel existed, we would have experienced practical demonstrations of it now, more annoying celebrities would have died in mysterious circumstances.

Not necessarily, we may just have the misfortune to exist in the divergent time-line where Kyle Sandilands made it past fertilisation.

[Professor Redfern]

i dont think time travel is the same thing as "reversing the motion". you also are not creating two people (past you and future you). the future you is removed from the future to the past, so net mass of the universe (average of all time) stays the same.

You are implying that the partcles of the past are still "kept" somewhere like a video tape and we just need to work out how to travel back to the Universal "setting" of a different time.


I dont think the universe keeps that information, as I say I think time is just motion so it can never be rewound or travelled back to.Those particles have moved on and there is no way to get them back into the space they occupied even 2 seconds ago.

[WhiteNoize]

Do drunken blackouts count as time travel?

[Gordan]

maybe the center of the earth has a whole bunch of hard drives, with an expensive projector, projecting in 360 degrees all around it and it is simply playing the world we live in. Someone simply has to find a way to the computer down there, and press rewind. Easy.

Ok, its been a long day at work.

[g0zer]

no i dont think in terms of particles at all... that model is inadequate to describe the things you are talking about. particle like behaviour is an illusion created cos energy only is stable in discreet amounts. i follow the probabilistic model hence my use of the term collapse the wave.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0106003v1.pdf

refer^ ”Two measurements are entangled if one of them affects the outcome of the other.”.

there is no need to rearrange any particles... cos none exist. there are only possible permutations of many wave functions. when you travel back in time you still cannot make the bear grow wings and fly about with the power of your mind... my point is merely that the arrangment of a dead bear and a live bear is no different in terms of probability both are possible states given you have a gun.

you are not a god either the universe exists in a given state at a given time the same as it did whether you travelled back in time or not.. because that was/is its most probable state.

the act of observing creates quantum entanglement between the many patterns that combine all the way up from fermions to protons and nuetrons to atoms to molecules to make you and birth your conciousness, and everything around you.

likewise those patterns of subatomic particles only exist because of relative affinities of different patterns to a variety of forces which act to give rise to various fields which pervade the various dimensions which in turn leads to space and time.

to answer your question is it possible, its my understanding that many physicists have found numerous ways in which it is possible. i do not think it is very probable that any human will find a way to adapt one of those ways so they can travel back in time but think it is possible about as possible as a pool of water suddenly boiling in one corner and freezing in another.

[shan]

time travel will fuck your head up
Stealing Time - YouTube

[Skut]

no i dont think in terms of particles at all... that model is inadequate to describe the things you are talking about. particle like behaviour is an illusion created cos energy only is stable in discreet amounts. i follow the probabilistic model hence my use of the term collapse the wave.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0106003v1.pdf

refer^ ”Two measurements are entangled if one of them affects the outcome of the other.”.

there is no need to rearrange any particles... cos none exist. there are only possible permutations of many wave functions. when you travel back in time you still cannot make the bear grow wings and fly about with the power of your mind... my point is merely that the arrangment of a dead bear and a live bear is no different in terms of probability both are possible states given you have a gun.

you are not a god either the universe exists in a given state at a given time the same as it did whether you travelled back in time or not.. because that was/is its most probable state.

the act of observing creates quantum entanglement between the many patterns that combine all the way up from fermions to protons and nuetrons to atoms to molecules to make you and birth your conciousness, and everything around you.

likewise those patterns of subatomic particles only exist because of relative affinities of different patterns to a variety of forces which act to give rise to various fields which pervade the various dimensions which in turn leads to space and time.

to answer your question is it possible, its my understanding that many physicists have found numerous ways in which it is possible. i do not think it is very probable that any human will find a way to adapt one of those ways so they can travel back in time but think it is possible about as possible as a pool of water suddenly boiling in one corner and freezing in another.

But what causes the waveform collapse? Observation? By sentience?

When was the the physical universe governed by observation? Smart rocks?

[Flyboy]

This is really above my level, but I'll share my simplistic thought.

If you could somehow record the given locations of every particle at any one point in time, and then at a later point in time rearrange all the particles back into those recorded locations, would that not constitute time travel of sorts?

[Stu]

But what causes the waveform collapse? Observation?

Observation (not simply by a human). Double slit experiment will reveal your answer.

[Stu]

If you could somehow record the given locations of every particle at any one point in time, and then at a later point in time rearrange all the particles back into those recorded locations, would that not constitute time travel of sorts?

Uncertainty principle prevents this. Also note, it is a fundamental property not simply that our measurements are not good enough.
The more accurately you know a particles position, the less accurately know it's velocity and vice versa. Of course this only becomes an issue at the extremely small scale.

[g0zer]

But what causes the waveform collapse? Observation? By sentience?

When was the the physical universe governed by observation? Smart rocks?

lol sentience... thats i dont think therefore i am not...

It can be expressed in its simplest form as follows: One can never know with perfect accuracy both of those two important factors which determine the movement of one of the smallest particles—its position and its velocity. It is impossible to determine accurately both the position and the direction and speed of a particle at the same instant.[7]

Published by Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the uncertainty principle was a monumental discovery in the early development of quantum theory. It implies that it is impossible simultaneously to measure the present position while also determining the future motion of a particle, or of any system small enough to require quantum mechanical treatment.[2]

Uncertainty principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia its basically a proof of the above. the act of measuring one property such as velocity destroys information of the other such as position.

when quantum particles interact they become coherant until then they only exist as probability of being in such a position and possessing such a velocity.. and even when they have been interacted with they can never be resolved to an actual particle that exists in x y z / t space in one moment and therefore predict where it would be the next moment? you see that is what knowledge of velocity and position really means. it was there in the past and will be here in the future because it was at this position at this speed travelling in that direction now. learned people figured out the substrate of the universe is not actually like that a long time ago.

the particle is everywhere it can be within its probability wave ie all possible locations.. at the same time. thats where the wave behaviour of particles comes from. fire a single photon and it diffracts according to an interference pattern as if you were pouring sunlight past the same grating.

[shan]

That reads to me like a target lock , to end somethings time in the here and now.

[Sarbear]

88mph + Delorean = time travel.

Definitive proof *right* there.

[g0zer]

But what causes the waveform collapse? Observation? By sentience?

further to this, its kind of a fundamental question to the 'modern' understanding of the universe.

you know about constructive and destructive interference right?

so imagine an unimaginably large, virtually infinitely large number of wave functions, and each wave function represents a quantum

In physics, a quantum (plural: quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction.

Quantum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia like the Greek concept of the atom and what happens when you keep slicing something into ever smaller pieces. now we are slicing matter up into slices thinner than the atom, its the smallest permissible wave functions.

quanta exists in all possibilities throughout the possible universe right? so the pattern of the universe that we see is the evolution of what is possible when its ground state is measured against time. but it still exists everywhere at all points as well, at some points more probably than others and you start to get the idea of how fields might work.

Also not all dimensions are 'big' like Length x Width x Height, some are still curled up hidden near or beneath the plank scale which then gives a hint of how information can transmitted seemingly instantly independently of distance via quantum entanglement.

its not actually L x W x H / t it is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 / t

i suggest it collapsed itself, where it could because it could.