Time travel is not possible, and will never be discovered

[AAFitz]

Take, for example, one person in Chicago, and one person on a space ship traveling at nearly the speed of light around the galaxy. For each time, and place that each of those people occupy, there is exactly one time, and place that the other exists. There is no time where one exists, and the other does not; nor is there a time when either of them exist more than once; nor do either of them ever exist at any point outside of their natural existence. It is not time travel, in the sense that this discussion is about. The "skips" that do not exist in this example, are precisely what I am saying are impossible.

Yes, I agree as I said. It is not technically traveling through time, however, the effect of time traveling to the future, is going to the future in your current state and age....and that is possible. It doesn't skip all time, but it skips the aging process of earths time.

Im hoping you follow this up with the multi-verse theory. Im again no where near qualified to discuss it from a physics standpoint, but have followed it at least a little more than average, and find it somewhat difficult to believe. However, einsteinian gravity vs Newton gravity is a bit tough at first too. Newtons gravity just makes so much logical sense...except that it doesnt quite work. lol.. but carry on here...though I think youve hit the circular part of the argument...except that saying something will always be impossible is never a great idea in general.

[AAFitz]

Time travel may or may not be possible, but what about crossing between parallel universes?

I used to love Sliders.

Yeah, I cant even say it without using the subtle whisper voice they used on the show...

[Neoteny]

Oh man... nostalgia trip...

[Timminz]

Take, for example, one person in Chicago, and one person on a space ship traveling at nearly the speed of light around the galaxy. For each time, and place that each of those people occupy, there is exactly one time, and place that the other exists. There is no time where one exists, and the other does not; nor is there a time when either of them exist more than once; nor do either of them ever exist at any point outside of their natural existence. It is not time travel, in the sense that this discussion is about. The "skips" that do not exist in this example, are precisely what I am saying are impossible.

Yes, I agree as I said. It is not technically traveling through time, however, the effect of time traveling to the future, is going to the future in your current state and age....and that is possible. It doesn't skip all time, but it skips the aging process of earths time.

Im hoping you follow this up with the multi-verse theory. Im again no where near qualified to discuss it from a physics standpoint, but have followed it at least a little more than average, and find it somewhat difficult to believe. However, einsteinian gravity vs Newton gravity is a bit tough at first too. Newtons gravity just makes so much logical sense...except that it doesnt quite work. lol.. but carry on here...though I think youve hit the circular part of the argument...except that saying something will always be impossible is never a great idea in general.

I know we're agreeing Fitz, but I still must take issue with your use of the word 'skip'. The person on the ship is not skipping time on earth, any more than a person on vacation is skipping Monday. They may be in a different place, and experiencing things from a different perspective, but they do not 'skip' any time.

[autoload]

I have no opinions on time travel.

I agree with everything hecter says.

[Army of GOD]

I have no opinions on time travel.

We all know who the man from the future is here...he can't deny it because he'd be lying, yet he can't agree or else he'd give away his position. Kill hecter, the man from the future and ignore any futurisitic consequences!!!

[Lord and Master]

heres one for you then, is cause and effect faster than light?
light travels at about 180300 miles a second. imagine a tube 1000000 miles long full of ball bearings. you push another ball bearing in one end and instantly the one at the other end would fall out, whereas light would take almost 6 seconds to travel the 1000000 miles. noy very scientific i know but just a thought that was rattling around up there.

Well no, all of the ball-bearings have moved along by one haven't they, so no fancy warp-speed effects were needed!
Sod this, I'm off to bed!

I have heard this type of thing described to provide faster than light communications. imagine a "really long" pencil. You could start writing by holding the pencil at this end, but the point is 1 light year (or some other very large distance) away, and begins to scribe your message instantly, much faster than light could travel the same distance.

There are some obvious difficulties in creating such a large pencil, but the concept is interesting. I believe there are other arguments against this sort of thing working, but it has been a long time since I first heard of this example, and can't remember them anymore. old age.

The main problem with any of these "thought-experiments" is that we forget that while the speed of light, c, is a constant, it's always the same no matter who (or what) it's measured in regard to.
What this means is that say you're on a space-ship (or train or whatever) that's going at half the speed of light and you shine a torch ahead of the vehicle, an observer who's stood in front of the vehicle will still measure c to be the same, not c + c/2 as you may first imagine. That is, no matter how fast the torch is going, the speed that the light coming out of it at is still always the same.
Oh, and another thought is imagine shining a laser-beam at the moon, now shift the laser pointer so it's pointing at your hand instead. The little red dot has gone from the moon to your hand way faster than light actually could... But obviously that's ok as the red dot is not a real object at all!

[StephenB]

heres one for you then, is cause and effect faster than light?
light travels at about 180300 miles a second. imagine a tube 1000000 miles long full of ball bearings. you push another ball bearing in one end and instantly the one at the other end would fall out, whereas light would take almost 6 seconds to travel the 1000000 miles. noy very scientific i know but just a thought that was rattling around up there.

Well no, all of the ball-bearings have moved along by one haven't they, so no fancy warp-speed effects were needed!
Sod this, I'm off to bed!

I have heard this type of thing described to provide faster than light communications. imagine a "really long" pencil. You could start writing by holding the pencil at this end, but the point is 1 light year (or some other very large distance) away, and begins to scribe your message instantly, much faster than light could travel the same distance.

There are some obvious difficulties in creating such a large pencil, but the concept is interesting. I believe there are other arguments against this sort of thing working, but it has been a long time since I first heard of this example, and can't remember them anymore. old age.

I like the concept, a lot. I think it could be used well in the future.

It really doesn't have anything to do with time travel though.

[BigBallinStalin]

Excluding the example of the Twin paradox, what makes y'all think that the past even exists? Or the future for that matter?

[MeDeFe]

Fitz, if a person in a spaceship orbits the earth at nearly the speed of light for, let's say, a day, and then lands and 40 years have passed, this person will not have an identical twin that is 40 years older on earth. Because then this person would have had to be in the spaceship and on earth at the same time.

[hecter]

Fitz, if a person in a spaceship orbits the earth at nearly the speed of light for, let's say, a day, and then lands and 40 years have passed, this person will not have an identical twin that is 40 years older on earth. Because then this person would have had to be in the spaceship and on earth at the same time.

Why do you need to be two places at once to have a twin? Mothers have twins all the time... Sometimes triplets. I've even known twins at school.

[MeDeFe]

Fitz, if a person in a spaceship orbits the earth at nearly the speed of light for, let's say, a day, and then lands and 40 years have passed, this person will not have an identical twin that is 40 years older on earth. Because then this person would have had to be in the spaceship and on earth at the same time.

Why do you need to be two places at once to have a twin? Mothers have twins all the time... Sometimes triplets. I've even known twins at school.

In this case I took "twin" to mean the same person having lead a different life. Was I wrong?

[hecter]

Fitz, if a person in a spaceship orbits the earth at nearly the speed of light for, let's say, a day, and then lands and 40 years have passed, this person will not have an identical twin that is 40 years older on earth. Because then this person would have had to be in the spaceship and on earth at the same time.

Why do you need to be two places at once to have a twin? Mothers have twins all the time... Sometimes triplets. I've even known twins at school.

In this case I took "twin" to mean the same person having lead a different life. Was I wrong?

Very.

[ser stiefel]

Time travel may or may not be possible, but what about crossing between parallel universes?

I used to love Sliders.

Yeah, I cant even say it without using the subtle whisper voice they used on the show...

Took me a while before I could take John Rhys-Davies as Gimli in the Lord of the Rings.

[MeDeFe]

Fitz, if a person in a spaceship orbits the earth at nearly the speed of light for, let's say, a day, and then lands and 40 years have passed, this person will not have an identical twin that is 40 years older on earth. Because then this person would have had to be in the spaceship and on earth at the same time.

Why do you need to be two places at once to have a twin? Mothers have twins all the time... Sometimes triplets. I've even known twins at school.

In this case I took "twin" to mean the same person having lead a different life. Was I wrong?

Very.

Damn.

[Snorri1234]

Excluding the example of the Twin paradox, what makes y'all think that the past even exists? Or the future for that matter?

They don't.

[BigBallinStalin]

Excluding the example of the Twin paradox, what makes y'all think that the past even exists? Or the future for that matter?

They don't.

I agree, which is why time travel is not possible. By time travel I'm talking about visiting this world in the past or in the future. As for traveling vast distances "faster" that the speed of light via the use of black holes or parallel universes, who knows, but so far it's great science fiction.