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Another Time Travel Wonderment.
This is following on from a question last week I asked about time travel to the past? One of the main things brought up was if it was possible then we would have loads of time travelling tourists. However I'm just thinking here that humans have only been about for a few thousand years out of billions at the moment, so who is to say that in another billion years time travel could not become possible but the time travellers have simply not travelled to our moment of time. For example if I presented you with a time machine, to when would you travel? One million years ago, two million? You'd miss a lot between both dates.
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.I have read an argument that time travel may require a time machine at either end of the journey and that as such time travel is not possible to a point prior to when the first time maching is invented.
Personally, I do not believe that time travel into the past is possible at all despite the fact that physical laws as we know them do not preclude it.
Personally, I do not believe that time travel into the past is possible at all despite the fact that physical laws as we know them do not preclude it.
but then again in another billion years how many humans will there be? They'd be swamping us by now. In fact I suspect Dot is one.
Have you read this great short story?
http://en.wikipedia.o...et%27s_go_to_Golgotha
Have you read this great short story?
http://en.wikipedia.o...et%27s_go_to_Golgotha
There's one I remember reading at school on the same 'time tourist' theme, where a bloke is sent back to prehistoric dinosaur type times and they're told that they must on no account stray from the specially constructed path or interfere with the environment in any way. (He's sent to a rainforest type place.)
Obviously he does for some reason - steps off the path by accident I think. Anyway when he gets back to the future, things are slightly different - the language is slightly different, the people look slightly different, etc etc - the punchline to that one is that he discovers a butterfly on the sole of his shoe, and stomping on it when he stepped off the path was enough to make everything slightly different in the future.
Any sci-fi buffs out there know the name of that one?
Obviously he does for some reason - steps off the path by accident I think. Anyway when he gets back to the future, things are slightly different - the language is slightly different, the people look slightly different, etc etc - the punchline to that one is that he discovers a butterfly on the sole of his shoe, and stomping on it when he stepped off the path was enough to make everything slightly different in the future.
Any sci-fi buffs out there know the name of that one?
Yes I remeber that story - particularly because it's commonly confused with the so called "butterfly effect".
There are a number of possibilities that would preclude time travelling tourists - firstly as pointed out the notion that you might need a machine at either end.
Secondly as I mentioned the other day you might lose memories as you travelled backwards in time in relation to the date.
However I think the most likely is that it's just impractical for a human to travel backwards in time the sorts of energies we're talking about and constructs like black holes make me think it's likely not to be survivable.
However I wouldn't be quite so certain that a signal couldn't travel backwards in time. We have already pitted Einstein against quantum mechanics (google EPR paradox) and Einstein lost.
On balance I wouldn't bet the farm on it being possible but I certainly wouldn't disregard the possibility
There are a number of possibilities that would preclude time travelling tourists - firstly as pointed out the notion that you might need a machine at either end.
Secondly as I mentioned the other day you might lose memories as you travelled backwards in time in relation to the date.
However I think the most likely is that it's just impractical for a human to travel backwards in time the sorts of energies we're talking about and constructs like black holes make me think it's likely not to be survivable.
However I wouldn't be quite so certain that a signal couldn't travel backwards in time. We have already pitted Einstein against quantum mechanics (google EPR paradox) and Einstein lost.
On balance I wouldn't bet the farm on it being possible but I certainly wouldn't disregard the possibility
If you could travel back in time, where would you expect to travel to? If you travelled back 1 hour the earth would have rotated, moved on its orbit around the sun and the sun and planets would have moved through space. You could end up inside the earth, in space or inside the sun or elswhere.. Perhaps there are a lot of time tourists floating around in space dried up to a crisp clutching an unused return ticket...
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this is a good book, it takes you back to the time of great events from a reports point of view.
http://www.amazon.co....n-Carey/dp/0571141633
Dave.
http://www.amazon.co....n-Carey/dp/0571141633
Dave.
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