How would you time travel? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Redlemon · 09-05-2008, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by clavus

If you travel in time without traveling in space, you are going to end up in the void of space.

The only movie I have ever seen deal with this problem (and it did so poorly) was Primer.

Spider Robinson also dealt with this issue in one of his later Callahan's novels (I intentionally won't mention which one), but it is a different time-traveler than the one Ratbastid mentioned.

clavus · 09-07-2008, 09:41 AM

The only safe way to write about time travel is to have some totally alien / mystic mechanism for it, and don't try to explain it. Make sure the characters don't understand it, so they don't need to explain it either.

Sensei Crap · 09-07-2008, 01:09 PM

My theory is this: Time travel is possible, but at the occurrence of the "event" as in the past, the added extra mass (that previously had not existed in that space/time) would destabilise the universe, as the universe only has a finite amount of mass. To get around this I made a story about the shifting of consciousness, which has no relativistic mass, back and forth through time.

Cervantes · 09-07-2008, 02:47 PM

I like H. P. Lovecraft's take on time travel (The Shadow Out of Time). You don't send your physical self through time but instead your mind "switch places" with another sentient who lives during that time. You get his or her body while they get yours.

Though the added complexity of narrating what happens in the past and the future at the same time can be a bit too much. Maybe you send your mind and temporarily take over another persons body, placing their mind in some sort of hibernation?

UKking · 09-08-2008, 06:56 AM

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How does someone jump through time? Is it a mental command? Is it a contraption they build? Is is a Delorean? Is it an alchemical concoction? Is it a portal?...

It's like the Transporter in Star Trek, but just like that technology, it raises questions. Why destroy the original? You may just project a copy of yourself into whichever place and time you are travelling.

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What happens when you go back in time? Do you end up in the same spot you would be, only 600 years in the past? Do you rewind time until you're an infant?...

You can only travel back to the time of the invention of the technology (1993), though there are theoretical possibilities for using naturally occurring singularities. Your travel forward is only limited by your power supply...

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Does a paradox prevent you from even existing? Do you solidify within a physical structure that occupies the space that you appear in? Is another dimension created where all the things you do will affect the future, meanwhile your old dimension continues on without you?
Can you travel between those dimensions?

What happens when you go forward in time? Do you occupy the body you would have, only older? Do you replicate and see a double of yourself?

All possibilities of coutcomes to all uncertain events creates infinitely intricate dimensional threads. Reading one of these as a timeline is the focus of a singular consciousness. Perceiveing aspects of alternate threads from the prime locus of the singular consciousness is what we're talking about here. The thread of "reality" in question is what it is, even with you added. There is nothing to "change". Your thread of origin is not affected...

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Time travel, being a fictional thing, is very subjective. What do you imagine happening if it could?

Maybe not so fictional as you imagine...

ItWasMe · 09-08-2008, 07:55 AM

How about a hand held device where you can enter the date you want and go? Possible everything within a 5 foot radius would go with you, so a bad guy could end up going with you to your next destination. Whether you want to automatically end up in the same place, or enter a destination in the hand held device, up to the writer. You could lose the device sometime, and have to go looking for it. Did you drop it when you saw your former self and had to duck quickly? Did he find it and you have to get it back before he figures out how to activate it? You could set yourself up to be able to do series. I think figuring out unsolved crimes/mysteries would be fun.

Willravel · 09-08-2008, 10:47 AM

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own forum, Halx stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator--and vanished.

Jefferson · 09-08-2008, 01:36 PM

I would theorize that the actual jump through time would be caused by a bending of space-time with a chronoton field with a chronoton representing the physical nature of time. Personally, I think the mass displacement would be an interesting subject to broach. To compensate for it, I would make it sort of Quantum Leap style, in that every time a person jumps back, or forward, in time, someone the person that jumped knew or is related to distantly either switches places or dies to compensate for the mass shift.

host · 09-08-2008, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

There are two directions to go with time travel: science fiction or fantasy. Fantasy is a lot easier, but it's less challenging to the reader and writer, so I'll assume you're going with science.

There are several schools of thought on time travel: .....

3) Quantum theory. Quantum theory is crazy. Even with the recent introduction of M theory, it's still a big mess that we barely understand. One of the most fascinating aspects of quantum theory is the instantaneous transfer of information. This information clearly moves much faster than light, and as such could theoretically, when applied to #2, move outside of time. When we develop a better understanding of this process, we may be able to harness it, but for the time being it's probably far to complex to be used without some artistic license. Also, considering the rate at which this particular area of science is growing, it's possible that your writing's science may become obsolete quickly. ...

Disclaimer....my comments are not an endorsement, a solicitation, or an invitation to experiment with any controlled substance/hallucinogencis.

35 years ago, I spent a number of months intensely contemplating the concept of reality and by extension, the meaning of life. This process of discovery, as a rite of passage, seems to have fallen out of favor, but it seemed the most important pursuit, back then. Some I knew were influenced by these inquiries to become deeply religious, but I ended up with an impatience driven curiousity......

I'll throw out a few things to consider..... I don't think you have to physically travel to experience the past or the future, I suspect it coexists in "our world". I don't know if any of this will help with a plot for a story, but I have been impressed with what has come from the Edgar Cayce trance state transcripts, and I visited the Cayce research center in Virginia Beach, 3 years ago.

One of my greatest frustrations is that, in our society, we don't even examine or contemplate our true potential, let alone attempt to "live up to it"...... Maybe this new CERN LHC, slated to come online, this week, will offer up more clues....

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Akashic Records - Edgar Cayce - Readings

Upon time and space is written the thoughts, the deeds, the activities of an entity – as in relationships to its environs, its hereditary influence; as directed – or judgment drawn by or according to what the entity's ideal is. Hence, as it has been oft called, the record is God's book of remembrance; and each entity, each soul – as the activities of a single day of an entity in the material world – either makes same good or bad or indifferent, depending upon the entity's application of self towards that which is the ideal manner for the use of time, opportunity and the expression of that for which each soul enters a material manifestation. The interpretation then as drawn here is with the desire and hope that, in opening this for the entity, the experience may be one of helpfulness and hopefulness.

Edgar Cayce reading 1650-1

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The Field: The Quest for the Secret ... - Google Book Search

....was one of a growing number of scientists trying to get some measure of the nature of human consciousness in the wake of the questions posed by quantum phsyics and the observer effect. If the human observer settled an electron into a set state, to what extent did he or she influence reality on a large scale? The observer effect suggested that reality only emerged from a primordial soup like the Zero Point Field with the involvement of living consciousness. The logical conclusion was that the physical world only existed in its concrete state while we were involved in it. Indeed, Schmidt wondered, was it true that nothing existed independenlty of our perception of it?

A Princeton Lab on ESP Plans to Close Its Doors - New York Times
A Princeton Lab on ESP Plans to Close Its Doors
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: February 10, 2007

...Dr. Jahn, one of the world’s foremost experts on jet propulsion, defied the system. He relied not on university or government money but on private donations — more than $10 million over the years, he estimated. The first and most generous donor was his friend James S. McDonnell, a founder of the McDonnell Douglas Corporation......

...In one of PEAR’s standard experiments, the study participant would sit in front of an electronic box the size of a toaster oven, which flashed a random series of numbers just above and just below 100. Staff members instructed the person to simply “think high” or “think low” and watch the display. After thousands of repetitions — the equivalent of coin flips — the researchers looked for differences between the machine’s output and random chance.

Analyzing data from such trials, the PEAR team concluded that people could alter the behavior of these machines very slightly, changing about 2 or 3 flips out of 10,000. If the human mind could alter the behavior of such a machine, Dr. Jahn argued, then thought could bring about changes in many other areas of life — helping to heal disease, for instance, in oneself and others....

....Several expert panels examined PEAR’s methods over the years, looking for irregularities, but did not find sufficient reasons to interrupt the work. In the 1980s and 1990s, PEAR published more than 60 research reports, most appearing in the journal of the Society for Scientific Exploration, a group devoted to the study of topics outside the scientific mainstream. Dr. Jahn and Ms. Dunne are officers in the society.......

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After a Short Delay, Quantum Mechanics Becomes Even Weirder -- Cho 2007 (216): 4 -- ScienceNOW
After a Short Delay, Quantum Mechanics Becomes Even Weirder

By Adrian Cho
ScienceNOW Daily News
16 February 2007
According to quantum mechanics, light can be either a graceful rippling wave or a hail of bulletlike particles, depending on how you look at it. Now, an experiment shows that an observer can make the choice retroactively, after light has entered a measuring apparatus. The result shows that reality is truly in the eye of the beholder....

...If the second splitter was on, interference between the two pieces directed the recombined wave of probability toward one or the other of two detectors, depending on the difference in the path lengths. If the second beam splitter was turned off so the waves couldn't recombine, then the photon took one path or the other with 50-50 probability, and equal numbers of photons reached detectors. The results, reported this week in Science, prove that the photon does not decide whether to behave like a particle or a wave when it hits the first beam splitter, Roch says. Rather, the experimenter decides only later, when he decides whether to put in the second beam splitter. In a sense, at that moment, he chooses his reality....

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Breaking the Time Barrier: The Race ... - Google Book Search

USAF overflight experiment using Baird's "Noctovision" camera, recorded images in an empty parking lot of cars that had already exited....

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On September 10, a first beam of protons will circulate in the LHC. This will be an exciting time for the CERN staff..

LHC 2008

Secret dimensions
CERN - Secret dimensions

Willravel · 09-08-2008, 07:31 PM

So it could be possible for human consciousness to operate outside of or manipulate the perception of time.

KnifeMissile · 09-09-2008, 10:38 PM

I don't mean to hijack this thread but... I... must stop... the spread of... misinformation...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

2) Go really, really fast. Because time slows as an object comes closer to the speed of light, some scientists (but mostly sci-fi writers) theorize that moving faster than light could propel one backwards in time. This main issues with this are that breaking the speed of light is a touchy subject with physicists. I actually saw a professor of astronomy knifed once over it by a roving band of resident physicists, it's that serious. The only theoretical way for matter to break the speed of light is by manipulating gravity by an obscene amount, which would (referencing #1) require gobs of energy. The most popular instance in fiction of this warping of space via gravity is the warp drive of Star Trek. The energy used in the fictional process is gathered from colliding matter with anti-matter and channeling that energy through a fictional crystal which somehow translates the incredible energy that would theoretically be released from the matter/anti-matter explosion into some form of energy that can be used. That translated energy is sent to the "warp coils" (another totally fictional tech) which somehow generate an incredibly powerful and easily controlled warp bubble. That bubble bends space, making space move faster than light. In order to make this work in a science fiction, you would need to use creative license with the tech that could generate that effect.

All physicists trivially agree that going faster than light implies that there exists some frame of reference for which you can be said to be going back in time. The sci-fi part is in the FTL traveling.

Also, I don't think that StarTrek warp drives use "gravity" to warp space, as such. They just do so, arbitrarily (something mass doesn't do via gravity), by some unspecified mechanism...

Quote:

3) Quantum theory. Quantum theory is crazy. Even with the recent introduction of M theory, it's still a big mess that we barely understand. One of the most fascinating aspects of quantum theory is the instantaneous transfer of information. This information clearly moves much faster than light, and as such could theoretically, when applied to #2, move outside of time. When we develop a better understanding of this process, we may be able to harness it, but for the time being it's probably far to complex to be used without some artistic license. Also, considering the rate at which this particular area of science is growing, it's possible that your writing's science may become obsolete quickly.

Quantum theory is crazy but it's just not that crazy.

There is no such thing as "instantaneous transfer of information." Indeed, simultaneity is relative so one must wonder in what reference frame said information was instantaneously transfered in.

There are quantum interactions that may appear to someone with a naive understanding of physics to transfer information instantaneously. Perhaps this is what you're thinking?

As I said before, anything traveling faster than light, even information, is necessarily traveling back in time relative to some reference frame.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakran

Travelling backward presents a more special problem. You essentially have to travel at a negative velocity, which is not physically possible in our universe/dimension. The only way to do it would be to envelop yourself in a bubble of space/time that is able to flow backwards. Some say that's possible, others say it's not.

Traveling at a negative velocity is easy. Just go backwards 'cause that's what it means. I'm not exactly sure what you're thinking, here. Again, traveling faster than light allows you to travel back in time.

Having negative mass would allow you to travel faster than light and, hence, back in time. In fact, having negative mass would necessitate you traveling faster than light because it's impossible for negative mass to travel slower than light. Interesting, eh? Maybe this is what you were thinking?

RWE · 09-10-2008, 01:52 AM

I actually like post #2 in this topic, posted by TheJazz. I've often envisioned time travel going to "the same location" as the same physical point in space. That is, if you were on the earth in New York, there's no guarantee that you'd even end up near earth after time traveling. I think there's some room for creative exploration here--if the time traveler uses some space craft or at least a space-hardy machine, adventures could ensue with the nearby planets, asteroids, or whatever else may be at that point in time.

BadNick · 09-10-2008, 03:43 AM

While I like to imagine all sorts of interesting scenarios about going back in time, I think we'll find out, or we already know, that time marches on, the arrow of time only points in one direction, the nature of the beast is that it only goes one way. So no matter what kind of worm hole or warp we ever accomplish, we will be able to go forward but never backwards. Even the mundane examples we have of time dilation due to higher relative velocity, such as astronauts when they were in space, or traveling near or at or over the speed of light, when you slow down and compare to a reference that was not doing that, you will have gone forward but you can't go back again. But for interesting stories sake, I like to fantasize about the impossible. At least this is what I think about time travel now.

09-07-2008, 09:41 AM	#42 (permalink)
clavus pow! Location: NorCal	The only safe way to write about time travel is to have some totally alien / mystic mechanism for it, and don't try to explain it. Make sure the characters don't understand it, so they don't need to explain it either. __________________ Ass, gas or grass. Nobody rides for free.

09-07-2008, 02:47 PM	#44 (permalink)
Cervantes Psycho Location: Above you	I like H. P. Lovecraft's take on time travel (The Shadow Out of Time). You don't send your physical self through time but instead your mind "switch places" with another sentient who lives during that time. You get his or her body while they get yours. Though the added complexity of narrating what happens in the past and the future at the same time can be a bit too much. Maybe you send your mind and temporarily take over another persons body, placing their mind in some sort of hibernation? __________________ - "Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.." - "Religions take everything that your DNA naturally wants to do to survive and pro-create and makes it wrong." - "There is only one absolute truth and that is that there is only one absolute truth."

09-08-2008, 07:55 AM	#46 (permalink)
ItWasMe But You'll Never Prove It. Location: under your bed	How about a hand held device where you can enter the date you want and go? Possible everything within a 5 foot radius would go with you, so a bad guy could end up going with you to your next destination. Whether you want to automatically end up in the same place, or enter a destination in the hand held device, up to the writer. You could lose the device sometime, and have to go looking for it. Did you drop it when you saw your former self and had to duck quickly? Did he find it and you have to get it back before he figures out how to activate it? You could set yourself up to be able to do series. I think figuring out unsolved crimes/mysteries would be fun. __________________ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "Ok, no more truth-or-dare until somebody returns my underwear" ~ George Lopez I bake cookies just so I can lick the bowl. ~ ItWasMe

09-10-2008, 01:52 AM	#52 (permalink)
RWE Upright	I actually like post #2 in this topic, posted by TheJazz. I've often envisioned time travel going to "the same location" as the same physical point in space. That is, if you were on the earth in New York, there's no guarantee that you'd even end up near earth after time traveling. I think there's some room for creative exploration here--if the time traveler uses some space craft or at least a space-hardy machine, adventures could ensue with the nearby planets, asteroids, or whatever else may be at that point in time. __________________ "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

09-07-2008, 01:09 PM	#43 (permalink)
Sensei Crap Upright Location: Cornwall, UK	My theory is this: Time travel is possible, but at the occurrence of the "event" as in the past, the added extra mass (that previously had not existed in that space/time) would destabilise the universe, as the universe only has a finite amount of mass. To get around this I made a story about the shifting of consciousness, which has no relativistic mass, back and forth through time.

09-08-2008, 10:47 AM	#47 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Theorizing that one could time travel within his own forum, Halx stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator--and vanished.

09-08-2008, 01:36 PM	#48 (permalink)
Jefferson Upright	I would theorize that the actual jump through time would be caused by a bending of space-time with a chronoton field with a chronoton representing the physical nature of time. Personally, I think the mass displacement would be an interesting subject to broach. To compensate for it, I would make it sort of Quantum Leap style, in that every time a person jumps back, or forward, in time, someone the person that jumped knew or is related to distantly either switches places or dies to compensate for the mass shift.

09-08-2008, 07:31 PM	#50 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	So it could be possible for human consciousness to operate outside of or manipulate the perception of time.

09-10-2008, 03:43 AM	#53 (permalink)
BadNick Riding the Ocean Spray Location: S.E. PA in U Sofa	While I like to imagine all sorts of interesting scenarios about going back in time, I think we'll find out, or we already know, that time marches on, the arrow of time only points in one direction, the nature of the beast is that it only goes one way. So no matter what kind of worm hole or warp we ever accomplish, we will be able to go forward but never backwards. Even the mundane examples we have of time dilation due to higher relative velocity, such as astronauts when they were in space, or traveling near or at or over the speed of light, when you slow down and compare to a reference that was not doing that, you will have gone forward but you can't go back again. But for interesting stories sake, I like to fantasize about the impossible. At least this is what I think about time travel now.