# Is there a flaw in this do-try-this-at-home time travel experiment? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 1, 2006, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554 "2006-02-01T19:32:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/21 "2006-02-01T23:51:52Z")
> [@charizard](#): > > … > I figure it’s been a flaw in time-travel stories, when they assume that the time machine will also automatically zip you back to the exact spot in the universe where the Earth was at that time. Yes, that is a flaw. But the flaw is in the stories themselves. From personal experience, I can tell you that there are actually TWO methods of time travel. 1. As you said. You go back in time, but not in space. So if you go back 200 years, you appear where the earth will be in 200 years, but hasn’t gotten there yet. You die. Horribly. 2. There is the L1D (Less-1-Dimension) method of time travel, which is used today. (Well, OK, MY today, a few hundred years upstream to you here. [Unless you’re reading this in the archives, of course]) Instead of going for a 4-dimensional rotation backtime, you leave the space coefficient out of it and do a 3-dimensional travel-back along your original timeline(space/time is “sticky” as S. Hawking XXII says). You pop out in the exact same location, but have followed the spacelike path whilst going back instead of divorcing yourself from it. And thusly, you arrive at the same location, where it WAS 200 years ago. The calculations are much simpler, too, and this is what has made it affordable to even average folk such as myself. P.S. I know this is GQ, and could be regarded as opinion or maybe a joke in 2006, but I did clear it with C. Dexter’s great-great-great-etc. grandson and she said it was OK to post, just don’t make a habit of it. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/22 "2006-02-02T01:14:59Z")
What do you mean, “if” ? Since [teleportation](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3811785.stm) is no longer fantasy, how far behind can time travel be? In fact, I believe in the aforementioned teleporting action, they did rewind the clock a fraction of a nano, but I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong, and I will be again. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/23 "2006-02-02T01:29:11Z")
While “predestination paradoxes” are not impossilbe in the sense that they don’t require a contradiction, I doubt they happen for the simple reason that the universe is _ **lazy** _. Given a choice between something happening and nothing happening, it will always do nothing. ---
**Author:** ![charizard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charizard/32/4166_2.png) [@charizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/charizard)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/24 "2006-02-02T01:34:39Z")
> [@LiveOnAPlane](#): > > 1. There is the L1D (Less-1-Dimension) method of time travel, which is used today… You pop out in the exact same location, but have followed the spacelike path whilst going back instead of divorcing yourself from it. And thusly, you arrive at the same location, where it WAS 200 years ago. OK, even in this event, I propose: 1. time travel is invented in your lifetime, AND it works as described above. But what you, intrepid future time traveller, forgot was that \*you \* are an illusion. You are merely a clever arrangement of atoms - and different atoms in the far future than you will be on 2006-02-09. So the time travel works, but the “you” that’s waiting on February 9th never knows it. You can’t see that seemingly-random molecules around the world were suddenly joined by duplicate atoms - duplicates of the atoms that would eventually come together to form the future you. ---
**Author:** ![postcards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8e8cbc/32.png) [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/25 "2006-02-02T02:48:45Z")
> [@LiveOnAPlane](#): > > P.S. I know this is GQ, and could be regarded as opinion or maybe a joke in 2006, but I did clear it with C. Dexter’s great-great-great-etc. grand **son** and **she** said it was OK to post, just don’t make a habit of it. (Bolding mine) Well, you’ve come a long way, baby! ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/26 "2006-02-02T03:03:06Z")
Perhaps the grandchild was channeling Dex. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/27 "2006-02-02T04:13:28Z")
I can’t stand the suspense. Could you move your destination date to January 9, 2006 so we’ll know how it all came out? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/28 "2006-02-02T04:20:58Z")
Somebody once pointed out that time travel is inherently unstable and self-cancelling. Imagine the entire continuum of history. Now imagine that time travel is easy. Every time anyone travels in time, they alter history in some manner, great or small. So history would constantly be changing. At some point, through the random shifting through millions of possible histories, the continuum would land on a history where time travel never happened. And once it landed there, it would stop because there would never be any further time travel or any further changes to history. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/29 "2006-02-02T04:41:21Z")
I could kill you, but then I’d have to tell you. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/30 "2006-02-02T05:29:46Z")
> [@Revenant Threshold](#): > > The prevention doesn’t have to be of the logical kind. If time travel is invented, how about a “time police” that stop us regular joes from jaunting back and informing our past selves of the future, chatting, and, say, giving the lottery numbers for the next few years. I’ve always wondered about this. What’s the problem with giving our past selves the winning numbers? We’d only split the jackpot with anyone who won by chance, plus the time-travelers who chose that day to win the Lotto. ---
**Author:** ![Baine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Baine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baine)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/31 "2006-02-02T06:12:41Z")
It seems to me that once time travel was invented you’d have time travellers popping up all over history, killing Hitler, saving Lincoln, and witnessing the crucifixion of Christ, among other things. Whenever you saw a huge crowd of time tourists show up, you should watch out, because something important is about to happen. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/32 "2006-02-02T09:43:35Z")
> [@charizard](#): > > 1. \*time \* travel is discovered within your lifetime, but by that time Earth has travelled eleventy-leven bajillion miles from the point it was at on that day, and \*space \* travel will not have gotten enough better by then to get you back. This assumes that there’s an absolute framework to the universe, an idea that modern science pooh-poohs. Somewhere I remember reading about something similar to the OP, except it was a party somewhere (Boston?) that time travellers were encouraged to attend. I imagine it got lots of pretenders, but I doubt any genuine time travellers showed up. ---
**Author:** ![Corrvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bbce88/32.png) [@Corrvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corrvin)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/33 "2006-02-02T10:00:41Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > I’ve always wondered about this. What’s the problem with giving our past selves the winning numbers? We’d only split the jackpot with anyone who won by chance, plus the time-travelers who chose that day to win the Lotto. How do we know that ALL Lotto winners aren’t time travelers (or haven’t gotten the numbers from them)? ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/34 "2006-02-02T11:22:58Z")
I was listening to the SETI “Are We Alone?” podcast a while back, and someone suggested a way around the Fermi paradox - a form of time travel where we set up wormholes to travel from point A to B. For example, if we set up a hole in Seoul and a hole in Atlanta, we could step into the hole and travel through space in a second. Same with time - we’d set up a hole in 2006 and a hole in 2010 and travel freely between the two. Obviously, in such a case we’d be unable to travel into the past before the invention of said wormholes. (It’s a pretty old podcast, but definitely worth listening to - you can find it on iTunes and it’s free. The episode about time was titled “Out of Time,” I think.) ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/35 "2006-02-02T14:47:13Z")
> [@postcards](#): > > (Bolding mine) > Well, you’ve come a long way, baby! Yes, not a typo…uptime folk change genders regularly. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/36 "2006-02-02T15:08:57Z")
The OP hints at the “proof” of why time travel is impossible - if it were possible, someone would have come back and pointed this out to us by now. Since no-one has, time travel will never be invented. Others have already pointed out some of the ways round this “argument”. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/37 "2006-02-02T16:07:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Cheap, practical time travel doesn’t have to be invented in your lifetime. All that’s needed is that time travel in some form be invented in your lifetime, and that cheap, practical time travel is eventually invented. Because if anyone ever invents expensive time travel, the first thing he’s going to do with it is to go to the future to get plans for a better time machine. Isn’t that a paradox of the “invention from nowhere”? You go into the future to steal an invention, bring it back to the past (er, present), and it turns out the person in the future you stole it from stole it from you in the first place. So nobody ever actually thought it up. This was done with a necklace (rather than an idea) in some movie that Mickey Dolenz (no kidding) directed called Time Rider or something like that. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/38 "2006-02-02T16:12:45Z")
How about the possibility of not traveling to the past, but viewing the past? Have a type of video camera that does not need to be there originally when an event takes place. Set it up on a tripod and hit rewind and it will scan all the molecules in an area and trace their movement backwards and show images of what has happened there. Great for solving crimes. Murder? Set up the camera and hit rewind till you see what happened. See if O.J. did it. See who shot JFK. Hit super rewind to view events through history. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/39 "2006-02-02T16:29:19Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > How about the possibility of not traveling to the past, but viewing the past? It has been [done.](http://www.hippocampuspress.com/other/praise_the_pleasures_of_a_futuroscope.html) ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554/40 "2006-02-02T16:46:12Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Mickey Dolenz (no kidding) directed Michael Nesmith (no kidding) wrote :o [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-flaw-in-this-do-try-this-at-home-time-travel-experiment/342554.md?page=3)