Is time travel possible?

[Peanut Butter Jelly Time]

Discuss.

[Drew]

This little joke has been on my to-do list for years, GJ.

[radamanthys]

no.

[Sean of the Thread]

Wanted:

Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You will get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.


http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b236/Japgross/0102030103060104072008011297e861e3e.jpg

[Blud]

Wanted:

Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You will get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.


http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b236/Japgross/0102030103060104072008011297e861e3e.jpg

LOL! I remember this ad going around. :)

[Blud]

"Every one of time travels into the future, one year, every year." --Carl Sagan

I'll try to find it, but I think NASA conducted experiments in space to see if the atomic clock on-board the space vehicles "lost" time when compared to the atomic clocks on earth. I believe their experiments showed that the atomic clock on board the space vehicle lost time when compared to the atomic clock of the exact same construction on earth. They were started simultaneously. This basically gave some evidence that Einstien's theory of time dilation in the Theory of Relativity was correct. Since the space vehicle travelled much faster (and as a result, the on-board atomic clock) than the atomic clock on earth, it lost time. Basically, time slowed down on the space vehicle.

My question is not whether time travel is possible. My question is what exactly is time? Time is nothing more than a standard that we use to measure events by. The scientific community can't even agree on what one second is. Here is a link to the newest atomic clock that has been hailed as the most accurate clock in the world now...Expect this to change in another 10 or so years.

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/atomic_clock.htm

What this means to me is since time is relative, and we don't really know what 1 seecond is, how can we accurately measure "time travel"? In other words, NASA may have found something compelling all those years ago, but I would like to see these experiment performed with this new clock to see if they get different results.

[Celephais]

Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!

[Khariz]

Yes, it's possible.

Along the lines of what Blud posted, but fiction:

http://www.johntitor.com/

[Celephais]

One of the cool possibilities I like to think about would be if we developed optical sensors powerful enough, and either found a surface out in space, or created some massive mirror out in space, say 1004 lightyears away... working out all interference, you would be able to look at earth 2008 years ago, and see jesus doing magic tricks.
http://thumbnails.putfile.com/images/10/1179834013412573930.jpg

[Blud]

One of the cool possibilities I like to think about would be if we developed optical sensors powerful enough, and either found a surface out in space, or created some massive mirror out in space, say 1004 lightyears away... working out all interference, you would be able to look at earth 2008 years ago, and see jesus doing magic tricks.
http://thumbnails.putfile.com/images/10/1179834013412573930.jpg

Problem with this experiment is it would take 2008 years for the light to return to earth, which means that we would only see today 2008 years later. The problem get compounded if you set the mirror 2008 light years away, then it takes 4016 years for the light to return to earth, which means you see today 4016 years later, so on and so forth. In other words, you can't see yesterday in a mirror, you can only see today years from now.

There was a supernova in our galaxy that was observed on earth a couple of years ago, but the event actually happened thousands of years ago. Since the event happened thousands of light years away, it took thousands of years for the event to be seen by us.

[Suppa Hobbit Mage]

All we would have to do is create faster than light travel, zip out, view the earth's past, then zip back. Simple as pie.

[Celephais]

Problem with this experiment is it would take 2008 years for the light to return to earth, which means that we would only see today 2008 years later. The problem get compounded if you set the mirror 2008 light years away, then it takes 4016 years for the light to return to earth, which means you see today 4016 years later, so on and so forth. In other words, you can't see yesterday in a mirror, you can only see today years from now.
Hence the "find a surface in space" part. I also said 1004 because I know it takes just as long to get there as it does to return.

If we had sophisticated enough of technology we could just find some/any object over 1004 light years away and analyze the reflection and extrapolate an image of the earth, it would just take some ungodly awesome processing.

[Celephais]

All we would have to do is create faster than light travel, zip out, view the earth's past, then zip back. Simple as pie.
That would work too. I'm going to go outside and batwing the future.

[Blud]

Hence the "find a surface in space" part. I also said 1004 because I know it takes just as long to get there as it does to return.

If we had sophisticated enough of technology we could just find some/any object over 1004 light years away and analyze the reflection and extrapolate an image of the earth, it would just take some ungodly awesome processing.

I know what you meant.

I agree that if we had the ability to place a mirror in space 1004 light years away 2008 years ago, then it is "possible" we would be able to see Jesus doing magic tricks today, but unfortunately we weren't space travelling back then, and I don't think any planet, comet, moon, asteroid, or whatever is capable of reflecting that light back without attenuating it to the point of making it useless, let alone that we are lucky enough to find the body that reflected it and extrapolate its exact location at that time so we could intercept the reflected light and analyze it.

Honestly though, it is a cool thing to think about, and I understand what you're saying..."If it were possible to do all of that, wouldn't it be neat?" and the answer is, "Hell yeah it would!" It would answer a lot of questions.