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Do you think a time machine will ever, realistically be built?

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124

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    #92
    M5
    Registered Users Posts: 10,161 ✭✭✭✭M5


    "time travel" aka time dilation happens all the time. best example being orbital satellites which travel at approx 44,000kph. They effectively travel backwards in time. Einstein's theory of relativity allows for time travel. The faster you travel, the faster you travel through time. So if the satellite is moving extremely fast, time in effect moves faster for it. So it travels say 1/10th of a second faster through time in relation stationary object on the earth. So when it comes around again the time has to be set back 1/10th of a second to correct for its movement through space time. So it has traveled backwards in time effectively (think i got this right, open to correction though) Satellites routinely correct for this effect, that is science fact!

    Now a person time traveling any major amount of time is a completely different kettle of fish.....


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    #93
    Sharlovesjohn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 216 ✭✭Sharlovesjohn


    StormWarrior wrote: »
    I would give my life savings to go back and live in the 80's.


    If a machine is built, wouldnt we know by now people coming back from future and what not?


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    #94
    Lemegeton
    Registered Users Posts: 598 ✭✭✭Lemegeton


    not a chance. it is possible in theory like many have stated but the technology will never exist IMO


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    #95
    CreepingDeath
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,016 ✭✭✭CreepingDeath


    Agricola wrote: »
    Yes but this is where teleportation technology will come in. Particles have already been successfully teleported from one side of a lab to another.

    I think it was only copies of particles that had been transmitted, not teleported. The original remained.

    But that doesn't take into account quantum physics uncertainty principle.
    You can only know where a particle is, or where it's going, but not both with 100% accuracy.

    Internally, your body is in constant motion.
    If someone could copy all your atoms and duplicate it 1km away, then they couldn't tell what direction all your atoms were supposed to go in.
    They need to know some direction, because if they "stopped" all your atoms, while reconstructing you then stopped atoms = cold / absolute zero.
    Heat is really just the kenetic energy in atoms.
    The cold would cause ice crystals in your cells, freezing you to death immediately.

    So you can have a mixture of knowing the position of particles, or their location, or a mixture of the two, but not know both completely.

    I think teleportation will be limited to inanimate objects, and even then it will be like a 3D fax machine, much like a replicator in Star Trek.


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    #96
    Peanut
    Registered Users Posts: 1,462 ✭✭✭Peanut


    CreepingDeath wrote: »
    If someone could copy all your atoms and duplicate it 1km away, then they couldn't tell what direction all your atoms were supposed to go in.
    They need to know some direction, because if they "stopped" all your atoms, while reconstructing you then stopped atoms = cold / absolute zero.

    Just copy them in some random directions and they'll be fine :pac:


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    #97
    Trev M
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,840 ✭✭✭Trev M


    Did John Titor not already answer this question ? Apparently Cows play a huge part in the future.

    http://www.johntitor.com/Pages/Story.html

    http://johntitor.strategicbrains.com/


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    #98
    Mike 1972
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,018 ✭✭✭Mike 1972


    Godwin has the answer
    Universally hated since World War II, Hitler is our best evidence for the infeasibility of time travel. The obvious killer app for a working time machine would be to murder this guy before he could set the Third Reich in motion.

    [Handy tip for would-be chronoassassins: Don't bother trying to infiltrate the fortified bunker; instead, plan on catching him asleep in that Viennese flophouse during the homeless years.]


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    #99
    RolandIRL
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,924 ✭✭✭✭RolandIRL


    i've the answer. human evolution will grant us the ability to control the space-time continuum, just like in Heroes :P

    My name is Hiro Nakumura :D


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    #100
    Trev M
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,840 ✭✭✭Trev M


    Pittens wrote: »
    Hawkings mentions that paradox in the piece linked to. Although he had a wormhole which looked back in time 5 minutes and a scientist killing himself.

    He dismisses the worm hole though with the feedback analagy, maintaining the cause and effect law iirc.


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    #101
    lcrcboy
    Registered Users Posts: 562 ✭✭✭lcrcboy




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    #102
    antodeco
    Registered Users, Subscribers Posts: 13,449 ✭✭✭✭antodeco


    Ive said it before in another thread, but perhaps we are getting visitors from the future. My theory of future human evolution, is that humans bodies will become more frail (as manual labour is replaced by machines), our jaws will shrink, as we will not need to chew food as much (already signs of it in relation to "neanderthals", and as pollution increases, light will fade, and our eyes will become bigger.

    Based on this, if you look at most accounts of "aliens" they resemble "beings" similar to above. Now, perhaps time travel will be invented, but it will be from a distant place. So you would need the ability to travel through time and travel through space. Perhaps "alien visitors" are simply tourists from the future.

    I also think that if a time machine is "created" it will create a disturbance in time from that point. This will be the "start" point of time travel. So for the next X amount of years, people can travel back to that "start" point, but nothing before.

    /conspiracy


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    #103
    rossie1977
    Registered Users Posts: 11,342 ✭✭✭✭rossie1977


    Sharlovesjohn wrote: »
    If a machine is built, wouldnt we know by now people coming back from future and what not?

    so if someone came up to you and said "i am from the future" would you believe him ;)


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    #104
    Stratige
    Closed Accounts Posts: 106 ✭✭Stratige


    If time travel was ever going to exist it would exist now.

    The human mind is obviously capable of eventually learning how to time travel, but the human race will be extinct before it ever figures it out IMO, hence why a time traveller from the future hasn't come back to let us know.


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    #105
    Redshift
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,486 ✭✭✭Redshift


    The grandfather paradox is a good argument for the impossibility of time travel. IE what would happen if you travelled back and killed your grandfather before he met your grandmother, meaning you would never have existed to travel back in the first place. The same could be said about killing yourself as an infant.


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_paradox


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    #106
    rossie1977
    Registered Users Posts: 11,342 ✭✭✭✭rossie1977


    Mike 1972 wrote: »
    Godwin has the answer

    here is an even more interesting thought,

    what if someone did go back to kill hitler but found when they returned to the future it was much worse than what we have now

    ie the depression of the 30s lasted for decades, the states never became the superpower they did because of WW2, war between neighbouring western european nations continued on and off for centuries

    what if then after seeing this they decide to go back in time again to stop themselves killing hitler in the first place...


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    #107
    rossie1977
    Registered Users Posts: 11,342 ✭✭✭✭rossie1977


    Stratige wrote: »
    If time travel was ever going to exist it would exist now.

    The human mind is obviously capable of eventually learning how to time travel, but the human race will be extinct before it ever figures it out IMO, hence why a time traveller from the future hasn't come back to let us know.

    again, how would we recognise a real person from the future over a wacko nutjob ala this guy http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49305387,00.htm

    anyone claiming to be from the future would be laughed at or thrown in a mental hospital


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    #108
    ScumLord
    Registered Users Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    What if someone went back and warned Hitler, then he'd always be ready for any time traveling assassin making it look like there are no time traveling assassin when in fact there are loads of crap ones.


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    #109
    Stratige
    Closed Accounts Posts: 106 ✭✭Stratige


    rossie1977 wrote: »
    again, how would we recognise a real person from the future over a wacko nutjob ala this guy http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/0,39029552,49305387,00.htm

    anyone claiming to be from the future would be laughed at or thrown in a mental hospital
    They would obviously show how to do it if they were legitimate time travellers.


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    #110
    CatFromHue
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 18,145 Mod ✭✭✭✭CatFromHue


    honestly i did create a time machine, i went back in time and killed the nefarious Barry Ham when he was a baby.

    i used up all the higgs boson's though so cant do it again.

    now who is thie hitler chap he is news to me and my band of time travellers!


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    #111
    rossie1977
    Registered Users Posts: 11,342 ✭✭✭✭rossie1977


    Stratige wrote: »
    They would obviously show how to do it if they were legitimate time travellers.

    and what happens if its a one-way jump......


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    #112
    bnt
    Registered Users Posts: 12,963 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    It is not possible to use any time-related language if you're talking about a time machine that can go back in time. You can't say "will be" or "has been" invented. It either exists - always did and always will - or it doesn't. There will be no past and no future: if it exists, then time as we understand it is an illusion. :cool:

    From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.

    — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut



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    #113
    Poor Uncle Tom
    Registered Users Posts: 14,546 ✭✭✭✭Poor Uncle Tom


    CatFromHue wrote: »
    ........band of time travellers!

    /rumbled...

    Time travellers move in waves not bands....:)


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    #114
    Stratige
    Closed Accounts Posts: 106 ✭✭Stratige


    rossie1977 wrote: »
    and what happens if its a one-way jump......
    then they can do another one-way jump......


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    #115
    rossie1977
    Registered Users Posts: 11,342 ✭✭✭✭rossie1977


    Stratige wrote: »
    then they can do another one-way jump......

    a one-way jump would mean that the technology needed to travel in time would only exist in the future, once you jump you are stuck in the past with no means of getting back


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    #116
    moonpurple
    Closed Accounts Posts: 852 ✭✭✭moonpurple


    in reply to OP...no


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    #117
    Stratige
    Closed Accounts Posts: 106 ✭✭Stratige


    rossie1977 wrote: »
    a one-way jump would mean that the technology needed to travel in time would only exist in the future, once you jump you are stuck in the past with no means of getting back
    bring it with you


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    #118
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,858 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    OutlawPete wrote: »
    Just get a flux capacitor.
    :(

    http://www.delorean.com/store/search.aspx?SearchTerm=flux


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    #119
    Sea Sharp
    Registered Users Posts: 2,593 ✭✭✭Sea Sharp


    I don't think a time machine will ever be invented because the idea is retarded. (Going back in time that is, the owl time slows down as you approach the speed of light makes total sense though.)

    Here's a trippy thought though;):

    If we managed to exceed the speed of light we would be able to see back in time. For example, imagine you leave Earth in 2010 and travel at 10 times the speed of light for 10 years. In 2020 if you looked back at earth you would observe light that was emitted in 1920.

    I'm basing this on the famous NASA photos of other galaxies.These photos are said to be snap-shots of the past because it has taken so fecking long for the light emitted from these galaxies to reach where we are. If photos of our galaxy were taken from these distant galaxies they would see what our solar system looked like a couple of billion years ago.

    All we needs is a flux capacitor and a (billion billion billion)^billion million mega-pixel camera. :P


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    #120
    scudzilla
    Registered Users Posts: 11,911 ✭✭✭✭scudzilla


    It will never happen, if it was possible we would have seen some time travellers by now,


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    #121
    pwd
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,284 ✭✭✭pwd


    Reading this thread is like time travel.
    Every page, I think "Didn't I just read this on the last page?"
    Time loop/groundhog day kinda stuff.


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