Help me understand time/time travel

Hi, I’m having trouble grasping the concept of time and time travel. I always related time back to molecular movement in the sense that there isn’t such thing as time, the only way to “go back in time” would be to reverse all movement. So for example, the atom(s) that just moved in to place to form my thought would go back a certain distance to where it was, thus going back to prior state of being.

Although, this doesn’t seem to be what is typically refered to as time travel, atleast I don’t think it is. Could anyone explain how time is conceptionalized? Or atleast any good reading material/resources?

Thanks.

Time is a quantifiable dimension. i.e. Time can be divided up into smallest units called a Planck Time.

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae281.cfm

The idea of a data array is really handy if you have ever done computer programming but if you haven’t here is a little eg.

If you have an array of 5 then you have 5 ordered boxes to put information in. I’ll represent a cell by “”.

You can put information in them like this:

[a]**[g]*[p]

So [1] would be = a
[3] would be = g etc…

We can also have 5x5 arrays… like this…

[q][w][o][m]
[h][h][v][m][o]
[s]
[f][z]
[p]*[s][f]
[s][l][p][o][n]

And if you can image you can have 5x5x5 in which case there would be 5 boxes going into your monitor making it a cube with 125 boxes.

A cube array can represent x-y-z (left/right-up/down-forward/backward) coordinates of bodies (particles etc)… So if we had an infinite cube you would be able to represent where every particle in the universe is. But this is for only 1 instant in time, one planck of time.

If you have an infinite array of cubes (like a (5x5x5)x5 array) then you can represent the position of all matter in the universe for every planck of time for eternity.

I’m saying that the progression of the universe is preordained. When you have a set of numbers (in this case an array of sets of numbers) there is always an equation to work out the next number. The same is true for the array of particles at every planck time. There is a mathematical equation for every planck of time to determine the position of all particles in the next planck of time. Therefore there must be a mathematical equation to determine the set of numbers that is the eternal array of particle positions.

Ahhaa, I hear you say… But how does one go back intime without breaking the preordainness of everything? Well, the equation for the eternal array of particle positions is not a constant, nor is it always eternal. If one was to go back in time, the planck you arrive back in time you have changed the future, and thus the future from the time that you left will never happen.

But if things were preordained then wouldn’t the equation state that time ends at the moment you go back in time? Yes that is true, it does. So there must be an equation which preordains at what positions in which time stream the equation for the eternal array of particle positions changes and what it changes too. This means there must be a hyper-time line, a time line that encompasses the changes of time and at what position in time the real time line changes. Here is a visual example:

Hyper-time line (numbers are the planck positions)
{1-2-3-4-5-6- 7 -8 -9 -10 -11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20 }
Real time line
{1-2-3-4-5-6}(4*-5*-6*-7 - 8 - 9}
Someone changed the time line at hyper-time planck 7 and resets it to real time to planck 4. The hyper-time equation would show that the real time equation would alter at this point in hyper-time.

Ok. I didn’t answer HOW you go back in time, I just answered, in my opinion what time was and what would happen if you went back or forth through it.

The best reference for any examination of time travel is Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction, by Paul J. Nahin.

It covers just about every attempt to look at the subject in physics, metaphysics and fiction. Fascinating reading.

The best evidence that time travel is impossible is that we have never met anyone from the future.:smiley:

Here is the definitive resource on time travel.