Back to the Future - Time Travel Possible?

admin

Retired Administrator
I noticed that Doc Brown's username is kind of related to this film and it kind of reminded me have great it was. I really enjoyed watching Christopher Lloyd and Michael J Fox running around and fixing time!

I think they are both great actors, and this was really the film that made them both into hollywood stars, although both had a roles in TV programmes and minor movie roles before.

Christopher Lloyd really does seem a zanny person in real life, all his films I have seen him in he is filled with life from The Adams Family and Back to the Future to Malcolm in the Middle's Family Reunion.

Coming back to Back to the Future, what do people think about time travel -- is it possible. Loads of films come up with intriguing ways in which it "could" happen - Back to the Future, Doctor Who, TimeCop -- there are countless numbers. Personally I am not sure, but one thing I am sure of is the "if" it were possible it would be really dangerous, and I think really we should ban any research into time travel - the consqeuences of it could be deadly. It would bring about a new kind of terrorism -- "killing people before they are born". I suppose if they could make it so they could see but not interact that would work. Any thoughts?
 

APK

New member
Thank you for starting this topic, admin! :D The Back to the Future films are my favourite movies!

Regarding time travel, I'm not sure whether it's possible or not. I would like to think it is, because I've always thought it would be great to travel back and visit the 60s or the 70s, or even the 50s, like Marty did in the first film. There's some speculation that Albert Einstein's theory of relativity would allow for time travel backwards in time, but not forwards in time, but I'm afraid I don't know much about that.

Regarding Chris Lloyd...I thought at first that he might be a very zany character in real life, but according to various interviews I've seen with people who've worked with him, he's actually not. According to the writers and directors of Back to the Future (Bob Zemeckis and Bob Gale) and several other people he's worked with, Chris is actually extremely shy and hardly ever does interviews because he doesn't really feel comfortable talking to people he doesn't know, about himself. They both remarked that he tends to be very quiet when on set, and Bob Zemeckis said that it took Chris until they had nearly finished the first movie to warm up to him enough to actually have conversations with him. I've read interviews where other people mention that it usually takes a couple of weeks or so for Chris to start talking to them. It's no snob thing - he's just shy. I can relate to that, since I'm a really shy person myself.
 

NeCoHo

Retired Mod
Ok, ths is like, my element here. Science Fiction. Now none of the books I read mention time travel in the near future(2500AD-3200AD) But one of them makes it possible in the year 5000AD, where the book takes place in 7012AD. Yet altering the time-space continum is posible in at least 2500AD.

In everyone of the Sci-fi books I read, interstellar/lightspeed travel requires a rip in the time-space continum. Even aliens need this rip in one book. Albert Einstien mentoned that lightspeed is possible, yet hard as we try, the T.S.C.(time-space continum) will not rip or seperate, persoally,I think elecro-magnets could help, only we need to find what makes a rip in the T.S.C. Blackholes? Wormholes? Dark matter?

It can't be wormholes, because wormholes are proven to take matter from one place to another, but maybe a wormhole is human for a rip in the T.S.C. Creating a wormhole generator perhaps?

Blackholes are a mystery, we THINK that it sucks in all matter, including light. We THINK that if a human were to get in, he/she would be in another dimension, in a very mixed up state, molocules get mixed up in a blackhole, so, you could have an arm for a leg, theroletically.

Dark matter is anti-matter. we are matter, dark matter is anti-matter. that's the only way I can explain it to myself, let alone you guys. anti-matter is a little bit like a magnet, ever hear of anti-matter propulsion modules? Maybe the stuff we need to open a rift in the T.S.C., which is matter, with anti-matter.

Next the quantam physicis. That is something I really don't understand, and neither does anyone else.

Did anyone get confused?
 

yardgames

Retired Administrator
Well said. Time is a fourth dimension we haven't figured out to access yet, in my opinion. I read a fascinating article about it a few years back. I tend to agree wtih everything J said, so I won't bother restating it. Well said.
 

admin

Retired Administrator
I always thought that if we were to go through a blackhole we would simply be stretched so much we would die as the gravity is so strong it can absorb light photons. I suppose it would be interesting thought to see whats on the other side of a blackhole - maybe someone will oneday :D
 

fps2k1

New member
well then you should be pleased that I've arrived :)
I'm studying physics at university and my main interest is cosmology.

I've read some stuff and attended seminars about time travel so I know a few things.

First things first. Is time travel possible?? Well, yes! We do it everyday, we travel into the future at the speed of 1 second per second.

We can travel slower into the future by moving faster (near the speed of light) according to the Theory of Relativity, and it has been proven correct (or else, among others, today we would not have GPS).

Now about traveling into the past. Some kinds of universes(like a rotating one) allow it as a natural thing but our universe is not like that(I can elaborate later by request)
Plus the Laws of Thermodynamics clearly create an arrow of time which cannot be reversed (entropy).

Philosophically travelling back in time raise some interesting paradoxes you already mentioned. If you could go back in time and kill you grandfather what would happen? With you granddaddy dead your dad would not be born and so you would'nt also!!!
Some physicists argue that this is exactly why time-travel is impossible. Others avoid the answer by saying that if time-travel is possible the traveler would go to a parallel dimension where he could change whatever he wants without affecting our own.
But the most interesting in my opinion is the 3rd option. Time-travel is possible to fulfill the past. let me try to explain: let's say some dumb guy wants to go back and tell Einstein that E=mc^2 before he reaches that conclusion. In this scenario if it's possible for this guy to do this then this was exactly what happened!!

Now about the vehicle itself I most say I was impressed by reading Kip Thorne's paper about time-travel and wormholes and finding out a very simple means to build a time machine (that is once we can open and control worm-holes).
By opening two wormhole mouths and then moving one of them at great speed and back again, according to Relativity (twins paradox) this mouth would be in a previous time zone. Thus if one enters in the mouth that never moved one would exit on the other mouth in the past. All 2 easy :p
 

admin

Retired Administrator
A superb post there fps2k1, its good to have someone in the field around, when we talk about these things.

It all sounds very complex to me, can you elborate on this rotating/non-rotating theory, it all sounds very interesting! :D
 

fps2k1

New member
thanks

well, back in Einstein's time ( the Golden Age of cosmology ;) ) there was some guy named Gödel who theorized that if the universe was rotating then the light cones would be curved thus allowing time-travel as a mere walk in the park (at ultra fast speeds of course).

the light cones represent the future and past of a certain event in a time-space diagram. as shown here: (x4 is the 4th dimension i.e. time)
litecone.gif


a point in the grey area know as future is a possible point in the path of particle p. the areas in white are not acessible because to reach those areas p would have to travel at faster-than-light speeds and that's a relativistic impossiblity.

but in a rotating universe the cones(the black lines in the picture) would be curved, like the blue cones in the following picture.
LightCone.gif

this would allow for a particle to actually "curve back in time" if it travels at enough speed.

the problem is according to observations (and the cosmological principle) our universe is not rotating...
 
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