If the theory of Quantum leap was possible, and time travel existed, where would you go, and what would you do. help put right what once went wrong, or just have fun.

don't forget, you can't travel to the future, as this hasn't occured yet.:nod:

Not after watching "the butterfly effect" - horrible film that has put me off time travel for LIFE. Best leave well alone...

Am I right in thinking it is theoretically possible to travel back in time but first we need to work out how to travel faster than light.

I am working on this at the moment and if I make any progress you will be the first to know.

This is a tricky one because you wouldn't know the knock on effect if you changed something.

I have often wondered if I would go back in time and stop the Drunk Driver who killed my Dad - (don't mean to be miserable)
but if I did this my Mum would have not married her true love and been extremely happy - would I have moved house and not met the person I am now happy with - it's a real tricky one - in hind sight I think I would just leave things as they are with just one exception that wouldn't change anyones future - I would make sure I was with my Nan holding her hand when she died. :thumbsup:

time travel = bad

shouldn't dwell on the past, or wish to change it... everything happens for a reason... if you haven't learnt the reason for it then just keep waiting :P

what would happen if someone assisinated Hilter before WW2 took off? would we have advanced so quick? would someone else just have started a different war a bit later... you just know and its best not to

Yes I would. I would do anything to be able to change 2 things from my past.

Originally posted by melbournian
Am I right in thinking it is theoretically possible to travel back in time but first we need to work out how to travel faster than light.

I am working on this at the moment and if I make any progress you will be the first to know.

not really, in theory travelling faster than light would have no effect on travelling in time... to travel in time you'd need to find a way to move in the fourth dimension, this wouldnt be done by simply travelling faster than we can now

I would go back to the Carboniferous Era and scatter two pound coins, marbles, CND placards, and cheap wristwatches in the swamps.

Then I'd go back to my own time to make fun of geologists.

Originally posted by michael_v2
don't forget, you can't travel to the future, as this hasn't occured yet.:nod:
Oh, we can't get back. Well then I am not playing.

Remember that if Quantum Leap was true, you'd have no choice as to where you were sent. No doubt you'd enjoy many great adventures, but you'd always be hoping that the next leap would be the leap home.

Originally posted by michael_v2
don't forget, you can't travel to the future, as this hasn't occured yet.:nod:

actually, if you think about time travel and the 4th dimension logically, everything that will happen has happened, the problem for us is that were stuck in one particular dimension and thus were just following through this time stream, the future has happened, we just cant see it till our time catches up with it

and any fan would know that Dr Sam Beckett, never leaped home.

Originally posted by xafier
just following through this time stream, the future has happened, we just cant see it till our time catches up with it

Not just the future, but all futures. Bifurcations, infinite trouser legs and all that.

Originally posted by xafier
not really, in theory travelling faster than light would have no effect on travelling in time... to travel in time you'd need to find a way to move in the fourth dimension, this wouldnt be done by simply travelling faster than we can now

Thanks for the explanation its a long time since I did an A level Physics so my science is a bit rusty.

A more pheasible and the first approach to travelling in time would surely be being able to travel much faster than the speed of light and the zooming off into space.

Taking care to wear fireproof clothing.

Then stopping and using a high pwered telescope to view the light leaving the earth, which would in theory enable you to look at events occuring in the past.

The faster you can travel in units of (multiples of the speed of light) would mean the further back in time you could go.....

This is something I would love to do more than anything. To be able to visit various periods from time would be incredible. I would not wish to change anything but, for example, after having looked back over old photographs from our family, I wish I could meet those people and listen in to how they talked and what they talked about 100 years before. I would just like to witness the similarities and the differences between then and now.

Has anyone seen the film 'Somewhere in Time' with Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve?

Originally posted by melbournian
Thanks for the explanation its a long time since I did an A level Physics so my science is a bit rusty.

A more pheasible and the first approach to travelling in time would surely be being able to travel much faster than the speed of light and the zooming off into space.

Taking care to wear fireproof clothing.

Then stopping and using a high pwered telescope to view the light leaving the earth, which would in theory enable you to look at events occuring in the past.

The faster you can travel in units of (multiples of the speed of light) would mean the further back in time you could go.....

But then you really couldn't go back, as the earth would have been swallowed by the sun at that point.

ok then Phanerothyme
to change the question a little, and quote from the series, to travel within ones lifetime.

Maybe regression is a possibility until the Time Travel Agencies make an appearance in our High Streets.

Anyone been regressed? Is it recommended?

By gum! It worked!

I'm going to try to go back in time 30 seconds and post to this thread. I'll let you know when I get there :)

Originally posted by melbournian
Then stopping and using a high pwered telescope to view the light leaving the earth, which would in theory enable you to look at events occuring in the past.

The faster you can travel in units of (multiples of the speed of light) would mean the further back in time you could go.....

yeah, that would work :) travelling at such speeds is not within our grasp at the moment, not whilst were still stuck in the age of using fossil fuels... we need more research into nuclear fusion (or fission i forget which is which!) and other such things to producing power, cold fission is obviously what we need to aim for, producing the energy whilst not loosing tons of it due to heat dissipation

of course, we'd never be able to break warp factor 10... if we did you'd die, watch star trek, its all truth :hihi:

we've a long way to go yet, and until we start co-operating better on a global scale such things are unlikely to occur, although Loughborough University is making some good grounds on Quantum theory, teleportation and such...

would be cool to see teleportation a reality in the next 20 years :) trip to america? 0.5 seconds :D

I wouldn't want to change anything about my past, it's what has made me the person I am (whether you like that or not).

Originally posted by spiffymonkey
By gum! It worked!

*sniggers*

Amused me more than I care to admit. :hihi:

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
But then you really couldn't go back, as the earth would have been swallowed by the sun at that point.

What even if you shot a telescope the size of a car off as a missile into space?

Would the sun really swallow the earth?

Thanks for the warning I better put my efforts on hold for the sake of everyone :D

thank you all for your input. sadly, i'm now off to work, and not back to 1996, where i would have said yes, instead of no. pleasent afternoon to you all. Peace.:wave:

Don't forget to come to the Time Travellers meeting folks - it's one week last Wednesday! :hihi:

Originally posted by xafier
yeah, that would work :) travelling at such speeds is not within our grasp at the moment, not whilst were still stuck in the age of using fossil fuels... we need more research into nuclear fusion (or fission i forget which is which!) and other such things to producing power, cold fission is obviously what we need to aim for, producing the energy whilst not loosing tons of it due to heat dissipation

of course, we'd never be able to break warp factor 10... if we did you'd die, watch star trek, its all truth :hihi:

we've a long way to go yet, and until we start co-operating better on a global scale such things are unlikely to occur, although Loughborough University is making some good grounds on Quantum theory, teleportation and such...

would be cool to see teleportation a reality in the next 20 years :) trip to america? 0.5 seconds :D

As far as I can remember Fission is the one where no harmful waste is produced and is what we are striving to achieve for the good of the environment as it will slow down the greenhouse effect - but I will happilly stand corrected.

USA in 0.5 seconds? That means my trip home from work would be about 0.01 seconds.

Bring it on the less time I have to spend commuting the better. :)

Originally posted by melbournian
USA in 0.5 seconds? That means my trip home from work would be about 0.01 seconds.

Bring it on the less time I have to spend commuting the better. :)

depends how fat you are :hihi: the more of you there is to "dissasemble" the longer it will take to transfer and "reassemble"... I think at Loughborough they've managed to transfer a few atoms over like a meter or something... doesnt sound much but if in a year they can send an apple, and 5 years an animal... its good :) I was really tempted to do Quantum Information and Computation at Loughborough, but I needed better grades than I knew I'd get even though I love physics and computing and they're my best subject areas :(

Originally posted by melbournian
What even if you shot a telescope the size of a car off as a missile into space?

Would the sun really swallow the earth?

Thanks for the warning I better put my efforts on hold for the sake of everyone :D

No, it's just that the faster something goes, the slower time passes for it. Exceed lightspeed and time stops (probably).

The telescope would see an enormously (inifinitely) speeded up image of earth emerging from the accretion disk 40 billion years ago, bloom with life and then the sun would suddenly bulge and then shrink. and that would happen, from the telescope's perspective, in no time at all.

Fusion reactors are the low waste reactors you are thinking of

Originally posted by xafier
actually, if you think about time travel and the 4th dimension logically, everything that will happen has happened, the problem for us is that were stuck in one particular dimension and thus were just following through this time stream, the future has happened, we just cant see it till our time catches up with it

I kind of go with this idea - it helps to explain phenomena like deja vu, pre-cognition and the like.

Life would effectively be a circle, or perhaps more accurately, a spiral?

Fascinating stuff.

Having said that, I'd love to go back to lots of points in history to see what really happened (I'm so nosy!), as long as I was in a sort-of disembodied/not really there state so my 'presence' wouldn't affect anything. For example, to see what really happened to the Romanovs, who built the Pyramids, or Stonehenge, or the Sphinx - life would be endlessly interesting!

StarSparkle

Originally posted by xafier
depends how fat you are :hihi: the more of you there is to "dissasemble" the longer it will take to transfer and "reassemble"... I think at Loughborough they've managed to transfer a few atoms over like a meter or something... doesnt sound much but if in a year they can send an apple, and 5 years an animal... its good :)

There are some other small problems with "teleportation" though.

On the quantum level it's all perfectly reasonable. Scale it up and you will come accross some decidely non-trivial problems with reducing a living organism to it's component atoms and then assembling copies of those atoms elsewhere.

Not least, the teleporter companies would be able to produce carbon copies of you from their teleport logfiles.

Originally posted by melbournian
As far as I can remember Fission is the one where no harmful waste is produced and is what we are striving to achieve for the good of the environment as it will slow down the greenhouse effect - but I will happilly stand corrected.

USA in 0.5 seconds? That means my trip home from work would be about 0.01 seconds.

Bring it on the less time I have to spend commuting the better. :)

Fission is the one that creates the waste and radiation, Fusion is the one that creates less waste - it produces helium, tritium and a ****load of neutrons.

One reason why the powers that be are a bit sniffy on conventional Fusion developments is that the Tritium produced as a side effect is really useful for making Hydrogen bombs.

As for timetravel - there's a lovely little science fiction story called 'Darkness Falls' which is a satire on an earlier story called 'Lest darkness Fall'. In the latter story, a chap goes back to ancient Rome and takes with him enough knowledge to prevent teh Dark Ages. The other story deals with what would happen AFTER this - population explosion, 20 billion souls on the planet by the middle ages, starvation, etc. 'Darkness Falls' ends up with them building a time machine to send a guy back to ancient Rome to shoot the first time traveller and prevent the whole sequence of events unfolding!

Joe

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
There are some other small problems with "teleportation" though.

On the quantum level it's all perfectly reasonable. Scale it up and you will come accross some decidely non-trivial problems with reducing a living organism to it's component atoms and then assembling copies of those atoms elsewhere.

Not least, the teleporter companies would be able to produce carbon copies of you from their teleport logfiles.

Like a clone'o'copier fax machine?. :)

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
There are some other small problems with "teleportation" though.

On the quantum level it's all perfectly reasonable. Scale it up and you will come accross some decidely non-trivial problems with reducing a living organism to it's component atoms and then assembling copies of those atoms elsewhere.

Not least, the teleporter companies would be able to produce carbon copies of you from their teleport logfiles.

Not being a very scientifically-minded person, it's only a couple of years ago I finally realised what being transported on 'StarTrek' actually involved. :suspect: :gag:

Made me determined never to EVER use a transporter/teleporter for travel! Dr McCoy definitely had the right idea! Now a replicator for inanimate objects.... like the sound of that! :D

StarSparkle

Originally posted by michael_v2
don't forget, you can't travel to the future, as this hasn't occured yet.:nod:


Actually, it's easier to travel forward in time than backwards (this is due mainly to the fact that we are already travelling in time, though it is always the now)...

Paul Davies on launch of his book "How To Build A Time Machine" (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s428595.htm).

The book itself explains how TT is theoretically possible, though also explains why TT is practically impossible (entirely full of paradoxes;)).

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
Not least, the teleporter companies would be able to produce carbon copies of you from their teleport logfiles.

and the police can already clone you from DNA samples if they have them on record :? oooOOOooo scary!

theres too much ethical issues involved with any form of teleporting animals/humans at the moment, what if theres a slight miscalculation? "i'm sorry madam, but your husband is currently in 5 billion pieces scattered across the globe. Were going to try and make a copy of him with your consent, please sign here, here, here and here, and initial here and here" :hihi:

Originally posted by xafier
theres too much ethical issues involved with any form of teleporting animals/humans at the moment, what if theres a slight miscalculation? "i'm sorry madam, but your husband is currently in 5 billion pieces scattered across the globe. Were going to try and make a copy of him with your consent, please sign here, here, here and here, and initial here and here" :hihi:

And what happens to your soul? That's what scares me.

StarSparkle

ohhh - all a bit scary and quite frankly over my head all this science talk.

To answer the original question - in my life i wouldn't, what has happened to me has made me who i am and put me where i am and right now i'm very happy with that thank-you :)

Sure i'd like to help put things right for other people so they don't have to suffer etc - put messing about with things in the past can alter the future too much as was seen in the Butterfly Effect as somebody mentioned before :D

I would also like to add that time travel IS possible.

All you need is a dolorean, some plutonium and a flux capacitor :thumbsup:

Time travel in general would be bad. If we could travel through time we wouldn't make such an effort to get things right the first time. Decisions wouldn't matter cos you could just go back and re-do stuff. It would get very exhausting and complicated.

It would all end up in a super big mess.


I would rather have the power of invisibility or be able to fly. That would be super ace. POW!

Originally posted by xafier
and the police can already clone you from DNA samples if they have them on record :? oooOOOooo scary!

I wasn't aware that the police had hospitals full of surrogate mothers. :)

(and they don't sequence your entire genome either)

"Well, your honour, he escaped, but we cloned him from skin cells at the scene of the crime, and he'll be ready for the dock in about 20 years"

With a teleporter/replicator, you could churn out millions of copies of yourself.

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
Not least, the teleporter companies would be able to produce carbon copies of you from their teleport logfiles. [/B]

Not necessary to store the data, if the likely process of entanglement is used.

If there are 4 Dimensions the ability to change things when you go back in time would be one of the time paradox's, and it's likely you would not be able to change a thing.

If m-Theory is correct, there may be 11+ dimensions, and altering time would be allowed, without paradox. The change would only effect the same universe that the string resonates at. It would be a branch, and all other Universes would be unchanged.

Time travel?

It didn't work for Homer. ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treehouse_of_Horror_V#Time_and_Punishment

But, danger aside, and I do think it would be dangerous. I don't believe time is meant to be messed with...it would still be the trip of a lifetime.

:) Sierra

There are a few theoretical method of traveling through time.

Speed of light, some very big problems here. Physically it's not really possible.

Bending of space time. Theoretically it's possible, but the energy required would be immense.

Worm Holes. Now we know things can escape the event horizon it's theoretically possible. However the event horizon is a tiny hole. A human, let alone a human in a space ship could not fit through. The forces would tear anything apart. Some people have theorized feeding a nano tube through the tube and using quantum entanglement to create a probe of human on the other side.

Originally posted by sccsux
Actually, it's easier to travel forward in time than backwards (this is due mainly to the fact that we are already travelling in time, though it is always the now)...

Paul Davies on launch of his book "How To Build A Time Machine" (http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ss/stories/s428595.htm).

The book itself explains how TT is theoretically possible, though also explains why TT is practically impossible (entirely full of paradoxes;)).

Only if the book stops at Relativity, which it doesn't seem to.

Some of my friends said they'd go back in time and kill Hitler. I wasn't so sure. If they were going to do that, I told them to consider 3 words:

Michael Jackson Junior

You know what to do....

:D

Wilf

Originally posted by melbournian
Thanks for the explanation its a long time since I did an A level Physics so my science is a bit rusty.

A more pheasible and the first approach to travelling in time would surely be being able to travel much faster than the speed of light and the zooming off into space.

Taking care to wear fireproof clothing.

Then stopping and using a high pwered telescope to view the light leaving the earth, which would in theory enable you to look at events occuring in the past.

The faster you can travel in units of (multiples of the speed of light) would mean the further back in time you could go.....

Yes that would mean you could look back in time but not physically go back in time, "fare comment" ??????

Also if some one came up with an idea and invented a cheap super fuel then OPEC would buy it and shelve it till their oil had ran out, so the time to think about time is not this time but next time so we have plenty of time, i think its time for bed