A Physicist Is Building a Time Machine to Reconnect With His Dead Father
112 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Sableye;47405961]I'm pretty convinced any time traveler would have to be self correcting, so say he does tell his father, he would have to still die because he has to die and in such a manner that its surprising and shocking with no evidence of a time traveler giving him info[/QUOTE]
That's pretty much how I feel
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle[/url]
[QUOTE=Magman77;47405993]Realizing that I had simply jumped to another reality where I'd saved his life rather than actually going back in time and saving him would kind of be bittersweet, because there'd be a billion other realities where he'd died and you'd simply navigated the events to the reality where he survives.[/QUOTE]
Plus there is no way of actually knowing if time progresses at the same rate in other realities. It's more than likely that if he did go to another reality, his father would have died from natural causes if he survived the heart attack.
The only things I've learned from time travel was from Back to The Future :v:
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;47406005]That's pretty much how I feel
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle[/url][/QUOTE]
There's the theoretical possibility that he could create a divergent timeline. He'll he could hop in the damn thing and it would explode and for all we know he could have been sent back in time. Whatever changes he could make would only be viewable to him, for us he'd basically just be vaporized.
[QUOTE=Sableye;47405961]I'm pretty convinced any time traveler would have to be self correcting, so say he does tell his father, he would have to still die because he has to die and in such a manner that its surprising and shocking with no evidence of a time traveler giving him info[/QUOTE]
a common theory is that if he went back in time, he wouldnt alter our current timeline. he would be jumping into another where he time travelled to. in that universe, his father might still live but the world now knows time travel exists because of him, and depending on whether he has the ability to travel back to the future is a whole nother thing. would he travel back to our timeline? would he travel to today in a timeline where his father went on to share with the world that time travel exists, and therefore everything is different? etc
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;47405926]Well if the universe does, then he will be able to save his father's life in that universe. You can get philosophical about if that is or isn't his father but if I was him, I would be happy with that outcome.[/QUOTE]Oh by all means, if this is successful, that man is capable of whatever the hell he wants. Mad props to him in that case as well.
I would just find it funny because everyone pictures history changing when someone goes back in time, which wouldn't be the case if multi-verse theory is true.
[QUOTE=Punchy;47406026]a common theory is that if he went back in time, he wouldnt alter our current timeline. he would be jumping into another where he time travelled to. in that universe, his father might still live but the world now knows time travel exists because of him, and depending on whether he has the ability to travel back to the future is a whole nother thing. would he travel back to our timeline? would he travel to today in a timeline where his father went on to share with the world that time travel exists, and therefore everything is different? etc[/QUOTE]
I think that once you time travel you enter another dimension, so even when you're coming back to our current day, it won't be our dimension but another one.
Wow, he's still at it. He appeared on the discovery channel several years on a program about this sort of stuff.
[QUOTE=Mr.Brown;47405859]wow it's like something straight out of a movie[/QUOTE]
[url]http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_%28film%29[/url]
[QUOTE=Magman77;47405993]Realizing that I had simply jumped to another reality where I'd saved his life rather than actually going back in time and saving him would kind of be bittersweet, because there'd be a billion other realities where he'd died and you'd simply navigated the events to the reality where he survives.[/QUOTE]
When I start thinking like this, it makes me wonder how convincing somebody would have to be to make me believe that he, a random stranger who just knocked on my door, was actually my son from an alternate universe who had traveled through time and the invisible walls of reality just to deliver a message to me.
Pretty dang convincing, I'd think.
[QUOTE=Solo Wing;47406039]Oh by all means, if this is successful, that man is capable of whatever the hell he wants. Mad props to him in that case as well.
I would just find it funny because everyone pictures history changing when someone goes back in time, which wouldn't be the case if multi-verse theory is true.[/QUOTE]
Why not? As far as we know [I]so far[/I], general relativity allows backwards time travel within the same universe. Even if there are multiple universes, they'd still have to allow that.
Ignoring the fact that it's entirely possible (and widely believed) that we will discover something new which rules out the kind of time travel that pops up in relativity.
Until there's actually proof it happens / he does it then I'll just assume he's a mad/sad man, not a mad scientist, who has just happened to go delirious with depression.
but at least he has a practical objective, and not something dumb like "I want to kill hitler"
everyone whose a time traveler always thinks about killing Hitler. But do they ever do it? No they don't. Why do they want to kill Hitler so much. why can't they do something realistic? Like be the first person to have a threesome, or be THE man who invented ice cream, or be on Doctor Who to be ironic.
Hope he does do it, even though from a realistic standpoint it would probably take an entire universe's worth of energy to do something like this.
Also, even if he ddoes its more likely he'll end up in an alternative reality rather than this timeline, which is why his father is still dead.
And how would you even travel?
Our galaxy is moving at "fuck you get out of my way" speed so wouldn't he also have to travel an actual distance ontop of time, otherwise he's going to end up floating in the middle of deep space.
Still, hope he does it maybe he could travel forward too and bring us back a few hundred copies of hl3
[QUOTE=Damian0358;47405903]I never really liked the kind of time travel everyone talks about. There are just so many things that could go wrong.
I'd prefer a type of time travel that allows one to see the past, but not interact with it. I want to go back and see important historical events unfold right before my eyes, but I don't want to accidentally do something that changes history. Heck, maybe that's why we don't see any time travelers.[/QUOTE]
would you experiencing it not constitute a change in itself though? like if you want to see it then you would need physical retinas capable of interacting with light, and that would disturb atoms that weren't previously disturbed at the time. the way i look at it you would have to be totally intangible, so pretty much deader than dead, to not alter anything.
Technically, this really goes against the Grandfather paradox, basically if you go back and stop the man's heart attack, you would destroy your reason to go back anyways.
[QUOTE=Damian0358;47405903]I never really liked the kind of time travel everyone talks about. There are just so many things that could go wrong.
I'd prefer a type of time travel that allows one to see the past, but not interact with it. I want to go back and see important historical events unfold right before my eyes, but I don't want to accidentally do something that changes history. Heck, maybe that's why we don't see any time travelers.[/QUOTE]
The Sound of Thunder is a short story where a company let's people go back and hunt a dinosaur and shoot it right before it's destined to die so that nothing gets screwed it. Everyone should go read it. I think they even made a movie of it.
[QUOTE=Punchy;47406026]a common theory is that if he went back in time, he wouldnt alter our current timeline. he would be jumping into another where he time travelled to. in that universe, his father might still live but the world now knows time travel exists because of him, and depending on whether he has the ability to travel back to the future is a whole nother thing. would he travel back to our timeline? would he travel to today in a timeline where his father went on to share with the world that time travel exists, and therefore everything is different? etc[/QUOTE]
ya there's that, but thats accepting that there's an infinite amount of parallel timelines, which in at least in story telling can be interesting, but a bit of a cop-out when it comes to resolving issues
[editline]27th March 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Bentham;47406238]The Sound of Thunder is a short story where a company let's people go back and hunt a dinosaur and shoot it right before it's destined to die so that nothing gets screwed it. Everyone should go read it. I think they even made a movie of it.[/QUOTE]
ya its called the butterfly effect, because one dude accidentally steps on a butterfly and instead of cool dino-safaris, it causes massive global destruction (in the future)
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;47406144]Why not? As far as we know [I]so far[/I], general relativity allows backwards time travel within the same universe. Even if there are multiple universes, they'd still have to allow that.
Ignoring the fact that it's entirely possible (and widely believed) that we will discover something new which rules out the kind of time travel that pops up in relativity.[/QUOTE]
Well then, we just need to wait and see if our friend here is successful. Regardless, when/if we do make a time traveling breakthrough, I'm sure ALOT of shit will go down. But there is a hell of alot we can learn in the process.
I say we make it an international law that if time travel in any form is ever created, they must first come to our time at a predetermined location at a predetermined time. That way we will know at that time and date, if it's possible.
Mind blown.
How do you even travel into the past? It's already happened, so where is it exactly?
How would this guy even get the energy to send jack shit back in time?
He better hope King isn't right about the past. No one wants to go back in time and get eaten by giant meatballs.
This reminds me of Fringe, except with time travel rather than a parallel universe.
I wish good luck to the man.
It'll never work. If time travel would ever be invented, it'll have always existed. Think about it.
[QUOTE=Dermock;47406734]It'll never work. If time travel would ever be invented, it'll have always existed. Think about it.[/QUOTE]
Except if every time you traveled back in time, it would basically copy the universe and send you into said copy. Or something like that.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;47406120]When I start thinking like this, it makes me wonder how convincing somebody would have to be to make me believe that he, a random stranger who just knocked on my door, was actually my son from an alternate universe who had traveled through time and the invisible walls of reality just to deliver a message to me.
Pretty dang convincing, I'd think.[/QUOTE]
he could bring a keepsake back with him
So that the timeline of this universe wouldn't get fucked up.
E:ninja'd
[QUOTE=Damian0358;47405903]I never really liked the kind of time travel everyone talks about. There are just so many things that could go wrong.
I'd prefer a type of time travel that allows one to see the past, but not interact with it. I want to go back and see important historical events unfold right before my eyes, but I don't want to accidentally do something that changes history. Heck, maybe that's why we don't see any time travelers.[/QUOTE]
Imho. I believe that the just being there alters because of matter. Therefore one doesn't necessarily go back in time but more they go back in time to an adjacent dimension that it was supposed to happen.
I guess if he eventually invents a time machine, he already has.
[QUOTE=James xX;47405783]What if his dad had the heart attack because he went back in time, and the dad was so shocked that it killed him. I mean, isn't the universe supposed to correct paradoxes like this somehow?
Edit: From what I understand on wikipedia, I'm speaking about the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_paradox"]predestination paradox[/URL].[/QUOTE]
My hypothesis is that you can't simply go back in time, you can only go to different times in alternate realities. No paradoxes, just fucking up some other timeline.
Alternatively my dad thought of an idea where changing something in the past WOULD change the future, but it would ripple out in realtime. If you went back 10 years in time and killed yourself, you wouldn't vanish instantly or create a paradox, and you would still exist for the next 10 years as the alteration caught up with you. However if you went back 10 years and one MINUTE into the future, you would constantly be outrunning your "fate", basically, always a minute ahead of your doom.
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