TIME TRAVEL

[14 of spades]

i think it's reasonable to suggest that we won't have any astronauts returning to earth with any significant time disparities in the near future.

 

if u put the math to it, u need to be travelling at some 0.4c-0.6c (i.e. 40-60% the speed of light) in order to start having significant elapses in time (i.e. several seconds on the minute).

 

c (the speed of light) is 3.0 x 10 (power of 8) m/s. 50% of the speed of light is thus 1.5 x 10 (power of 8) m/s. we ain't gonna see a rocket engine propel a spacecraft at that speed in the near future....

 

but arent some of the design for solar sailing ships able to reach those speeds? Especilaly by whipping thru planetary gravitational fields?

 

50% of the speed of light? I seriously doubt it. That would mean those ships would be travelling at about 300,000,000 MPH.

 

no... 300 000 000 mph is probably some 0.0001% the speed of light. remember,

light is 300 000 000 meters PER SECOND...

[14 of spades]

wow - controlling little nuclear explosions - fun !

 

Ya, works real well on their little computer animated models. In real life, it may destroy half of Florida in a botched launch.

 

[october]

i think it's reasonable to suggest that we won't have any astronauts returning to earth with any significant time disparities in the near future.

 

if u put the math to it, u need to be travelling at some 0.4c-0.6c (i.e. 40-60% the speed of light) in order to start having significant elapses in time (i.e. several seconds on the minute).

 

c (the speed of light) is 3.0 x 10 (power of 8) m/s. 50% of the speed of light is thus 1.5 x 10 (power of 8) m/s. we ain't gonna see a rocket engine propel a spacecraft at that speed in the near future....

 

but arent some of the design for solar sailing ships able to reach those speeds? Especilaly by whipping thru planetary gravitational fields?

 

50% of the speed of light? I seriously doubt it. That would mean those ships would be travelling at about 300,000,000 MPH.

 

no... 300 000 000 mph is probably some 0.0001% the speed of light. remember,

light is 300 000 000 meters PER SECOND...

 

Do the math again. 300,000,000 meters per second works out to be about 1,100,000,000 KPH. That translates to 700,000,000 MPH, 40-50% of which is about 300,000,000 MPH. Just as I said.

[14 of spades]

oh it could be that the conversion from mile to meter offsets the conversion from hour to second....

 

ok - we'll say you're right.

 

we need a ship at 300 000 00 MPH. let's do it.

 

Geordie - let's have Warp-10!

[Scheradon]

Rather than trying to achieve insane speeds, perhaps finding the secret to bending space and time would be easier and safer for the passengers.

[14 of spades]

i say we try to communicate wtih extra-terrestrials who already have the technology, then get them to give it to us.

 

[october]

i say we try to communicate wtih extra-terrestrials who already have the technology, then get them to give it to us.

 

haha.

 

That's how we got the stealth bomber!

[Scheradon]

i say we try to communicate wtih extra-terrestrials who already have the technology, then get them to give it to us.

 

haha.

 

I thought we've already been doing that. Isn't this where the microwave oven came from?

[Scheradon]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0425074...5Fencoding=UTF8

 

[14 of spades]

shoot... they already gave it to us. we missed our chance!

[Aman619]

but all of this STILL wont get you back in time. "Back in time" refers to LIVING in and interacting with people an dthings that lived in a previous time.

[Stifler-migration]

edit: Nevermind...it was already addressed.

[lou_fine]

stephen hawking pretty much dismissed it in a quote he made.

 

he said if time travel existed, we'd be inundated with time travel "tourists" from the future.

 

consider - if the first time travel machine was made in the year 3099, wouldn't the technology eventually become widespread as manufacturing of the timetravel technology became more sophisticated? at some point beyond 3099, building a time machine might become as simple as building a digital watch. soon, maybe time machines could eventually be bought at dollar stores. time travel machines would become so commonplace that essentially, everyone could have one, and then wouldn't all these people come back and visit us in 2006 to have a look around?

 

Not sure where exactly I hear this this theory, but it goes something like this:

 

It's actually not possible to travel back in time, but apparently you can physically travel forward into the future. The only thing is that they are talking only about fractions of a second here, as opposed to days or even years into the future.

[lou_fine]

I've thought this was interesting: when we see a star die, which is 2000 light years away, we're actually seeing something that happened 2000 years ago.

 

So could we see back in time, if we could travel faster than light? If we could travel 2000 light years away, and have a telescope powerful enough to see earth, we could see Jesus walking on the earth, right?

 

Rob;

 

Yes, this is apparently true.

 

The only thing is that seeing things that happen thousands of years ago does not equate to physically travelling back to that particular time period.

 

Apparently, if telescopes are powerful enough, we would be able see to the end of the universe and the big bang that took place thousands of years ago and is still currently taking place.

[Scheradon]

Time is really just an illusion. Because of this our minds have to equate a beginning and an end to everything; when in reality there always has been and always will be existence.

[tth2]

I've thought this was interesting: when we see a star die, which is 2000 light years away, we're actually seeing something that happened 2000 years ago.

 

So could we see back in time, if we could travel faster than light? If we could travel 2000 light years away, and have a telescope powerful enough to see earth, we could see Jesus walking on the earth, right?

 

Yep, but relativity doesn't allow travel faster than the speed of light. At that point all of the mass in our bodies would be converted to pure energy. Supposedly nothing can go above lightspeed, but I did hear of something called "action at a distance" involving crystal resonance. I will see if I can find the article...

What if they got to the place that's 2000 light years away by going through a wormhole or some other vortex in the fabric of space?

[Illiterati-migration]

I've thought this was interesting: when we see a star die, which is 2000 light years away, we're actually seeing something that happened 2000 years ago.

 

So could we see back in time, if we could travel faster than light? If we could travel 2000 light years away, and have a telescope powerful enough to see earth, we could see Jesus walking on the earth, right?

 

Yep, but relativity doesn't allow travel faster than the speed of light. At that point all of the mass in our bodies would be converted to pure energy. Supposedly nothing can go above lightspeed, but I did hear of something called "action at a distance" involving crystal resonance. I will see if I can find the article...

What if they got to the place that's 2000 light years away by going through a wormhole or some other vortex in the fabric of space?

 

Yes, in that case the light from Earth (though not nearly strong enough) would be shining from Jesus' day.

[14 of spades]

 

Rob;

 

Yes, this is apparently true.

 

The only thing is that seeing things that happen thousands of years ago does not equate to physically travelling back to that particular time period.

 

Apparently, if telescopes are powerful enough, we would be able see to the end of the universe and the big bang that took place thousands of years ago and is still currently taking place.

 

if the big bang created the universe, then no matter how far we are from the "center" of the BB, we shouldn't be able to see it should we? because we arrived this distance from the center BECAUSE of the big bang, as such, i imagine we are behind the tip of the light rays emitted from the big explosion (?). that said, i've heard the theory that u mention (i think) so i think there might be some basis to the thought.

[14 of spades]

 

Yes, in that case the light from Earth (though not nearly strong enough) would be shining from Jesus' day.

 

yup. space travel aside, that's the crux of the matter.

 

again - it's a nice philsophical discussion, that's about it.

[october]

I've thought this was interesting: when we see a star die, which is 2000 light years away, we're actually seeing something that happened 2000 years ago.

 

So could we see back in time, if we could travel faster than light? If we could travel 2000 light years away, and have a telescope powerful enough to see earth, we could see Jesus walking on the earth, right?

 

Yep, but relativity doesn't allow travel faster than the speed of light. At that point all of the mass in our bodies would be converted to pure energy. Supposedly nothing can go above lightspeed, but I did hear of something called "action at a distance" involving crystal resonance. I will see if I can find the article...

What if they got to the place that's 2000 light years away by going through a wormhole or some other vortex in the fabric of space?

 

It's theoretically possible to travel through a wormhole, at least there is nothing in the laws of physics forbidding it. From what I have read though, wormholes (if they exist) are extremely unstable and would require astronomically (pun intended) huge amounts of energy to produce. As in the power of thousands or millions of suns, somewhere near the Planck Energy . No exactly a breakthrough we can expect in our lifetimes.