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Thread: Time Travel

  1. #1
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    Exclamation Time Travel

    An old question, probably been asked many times before...
    But, if you could go back in time - theory says it is possible -
    then would you change anything?
    For example you could go back in time and kill the young Hitler or Stalin right?
    That would be a good thing, wouldn't it?
    Maybe you would time travel and do a 'Groundhog Day' to get hold of that woman / man
    you have always been after.
    Perhaps it would be something simple like just saying goodbye to a loved one.
    What would you do if you could?

    ***

    I will answer my own question about going back in time to kill Hitler or Stalin though.
    And would have to say that no I wouldn't. Potentially the lives of many many millions would be saved by pulling short the lives of either of these two, but who is to say that if you were to kill them, that another more evil sadistic dictaror would come along to kill ten times the number that they managed?
    Surely it is only through making mistakes that we learn, right? The errors of yesterday make us who we are today, thats the way I see it.

    Anyway let me know what you would do!

  2. #2
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    Time travel is possible. You're doing it right now. As you read this, you are moving forward through time.

    Personally, barring any possibilities of other dimensions existing, I think it's impossible to go back in time. What I mean is let's say you go back in time and kill hitler. We know that hitler was not killed in our particular dimension, therefore you have not changed anything here. You may have affected another dimension, but then, if that dimension were current with us, you would have already done that.

    The past is fixed, there is no changing it. You can, however, alter the future, and I think that if more and more people concentrated on doing that instead of lamenting bad things that have occurred in the past, the world would be a significantly better place.

    BTW, in case it comes up, Einstein never did theorize that time travel backwards was possible.
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  3. #3
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    the_g_nee:

    Well, I think that if I had the ability to travel backwards and forwards in time, I would really just like to visit periods of time to see how they truly lived. I don't know if you've ever read the Michael Crichton "Timeline," but it is a story of time travel back to feudal times in France. I think it'd be very interesting to go back and see history first hand. Then again, this would probably pose all sorts of dangers to me. After all, I probably couldn't watch the Battle of Normandy first hand without probably getting shot.

    As far as changing the past goes, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. As you said, you never know what your actions could affect. Maybe if you go back to get that long lost love, and you finally win his/her heart, and then years later you commit suicide because of him/her, or something messed up like that. Then you wouldn't even exist in the past to win her heart in the first place, and then time will collapse on itself and everything will vanish. Well, maybe that isn't exactly what would happen, but there would be considerable responsibility to not just your time line, but to those of everyone else in the world. A responsibility that I would believe is unbearable by any human.

    Regards,
    Wizeman
    \"It\'s only arrogrance if you can\'t back it up, otherwise it is confidence.\" - Me

  4. #4
    According to Einstien's Special Theory of Relativity time travel is possible. The details are found in his time dilation equation here: http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbssc...ity/u7l2a.html

  5. #5
    oblio
    Guest
    when time travel is made reference to in physics, physicsists do not mean travelling back to a certain period and reliving it, that is completely unrealistic. What is meant by time travel is altering time in relation to the speed of light and universal clock.

  6. #6
    i dunno. I dont think i would change anything if i were to travel back in time (the romantic sense not physics.)

    since it is along the same lines, does anyone know anything about the philedelphia experiment? was it a hoax, was it real, etc.? Im not quite sure what to think of it though it would be interesting, if it were true...

  7. #7
    Originally posted by oblio
    when time travel is made reference to in physics, physicsists do not mean travelling back to a certain period and reliving it, that is completely unrealistic. What is meant by time travel is altering time in relation to the speed of light and universal clock.
    What relativity does is shift the unversal constant to the speed of light....hence time is a varible and given the right set of circumstances can be "altered"

  8. #8
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    Question Hmmmmmmmmm

    The great paradox rears it's ugly head.

    If one does go back in time and say for instance. Breaks up his mother and father or kills a distant relative thus providing that ones own parents do not bear an offspring. Then will one continue to exist or not? Will you exist only in the time you traveled to, or disappear when you return to your own time? Or is it whatever plain of existance that you are on?

    Food for thought.
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  9. #9
    oblio
    Guest
    simply mathematically speaking, yes time can be altered as is demonstrated in the "twin theory". The point I was making is that if it was currently possible to time travel, the results would certainly not be the reliving of a past age.

  10. #10

    Re: Hmmmmmmmmm

    Originally posted by {P²P}Apocalypse
    The great paradox rears it's ugly head.

    If one does go back in time and say for instance. Breaks up his mother and father or kills a distant relative thus providing that ones own parents do not bear an offspring. Then will one continue to exist or not? Will you exist only in the time you traveled to, or disappear when you return to your own time? Or is it whatever plain of existance that you are on?

    Food for thought.

    I think what oblio said in his last post can be applied here...if you read that article I linked to you will see how time travel would work....it eliminates possible paradoxes

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