The Biggest Problem with Time Travel

[De-Ting]

Hello nerds.

As someone with limited knowledge of quantum physics and such, I can't claim to be an expert on the subject of time travel, but I have a very damning piece of the equation that I'd like to bring up.

If there was such a thing as a time machine, it would require several important bits of information to work. Everyone can agree that you would have to input the amount of time you're intending to travel, and your desired location. However, there's a serious oversight with the latter. Simply inputting, say, a simple coordinate like your target latitude and longitude wouldn't work.

You see, the Earth, our solar system, and our entire galaxy are all shooting through space. The data you would have to input for your desired location is extremely complex, as it would have to take into account the Earth's exact position in the universe. Time is also relative. If time progresses at varying rates as evidenced by special relativity, then at what rate would time progress for an object traveling backwards in time?

Ex., if you simply tried traveling one second into the past, not only would you theoretically be placed one second ahead of the Earth in space, but for one second, you would leave the forces that are determining your progression through time, and that one second as observed by you could translate into undefinable amounts of time for the rest of the universe.

To conclude, I'm not saying I know reverse time travel is impossible, but I'm basically telling you that it is. At least for you and me, or anything capable of observing it.

 

[Sourdeez]

It is not that time travel into the past is impossible. It is that as soon as you go back you have put new data into that universe by you being there. That new data makes the universe into a splinter timeline in which you can never get back to your own timeline stream.

The multiverse accepts infinity.

 

[GRColin]

It is not that time travel into the past is impossible. It is that as soon as you go back you have put new data into that universe by you being there. That new data makes the universe into a splinter timeline in which you can never get back to your own timeline stream.

The multiverse accepts infinity.

Hence a parallel universe where Khan is thawed years earlier than he should have been and Kirk is the one who dies!

De-Ting brings up a good point. I certainly never thought of that. The one thing I never got is to time travel you'd essentially have to break yourself down to what, the molecular level? And then regenerate yourself when you reach your destination? I don't imagine you could move that kind of matter through space/time without serious side effects. But I don't know enough about science. I could just be talking out of my ass. In case I'm not, how would that even be possible?

 

[UghRochester]

I didn't read anything in here, because Doctor Who and I could quote something really simple.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

Well then please do.

Who's to say that the principles by which you are transporting aren't already built into the equations. In my college Calculus based physics second year I was amazed by how ridiculously complex most of the equations were.

 

[Longo_2_guns]

Who's to say that the principles by which you are transporting aren't already built into the equations. In my college Calculus based physics second year I was amazed by how ridiculously complex most of the equations were.

Pretty much this. I think anyone who could make something as complex as a time machine would factor in Astronomy 101 into it.

 

[UghRochester]

Well then please do.

Who's to say that the principles by which you are transporting aren't already built into the equations. In my college Calculus based physics second year I was amazed by how ridiculously complex most of the equations were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY_Ry8J_jdw

 

[Paradox]

As best we currently understand, travel into the past is impossible (although I do support the multiverse theory). Travel into the future would only be possible via accelerating to sub-light speeds; relativity would cause years back on Earth to seemingly pass by in minutes from the perspective of the traveler.

However, this is based on our current scientific understanding and technology. Who's to say we won't eventually become technologically advanced enough to invent something capable of bending or breaking the laws of the universe?