Time travel could be possible ... in the future

[abdulhakeem]

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
08/08/2007

It may take more than a nuclear-powered De Lorean or a spinning police box, but time travel could actually be a possibility for future generations, according to an eminent professor of physics.


How the machine works (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/09/ntime109.xml)
When would the rich and famous travel to? (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/09/ntime309.xml)
Your view: Where would you go if you had a functioning time machine? (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/09/view09.xml)


Prof Amos Ori has set out a theoretical model of a time machine which would allow people to travel back in time to explore the past.

The way the machine would work rests on Einstein’s theory of general relativity, a theory of gravity that shows how time can be warped by the gravitational pull of objects.

Bend time enough and you can create a loop and the possibility of temporal travel.

Prof Ori’s theory, set out in the prestigious science journal Physical Review, rests on a set of mathematical equations describing hypothetical conditions that, if established, could lead to the formation of a time machine, technically known as “closed time-like curves.”

In the blends of space and time, or spacetime, in his equations, time would be able to curve back on itself, so that a person travelling around the loop might be able to go further back in time with each lap.

In the past, one of the major challenges has been the alleged need for an exotic material with strange properties - what physicists call negative density - to create these time loops.

“This is no longer an issue,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“You can construct a time machine without exotic matter,” he said.

It is now possible to use any material, even dust, so long as there is enough of it to bend spacetime into a loop.

Even though Prof Ori, of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, believes his new work strengthens the possibility of a real Tardis, he would not speculate on when a time machine would be built, or even if it would ever be possible.

“There are still some open questions.”

The main remaining issue is the stability of space time, the very fabric of the cosmos, in time travel scenarios.

But overcoming this obstacle may require the next generation of theory under development, called quantum gravity, which attempts to blend general relativity with the ideas of the quantum theory, the mathematical ideas that rule the atomic world.

Time travel has long been a fascination, HG Wells grappled with the scientific issues in his 1895 science fiction classic, The Time Machine, Dr Who is still fighting the time war and Hollywood insisted all that was needed for time travel was a De Lorean and a good flash of lightning.

But more serious work on general relativity first raised the astonishing possibility of time travel in the 1940s.

In the half century since, many eminent physicists have argued against time travel because it undermines ideas of cause and effect to create paradoxes so that a time traveller could go back to kill his grandfather so that she is never born in the first place.

In 1990, the world’s best known scientist, Prof Stephen Hawking proposed a “chronology protection conjecture”, which flatly says the laws of physics disallow time machines.

Three years later, Prof Ori concluded that the possibility of constructing a time machine from conventional materials could not be ruled out.

Prof Hawking then fought back with his Cambridge University colleague Michael Cassidy and they concluded that time loops are extremely unlikely.

Tongue in cheek, Prof Hawking added that there is experimental evidence that time travel doesn’t exist: “We have no reliable evidence of visitors from the future. (I’m discounting the conspiracy theory that UFOs are from the future and that the government knows and is covering it up. Its record of cover-ups is not that good.)”

But now, in Physical Review, Prof Ori has provided some more advanced solutions to the problems of time travel outlined by the likes of Prof Hawking, helping to realise an idea that dates back millennia and appears in 18th century literature, Harry Potter, D*ckens, sci-fi movies and much more besides.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml;jsessionid=5RSNXVKCJKNMXQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQ UIV0?xml=/earth/2007/08/08/scitime108.xml

[Saadet]

There is an American scientist working on such a project as well, but he states (quite correctly from a scientific point of view, as I understand it) that even if he achieves his goal of time travel, one could only travel as far back as when the machine itself was created, no further.

Has anyone ever read The Time Machine? It's a very good book, the end, where he travels to the distant, distant future is very evocative.

[BintIzzet]

Selamun Aleikum,

I dunno but it is really hard for me to believe that sth like time travelling will be possible ever...What dou you think?

Slm

[Kal-El]

If it was possible, it would change the world. Truths would come out. But it's also very dangerous, you can change the past (and change the future as a result).

[THE PATH 2]

time travel will never be possible

if it was ..people from the future would be coming back

making it possible from the year dot

think about it

[Phoenix CG]

If it was possible, it would change the world. Truths would come out. But it's also very dangerous, you can change the past (and change the future as a result).


:smack::smack::smack:@)

[Te'oma]

According to the article, it mentions travelling back in time but can you move forward too?

[mizfissy815]

Never gonna happen.

[abdulhakeem]

Time travellers from the future 'could be here in weeks'

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
06/02/2008

The first time travellers from the future could materialise on Earth within a few weeks.

Physicists around the world are excitedly awaiting the start up of the £4.65 billion Large Hadron Collider, LHC - the most powerful atom-smasher ever built - which is supposed to shed new light on the particles and forces at work in the cosmos and reproduce conditions that date to near the Big Bang of creation.

Prof Irina Aref'eva and Dr Igor Volovich, mathematical physicists at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow believe that the vast experiment at CERN, the European particle physics centre near Geneva in Switzerland, may turn out to be the world's first time machine, reports New Scientist.

The debut in early summer could provide a landmark because travelling into the past is only possible - if it is possible at all - as far back as the point of creation of the first time machine.

That means 2008 could become "Year Zero" for temporal travel, they argue.

Time travel was born when Albert Einstein's colleague, Kurt Gödel, used Einstein's theory of relativity to show that travel into the past was possible.

Ever since he unveiled this idea in 1949, eminent physicists have argued against time travel because it undermines ideas of cause and effect to create paradoxes: a time traveller could go back to kill his grandfather so that he is never born in the first place.

But, sixty years later, there is still no fundamental reason why time travellers cannot put historians out of business.

But the Russians argue that when the energies of the LHC are concentrated into a subatomic particle - a trillionth the size of a mosquito - they can do strange things to the fabric of the universe, which is a blend of space and time that scientists called spacetime.

While Earth's gravity produces gentle distortions in spacetime the LHC energy can distort time so much that it loops back on itself. These loops are known to physicists as "closed timelike curves" and they ought, at least in theory, to allow us to revisit some past moment.

The scheme chimes with one laid out in 1988, when Prof Kip Thorne and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, showed that wormholes, or tunnels through spacetime, would allow time travel, a scheme popularised by Carl Sagan in his novel - made into a film - Contact.

Prof Aref'eva and Dr Volovich believe the LHC could create wormholes and so allow a form of time travel. "We realised that closed timelike curves and wormholes could also be a result of collisions of particles," Prof Aref'eva says.

There are still plenty of obstacles for the likes of Dr Who, however. Not least of them is the fact that these are mini wormholes, so only subatomic particles are small enough to travel through them.

They tell The Daily Telegraph that whether subatomic time travel in the LHC would open the doors for human scale time travellers "is a deep and interesting question" but stress that "these problems, and many others as well, require further investigations."

Probably the best we can hope for is that the LHC may show a signature of the wormholes' existence, Dr Volovich says. If some of the energy from collisions in the LHC goes missing, it could be because the collisions created particles that have travelled into a wormhole and through time.

One sticking point until now for wormhole concepts is finding an exotic kind of material capable of keeping the maw of the wormhole open for time travel.

Dark energy - a mysterious antigravity force that is thought to pervade the universe - could, they say, be just what is needed to keep the entrance to a wormhole open, at least according to one family of ideas about its nature, where it is called phantom energy.

If a blend of colliding particles and phantom energy does create a wormhole in Geneva this year, an advanced civilisation could find it in their history books, pinpoint the moment, and take advantage of their technology to pay us a visit.

"The observational evidence still allows for phantom energy," says Robert Caldwell, a physicist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. "As for Aref'eva and Volovich's speculation that the LHC will produce the stuff of time machines - ugh!"

A leading scientist who believes that time travel may be possible, Prof David Deutsch of Oxford University, comments: "It's speculative in the extreme, but not cranky. For various reasons I don't think the mechanism they propose would work (i.e. provide a pathway for messages from the future) even if their speculations are true."

Dr Brian Cox of the University of Manchester adds: "The energies of billions of cosmic rays that have been hitting the Earth's atmosphere for five billion years far exceed those we will create at the LHC, so by this logic time travellers should be here already. If these wormholes appear I will personally eat the hat I was given for my first birthday before I received it."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/06/scitime106.xml

[Raziel]

Time Travel may be Possible, but it will not be Permissible, as this would allow people to change the Future, and cause Havoc, Our Pasts which have been mentioned may not even happen if someone changes this known "Past" ... such chaos will not be Permissible by Allah Ta'ala, also if this is allowed People would be able to commit Gross Indecencies and corruptions and then go back in time to change it so it didn't happen ... :rubeyes:

:jkk: to the Muslims, and all those who sincerely seek the Truth. we aught to abstain from indulging such worthless posts ...

[Arrakis]

I hope this is true in my lifetime, I would go back to see whether any of the miracles, ever really happened, once and for all.

[abdulhakeem]

I hope this is true in my lifetime, I would go back to see whether any of the miracles, ever really happened, once and for all.
it seems you wont be able to go back very far by now:

... The debut in early summer could provide a landmark because travelling into the past is only possible - if it is possible at all - as far back as the point of creation of the first time machine.

That means 2008 could become "Year Zero" for temporal travel, they argue...

[Arrakis]

That makes no sense, but either way it would be a pretty boring time to come back to. :(

[Qiyas]

Time Travel (according to certain definition) has already taken place, and by a certain Muslim...;)

[hkrespect]

The Noble Qur'an

[abdulhakeem]

Time Travel may be Possible, but it will not be Permissible, as this would allow people to change the Future, and cause Havoc, Our Pasts which have been mentioned may not even happen if someone changes this known "Past" ... such chaos will not be Permissible by Allah Ta'ala, also if this is allowed People would be able to commit Gross Indecencies and corruptions and then go back in time to change it so it didn't happen ... :rubeyes:

:jkk: to the Muslims, and all those who sincerely seek the Truth. we aught to abstain from indulging such worthless posts ...interesting thesis, lets assume it would be possible to travel in time: would it not be the will of Allah?

[Um Abdullah]

how could any Muslim believe in this??

The past has passed and it doesn't exist anymore, and the future has not happened yet.

[Ibn Al-Jarrah]

If time travel was ever possible, we would have had a visit by now:up:

[Rosalie-Beauty]

If I could travel back in time, I would go back to the Prophet (SAW) time and stay.

[GuCcI]

There is an American scientist working on such a project as well, but he states (quite correctly from a scientific point of view, as I understand it) that even if he achieves his goal of time travel, one could only travel as far back as when the machine itself was created, no further.

Has anyone ever read The Time Machine? It's a very good book, the end, where he travels to the distant, distant future is very evocative.


oh yeah why is saadet banned :rubeyes:

[Baybars]

I don't believe time travel is possible. If time travel is possible in the future then it would possible in the present, because the machine would be able to transcend time, and function at any point within the space time continuum.

Also, if such a machine were to exist, and time travel was possible, what would happen to the machine as it approached 13.7 billion years ago, towards the time of the big bang. Would it be able to go further back then that? Probably not in this universe. Would the machine just cease to exist?

I don't believe it's possible, but it does make for an interesting read.

[sis_niqabi]

Salam

i don't believe time travel is possible. even if it is we cannot change anything. Allah says that every thing is written down before we are even born. therefore we cannot fight destiny. nor can we change the past of future because it's been already written for us

[Qiyas]

:salams

Ok people, what are all your definitions of Time Travel ?

:jkk:

:salams

[Bizza]

Science has gone badly wrong...grossly!
It just isn't possible and it's all got to do with folding something called "space-time" which is somewhat elusive because space is merely nothingness (even though I don't believe in such a thing), and time has no substance either. They're both intangible to reality. Time is merely an oscillation of an object relative to another object within that "empty" space. Space can curve (apparently) but that's due to gravitational effects and the light coming to us also distorts, making us "believe" that we are distorted along with time. This interpretation of science needs to be re-studied, re-formed and re-discovered in another way. I deeply believe we have got things really...really wrong!

[Joha]

Science has gone badly wrong...grossly!
It just isn't possible and it's all got to do with folding something called "space-time" which is somewhat elusive because space is merely nothingness (even though I don't believe in such a thing), and time has no substance either. They're both intangible to reality. Time is merely an oscillation of an object relative to another object within that "empty" space. Space can curve (apparently) but that's due to gravitational effects and the light coming to us also distorts, making us "believe" that we are distorted along with time. This interpretation of science needs to be re-studied, re-formed and re-discovered in another way. I deeply believe we have got things really...really wrong!

eh? Can't figure out what you're on about :rolleyes:

Some of you need to do a course in General Relativity - believe me, you should try, it's not all that hard.

[Bizza]

eh? Can't figure out what you're on about :rolleyes:

Some of you need to do a course in General Relativity - believe me, you should try, it's not all that hard.
ummm... I think I already have mate. If you can't figure out what I'm "on about", perhaps read up a bit more as to what "space" and "time" really are instead of being condescending. Maybe you need to look into it further? BTW, read up on Stephen Hawking's lectures and maybe even read a bit about Quantum mechanics perhaps. It's not just about relativity. I have already had a valid debate regarding this with Dante and he still hasn't responded. He has vanished!

[Mikha’eel]

Even if it is possible, its unlikely it'll happen in our lifetimes. Perhaps in 1000's if not millions of years time, provided the Human race still exists then.

Time travel in anycase, would be a very dangerous thing.

[sultanX]

:salams
Have you ever read Stephen Hawking's book, a Brief History of Time? If not, I highly recommend it.

Anyways, in it, he discusses the possibility of time travel. I read it a while ago so I may be a bit wrong but basically he says that it would perhaps be possible if the universe is very chaotic. However, evidence heavily suggests that the Big Bang went very smoothly and the universe is subhanallah, very uniform and ordered. Because of that, it isn't possible.

Since I read it a while ago I don't remember exactly why it isn't possible and he doesn't go into much depth. I do have the book and could read it over again if you'd like.
:jkk:

[Bizza]

:salams
Have you ever read Stephen Hawking's book, a Brief History of Time? If not, I highly recommend it.

Anyways, in it, he discusses the possibility of time travel. I read it a while ago so I may be a bit wrong but basically he says that it would perhaps be possible if the universe is very chaotic. However, evidence heavily suggests that the Big Bang went very smoothly and the universe is subhanallah, very uniform and ordered. Because of that, it isn't possible.

Since I read it a while ago I don't remember exactly why it isn't possible and he doesn't go into much depth. I do have the book and could read it over again if you'd like.
:jkk:
Selam akhi,

Unfortunately, S. Hawking didn't say time travel would be possible in his book. He merely fine-tuned Einstein's Theory of Reletavity by eliminating time from the universe to fit the idea but this didn't fit with reality. He stated many times and vehemently, that this theory is wrong by stating things like, "If you could have Time Travel, wouldn't they already be here telling us about it?".

If you read the thread starter it also states:

In 1990, the world’s best known scientist, Prof Stephen Hawking proposed a “chronology protection conjecture”, which flatly says the laws of physics disallow time machines.

Three years later, Prof Ori concluded that the possibility of constructing a time machine from conventional materials could not be ruled out.

Prof Hawking then fought back with his Cambridge University colleague Michael Cassidy and they concluded that time loops are extremely unlikely.

Tongue in cheek, Prof Hawking added that there is experimental evidence that time travel doesn’t exist: “We have no reliable evidence of visitors from the future. (I’m discounting the conspiracy theory that UFOs are from the future and that the government knows and is covering it up. Its record of cover-ups is not that good.)”

Now the problem I see here is very simple... we just don't understand what time and space really are. We use them as a trestle board to measure objects and forces in the universe, but do they actually pocess substance? No. That's why I was trying to state earlier that science has somehow got this wrong. We need to re-evaluate and re-define what space and time are.

Selam.:)

[abdulhakeem]

Ultimate gadget: time machines are here now?

Particle collider could create black holes and wormholes

11 Feb 2008
By J. Mark Lytle

Adventurous travellers might want to mark this May in their diaries as the dawn of the age of time travel - at least that's what a team of Russian scientists are suggesting could happen (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg19726421.700-2008-does-time-travel-start-here.html).

The trigger that might just herald the arrival of the first time travellers and, thus, the first usable time machines will be the inauguration of a research facility in Switzerland dedicated to smashing and understanding the building blocks of matter.

Near light speed

The Large Hadron Collider (http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/) (LHC), run by CERN (http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Welcome.html), will deliberately collide sub-atomic particles that are traveling around a 27km loop at close to the speed of light. The goals of the scientists working on the project include filling many gaps in our understanding of physics, but there are suggestions that the LHC could create miniature black holes and wormholes in space-time.

Russian mathematicians Irina Aref'eva and Igor Volovich from Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow suggest that there's an outside possibility that such wormholes could be the key to a future civilisation understanding time travel. Naturally, once their time machines were built, travelling back to when it all started would have obvious appeal to them.

Grandfather clause?

The fact that we've never seen time travellers yet simply underlines that moving back through time would be possible only as far back as the creation of the first time machine - and that could be the LHC.

Whether or not our worldview is about to be turned upside-down in a few weeks is anybody's guess, but the scientists are saying that we should at least be ready for the possibility of meeting our great, great grandchildren a little early.


http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/future-tech/ultimate-gadget-time-machines-are-here-now-225895

[Khuram_2k?]

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

[nadzz]

Salaam can't happen Inshallah ALLAH knows better.

[Al-Farooq]

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

What was the point of making that "comment"?

If the subject doesn't interest you, just ignore it.

It really is that simple.

No need for childish outbursts or tantrums, no need to make yourself look rather petulant, immature and just plain silly....and no need for fastidious old duffers like me to have to point out the blatantly obvious.

*walks off mumbling incoherently about the youth of today*

[Raziel]

interesting thesis, lets assume it would be possible to travel in time: would it not be the will of Allah?

Akhi if the Conditions and the Capability is given to us by ALlah Ta'ala then Certainly it would be possible ...

but if Allah Ta'ala allowed it, then the consequences imply that "Sins can be erased" as people would be able to go back in time and change their decisions (after they have already committed Indecencies ) causing that Sin (done in the Future) to not have existed in the First place ...

therefore I don't believe that Allah Ta'ala will permit us to go back in time and cause such Havoc, and Play with peoples live and start all over with a Clean slate repeatedly ..

:jkk:

[Khuram_2k?]

What was the point of making that "comment"?

If the subject doesn't interest you, just ignore it.

It really is that simple.

No need for childish outbursts or tantrums, no need to make yourself look rather petulant, immature and just plain silly....and no need for fastidious old duffers like me to have to point out the blatantly obvious.

*walks off mumbling incoherently about the youth of today*

maybe you didnt understand the 'comment'
it means its all jibberish and it will never happen ;)

[Al-Farooq]

maybe you didnt understand the 'comment'
it means its all jibberish and it will never happen ;)

Of course it does, you rascal...:rolleyes:

Perhaps next time you could "decode" your subtle comments for us old fogies who aren't up with the latest ghetto jive?

D'yaget me, bruv? D'yaknaworram sayin' laak? (Warning : old person attempting ghetto-speak. Stand well clear. May involve spitting)