time travel: possible???????????

I've always thought backward time travel was impossible because it would involve duplication of matter....in other words, all the atoms that make up me used to make up something else, or, more properly, a lot of something else's.

There is a "Star Trek: Next Generation" episode in which Data travels into the past and finds his own head, so apparently my take on the situation is not universally held.

and we all know Star Trek is the 'benchmark' of 'reality'!

i particularly liked the episode where there was a "phase" change in matter for two crew members who then could walk through walls in the usual 'chase' scenes; i had a little dificulty in understanding how the floor however still supported them against artifical gravity??? curious.

are 'reruns' time travel??? (or time drivel)

ya know what's REALLY odd... is that they somehow create gravity without spinning their ship!!!!! what the hell is that?

aaaaaand... you ever notice, when a ship encounters another... they always have the same orientation. that is, the dorsal part of the ship are pointing in the same direction... and really... when you're in space... how do you know which was is "up" ??? why aren't there any ships that are "upside-down" in relation to the enterprise???

usaf...; didn't anyone tell you?
you have to have the same orientation, if you are going to speak English (albeit American English) to an alien.

and besides; "on screen" would look funny at an odd angle;
you can't sell fast food, and big cars that way!

common sense tells you that time travel requires extraneous amounts of energy! If we created a time machine we would all be disintegrated! Time is only a state of mind, our reality is merely spheres rotating within increments of passing moments around a ball of fire in which we call the sun!

SPACE...THE FINAL FRONTIER...THESE ARE THE VOYAGES OF THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE...OUR MISSION IS TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE!!!!!!.....

Maybe at every instant, we are travelling to arbitrary places and times, occupying a different space, body and persona, then on to the next instant and the next time and place.

Of course, it seems to be quite an inefficient way to run the universe:

- all information that needs to be kept track of (in geekspeak popping and pushing of the stack at each node, before moving on), [/ul]

- all the transportation costs although for that we might actually step out of the universe, like exit-right, and step back into it elsewhere, enter left, with time not elapsing behind the scenes.

- all the coordination, to make sure everyone's lives seems continuous and every one of us arrives and departs without colliding into each other (though maybe this might explain some disorders like two of us arriving at the same destination at the same instant would cause indecision)

Of course this would mean we'd have to redefine what we mean when we say "US", because if each of us travels one instant per instant, then each of us is everybody in the long run.

Hmm, maybe we can redefine ourselves as momentary rage, or lucidity, or horniness, or huh?

Anyway, this shift in definitions means time travel is already happening virtually at every moment of our lives, and instead of wondering if it is possible, we need to wonder how can we determine the next destination, and how to remember where/when we were last.

(I think somebody spiked my girlscout cookies)

Taking Wilso one step further:

I believe that we will one day be able to have our atomic particles
broken up and rearranged simultaneously as in Star Trek. So if you are two thousand light years away and beamed back, then you will have gone back into the past. I futher believe you would not be a physical participant, but an observer - but this, of course, is just a hypothesis

Taking Bill W one step further. Say the technology is developed to map your atomic structure and then break it down for transport, since all the carbon atoms in the universe are identical, would it transport your atoms, or simply recreate you from the available carbon atoms at the transport destination. In which case-would it still be you?

The same pattern recreated a thousand times would be a thousand you's, living simultaneously.

And if the pattern included the electrons that form thought, they would all be thinking the exact same thought:

"Ouch! That disintegration beam hurts!"

But time travel?

Books!
You can go anywhere, anywhen
by sending your mind there.

Bill W... about "beaming up"

A transporter like those on startrek is impossible... at least, at distances of "light years." Light is an asbolute constant and there is no beating it. So even if we could break down our bodies, the information would only travel to the reconstruction site at a maximum of the speed of light... so... if you were trying to transport 2000 light years... it would take you 2000 years. And of course, then you have the issues of EM interference and signal degredation....

Now, there IS a theory, dubbed Casimir, about simultaneous transportation. It requires two sets of metal plates, identical. These would be placed at the two end ponits of travel. In theory, destorying molecules between one set of plates would reconstitute them in the other set. Of course, this would also take approximately the same about of energy as is produced in a supernova. ANNNNNND.... the distance between the plates can be no more than the "height" of an atom..... So for all intensive purposes, this is impossible.

(and if you want a more exact definition of the theory, i can tell ya... but it takes a while)

Wilso, there's only one way to find out Gets us back to the ultimate question - what is the essence of "you"

USAFHokie - I just deal with the theory, not the technique besides, who knows what is real and what is just supposition

how about those warp engines??? now that's a trick... ooooo... and this was always quite laughable to me.... through startrek episodes, they always talk about needing more deuterium, which they used as fuel for their warp engines. Now, I seem to recall from my years in chemistry, that deuterium is nothing more than an isotope of hydrogen found in "heavy water" which is used to cool nuclear power plants, due to it's higher specific heat..... those me be some kick-ass hydrogen fuel-cell engines. ya know... i think bmw just made one for it's 7 series too...

Dilithium crystals, not deuterium.
Kirk was sent to a prison colony where they mined the stuff.

I'd rather have a Mr. Fusion energy maker though! :-)

i distinctly remember janeway and chikotay looking for deutirium for their engines... but anyway. ya know, if warp engines really worked the way they did in ST... that you travel at a multiple of the speed of light... i suppose that could be a form of time travel. while approching the speed of light, say @95% (especially at 3x) time would slow down to a crawl for the ship while time continued as normal outside. so really, while a ship was in warp, it would come out of warp with a greatly skewed time. the outside world would be much older than the ship.... they just "travelled to the future" but of course, that is if we suppose that warp worked that way... and it doesn't. :-D

it's called "suspension of disbelief" folks; granted a little approximate allusion to actual science would be a nicety, but its about the 'story'; most of which, in this case suck, but occassionally....................

for example, i was very impressed with the 'Next Generation' episode concerning 'Data's rights as an sentient entity' (= racism), which i thought was extremely well written, and convincing.

hey, take that back!!!! voyager ROCKS! love it. :-)

one big TV disappointment was when "voyager" turned out to have nothing to do with the 'voyager' character from Next G.!

The screenplays, scenarios and casts of The Next Generation are, imo, the best in TV Show history. Some episodes are actually pure philosophical and scientific delights. And credible. Can't say the same of Voyager...

Back to the topic at hand: popular science writer Paul Davies has his own views on time travel.