Professor Predicts Human Time Travel This Century

PhysOrg.com ^ | 04 April 2006 | Lisa Zyga

[MeanWestTexan]

Yes, but only in another universe.

You travel back to an ALTERNATE version of here.

You change one time stream, settle the matter, but do nothing for us here.

Basically, exit ramp only, no on-ramp.

[Clioman]

It's easy to see them...when the earth finally arrives at the point in space-time that they traveled to (it's in the future, remember?), they make all those beautiful flashing trails across the sky. The ill-educated call them 'meteorites'...

[camle]

and you know it works because of all those people throughout history - at all the major events. you know? the ones dressed in strange clothing who appeared and then dissappeared right afterwards?

All them strangers interviewing Lincoln, Washington, etc... can't you see them in all the paintings/photos?

they MUST be there because if time travel was possible, then wouldn't people want to go back into time to witness great events, and meet important people?

[dhs12345]

Don't think they mean people traveling back in time. Just a method of communication. And it is limited to when the device is first turned on. Still, it might be a way to communicate with the future/past.

But then again, you run into the paradoxes -- what happens if you change the time line?

[American Quilter]

Where are all the time travelers?

Maybe they're here, but are prohibited from telling anyone. Maybe they're just observing.

If I travel to the past and change something, which then has the effect of preventing my parents from meeting, will the action I took still exist, since I'll never be born?

[MeanWestTexan]

"Okay... so where are all the time travellers?"

Sitting in their private islands, surrounded by lovely ladies, living off their brilliant stock picks.

[Bernard Marx]

While his team still needs funding for the project, Mallett calculates that the possibility of time travel using this method could be verified within a decade.

They're not here yet so he must not have gotten his funding.

[dfwgator]

"1.21 gigawatts! How am I gonna generate that kind of power?"

[MeanWestTexan]

"You could go back in time to the night Cynthia Mckinney was conceived and knock on her parents door to interrupt the mood."

Or just take their crack pipes.

That said, what a gift she is to Karl Rove.

[saganite]

You rang?

[steve-b]

If he can get it to the point of transmitting six two-digit numbers one day back in time, he'll have all the funding he needs to continue from there.

[el_texicano]

Dude!!! You're gonna rot your brain visitin' this site so much. ;->

[P-Marlowe]

All I need is a time machine that goes forward anywhere from one to five minutes and then returns. I would then need a way of smuggling the thing into a casino or race track. Maybe IPod will invent a pocket time machine.

[MeanWestTexan]

"Will travelers to the past be prohibited from speaking to anyone or doing anything, lest they change history?"

No, because they go to an alternative universe each time.

They may change some-other-us time stream, but not the one we are in.

[js1138]

...they MUST be there because if time travel was possible, then wouldn't people want to go back into time to witness great events, and meet important people?

Time travel to the future is a bit easier than travel to the past.

[null and void]

Okay... so where are all the time travellers?

I suspect that due to causality issues one cannot travel back to before time machines were invented...

[MeanWestTexan]

I had somewhat the same thought.

The Milky Way, the Sun within it, and the Earth are all moving at quite a clip.

Travel back in time, and you'd need to wait the amount of time you traveled for the Earth to catch up to you.

[DaGman]

Actually, the author lost me when he says energy and mass are the same thing immediately after saying E=mc². The formula says that Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared which does not mean energy and mass are the same thing.

I didn't read much of the article after that.

[T. P. Pole]

If time travel were possible, wouldn't we already know it?

Only if it doesn't require a baseline machine to be running already. It could be that time travel is possible only after the time the first time machine is started, and that traveling before that time is impossible.

[American Quilter]

No, because they go to an alternative universe each time. They may change some-other-us time stream, but not the one we are in.

Like that TV show about the college student experimenting in his basement, who catapulted himself into an alternate universe and then could never quite make it back. Lots of interesting possibilities there.

Let's catapult Ronnie Earle to another universe. In fact, let's make him the test subject.