Furtopia | Family Friendly Furry Forum and IRC Chat!
not-so-furry discussion => general non-furry discussion => Topic started by: Kobuk on January 07, 2012, 09:32:16 pm
-
Was bored tonight and watched an old favorite movie called "The Final Countdown".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Countdown_%28film%29
.........which made me curious to post this topic.
The main points of this topic are: Is time travel possible? And if so, Should we be tampering with history or should we let events occur "as is" without interference?
Personally, I am of the belief that past history (People, Places, and Things) should not be changed and interfered with lest there be severe consequences on future events and people. If I could go back through time and change anything, I wouldn't. I would rather be an "observer" instead and just enjoy history as it unfolds. If I had the chance to go back in time and watch/relive history, then I would want to observe the following:
* The supposed Roswell UFO crash incident of June/July 1947
* Find out what happened regarding the death of Elvis.
* Observe the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
If I had the chance to change history, then the only event I might change is the asassination of John F. Kennedy.
I've always been confused on the following: If someone did go back in time and change history, then are they changing the current timeline, or have they created a second separate "parallel/alternate" timeline?
-
I believe that time travel is possible. I remember watching a special on tv about it and there is a guy trying to develop a time machine that uses high powered lasers. His goal is to send a partical back. The catch is that you can only send something back as far as the time when the machine was turned on. So once he turns it on particals and stuff will start showing up.
Can you change the past? I say no
Time fits like a puzzle so If you go back and try to change the past you'll only cause what's suppose to happen or you will be a spectator to the event, If you do some how change history your time machine sent you to an alternate universe where those events happened.
So all I can really say is time travel is confusing and stupid!!!
-
Time travel, if ever created, would require us to be observers. Because, if we go back in time to change something, either we create an alternate universe which we MIGHT be able to return to if we they made a machine of their own,
Or, we would create a paradox, as per if we go to change it, and it does, in current time it would be that you would never have gone back to change it in the first place. This would either make you cease to exist, or destroy the entire world...
So, yeah, not really thinking it's gonna happen...
-
I definitely feel that if this is ever possible it shouldn't be done and rather the science of it destroyed before anyone even knows it was figured out. It's for the best. Altering something ages ago could mean the end (or rather, non-existence) of many of us today even if it didn't seem directly related it would always be indirectly related. You could wipe out hundreds of thousands of people with any simple action that would alter time. It isn't right and I certainly hope it is never figured out.
-
Pfft. Assuming our understanding of quantum mechanics is correct, it's not possible to change the past if you go back in time. (Note: neither quantum mechanics nor relativity rule out the possibility of time travel, just that of changing the past) A time-traveller would only be able to do things that he already did in that time (by `he', I mean the time-traveller returning to the past, not the version of him that already existed at that time (although he would also only be able to do things he already did, because he already them, if that makes sense)). Paradoxes don't and can't happen, and any attempt to cause one will fail.
Also, all current theoretical time-machine designs have the constraint that they cannot send a person back to a time before the time machine was constructed (which is obvious if you think about it, since the time machine doesn't exist anymore).
If I had the chance to go back in time and watch/relive history, then I would want to observe the following:
* The supposed Roswell UFO crash incident of June/July 1947
The object that crashed near Corona, New Mexico has been identified as Mogul Flight #4, a high-altitude balloon designed to detect Soviet nuclear tests. The project was Top Secret at the time, which is why the wreckage was shipped to the Roswell Army Air Field and the alien spaceship story was created as a cover-up. Apparently the cover-up worked too well, since people still believe it was an alien spaceship, even after all the details have been declassified.
* Find out what happened regarding the death of Elvis.
He died of a heart attack, possibly brought on by drugs, on 16 August 1977. What else do you want to know?
-
The object that crashed near Corona, New Mexico has been identified as Mogul Flight #4, a high-altitude balloon designed to detect Soviet nuclear tests. The project was Top Secret at the time, which is why the wreckage was shipped to the Roswell Army Air Field and the alien spaceship story was created as a cover-up. Apparently the cover-up worked too well, since people still believe it was an alien spaceship, even after all the details have been declassified.
I don't believe that, and most likely never will. >:(
-
Like others have said, our best guess right now is that going back in time cannot create paradoxes, and doesn't split the timeline into a new Universe. If this is true, I see no harm in plenty of time tourism; the improved knowledge of the past would be great. (There are methods of building time machines that may let us travel further back than the machine's creation, such as incorporating a worm hole of the right age.) But people probably wouldn't be able to resist helping people in the past when they go back and visit. We might find that our present history depends upon assistance given to both well-known and unknown historical figures. There may be certain mysterious, important "assistance events" brought on by people in the distant future with far superior technology. But we shouldn't feel a ... responsibility to develop that technology and accomplish said assistance event, it'll happen anyway.
Now, hopefully I can explain this adequately but: there are some physicists who feel the apparent paradox of going back in time and not being able to change anything is an actual paradox. That is, some parts of physics seem to tell us it is possible to travel back in time; others seem to tell us it is possible to, say, kill a person; therefore the conclusion should be that it's perfectly possible to travel back and kill our parents, so there has to be a mistake somewhere. Or from a more mechanical viewpoint: It seems perfectly possible to build a machine which will transmit a signal ten seconds back in time only if it didn't receive a signal ten seconds ago. This sort of contradiction means there must be a mistake in the math somewhere. For us, and some physicists, it's easy enough to imagine something like fate keeping such a machine from being built; but that's not a real theory of what happens.
I believe that time travel is possible. I remember watching a special on tv about it and there is a guy trying to develop a time machine that uses high powered lasers. His goal is to send a partical back.
This is probably a different guy but I remember seeing Günter Nimtz on television back when I was in middle school. He actually did create a little time machine which sends a signal back in time a fraction of a second; he can be seen on a couple different documentaries playing his recording of Mozart that he beamed back in time through the machine. (Maybe it was a different composer, I don't remember.) I downloaded his paper on the subject and after all its calculations and whatnot it said "No exchange of cause and effect." A year or two ago I found out he has since published a book about time travel more aimed at the masses. I've got it but I haven't read it yet, too busy reading other physics books. :)
I definitely feel that if this is ever possible it shouldn't be done and rather the science of it destroyed before anyone even knows it was figured out.
I don't think hiding knowledge like this is ever the best option. It's certainly true that discovering time travel might fundamentally alter the fabric of reality here on Earth. But treating it as a state secret just makes it more likely to be rediscovered later by someone who doesn't realize the danger.
-
i believe that time travel is possible maybe through a worm hole or something, but i wouldn't recommend doing it unless it's to the future because you can't change the outcome of the present like that
-
You cannot go back and change the past, because didn't.
Basically no matter your interference you can't alter what history has already been laid down.
This is one line of thought. Then there is the Back to The Future line of thought that you can change things but really you can only change things that you had no intentions of changing. (Don't bring up 2 and 3 to me because I don't like them,the only one worth watching is the first IMO)
Then you have the Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure style which I feel is the best and follows the path of the aforementioned rule. They had things happen for them like a trash can in the jail, keys mysteriously appearing and a fax from themselves all because they did these things later after the movie. They couldn't forget to do them because they already happened. Same way with Ted and hiss watch, no matter how many times he reminds himself he will always forget because it happened.
-
Regardless of what anyone talks about in this thread it still isn't real science yet. Not really. We don't know what would happen, though I'm very confident we will never know what would happen either because this just isn't going to be invented. You are never going to time travel and really this whole conversation is just for entertaining wild 'what-if' kind of questions like a small circle of friends in a basement in a cloud of incense smoke. Fun to talk about but not important or practical in any sense.
-
Regardless of what anyone talks about in this thread it still isn't real science yet. Not really. We don't know what would happen, though I'm very confident we will never know what would happen either because this just isn't going to be invented. You are never going to time travel and really this whole conversation is just for entertaining wild 'what-if' kind of questions like a small circle of friends in a basement in a cloud of incense smoke. Fun to talk about but not important or practical in any sense.
Even if time travel isn't possible, I still find it curious to discuss. Or as you said: "Fun to talk about....." ;)
-
I think if tine travel existed that we'd screw up and ruin the future with something we thought was good. Just sayin'
-
What would happen then if you traveled back in time and killed your other self in the previous time?
-
you would cease to excist
-
you would cease to excist
Rather, the Universe would cease to exist.
My plan has always been to build a machine which, when activated, goes back in time and destroys itself. Press the button whenever anything bad happens. Thus nothing bad ever happens because the Universe keeps itself from being destroyed.
-
My plan has always been to build a machine which, when activated, goes back in time and destroys itself. Press the button whenever anything bad happens. Thus nothing bad ever happens because the Universe keeps itself from being destroyed.
Such a device would be useful (http://catb.org/jargon/html/B/bogo-sort.html) in quantum computing.
-
Since the Earth is always rotating, and we are always orbiting around the Sun,
The Sun is always orbiting around the center of the Milky Way, and the Milky Way Galaxy is always moving. (Maybe around another larger center).
The position that we are all in right now in the universe, is different from that at any other point in time.
And if someone traveled through time by just one single minute, the Earth would have moved approximately 36,000 kilometers within that time.
So wouldn’t it be impossible for someone to travel through time and remain in the same place relative to the surface of Earth, let alone stay on Earth?
-
So wouldn’t it be impossible for someone to travel through time and remain in the same place relative to the surface of Earth, let alone stay on Earth?
I figure, hey, we're talking about time freaking travel here. Compensating for spatial drift should be child's play. ;)
I believe that, since it is mathematically possible to travel through time, the universe must have some mechanism of coping with the possibility of altering past events. Whether that means we are living in the most stable version of reality*, or it means spin-off realities, I dunno.
*Edit: by which I mean the universe "stabilizes" to our version. Something inherent about our timeline prevents further changes.
-
So wouldn’t it be impossible for someone to travel through time and remain in the same place relative to the surface of Earth, let alone stay on Earth?
We can always appeal to the laws of relativity. If you feel like you're staying still, then in some sense you are. Time travel shouldn't be much different than airplane travel in this respect.
-
Since the Earth is always rotating, and we are always orbiting around the Sun,
The Sun is always orbiting around the center of the Milky Way, and the Milky Way Galaxy is always moving. (Maybe around another larger center).
The position that we are all in right now in the universe, is different from that at any other point in time.
And if someone traveled through time by just one single minute, the Earth would have moved approximately 36,000 kilometers within that time.
So wouldn’t it be impossible for someone to travel through time and remain in the same place relative to the surface of Earth, let alone stay on Earth?
Impossible to remain fixed in place relative to a point on the Earth's surface? Yes. Impossible to remain in some kind of orbit around the Earth? Not if inertia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertia) and free fall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_fall) have anything to do with it (assuming a time warp is affected by gravity the same way everything else in the universe is, which is a pretty good bet, considering that any other option violates relativity).
-
Impossible to remain fixed in place relative to a point on the Earth's surface? Yes. Impossible to remain in some kind of orbit around the Earth? Not if inertia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertia) and free fall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_fall) have anything to do with it (assuming a time warp is affected by gravity the same way everything else in the universe is, which is a pretty good bet, considering that any other option violates relativity).
That's assuming it is affected, but I'm thinking like this…
Someone or something is going to be sent through time…
The starting location [A] is where we are,
The destination [B] is where we are going, (one minute in the future).
And [C] represents all the locomotive physics of our universe.
Now if we are present during that minute between [A] and [B], we are subject to [C], just as we always are.
But if we skip over that minute when we travel from [A] to [B], we skip one minute of exposure to [C], while everything else was subject to it’s effects.
-
Now if we are present during that minute between [A] and [B], we are subject to [C], just as we always are.
But if we skip over that minute when we travel from [A] to [B], we skip one minute of exposure to [C], while everything else was subject to it’s effects.
If we keep momentum during that time, everything will be roughly fine. If we keep momentum and gravity, even more so, which is required by relativity (according to relativity gravity doesn't really exist, it's just a part of how momentum works). If we don't keep these things, at least in my way of thinking all our atoms fall apart and could come out absolutely anywhere in the Universe.
It's not like there's some absolute reference frame with respect to which we might stand briefly still; except of course that of momentum. :)
-
I can't remember what magazine title it was, maybe Science, Discover, or something else, but there was an entire issue devoted to time that I saw on a newsstand yesterday.
-
I don't think time travel will ever be possible. Too bad because there is much about my past I'd like to change. So much time wasted on useless bullcrap.
-
I don't think time travel will ever be possible. Too bad because there is much about my past I'd like to change. So much time wasted on useless bullcrap.
Go watch the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Tapestry" (season 6 episode 15).
-
Well if time travel were to be accomplished, the most likely way of doing so would be to traverse the multiverse. Pretty much hop from dimension to dimension according to which version of reality you wanted to travel to since every moment in time has a dimension. This means, though that whatever you do to affect that dimension would be isolated to that specific instance making the possibility of a paradox nonexistent. So yeah, it's probable that something like that could be done since there's a lot of stuff out there we still can't explain. And if we could, then I think we should. And if there happened to be a paradox, we wouldn't even know it since we would've already been living that paradox.
my mind... I tried to understand but now i broken... srry people i did my best x.x
-
I do not believe that time travel, if it's possible, is something to be feared; if someone in the future could go to the past and cause millions to cease to exist then they would have done so already.
-
I do not believe that time travel, if it's possible, is something to be feared; if someone in the future could go to the past and cause millions to cease to exist then they would have done so already.
And if that were to happen or has happened, you, me, and everyone else would never even know.
-
I believe that time travel is impossible, and even if it was possible, very bad of an idea. I believe it is impossible because I believe that time is ment to be that passage of when things happen, not something that is constantly recording everything everywhere and can be manipulated to your whim. If it was possible, traveling back would cause differences in what happens, possible causing you to not have a need to travel back to that exact moment or you not being able to, which would cause a paradox, and be very bad. I know this isn't the best way I could have worded that, but I hope you understand it.
-
I have no clue whether time travel is possible or not. However, I think one kind of time travel has been highly neglected in all kinds of writing and films. I'm not even sure if I've seen it in anything. Someone probably thought of this before, but I think it'd be the most likely thing to exist.
Everything in the world constantly moves. If we go forward in time, everything moves forward in its own way. If we move backwards, everything moves backwards. However, in this type of time travel, we would allow one thing to go forward while the rest of the universe goes backwards. In this manner, if you traveled back in time to before you were born, your time in school, your childhood, and even your birth would be undone. Traveling forward in time again, you would no longer be able to be born to your parents because, simply, you are an adult. If they had a child, they would have memories with that one, not you.
Depending on the way it's done, this kind of time travel could be safe or catastrophic. You as a time traveler would lose your connection with everyone depending on how far you traveled in time, and removing matter from the general flow of things could cause really weird problems to occur.
-
Everything in the world constantly moves. If we go forward in time, everything moves forward in its own way. If we move backwards, everything moves backwards. However, in this type of time travel, we would allow one thing to go forward while the rest of the universe goes backwards. In this manner, if you traveled back in time to before you were born, your time in school, your childhood, and even your birth would be undone. Traveling forward in time again, you would no longer be able to be born to your parents because, simply, you are an adult. If they had a child, they would have memories with that one, not you.
Depending on the way it's done, this kind of time travel could be safe or catastrophic. You as a time traveler would lose your connection with everyone depending on how far you traveled in time, and removing matter from the general flow of things could cause really weird problems to occur.
With that kind of time travel, it could mean that the moment you start to go back in time, your molecules would run into the molecules of your previous self. And you'd have the same running-into-yourself problem when you start going forward again. And in between, everyone else would see you moving backwards.
-
With that kind of time travel, it could mean that the moment you start to go back in time, your molecules would run into the molecules of your previous self. And you'd have the same running-into-yourself problem when you start going forward again. And in between, everyone else would see you moving backwards.
Not quite, Vararam. Law of conservation of mass states that the same molecules cannot exist in two places at once. Because of that, going back in time would not cause you to be in the same place as a separate you. It eliminates the possibility of a duplicate self because, simply put, there can only be one of you.
Also, people would not see you traveling back in time. As you went back, the events in the world around you would proceed backwards. Once you got to your set destination in time, you begin to move forward. There would not be a duplicate you later on traveling backwards because there can only be one you. I don't know if that makes sense =/
-
Law of conservation of mass states that the same molecules cannot exist in two places at once.
Wasn't it Einstein who also said that no two objects or people can be in the same place at the same time?
-
Law of conservation of mass states that the same molecules cannot exist in two places at once.
Wasn't it Einstein who also said that no two objects or people can be in the same place at the same time?
That's exactly what I'm saying, Kobuk. With this kind of time travel, going back in time would not allow for any duplicates to appear.
-
I believe it is impossible because I believe that time is ment to be that passage of when things happen, not something that is constantly recording everything everywhere and can be manipulated to your whim.
Because of both special and general relativity being true we know that there is no absolute "now," which immediately implies that the past and future must literally exist. Brian Green gives a good explanation of this in this Nova episode (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/fabric-time.html). (Maybe around 18 minutes in? I'm trying to find the spot without using sound :P )
I have no clue whether time travel is possible or not. However, I think one kind of time travel has been highly neglected in all kinds of writing and films. I'm not even sure if I've seen it in anything. Someone probably thought of this before, but I think it'd be the most likely thing to exist.
...
I'm definitely not sure I understand the proposal here. At first I thought you were proposing something close to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, where your conscious awareness is the thing moving back and forth rather than your body. But I can see that's not what you mean...
So basically, if you travelled say two years back in time, the subjective appearance to everyone else would be that at that past moment of arrival, you suddenly age two years and gain new memories? Or are you saying you would appear to disappear, while the future self appeared somewhere else?
The rule of 'you can't be in two places at once' really only applies to individual particles (ignoring quantum theory for the moment), so if that is in fact what you're imagining, really what would "age two years" or disappear and reappear somewhere else would be individual particles-- not even whole atoms, since constituent electrons of atoms are often exchanged. The figure frequently given is around 7 years for total replacement; so travel back more than that and your previous self wouldn't disappear at all. Instead, random atoms from atmosphere, dirt, and other people would disappear. Travel back less than seven years, and only some parts of the previous self would 'disappear'; most likely parts which exchange materials only slowly, such as your bones.
Truly a problematic model of time travel! Hopefully physics doesn't allow it; I don't want my future self stealing my bones!
-
Not quite, Vararam. Law of conservation of mass states that the same molecules cannot exist in two places at once.
Then if I'm understanding this time travel idea you proposed, that same Law of conservation would mean the whole time travel thing is not possible. Either that or I'm totally not understanding what your previous post was talking about.
You said, "...we would allow one thing to go forward while the rest of the universe goes backwards." Would not those that are "going backwards" not realize they are going backwards? It seems to me that from their perspective time would be going forward. Thus the one that is "going forward" would to them look to be going backwards. (Granted we can't actually choose or "allow" the universe to go backwards, but I'm forgiving that for the sake of argument.)
-
Well if time travel were to be accomplished, the most likely way of doing so would be to traverse the multiverse. Pretty much hop from dimension to dimension according to which version of reality you wanted to travel to since every moment in time has a dimension. This means, though that whatever you do to affect that dimension would be isolated to that specific instance making the possibility of a paradox nonexistent. So yeah, it's probable that something like that could be done since there's a lot of stuff out there we still can't explain. And if we could, then I think we should. And if there happened to be a paradox, we wouldn't even know it since we would've already been living that paradox.
my mind... I tried to understand but now i broken... srry people i did my best x.x
I have wondered about this myself. Each action or decision moves us
in a different direction. Moving through dimensions of time and space.
So we flow through time in endless directions. Heck I might even be
a rabbit in some dimension. :orbunny:
So if one could travel to the dimension of choice anything might be
possible and no paradoxes. Course that would create another reality. :P
Just my thoughts, but rather mind bending at least.
-
You said, "...we would allow one thing to go forward while the rest of the universe goes backwards." Would not those that are "going backwards" not realize they are going backwards? It seems to me that from their perspective time would be going forward.
I'm realizing that I'm having a much harder time explaining it than I thought :D
Anyway, think about it -- for those people going backwards, light instead of going into their eyes will instead be leaving. Actions they had once done would instead be reversed and undone, including thought processes. For them, there would be no perception that time is changing for they will have no perception at all; instead, all perceptions they had up to that point would start to be undone.
For example, let's say I stand on the street and throw a rock at the time traveler. If he begins to go backwards in time, the rock will return to me, and my memory of throwing it will disappear; in addition, I won't see him traveling back in time because light will be leaving from within my eye and memories are disappearing rather than being made. If he then stopped traveling back in time while standing directly in front of me, I will perceive that he suddenly appeared there. Because of this process of undoing memory as I go backwards, I would be unable to perceive that this is happening.
-
@Alexandre
Are you saying that time is still going forward but the only the cause-effect chain of time is going backwards?
-
@Alexandre
Are you saying that time is still going forward but the only the cause-effect chain of time is going backwards?
I suppose you could put it that way, but since people judge time based on cause-effect, I was using that as the unit of measure. Honestly, it's easier to think of this time travel by forgetting about "time." Yes, I'd say it's the reversal of the cause-effect chain.
-
I suppose you could put it that way, but since people judge time based on cause-effect, I was using that as the unit of measure. Honestly, it's easier to think of this time travel by forgetting about "time." Yes, I'd say it's the reversal of the cause-effect chain.
But if the reversal were perfect, there wouldn't be any effect, right? I mean, going back in time would be rewinding, and you wouldn't remember that you time-traveled and you would relive the reversed years almost precisely the same as they had gone the first time.
-
I suppose you could put it that way, but since people judge time based on cause-effect, I was using that as the unit of measure. Honestly, it's easier to think of this time travel by forgetting about "time." Yes, I'd say it's the reversal of the cause-effect chain.
But if the reversal were perfect, there wouldn't be any effect, right? I mean, going back in time would be rewinding, and you wouldn't remember that you time-traveled and you would relive the reversed years almost precisely the same as they had gone the first time.
Not quite. The way that it would work, you would remove yourself from the cause-effect chain. While everything else rewinds, your cause-effect chain goes forwards. In other words, as the world around you gets younger, you still get older.
-
...
-
The best way to experience time travel! :D :D
(http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR5XKj52UKemhGQKp05BlMc_B0kizMi67h97CpdiAoZ62veUm-MNA)
-
The best way to experience time travel! :D :D
(http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR5XKj52UKemhGQKp05BlMc_B0kizMi67h97CpdiAoZ62veUm-MNA)
I completely agree! However, I'm pretty fond of this one:
(http://www.lilesnet.com/oldtimeradio/shows/the_time_machine.jpg)
-
But if the reversal were perfect, there wouldn't be any effect, right? I mean, going back in time would be rewinding, and you wouldn't remember that you time-traveled and you would relive the reversed years almost precisely the same as they had gone the first time.
Not quite. The way that it would work, you would remove yourself from the cause-effect chain. While everything else rewinds, your cause-effect chain goes forwards. In other words, as the world around you gets younger, you still get older.
OH ok! So I stand by my earlier post, traveling back in time a few years would result in teleporting your bones out of your prior self's body.
You said, "...we would allow one thing to go forward while the rest of the universe goes backwards." Would not those that are "going backwards" not realize they are going backwards? It seems to me that from their perspective time would be going forward.
This sounds right to me; if I used this method of time travel I would see stuff rewinding around me but me, or a bubble around me, would be 'normal time'. Well' that's assuming I can see anything at all. Some backwards-traveling light would probably hit my eyes but who knows whether it would get absorbed right?
I think I understand this idea well enough to say a bit about whether it's physically plausible now.
The closest thing to this method that I've actually heard about is the idea that all antimatter is simply matter which is currently traveling backwards in time. So what we perceive as matter and antimatter meeting each other and cancelling out in a burst of energy is, in reality, a piece of matter reversing the direction in which it's travelling. For some reason, forward-traveling matter generates a burst of energy when it's turned backwards in time whereas 'catching' antimatter and turning it back forwards requires energy (we perceive this as a high-energy collision producing a matter-antimatter pair). This is fortunate because otherwise time travel would be a source of free energy! And free energy would (obviously?) unravel spacetime.
Anyway, this time travel method is strange because the first step in accomplishing it is building the receiving machine, and using a huge burst of energy to produce a matter copy of yourself and an antimatter copy of yourself. You then keep the antimatter copy of yourself isolated from any real matter for the duration of its time travel, and then at the end you annihilate yourself using this copy, which is the 'turning around' event.
The existence of the antimatter pair essentially 'balances out' the surplus of you's for the duration of any overlap, which makes a bit more sense to me than the matter being moved to a different location by the time travel.
Naturally we don't know how to create very much antimatter at a time, and creating matter and antimatter duplicates of yourself is no easier than creating, say, an antimatter Klingon, or anything else which doesn't literally come from the future. So for all this to actually retrieve a copy of you from the future, rather than just your best guess at what you-from-the-future is like, the antimatter would have to somehow remain in a state of quantum superposition throughout the whole trip; like Schroedinger's cat only from the future. Looking into the box makes it impossible for the information to have come from the future so prevents time travel.
Since the matter copy of yourself carries the same information as the antimatter copy (at least at the moment of creation), this has a very interesting consequence! The copy of you who travels back in time also has to remain in an isolated box, immune to all measurement, after being created. Only after the original is destroyed or 'turned around' in time to begin the journey could the time traveler actually come out of isolation! Therefore the antimatter method doesn't allow for the time traveler to actually see the past. Instead he just gets some time to himself to think, in a box insulating him from the rest of the Universe.
-
Law of conservation of mass states that the same molecules cannot exist in two places at once.
I know discussion of this is a bit old, but I would like to contradict this.
The law states that the mass and energy of an isolated system will remain constant over time. An isolated system being where there is no possible way for mass and energy to move in or out of it. Our Earth is far from being an isolated system. Solar energy and meteorites are examples of our mass and energy changing. As stated on Wikipedia: "Truly isolated physical systems do not exist in reality (except perhaps for the universe as a whole), because, for example, there is always gravity between a system with mass, and masses elsewhere."
Even if we concider our system as the universe itself being perfectly isolated, traveling to this point through time travel would mean that we not isolated from movement of mass and energy through time, and that changing the total amount of mass would not have any effects on the rest of it.
-
Technically we're all travelling forward in time right now.
I can't really give an educated comment, considering that I know nothing about the subject, whatsoever.
Ever heard of the Multiverse theory? Basically the theories says that you cannot change the the present by stopping an event from taking place in the past, in theory, that would create an alternate existence in the presence.
It is possibly to travel faster forward in time, I've heard that NASA's shuttle manage to jump a few seconds forward in time as they take off.
Am I the only one who gets a headache looking at this? Every time someone uses that blue text on the black background I have to highlight to read it. Sorry its off topic but ugh..