A question about time travel.

[Rain Man]

I was just thinking about this. If you had a time machine, I imagine that you would have to do something to activate it: flip a switch, push a button, etc.

It takes some finite amount of time to push a button or flip a switch, and each person has a reaction time to do something like that, both in their mind and in their hands.

If you push a button to start your time machine, but you only go back in time for less than your reaction time, then you go back in time to the point where you're pushing the button, but you can't react fast enough to stop pushing the button. So you go back in time and then forward just enough to push the button and then back and then forward and back and forward and back and forward and you can't stop the process. So what happens?

Do you just look like you're completely motionless to an outside observer? Are you flickering? Can an outside observer break the cycle by simply moving your finger off the button? And if so, how does that actually occur? Or am I overthinking this and when you go back in time a millisecond, you actually just start out in Central Park while the past you is cranking out another you that lands right next to you in a different alternative universe?

[DMAC]

WOW

[Saulbadguy]

Most time travel machines can not traverse millseconds. And most can't travel back in time, only forward.

[Otter]

Most time travel machines can not traverse millseconds. And most can't travel back in time, only forward.

ROFL

I love when people argue over time travel; you can only go forward, if you can go back you can't change the past and so on and so forth.

I must be one of the unlucky ones who never had the opportunity to test those theories. Light was once considered only a wave.

We have no idea where our understanding lies in time travel. Deal with it.

[ck_IN]

Somebody has <b>way</b> too much time on their hands.

Where you at in Denver Rain Man? I plan to go to skiing in Keystone/Breck around April and need somebodies fridge to raid.

[ChiefaRoo]

Most time travel machines can not traverse millseconds. And most can't travel back in time, only forward.


Saul, how can you possibly think you know what your talking about? I mean you attended K-State and got your degree Animal Husbandry.

[oldandslow]

Most time travel machines can not traverse millseconds. And most can't travel back in time, only forward.

Parallel universes in different dimensions. Every action you take could lead to another universe.

Chaos theory rules.

[BucEyedPea]

Time doesn't really exist in reality.
It's an illusion.

Don't get me started RainMan as I believe in different planes of existence and reality.

Even if you wear cool shoes RM...you do not want to get me goin' here. :wink: :)

[Saulbadguy]

ROFL

I love when people argue over time travel; you can only go forward, if you can go back you can't change the past and so on and so forth.

I must be one of the unlucky ones who never had the opportunity to test those theories. Light was once considered only a wave.

We have no idea where our understanding lies in time travel. Deal with it.
I have only done it once. Safety not guaranteed.

[Rain Man]

Somebody has <b>way</b> too much time on their hands.

Where you at in Denver Rain Man? I plan to go to skiing in Keystone/Breck around April and need somebodies fridge to raid.

Actually, I only have a millisecondmillisecondmillisecondmillisecondmillisecondmillisecondmillisecond millisecondmillisecondmillisecondmillisecondmillisecondmillisecondmillisecond.

Stop on by when you travel through.

[chief2000]

Yes. Time is only used as a metric for motion.

Doesn't exist.

Going back in time is impossible and going forward in time when standing still is impossible unless your on the surface of a blackhole.

[Rain Man]

I don't understand any of the responses so far, and I don't think I even understand my original question.

[Donger]

And, there was a sound of thunder...

[Otter]

Yes. Time is only used as a metric for motion.

Doesn't exist.

Going back in time is impossible and going forward in time when standing still is impossible unless your on the surface of a blackhole.

Explain to me how YOU know this.

Steven Hawking, Albert Einstein and Issac Newton didn't know but you do. You my friend, are wasting your valuable time here.

....

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." (Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895)

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." (Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943)

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." (Ken Olsen, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977)

"The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." (Western Union internal memo, 1876)

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." (Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French commander of Allied forces during the closing months of World War I, 1918)

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" (David Sarnoff's associates, in response to his urgings for investment in radio in the 1920's)

"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." (New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work, 1921)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" (Harry M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927)

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." (Charles H. Duell, commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899)

[Lzen]

Time by Pink Floyd

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then the one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desparation is the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away, across the field, tolling on the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
And hear the softly spoken magic spell

[BucEyedPea]

Yes. Time is only used as a metric for motion.

Doesn't exist.

Excellent way of puttin' it!

It manifests itself through change. Guess that implies motion.
People see change...and we call that time.

[leviw]

Wonder if Uncle Rico took this into consideration...

[Lzen]

Take The Time by Dream Theater

"Hold it now...
wait a minute...
come on... whew..."

Just let me catch my breath...
I've heard the promises
I've seen the mistakes
I've had my fair share of tough breaks
I need a new voice, a new law, a new way
Take the time, reevaluate
It's time to pick up the pieces,
Go back to square one
I think it's time for a change

There is something that I feel
To be something that is real
I feel the heat within my mind
And craft new changes with my eyes
Giving freely wandering promises
A place with decisions I'll fashion
I won't waste another breath

[Chorus:]
You can feel the waves coming on
(It's time to take the time)
Let them destroy you or carry you on
(It's time to take the time)
You're fighting the weight of the world
But no one can save you this time
Close your eyes
You can find all you need in your mind

The unbroken spirit
Obscured and disquiet
Finds clearness this trial demands
And at the end of this day sighs an anxious relief
For the fortune lies still in his hands

If there's a pensive fear, a wasted year
A man must learn to cope
If his obsession's real,
Suppression that he feels must turn to hope

Life is no more assuring than love
(It's time to take the time)
There are no answers from voices above
(It's time to take the time)
You're fighting the weight of the world
And no one can save you this time
Close your eyes
You can find all that you need in your mind

I close my eyes
And feel the water rise around me
Drown in the beat of time
Let my senses fall away
I can see much clearer now, I'm blind

"Ora che ho perso la vista, ci vedo di piu."

Find all you need in your mind
If you take the time
Find all you need in your mind
If you take the time

[Lzen]

Got The Time by Anthrax (not sure who is the original composer)

Wake up,
got another day to get.
Through now,
got another man to see.
Gotta call him on the telephone, way-o.
Gotta find a piece of paper.
Sit down, got another letter to write.
Think hard,
gotta get a letter just right.
Little ringing on the telephone, wo no.
Gotta write another letter.

No such thing as tomorrow.
All we want...
(two three go!)
Got the time tick, tick, tickin' in my head.
Time!
Got the time tick, tick, tickin' in my head.
Time!......

If I tell you what i'm doing today,
will you shutup and get out of my way?
Someone asked me what the time is,
I don't know.
Only know I gotta go now.
No time,
tryin' to get a watch repaired.
No time, never got a thing to wear.
Little ringing on the telephone, wo no.
Hear a ringing in my head now......(to chorus

[Demonpenz]

i ususally don't know what the **** lyrics people are posting because it's ususally some b side acoustic rush song where getty lee was getting ass screwed by a donkey on the 72 world tour. but those lyrics were from pink floyd

[Eleazar]

Most time travel machines can not traverse millseconds. And most can't travel back in time, only forward.

From what I have read, people theorize that they can only go backward in time and not to the future, because the future doesn't exist yet.

[Frankie]

I was just thinking about this. If you had a time machine, I imagine that you would have to do something to activate it: flip a switch, push a button, etc.

It takes some finite amount of time to push a button or flip a switch, and each person has a reaction time to do something like that, both in their mind and in their hands.

If you push a button to start your time machine, but you only go back in time for less than your reaction time, then you go back in time to the point where you're pushing the button, but you can't react fast enough to stop pushing the button. So you go back in time and then forward just enough to push the button and then back and then forward and back and forward and back and forward and you can't stop the process. So what happens?

Do you just look like you're completely motionless to an outside observer? Are you flickering? Can an outside observer break the cycle by simply moving your finger off the button? And if so, how does that actually occur? Or am I overthinking this and when you go back in time a millisecond, you actually just start out in Central Park while the past you is cranking out another you that lands right next to you in a different alternative universe?

When I go home tonight, I'll test this on MY time machine and let you know.

[Rooster]

I was just thinking about this. If you had a time machine, I imagine that you would have to do something to activate it: flip a switch, push a button, etc.

It takes some finite amount of time to push a button or flip a switch, and each person has a reaction time to do something like that, both in their mind and in their hands.

If you push a button to start your time machine, but you only go back in time for less than your reaction time, then you go back in time to the point where you're pushing the button, but you can't react fast enough to stop pushing the button. So you go back in time and then forward just enough to push the button and then back and then forward and back and forward and back and forward and you can't stop the process. So what happens?

Do you just look like you're completely motionless to an outside observer? Are you flickering? Can an outside observer break the cycle by simply moving your finger off the button? And if so, how does that actually occur? Or am I overthinking this and when you go back in time a millisecond, you actually just start out in Central Park while the past you is cranking out another you that lands right next to you in a different alternative universe?

:hail: WOW I don't know where you come up with this stuff. I am floored.

[Frankie]

From what I have read, people theorize that they can only go backward in time and not to the future, because the future doesn't exist yet.
It does, if we exist in someone's past.

[Chief Chief]

Just remember the very reknowned and extremely astute Mick Jagger (more than) once sang:

"Time is on my side; yes it is!"

[Chief Chief]

Also keep in mind what the well-known philosophist Steve Miller (more than) once sang:

"Time keeps on slippin'..slippin'..slippin'..into the future..."

[greg63]

I was just thinking about this. If you had a time machine, I imagine that you would have to do something to activate it: flip a switch, push a button, etc.

It takes some finite amount of time to push a button or flip a switch, and each person has a reaction time to do something like that, both in their mind and in their hands.

If you push a button to start your time machine, but you only go back in time for less than your reaction time, then you go back in time to the point where you're pushing the button, but you can't react fast enough to stop pushing the button. So you go back in time and then forward just enough to push the button and then back and then forward and back and forward and back and forward and you can't stop the process. So what happens?

Do you just look like you're completely motionless to an outside observer? Are you flickering? Can an outside observer break the cycle by simply moving your finger off the button? And if so, how does that actually occur? Or am I overthinking this and when you go back in time a millisecond, you actually just start out in Central Park while the past you is cranking out another you that lands right next to you in a different alternative universe?


I think you may well have just stumbled on a quick and easy way to the cloning process.

[cheffz]

If you push a button to start your time machine, but you only go back in time for less than your reaction time, then you go back in time to the point where you're pushing the button, but you can't react fast enough to stop pushing the button. So you go back in time and then forward just enough to push the button and then back and then forward and back and forward and back and forward and you can't stop the process. So what happens?

Do you just look like you're completely motionless to an outside observer? Are you flickering? Can an outside observer break the cycle by simply moving your finger off the button? And if so, how does that actually occur? Or am I overthinking this and when you go back in time a millisecond, you actually just start out in Central Park while the past you is cranking out another you that lands right next to you in a different alternative universe?



i believe you described a temporal causality loop. since time is linear infinite (no true beginning or endpoint) you in essence are traveling to a specific point on the timeline. at that moment you are much like the backside of a photo, on one side is the image and the other side is blank. you would see yourself push the button but not be able to interact with yourself due to the fact that the causality loop would restart beforeyou could facilitate change. since you went back in time the loop would continue into infinity and you would then be stuck on the timeline much like a knot on an infinite length of thread. which would suck.....and yes i do sleep at holiday inn express

[Pitt Gorilla]

I have only done it once. Safety not guaranteed.
I almost want to positively rep you for that one. Push it to the limit...

[Rausch]

i believe you described a temporal causality loop. since time is linear infinite (no true beginning or endpoint) you in essence are traveling to a specific point on the timeline. at that moment you are much like the backside of a photo, on one side is the image and the other side is blank. you would see yourself push the button but not be able to interact with yourself due to the fact that the causality loop would restart beforeyou could facilitate change. since you went back in time the loop would continue into infinity and you would then be stuck on the timeline much like a knot on an infinite length of thread. which would suck.....and yes i do sleep at holiday inn express

Current M theory (11 dimensions) and unlimited universes states that you travel back to an alternate reality (which must be the case since in the timeline you have lived so far no one went back.)

Just you being there causes a change that leads you to/causes an alternate timeline.

http://searchsmb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid44_gci549055,00.html

[listopencil]

Hey, Rain Man. I'm going to assume that the time machine works instantaneously other than the reaction time you mentioned to "push the button". As in it takes time for you to push the button but travel is immediate when the button is depressed to a certain degree. The first time you travel back but only far enough to interrupt the first button push your travel stops. You replace the earlier you and since you have already pushed the button you wouldn't continue that motion. You would come to temporal rest with your body in the "I've already pushed the button" configuration. The End.

[listopencil]

Temporal rest sounds nice.

It is. I'm doing it right now.

[Hydrae]

i believe you described a temporal causality loop. since time is linear infinite (no true beginning or endpoint) you in essence are traveling to a specific point on the timeline. at that moment you are much like the backside of a photo, on one side is the image and the other side is blank. you would see yourself push the button but not be able to interact with yourself due to the fact that the causality loop would restart beforeyou could facilitate change. since you went back in time the loop would continue into infinity and you would then be stuck on the timeline much like a knot on an infinite length of thread. which would suck.....and yes i do sleep at holiday inn express

Wow, a member for over 3 years and this is your second post? I am going to have to go find your other post and see if it is anywhere near as insightful as this one.

You ought to join the fray a little more often. :)

[007]

Thanks for the headache. It is Friday night. We shouldn't have to think about things that hard. Good gawd man!!!

[cheffz]

Current M theory (11 dimensions) and unlimited universes states that you travel back to an alternate reality (which must be the case since in the timeline you have lived so far no one went back.)

Just you being there causes a change that leads you to/causes an alternate timeline.


i beg to differ, i disagree with current M theory because rainman is going to a specific place in time which is stationary. his intersection at the timeline with his second self is the arbitrary/alternative reality the M theory points to but the timeline is the point of reference. it has already happened. his second self is the arbitrary reality and hence is only a shadow to the object. the true image is him pushing the button.


god save the queen and our offense

[greg63]

Thanks for the headache. It is Friday night. We shouldn't have to think about things that hard. Good gawd man!!!


...And, I know about headaches.:banghead:

[007]

Anybody see Frequency? Not exactly time travel but in interesting concept nontheless.

[cheffz]

frequency is a tight movie. anyone heard "what's the freqency Kenneth" by rem and the shear shittle shat by Dan Rather? hard little poop nuggets the bastage unloaded. that had Len Dawson stank on it

[Miles]

I tend to understand Dave Attell's version of time travel.

[Miles]

Red Bull vodka is an evil, evil concoction. From what I'm told I had a lot of fun, though.

Usually when I start ordering that at a bar it tends to go downhill from there but I hardly think that at the time. Lots of Jager and red bull can lead to the same results but even more so.

[cheffz]

someone should do a Griggs instead o a priceChopper:
how about a titty bar?

"it's a rreeall gooood time"

or slather them oop and watch youse looooose moooney.

I wish Griggs was the only voice of the Chiefs . farg : my reqest the rest of Herm time-----get the unholy hell of Dawson out. dig up the past with every play and refuse to stop beating the horse--- buttnugget Lenny10

[cheffz]

seriously---she teaches 1st grade and SHE DRIVES A BUS.....

can i pick em or what? wanna know the farged messup?

[Pants]

From what I have read, people theorize that they can only go backward in time and not to the future, because the future doesn't exist yet.

Supposedly, if you go fast enough relative to everyone else, they will age faster than you. So say you go around the earth at the speed of light for 10 years, by the time you land, the time on Earth would have progressed 20 years ahead (made up numbers). That's pretty much traveling into the future. The only bad thing is that there's no way back.

[cheffz]

Supposedly, if you go fast enough relative to everyone else, they will age faster than you. So say you go around the earth at the speed of light for 10 years, by the time you land, the time on Earth would have progressed 20 years ahead (made up numbers). That's pretty much traveling into the future. The only bad thing is that there's no way back.


quite right look at all the Back to the future flicks all of it turned to madness




by the way my avatar is too big....

[Moooo]

Here's the problem, dude. As you approach the speed of light, time slows down... but, your mass approaches infinity (hence my earlier apparently unfunny joke about time travel making you fat)

Figure out a way to prevent yourself from breaching infinite mass, and you can go backwards.... well, assuming you know how to accelerate yourself beyond the speed of light, of course.

I can do it, I'm pretty skinny... :)

Moooo

[greg63]

Anybody see Frequency? Not exactly time travel but in interesting concept nontheless.

Great show!

[Hog Rider]

The reaction time does not apply to the physical body, rather the mind. The physical body would experience the time shift instantly. Unfortunately your mind would be in a lag behind the body. Your body would make the trip, but your mind, soul, thoughts, or whatever, would be left forever stranded bodyless in the present reality!

I think that is where I am now, but how can one be sure - if we never really experience the present, due to the inherent following error caused by reaction time.

[patteeu]

Explain to me how YOU know this.

Steven Hawking, Albert Einstein and Issac Newton didn't know but you do. You my friend, are wasting your valuable time here.

....

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." (Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895)

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." (Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943)

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." (Ken Olsen, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977)

"The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." (Western Union internal memo, 1876)

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." (Marshal Ferdinand Foch, French commander of Allied forces during the closing months of World War I, 1918)

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" (David Sarnoff's associates, in response to his urgings for investment in radio in the 1920's)

"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." (New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work, 1921)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" (Harry M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927)

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." (Charles H. Duell, commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899)

Awesome. :thumb:

[Calcountry]

Time doesn't really exist in reality.
It's an illusion.

Don't get me started RainMan as I believe in different planes of existence and reality.

Even if you wear cool shoes RM...you do not want to get me goin' here. :wink: :)I had this profound thought once when I was totally 3 sheets to the wind.

The origin of reality, coordinates 0,0,0 is in the center of your brain, and everthing else is a rectangle, trapezoid, etc. When you talk, or interact with onother reality, your rectangles intersect at some point, the collective reality that you share with whomever would be the total area of the intersection of the rectangles.

It was all mathematically sound, really.

[sdbound]

So if you're in a vehicle travelling at the speed of light and you turn on the headlights, would anything happen?

[Sure-Oz]

I heard britney spears thinks time travel is possible, esp high while eating greasy food..

[Rain Man]

I would've figured Rain Man to be too vain for time travel. It makes you fat, you know.

Egad! I've time traveled and didn't know it!

[Dark Horse]

I once drank a whole fifth of tequila and then told this big bouncer that I was gonna whip his ass if he didn't leave me alone and let me enjoy my drunken stupor then I time traveled a whole 16 hours.

[JOhn]

yes..


I think

:hmmm:

[Hydrae]

yes..


I think

:hmmm:

Whoa, time travel really does work. Someone went back and found JOhn!

[JOhn]

Whoa, time travel really does work. Someone went back and found JOhn!
ROFL

[listopencil]

So if you're in a vehicle travelling at the speed of light and you turn on the headlights, would anything happen?

The light degrades into heat and burns out the bulb.

[milkman]

The light degrades into heat and burns out the bulb.

I was thinking you would be able to see the light behind you.

[Hammock Parties]

I still subscribe to the back to the future theory. You should be able to set time AND location. Just don't run into your past self, or you go insane.

[rad]

I still subscribe to the back to the future theory. You should be able to set time AND location. Just don't run into your past self, or you go insane.


Actually, it would create anti-matter, which would cause a cataclysmic explosion and rip a hole in the universe.