Proof that Time Travel is possible (and in fact is being done): If (as some scientists postulate) time is a continuum, and can be traversed just as any of the physical dimensions, then logically, we should be visited by beings from the future. If you analyze history, you will find that this has in fact happened. Who are these visitors? For the most part, they are the personalities that seem to rise up out of nowhere, and lead nations into greatness or calamity. Take Napoleon Bonapart for example. His rise (from an obscure lieutenant of artillery, in the army of Louis XVI) is nothing but spectacular-he had no connection with the nobility, no social connections, etc. Yet, he rose to become the emperor of France, and toppled many of the ruling houses of Europe. The philosopher Hegel considered him the avatar of a new age. Clearly, he was not of his time-my guess is that he was sent from the future, to effect a change in history-probably Europe would have stagnated without him. My guess is that the future people (our descendents) are continually seeking to refine their world, and to do this, they periodically send people back to alter history. So what we see as disasters are in fact the beneficent hand of future generations. This also explains the phenomenon of geniuses like Mozart, who were child prodigies-he was probably a musician from the future. How can this theory be proven? I don’t know, I leave to you!
Where’s the question? Your “proof” is also quite faulty. If person X seems to be “ahead of his time” because of unconventional behavior or accomplisments he must actually be from the future. That don’t play here, it wouldn’t even play on a junior high school debate team. It doesn’t belong in general questions. Moderator?
<sigh> and I had such hopes for you.
I’ve already answered this next week.
EG, you do realize that Napoleon Bonaparte’s birth and childhood in 18th century Corsica as well as the prior existense of several generations of his family are all well-documented historical fact? Same for Mozart (well, except for the Corsica part). These men may have relatively humble origins, but they did not appear from nothing.
And how does this explain Shirley McClaine?
egkelly:
I’ve come back in time to tell you we’re holding your grandfather hostage. Don’t make us do something that you won’t be around to regret.
Note to past self: Watch out for snakes.
Thanks for the warning. So how are you…excuse me, how am I doing?
Great great grandson checking in. Next stop, the soul of Cecil.
We’re doing great, now that we saved Sarah Michelle Gellar from that venomous snake.
She says, “Hi, ya big stud.”
Stephen Hawking believes that it is possible for singular particles to travel back in time, but no organized particular masses. Maybe your brain, therefore, has been in the 15th Century, egkelly!
Even if your scenario were possible, it wouldn’t be a very smart thing to do. If you sent someone back in time to change the past, and that person were successful, the result would be a change of your present. What would change? Who knows… You may not even have been born, or you may create a present that is worse than what you are trying to fix. Perhaps the newly created present wouldn’t have time travel capability, so you couldn’t fix the new problem (that is assuming you even knew something had changed). This is a very simplified possible outcome to time travel, but its intent is to just illustrate that even if you could do it, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to try it.
This theory doesn’t pass the common sense test. If you could go back in time, the smart thing to do would be to go forward, first. Jump ahead. Figure out what to invest in. What positions to take to insure a rise to power, etc… Make sure you don’t meet with any unfortunate accidents. Then you jump back to your own time and make all the right decisions. That way you never have to worry about accidentally tripping the guy who would have saved your great grandfather from that run away stage coach, had he not been tripped by some careless and strangely dressed fool.
Somebody wants to get their hands on that Sports Alamanac from Back to the Future II. Better hurry up, 'cause it was dated 1950-2000.
Go rent Time Cop. Cool movie!
Personally, There’s one particular point in time I’d like to travel back to…
Oh Purplebear, if I’d only known…
VB
Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well.
I agree, Time Cop. Cool movie! As for the rest, going backwards in time is so fraught with danger it would be ludicrous to even try, for all the reasons already mentioned by others.
<VB, 'fonly…>
You sing in my consciousness like a counterpoint to my life.
L.L.
one of the laws of physics states that matter cannot be created or destroyed. by time traveling, both points of that law are broken.
when one travels back or foward in time, they leave their current point in time, thus destoying matter, and upon entering their new point in time, they are creating matter.
Vestal Blue & purplebear,
One problem with Time Cop: How come sometimes, he can travel back in time to the exact position he needs to be (materializes in the 10th story office of the bad guy), and sometimes he has no control at all (falls 30 feet into the East River or in front of a speeding truck)?
Other than that, great movie!!
No.
Rather than proving time travel to be impossible, your ‘law’ presumes time travel to be impossible. It is all a matter of semantics.
For example, your ‘law’ ignores the concept of converting matter to (or from) energy. Once we have accepted the idea and matter and energy are interchangable, you are forced to reword your law to say that “the sum total of matter and energy cannot be increased or reduced.”
Similarly, if time travel is a proven reality, we will have to rephrase it to be something like “the sum total of matter and energy across all time cannot change; it can leave on time provided it reenters the continuum at another point.”
Or womething like that.
The OP sounds a lot like a SF book series by Simon Hawke, called Time Wars. “The Ivanhoe Gambit”, “The Pimpernel Plot”, and “The Nautilus Sanction” are some of the books in the series. The basic premise is that time travelers go back in history and fight their wars in the past, as characters from historical fiction.
Time Travel, yeah right.
BTW: Who is Napoleon Bonapart & when was France.
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