Debate Is time travel possible?

[Ayasano]

I'm surprised nobody in this thread has mentioned delayed-choice experiments yet. I've only seen one mention of it on the forum (here) and it got no replies.

The gist of it is that in certain experiments like the double slit experiment, the quantum eraser experiment, etc., if you change whether the detector is present at a certain point after you start the experiment, it affects the result in a way that isn't possible without a small amount of retrocausaility. Don't get too excited though, because the way it works doesn't allow for you to violate causality or send information back or anything. But it does at least demonstrate that effect doesn't always have to follow cause. A paper on one such experiment can be found here.


If you want some solid theory behind real time travel, do a google search for "cosmic strings closed timelike curve", which brings up results such as this. (Not to be confused with string theory, although there is some crossover) There's some tenous evidence for cosmic strings to exist, but they're a bit difficult to actually wrangle for time travel purposes, you mostly have to hope you find one in the configuration you need. However, if conditions were right, they could allow for travel as far back as shortly after the Big Bang, though it might include a few stopovers.

 

[Orpheus Rex]

If you want to know about time travel, you should study Krasnikov.

 

[Falkon303]

Time travel has already been proven. At least according to a national geographic show I watched on it.. If you are in a highrise building, your watch is running at a different rate than someone down on the ground level, and even though in microseconds, you are experiencing time differently. Also, astronauts are technically travelling into the future because of the speeds they reach.

According to the show, we time travel all the time, just in miniature ways (microseconds).

It's not that we need to reach the speed of light to time travel, but that we need to manipulate space-time fabric by bending it, or creating a wormhole.

The gravitational mass of planets affects space time - Gravitational time dilation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For time travel to happen, we'd have to figure out which aspects of the gravitational mass create the bend, and recreate it.

Not to say that is the only way. There are wormholes, controllable singularities (<- difficult) and bending light as well.

I think more extreme versions time travel are definitely possible. Safe? No.

 

[Night Templar]

Kinda like MPD, having a conversation(s) with the other personalities taking turns talking. Now that is something one would have to take part in to fully appreciate. An "instant re-play" would be needed to just keep them all separate. Try taking notes with 5 pts., all diag. with MPD, all talking a the same time, for 90 minutes, 3x a week, and it is no wonder a therapist walks out talking to themselves but to which self. LMAO.