This is one topic which has fascinated me immensely ever since I read the supplement KnowHow in the wednesday edition of THE TELEGRAPH. Time travel has been a much debated and talked about concept and it feels good to put some glyphs together in front of you.
Lets say you have a time-machine. You send a pool-ball through it, with a speed and angle such that it goes a few seconds, perhaps not even seconds, into the past, hit itself, thereby changing the course of it "old" self. What will happen?
Answer: It will hit its "old" self, but not so much that it will prevent itself from going through the time-machine. And why is that? Because when it comes to timetravels, the present is not, as it normally is, just dependent of the past. It is also dependent of the future. That gives, if the ball HAS hit the time-machine, that fact cannot be altered by the ball itself. Because the ball would have to have hit the time-machine to change that fact. And if it already has hit it, that cannot be redone. That is also why you cannot go back in time to kill your own mother before you were born. But that's explained further down.
What if the ball was sent in one direction, between the time-machine and the place where it would appear after it had traveled through time? This situation is drawn here.
Here are two possible answers. 1st: It would be hit by its "old" self, thereby changing course so that it would hit the time-machine and go back in time to hit itself in the present. 2nd: It could go straight forward, and not be hit by itself.
It's kinda like the quantum-mechanics. The theory of quantum-mechanics says that there is a certain PROBABILITY for where the electrons around the protons of an atom are. You cannot know for sure where the electrons are. The same with the ball. You cannot know for sure which of the situations 1st of 2nd will happen before you can measure it. And, frankly, it's at present impossible to make such a time-machine.
Though in theory, it is possible to make time-machines, due to Einsteins Theory of Relativity.
How to make a Time-Machine
Assume you know exactly the locations of a worm-hole's two entrances. Then you place a very heavy, large mass at the one end of it. According to Einstein, time goes slower the more mass is present. That means that on one side of the worm-hole, the time will go slower than on the other side. When you have reached the time difference you wish, you remove the heavy mass, and travel through the worm-hole from the other side. Now you have gone back in time. When you have accomplished your mission in the past, you can go the other way, and you're back in the present. But don't try to kill your own grandfather.
Well, in fact, you could try just that. You take a gun, seek your grandfather(before he'd had a chance to produce babies, put the gun to his head and pull the trigger. You wouldn't succeed. This is kind of the same problem as with the pool-ball. Since you are alive, you cannot kill him, because then you would never be born, and never be able to go back in time to kill him. Again we see that when traveling through time, future as much as the past have influence over the present. Since you were born, your grandfather cannot be killed. Something would have to go wrong. You live, thereby so does your grandfather.
It would be a great way to eradicate all people you don't like though. Go back in time, kill their parents before the ones you don't like are born, and they won't exist in the present. Since you was not born at the time, you wouldn't be held responsible if you got back to your own time again.
Then an interesting problem arise. What if you change your mind? Could you go back to kill yourself before you killed the parent? Let's see. You would be able to kill the parent in the first place. Then that already would have happened in the present. If you shoot yourself in the past, you would not be able to go to the past to shoot yourself. That is out of the question. Not possible. But what if you tried to convince yourself about not killing the parent? You would know it was possible to travel through time. So you would perhaps believe yourself when you said you came from the future. And perhaps you would listen, perhaps not. I cannot see any reasons why it shouldn't be possible to convince yourself otherwise. Can you?
But one thing you cannot do is meet yourself as you were back then. Well, you could. But then you would know that in the future you would have to go back to visit yourself in the past. And since you haven't met yourself yet, you know that you won't be traveling back in time in the future to see yourself being born or anything. If you would like to do that...[-_^]
How far can you go?
How far backward is it possible to go? That actually, is kind of tricky. You actually couldn't go back further than until the first time-machine were made. Because: To make a time-machine, you would have to put a large mass at the one end of a worm-hole. Then time would go slower there. But it would not go backward. Perhaps you could put such a great mass there that it would stop time. But if you did that the 1st of June 2006, that would always be the date of that side of the wormhole. So you wouldn't be able to go back further than 1st of June 2006. Too bad, eh?
But how far forward is it possible to go. Again, you place the mass, and go through back in time to the 1st of June 2006. Time there isn't changing. (Just how that would feel, I'm not certain of, but never mind that here.) You stay there for a period that on the other side of the wormhole is of length 20 days, then you go back. You would have traveled 20 days into the future. That OK. But what if you stayed on the other side of the wormhole for about 20 billion years. If the universe are widening forever, that would perhaps not be a problem. You would be sent 20 billion years forward in time. Well, earth wouldn't be anymore, because in about 5 billion years the sun will envelope earth when dying. But perhaps you could find another place to live. But if the universe are imploding again after 15 billion years, then what would happen? You would suddenly be out of the space-time-dimension. Is that possible? I don't know. Perhaps this is a way to travel out of our universe. Then again, if the universe is no more, the wormhole wouldn't exist either, and you wouldn't be able to go forward again. Perhaps you would just vanish. Who knows?
Lets say you have a time-machine. You send a pool-ball through it, with a speed and angle such that it goes a few seconds, perhaps not even seconds, into the past, hit itself, thereby changing the course of it "old" self. What will happen?
Answer: It will hit its "old" self, but not so much that it will prevent itself from going through the time-machine. And why is that? Because when it comes to timetravels, the present is not, as it normally is, just dependent of the past. It is also dependent of the future. That gives, if the ball HAS hit the time-machine, that fact cannot be altered by the ball itself. Because the ball would have to have hit the time-machine to change that fact. And if it already has hit it, that cannot be redone. That is also why you cannot go back in time to kill your own mother before you were born. But that's explained further down.
What if the ball was sent in one direction, between the time-machine and the place where it would appear after it had traveled through time? This situation is drawn here.
Here are two possible answers. 1st: It would be hit by its "old" self, thereby changing course so that it would hit the time-machine and go back in time to hit itself in the present. 2nd: It could go straight forward, and not be hit by itself.
It's kinda like the quantum-mechanics. The theory of quantum-mechanics says that there is a certain PROBABILITY for where the electrons around the protons of an atom are. You cannot know for sure where the electrons are. The same with the ball. You cannot know for sure which of the situations 1st of 2nd will happen before you can measure it. And, frankly, it's at present impossible to make such a time-machine.
Though in theory, it is possible to make time-machines, due to Einsteins Theory of Relativity.
How to make a Time-Machine
Assume you know exactly the locations of a worm-hole's two entrances. Then you place a very heavy, large mass at the one end of it. According to Einstein, time goes slower the more mass is present. That means that on one side of the worm-hole, the time will go slower than on the other side. When you have reached the time difference you wish, you remove the heavy mass, and travel through the worm-hole from the other side. Now you have gone back in time. When you have accomplished your mission in the past, you can go the other way, and you're back in the present. But don't try to kill your own grandfather.
Well, in fact, you could try just that. You take a gun, seek your grandfather(before he'd had a chance to produce babies, put the gun to his head and pull the trigger. You wouldn't succeed. This is kind of the same problem as with the pool-ball. Since you are alive, you cannot kill him, because then you would never be born, and never be able to go back in time to kill him. Again we see that when traveling through time, future as much as the past have influence over the present. Since you were born, your grandfather cannot be killed. Something would have to go wrong. You live, thereby so does your grandfather.
It would be a great way to eradicate all people you don't like though. Go back in time, kill their parents before the ones you don't like are born, and they won't exist in the present. Since you was not born at the time, you wouldn't be held responsible if you got back to your own time again.
Then an interesting problem arise. What if you change your mind? Could you go back to kill yourself before you killed the parent? Let's see. You would be able to kill the parent in the first place. Then that already would have happened in the present. If you shoot yourself in the past, you would not be able to go to the past to shoot yourself. That is out of the question. Not possible. But what if you tried to convince yourself about not killing the parent? You would know it was possible to travel through time. So you would perhaps believe yourself when you said you came from the future. And perhaps you would listen, perhaps not. I cannot see any reasons why it shouldn't be possible to convince yourself otherwise. Can you?
But one thing you cannot do is meet yourself as you were back then. Well, you could. But then you would know that in the future you would have to go back to visit yourself in the past. And since you haven't met yourself yet, you know that you won't be traveling back in time in the future to see yourself being born or anything. If you would like to do that...[-_^]
How far can you go?
How far backward is it possible to go? That actually, is kind of tricky. You actually couldn't go back further than until the first time-machine were made. Because: To make a time-machine, you would have to put a large mass at the one end of a worm-hole. Then time would go slower there. But it would not go backward. Perhaps you could put such a great mass there that it would stop time. But if you did that the 1st of June 2006, that would always be the date of that side of the wormhole. So you wouldn't be able to go back further than 1st of June 2006. Too bad, eh?
But how far forward is it possible to go. Again, you place the mass, and go through back in time to the 1st of June 2006. Time there isn't changing. (Just how that would feel, I'm not certain of, but never mind that here.) You stay there for a period that on the other side of the wormhole is of length 20 days, then you go back. You would have traveled 20 days into the future. That OK. But what if you stayed on the other side of the wormhole for about 20 billion years. If the universe are widening forever, that would perhaps not be a problem. You would be sent 20 billion years forward in time. Well, earth wouldn't be anymore, because in about 5 billion years the sun will envelope earth when dying. But perhaps you could find another place to live. But if the universe are imploding again after 15 billion years, then what would happen? You would suddenly be out of the space-time-dimension. Is that possible? I don't know. Perhaps this is a way to travel out of our universe. Then again, if the universe is no more, the wormhole wouldn't exist either, and you wouldn't be able to go forward again. Perhaps you would just vanish. Who knows?
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