Hawking backs possibility for humans to travel millions of years into the future - Polidicks

[release]Stephen Hawking has claimed that humans might one day be able to use time travel to skip generations into the future. The famous astrophysicist, speaking in a new documentary, said spaceships could one day be capable of such high speeds that time slowed down for those on board. He admitted he had avoided talking about time travel previously ' for fear of being labelled a crank', saying the subject had once been 'scientific heresy'. 'These days I'm not so cautious,' he said. [img]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/05/02/article-1270531-0958C3BE000005DC-956_468x286.jpg[/img] Theoretically, such a space ship would allow the crew to repopulate the earth if they found our species had become extinct during their flight. Stephen Hawking's Universe, in which he makes the comments, will be screened on Discovery next Sunday. In another part of the series he says alien life is likely to exist but that humans should avoid making contact. Hawking said a spaceship capable of travelling through time - but only forwards - would breach Albert Einstein's theories of relativity. Having taken six years to reach its full speed of 98 per cent of the speed of light (650million miles per hour), a day on board the ship would be equivalent to a year on Earth, he said, allowing those on board to reach the edge of the galaxy in just 80 years. But the ship required for the journey would have to be massive to allow for the required fuel. He dismissed the idea of travelling backwards through time, saying doing so would violate a fundamental rule that cause comes before effect and that such an act could allow people to make themselves impossible, such as if a person travelled back in time and shot thir former self. While backing Hawking's theories, Brian Cox, a Manchester University professor and the presenter of BBC's Wonders of the Solar System, admitted there were significant impediments to realising them. 'We can already see how time slows down for objects travelling at high speed by looking at what happens in paricle accelerators,' he told The Times. 'When we accelerate tiny particles to 99.99 per cent of the sped of light in the Large Hadron Collider at Cern in Geneva, the time they experience passes at one-seventhousandth of the rate it does for us. 'If we could build a spaceship that was fast enough, then it could reach other stars in the lifetime of the crew, but maybe 2.5million years would have passed by on earth.'[/release] [url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1270531/Hawking-backs-possibility-humans-travel-millions-years-future.html]Source[/url] Has anyone watched his Discovery Channel documentaries? I thought they're pretty good... some stuff may be a little obvious (some stuff in the Aliens invasion documentary), but all in all, very educational and interesting.

What a crank, this is scientific heresy.

So is it back to the future rules, or terminator rules?

Oh god his rabbit teeth scared me.

[QUOTE=BurnEmDown;21718546]So is it back to the future rules, or terminator rules?[/QUOTE] Nope, no wormholes, just you inside some vessel, accelerated at 98% the speed of light... [editline]04:13PM[/editline] Wormholes, he says, could cause paradoxes, which are very dangerous (and yes, Doc Brown was right about that) Instead, if you just accelerate up to the speed of light, there can never be a paradox

The calculation is wrong. At 98% of c, 1 day isn't 1 year on earth.

So this means that we can't travel the galaxy at near-speed-of-light speeds without traveling forwards in time. I'm seeing some serious limitations for the human race here.

[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;21718634]Nope, no wormholes, just you inside some vessel, accelerated at 98% the speed of light... [editline]04:13PM[/editline] Wormholes, he says, could cause paradoxes, which are very dangerous (and yes, Doc Brown was right about that) Instead, if you just accelerate up to the speed of light, there can never be a paradox[/QUOTE] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKqd27h7KjM[/media] I want to watch that film again.

What the hell. If time slows down on the ship when they travel at light speed, everyone on this ship would see they're going FASTER than light. 365 times.

[QUOTE=animephreak135;21718786]So this means that we can't travel the galaxy at near-speed-of-light speeds without traveling forwards in time. I'm seeing some serious limitations for the human race here.[/QUOTE] There are theoretical ways around that, like warping the space between two points to make it a shorter distance instead of actually traveling faster.

I'm sick of all these fucking limitations and shit. Ayo! Let's build a near-speed-of-light space ship and fly some shit! [IMG]http://www.culture24.org.uk/asset_arena/4/24/16424/v0_master.jpg[/IMG]

I went to the future once.

[img]http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/tdgraphformula.gif[/img]

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;21718832]There are theoretical ways around that, like warping the space between two points to make it a shorter distance instead of actually traveling faster.[/QUOTE] Well, I certainly hope that we'll find a way to do that.

I still prefer looking for ways to bend spacetime and make a shortcut through space and time...

[QUOTE=WeltEnSTurm;21718818]What the hell. If time slows down on the ship when they travel at light speed, everyone on this ship would see they're going FASTER than light. 365 times.[/QUOTE] No, because the light is going faster than you, still, and the difference between your velocities is amplified by the time slowdown. Light always looks like it's going the same speed relative to you.

I don't understand how "time travel" is possible. Isn't time a concept we have created to space events and to give duration?

[QUOTE=Herr Sven;21718943]I still prefer looking for ways to bend spacetime and make a shortcut through space and time...[/QUOTE] It'll only halve the time though, and to fold a fold in space would be disaster, and to fold that fold's fold's fold, and to fold that fold again and again until it is possible for us to use within our lifetimes would be insane. Insane I tell you.

[QUOTE=CoilingTesla;21718967]I don't understand how "time travel" is possible. Isn't time a concept we have created to space events?[/QUOTE] No, time exists as a fundamental thing. The fact that velocity has absolute and measurable effects on the rate at which time passes is evidence of this.

[QUOTE=Sickle;21718981]It'll only halve the time though, and to fold a fold in space would be disaster, and to fold that fold's fold's fold, and to fold that fold again and again until it is possible for us to use within our lifetimes would be insane. Insane I tell you.[/QUOTE] :smug:

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;21719009]No, time exists as a fundamental thing. The fact that velocity has absolute and measurable effects on the rate at which time passes is evidence of this.[/QUOTE] So time was "found" and not "invented"? Maybe I should read into it more.

[QUOTE=CoilingTesla;21719038]So time was "found" and not "invented"? Maybe I should read into it more.[/QUOTE] Maybe you should. Otherwise, cosmology is an interesting subject. It also works a bit with time.

Hawking :love:

By the time they figure that out we'll all be dead

[QUOTE=leontodd;21719117]By the [I]time[/I] they figure that out we'll all be dead[/QUOTE] :smug:

[QUOTE=leontodd;21719117]By the time they figure that out we'll all be dead[/QUOTE] :golfclap: Very good, sir. I guess it was just a matter of time until somebody came up with a pun like that [editline]04:45PM[/editline] On a more serious note, the whole subject is amazing

I heard about something similar a while back, something about someone being on the ISS, and being a fraction of the second into the future.

Here's a simplified version of the logic behind this.

[QUOTE=gmaster;21719454]Here's a simplified version of the logic behind this.[/QUOTE] That's amazing!

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;21718698]The calculation is wrong. At 98% of c, 1 day isn't 1 year on earth.[/QUOTE] Yea, it is very very wrong. The change factor is only 5, which means that 1 day is equal to 5 days. [editline]08:02PM[/editline] [QUOTE=BAZ;21718894][img]http://www.thebigview.com/spacetime/tdgraphformula.gif[/img][/QUOTE] Nice, a visual proof.