[Andrew999]

So time travel is possible after all - at least in theory - producing a machine to do it is still years in the future (unless of course, someone from the future brings one back with her........no, let's not go there)

https://www.ibtimes.com/its-possible-travel-back-time-without-changing-present-shows-breakthrough-math-3052221

It seems it's all a question of scale. Of course, it's still true that if you go back in time to kill your grandfather, you will cease to exist - but that doesn't, as previously thought, create a butterfly effect on the course of history that creates a whole alternate world to the one we know.

The kink in time that you created by killing your grandfather is overwhelmed by the massive numbers of other events that take place simultaneously - the sum total of all those events will ensure history unfolds pretty much as before - invention of the screw, the bronze age, iron age, enlightenment, world wars, silicon age, biochrome age and so on.

These Aussies - they're smarter than they look........

For further research, I recommend the following:

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=74184

[ComicMike]

So time travel is possible after all ...

Time travel is of course possible! :-)

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8d/fb/08/8dfb088beda316b246670bafdcf0f143.jpg

[The Australian Panther]

That is of course, the Time Machine Rod Taylor [An Australian natch] used in the classic movie of HG Wells The Time Machine.
Thank you!

[ComicMike]

You are welcome.

BTW, with all due respect to Einstein, but I think, H.G.Wells was the bigger scientist. 

P.S.
The Time Machine (1960) is my absolute favorite film. I am looking at him every year on New Years Eve. 

[narfstar]

I think time travel is 100% impossible and will never happen because it has never happened. If it had thinkg would be completely unstable. Time does not exist there is only the present. So no travel can occur in a no longer existent past and a not yet existent future.

[ComicMike]

Hah!    I am afraid , I will have to disagree. My parents were 15 years old in 1945, if someone had told them, at the time that we would have a global information and communication network in the year 2000, that we were on the moon, that our satellites visited all the planets in our solar system and the Voyager left the system, they would have declared them crazy.

Why shouldn't time travel be possible? Let us dream . Everything that people can imagine, can one day be put into practice. It's only a matter of time.

Let's hit the Morlocks on their nose. 

[Robb_K]

Hah!    I am afraid , I will have to disagree. My parents were 15 years old in 1945, if someone had told them, at the time that we would have a global information and communication network in the year 2000, that we were on the moon, that our satellites visited all the planets in our solar system and the Voyager left the system, they would have declared them crazy.

Why shouldn't time travel be possible? Let us dream . Everything that people can imagine, can one day be put into practice. It's only a matter of time.

Let's hit the Morlocks on their nose. 

The World is difficult to deal with as it is.  Imagine the chaos that would occur if, once people learned how to make them, millions of people used time machines to jump around from the present into various times in the past.  There would be no stability.  Things would be changing everywhere back and forth.  No one would be able to accomplish anything. There would be no "reality".  This would occur after genetic engineering would make everyone immortal.  All those people would be cheering that they have endless time to enjoy themselves, but they'd soon realise that they wouldn't be able to enjoy their time, because everything would be changing so fast because of the millions of time travelers change the past, which changes it's corresponding future, so there are a myriad of pasts and presents, but NONE of them are stable enough for someone to accomplish much.  All of humanity would go mad.  I wrote a Gyro Gearloose story with this theme.  I hope it will be published in The Netherlands within the next year, and then it can be printed in the rest of Europe 1 year later, and USA (if they think it's good enough, one year after that.

[ComicMike]

Well, if you look at it realistically, there are of course difficulties and problems . But that's not my way of looking at this . I wonder, how nice it would be to be at Shea Stadium on August 15, 1965, or to smoke on a day at the races a cigar with Groucho.

[Robb_K]

Well, if you look at it realistically, there are of course difficulties and problems . But that's not my way of looking at this . I wonder, how nice it would be to be at Shea Stadium on August 15, 1965, or to smoke on a day at the races a cigar with Groucho.

My story isn't realistic, at all, when considered using today's scientific understanding of how time and physics work.  It's traditional Science Fiction, and a typical Carl Barks theme used in his Gyro Gearloose (Daniel D

[Andrew999]

You might find this interesting - note the reference to Edgar Allan Poe:

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-time

And those pesky Aussies seem to have too much time on their hands:

https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/a-controversial-theory-claims-present-past-and-future-exist-at-the-same-time?rebelltitem=6#rebelltitem6

Block universe theory currently rules the roost and is consistent with the notion that space and time are analogous (you convert space into time and vice versa) but I like Ellis' variant better:

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/is-the-future-already-written

[ComicMike]

My story isn't realistic, at all, when considered using today's scientific understanding of how time and physics work.  It's traditional Science Fiction, and a typical Carl Barks theme used in his Gyro Gearloose (Daniel D

[Captain Audio]

As far as time travel goes I have my own theory, or hypothesis if that is the proper term.
Since human thoughts are patterns rather than physical objects they aren't limited in the same way. Thought is ephemeral with no physical substance. Immaterial things aren't bound by relativity.
If human thought can move backwards in time, then prophets, seers and mediums may have received vague glimpses of future events.
I also figure that all living minds can receive thoughts from another but if not blocked these transfers, from multiple sources at once, would quickly drive one mad. Those insane people who hear voices in their head may have lost the ability to block those transmissions.
The human soul is also a pattern and immaterial, so it might well travel in time and exceed light speed to travel in space.
Whether thoughts and the soul survive the cell death of the material body is a question that will never be properly answered with certainty, since none return from that undiscovered country.

[Robb_K]

My story isn't realistic, at all, when considered using today's scientific understanding of how time and physics work.  It's traditional Science Fiction, and a typical Carl Barks theme used in his Gyro Gearloose (Daniel D

[Andrew999]

I like the suggestion that thoughts might be able to travel more easily in time - can we catch glimpses of the past and the future this way? That's a very interesting idea, Captain, point well made.

I might part company with you in terms of there being a soul - but like you say, it's the undiscovered country so who can tell

[Captain Audio]

I like the suggestion that thoughts might be able to travel more easily in time - can we catch glimpses of the past and the future this way? That's a very interesting idea, Captain, point well made.

I might part company with you in terms of there being a soul - but like you say, it's the undiscovered country so who can tell

By definition the soul is "the actuating causation" of the individual human life, so if you accept the principle of cause and effect the existence of a soul of some form is a no brainer. Some consider the self awareness of the human mind to be "an emergent property" due to the complication of the human brain and its neural pathways. Its the oldest point of disagreement between ancient philosophers, whether the soul is material or immaterial in nature.
By the ancient definition of material it would be definitely immaterial, as would gravity, radio waves, light itself and many other things we now consider material, at least on the quantum level.
They still haven't decided whether light is a particle or a wave, and if photons are material objects how could they move at the speed of light yet still have less than infinite mass?
In the words of the Bard, "more things pass twix heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy".

PS
Since Causations must proceed the Effect in time, time travel is a bit of a sticky wicket, but who's time line must it exist in? Is time a river or a "widening gyre?
Could it move in an ever widening spiral with objects crossing from one portion of the stream to another without moving forwards or back? Sideways in time.

[Robb_K]

My story isn't realistic, at all, when considered using today's scientific understanding of how time and physics work.  It's traditional Science Fiction, and a typical Carl Barks theme used in his Gyro Gearloose (Daniel D

[ComicMike]

When it gets printed in Germany, I'll let you know.

That's nice, thank you. 

P.S.
Should I invent a time machine in the meantime, I can read the story earlier. 

[narfstar]

Once again we can think and imagine anything. But we are bound by reality. Time does not exist therefore neither is time travel now or ever possible, regardless of how advanced we may become. If it were possible there is a much far flung future in which it occurred. If it occurred then chaos would already have taken over.

[Robb_K]

Once again we can think and imagine anything. But we are bound by reality. Time does not exist therefore neither is time travel now or ever possible, regardless of how advanced we may become. If it were possible there is a much far flung future in which it occurred. If it occurred then chaos would already have taken over.

It seems like chaos IS taking over right now.  At least in USA!   

[Captain Audio]

The concept of "Dark Matter" has pretty much turned Physics on its ear.
Since they say that more than 90% of our Universe can not be classed as matter by the long accepted definitions, and not directly observed, it opens the door to explanations of what we had considered magic or spiritual phenomena.
Experiments to confirm Quantum theory suggested that particles could come into being out of nothingness, perhaps pushed into our realm from some other parallel Universe, or perhaps the product of matter sucked into Black Holes and somehow transported and scattered throughout our space time.

Long ago I read that they had found evidence that the laws of gravity were not entirely the same in all parts of our Universe and they are even now mapping gravitational anomalies on our own planet.
Apparently concentrations of Dark Matter can act against the pull of gravity on material objects, a sort of anti-gravity effect.
Its well we remember that while the effects of gravity have long been studied the actual mechanism by which it does what it does remains unknown.

[narfstar]

Regardless of where you might consider particles coming from a parallel universe there would remain the question of how did that parallel universe get there, ad infinitum. Still no possibility for time travel as there is still no past or future that exists to travel to. All that exists is now.

[Andrew999]

Time is what we perceive - it is subjective. We believe ourselves to be trapped in the 'now' of the moment, which disappears behind us moment-by-moment as we move ceaselessly moment-by moment into our own future.

(Recent research by the way suggests this is not a simple illusion. A moment really does exist. Named the chronon, it can be both a particle and a wave simultaneously. That also raises an interesting statistical quirk. Whilst most of us might exist at the centre of the chronon's wave - living in the moment, so to speak - there may be some who live at the fringe of the wave - always a little bit behind or a little bit ahead of the game)

Space-time exists independently of us. It is objective - real if you like (though only real in the sense that it is a mathematical extrapolation of the tested data we have gathered with regard to the four-dimensional universe we inhabit).

In space-time, space and time simply exist (though the philosophers amongst you will immediately see the fallacy - how can an observer view space-time unless they are viewing it from beyond space-time? Yes, you are correct, that has led to new theories about there being more than four dimensions!) As narfstar also hints, even that poses a problem, because the fallacy occurs ad infinitum eg if there are five dimensions, then you need a sixth to view them etc......

But let's return to space-time for the moment. The theory of space-time states that all of time exists permanently (as viewed from our mysterious fifth dimension) - so in theory, it's possible to travel to another part of space-time where your past or future exists. The recent research from the Sydney post-grad suggests this may not even cause a paradox (which is what started this discussion).

How you would achieve that is anyone's guess! My view is that the energy required would be greater than that available in the known universe. (hmmm, wait a mo', what about all that dark energy in parallel universes?.........no, let's not go there)

[Robb_K]

Time is what we perceive - it is subjective. We believe ourselves to be trapped in the 'now' of the moment, which disappears behind us moment-by-moment as we move ceaselessly moment-by moment into our own future.

(Recent research by the way suggests this is not a simple illusion. A moment really does exist. Named the chronon, it can be both a particle and a wave simultaneously. That also raises an interesting statistical quirk. Whilst most of us might exist at the centre of the chronon's wave - living in the moment, so to speak - there may be some who live at the fringe of the wave - always a little bit behind or a little bit ahead of the game)

Ha! Ha!  I've always been behind the wave.  WAYY-YY behind.  I'm still living in 1964!  Like the mad owner of "Yesterday Ranch" in the Mickey Mouse comic story from the early 1950s, who doesn't allow anything past the 19th Century on his vast property (a whole valley).