A question about time travel

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  • Pull2OpenPull2Open Posts: 15,138
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    If it were possible, I'd just go into the future and get winning lottery numbers.
  • BastardBeaverBastardBeaver Posts: 11,903
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    Pull2Open wrote: »
    If it were possible, I'd just go into the future and get winning lottery numbers.

    Do it for 10 consecutive weeks just to really **** with people's minds.
  • primerprimer Posts: 6,370
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    according to relativity, all of time is already there, like all of space.

    so not only can you not change the past, the future is already there.

    i wonder how it would play in court.... not guilty your honour, einstein made me do it...
  • Ethel_FredEthel_Fred Posts: 34,127
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    Eurostar wrote: »
    Interestingly there don't appear to be any time travellers from the future in our midst (or has there ever been any sign of them) which would suggest that it never becomes possible.
    There's a theory that the furthest you can go back in time is to the date the first time machine is built.
  • Ethel_FredEthel_Fred Posts: 34,127
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    motsy wrote: »
    It's all very well saying that if it was possible to send somebody back in time, they could assassinate Hitler prevent the JFK assassination/911 and the attack on Pearl Harbour but what gives us mere mortals the right to interfere with the forces that control time?
    Perhaps mere mortals have travelled back in time to ensure that Hitler wasn't assassinated, JFK was assassinated and Pearl Harbor happened - we may be in the best of all possible worlds
  • steveh31steveh31 Posts: 13,516
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    Ethel_Fred wrote: »
    There's a theory that the furthest you can go back in time is to the date the first time machine is built.

    Which is why we can't yet.
  • Leicester_HunkLeicester_Hunk Posts: 18,316
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    Read Stephen King's 11/22/63 - it's a good story.

    It was brilliant. I couldn't put it down. Best book I read all year.
  • Paul555Paul555 Posts: 1,504
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    "A Question about Time Travel". Sounds like a good name for a book!
  • ScPDScPD Posts: 319
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    That Red Dwarf episode was a brilliant take on time travel (Tikka to Ride)
  • CravenHavenCravenHaven Posts: 13,953
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    motsy wrote: »
    It's all very well saying that if it was possible to send somebody back in time, they could assassinate Hitler prevent the JFK assassination/911 and the attack on Pearl Harbour but what gives us mere mortals the right to interfere with the forces that control time?
    this is what happens when you mix prescription painkillers with alcohol while watching Quantum Leap, kids.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,664
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    swingaleg wrote: »
    Maybe Hitler was assassinated but the world in which Goebbels was Fuhrer and Germany won the war was so horrific that in 2248 they sent someone back to kill Hitler's assassin and prevent Goebbels becoming Fuhrer

    Dear Lord, what a depressing concept - we have the ability to change the past, and this is the best world we can shape..?
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 22,309
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    Well, since we're reading this, we know that all the folk travelling back in time to try and stop motsy posting this have failed miserably.
  • phylo_roadkingphylo_roadking Posts: 21,339
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    Maybe Hitler was assassinated but the world in which Goebbels was Fuhrer and Germany won the war was so horrific that in 2248 they sent someone back to kill Hitler's assassin and prevent Goebbels becoming Fuhrer

    Makes more sense than Terminator IV will!
  • TerraCanisTerraCanis Posts: 14,099
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    "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff."

    Spooky!

    I just found an Easter-egg on my Broadchurch DVD, where there's someone who looks a bit like the inspector bloke saying exactly what you wrote above.
  • zwixxxzwixxx Posts: 10,295
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    seacam wrote: »
    To send someone or thing back to or in to the future would require a sender and a receiver.
    Seacam, February, 2015.
    I like this because it explains why when people say "right it is 11pm Thursday February 19th 2015 and we're having a party here, I'm writing a note to my future self saying if time travel is ever invented in my life time I will use it to return to this date and say hi, or at least send a message from the future saying that time travel was invented", then after looking around and nothing happening they go "right, time travel wasn't invented". If a time traveller from the future needs some kind of receiver then since there wouldn't have been one at the party even if time travel had been invented no one could have turned up to say hi.

    So maybe, rather than concern ourselves with inventing a time travel machine, we should instead first concern ourselves with building receiver or arrival stations. - ie. time travel cannot be invented until an appropriate arrival station exists.

    btw: I have no problems with time travelling to the past - in that you can go back and kill your grandparents before you were born and this won't make you immediately disappear. The trouble comes if you decide to travel back. ie. if you left at 12am 19/feb/2015, kill gramps and gramma, then travel back to 12:01am 19/feb/2015. This 19/feb/2015 is on the timeline that follows the death of those 2 people, thus you wouldn't have been born and thus you will be an unknown person. Doesn't sound to bad, no universe destroying paradoxes here. But say you went back, just went up to them, shock their hands then returned to 12:01am 19/feb/2015. Again this is on the timeline that followed those two hugs so you might think the world would be EXACTLY the same as the one you left......

    I am of the opinion that even if you did NOTHING, just arrived and 'returned', depending on just how far you went back, the world you've returned to could be almost unrecognizable. (this post is getting too big so I'll pause here :))
  • BastardBeaverBastardBeaver Posts: 11,903
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    Paul555 wrote: »
    "A Question about Time Travel". Sounds like a good name for a book!

    Depends who it's written by tbh.
  • zwixxxzwixxx Posts: 10,295
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    Pull2Open wrote: »
    If it were possible, I'd just go into the future and get winning lottery numbers.

    Imagine a lottery machine, like the Lotta one we have, but modified so that it took an hour from pressing the button until the machine 'spat out' the 6 lottery balls. And imagine time travel exists.

    It is 7pm on Saturday, button gets pressed, and at 8pm it kicks out 6 numbers. A man with a time travel machine writes these numbers down, gets in his machine and travels back to 7:05pm on the same Saturday. So he arrives AFTER the button has been pressed. And I'm assuming that the lottery machine is well-encased so was not affected by the arrival of the time traveller. Now, he has a slip of paper with 6 numbers on it, and my question is will the numbers that come out at 8pm be the same as the ones he has written down ????
  • coughthecatcoughthecat Posts: 6,876
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    zwixxx wrote: »
    Imagine a lottery machine, like the Lotta one we have, but modified so that it took an hour from pressing the button until the machine 'spat out' the 6 lottery balls. And imagine time travel exists.

    It is 7pm on Saturday, button gets pressed, and at 8pm it kicks out 6 numbers. A man with a time travel machine writes these numbers down, gets in his machine and travels back to 7:05pm on the same Saturday. So he arrives AFTER the button has been pressed. And I'm assuming that the lottery machine is well-encased so was not affected by the arrival of the time traveller. Now, he has a slip of paper with 6 numbers on it, and my question is will the numbers that come out at 8pm be the same as the ones he has written down ????

    No ... what would actually happen is that when he checked the piece of paper, there wouldn't be six numbers on it ... just the words "The dolphins are watching you!" :o
  • CravenHavenCravenHaven Posts: 13,953
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    zwixxx wrote: »
    It is 7pm on Saturday, button gets pressed, and at 8pm it kicks out 6 numbers. A man with a time travel machine writes these numbers down, gets in his machine and travels back to 7:05pm on the same Saturday. So he arrives AFTER the button has been pressed. And I'm assuming that the lottery machine is well-encased so was not affected by the arrival of the time traveller. Now, he has a slip of paper with 6 numbers on it, and my question is will the numbers that come out at 8pm be the same as the ones he has written down ????
    is it a trick quantum question and if you look at the lottery you change the numbers or sumfink?
    I would swallow teh numberz in case they didn't make it thru the time warp. Yum yum.
    :kitty:
  • zwixxxzwixxx Posts: 10,295
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    is it a trick quantum question and if you look at the lottery you change the numbers or sumfink?
    No trick question, just how you answer says something about how you view time travel.
  • jsmith99jsmith99 Posts: 20,382
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    Ethel_Fred wrote: »
    There's a theory that the furthest you can go back in time is to the date the first time machine is built.

    Using the word "theory" in the loosest possible sense. Actually, it sounds more like an artificial constraint written into a science fiction story.
  • simysimy Posts: 1,498
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    Eurostar wrote: »
    Interestingly there don't appear to be any time travellers from the future in our midst (or has there ever been any sign of them) which would suggest that it never becomes possible.

    But you wouldn't know about them. If you take our version of history as it stands, there could have been all sorts of bad guys taken out, or horrific events prevented, and we wouldn't have a clue.
    Besides, if the time traveling assassins went public saying "Hey guys, we totally killed this dude Hitler. Trust us, he would have turned in to a major dickface. You're welcome" they would be locked up.
  • Mr DosMr Dos Posts: 3,637
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    xkcd on killing Hitler
    http://www.xkcd.com/1063/

    another on time travel
    http://www.xkcd.com/567/
  • Heston VestonHeston Veston Posts: 6,478
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    zwixxx wrote: »
    Imagine a lottery machine, like the Lotta one we have, but modified so that it took an hour from pressing the button until the machine 'spat out' the 6 lottery balls. And imagine time travel exists.

    It is 7pm on Saturday, button gets pressed, and at 8pm it kicks out 6 numbers. A man with a time travel machine writes these numbers down, gets in his machine and travels back to 7:05pm on the same Saturday. So he arrives AFTER the button has been pressed. And I'm assuming that the lottery machine is well-encased so was not affected by the arrival of the time traveller. Now, he has a slip of paper with 6 numbers on it, and my question is will the numbers that come out at 8pm be the same as the ones he has written down ????

    Well, yes, because he's going back to the same timeline.
  • MidnightFalconMidnightFalcon Posts: 15,016
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    Makes more sense than Terminator IV will!

    I loved that film.

    No seriously.
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