madmaximus
Temporal Novice
Hi everyone, I am a new member with a simple question on time travel, and perhaps some of you can answer it for me.
If one day a time machine was invented, something simple for my example, let's say a cylinder, I won't get into the mechanics of how it works, because obviously, I didn't invent it and would have no clue as to how it was made. Perhaps a large contraption with all the innerworkings of the time machine, but the very part that let's objects pass back in time is a cylinder, like a tin can with both top and bottom removed. If such a thing were set to pass an object back in time 10 minutes, and as an experiment we dropped a single ping-pong ball into the top at 15 minutes, then at 5 minutes into our experiment we should see the ping-pong ball drop out the bottom of the cylinder onto the ground, even though of course we still have the ping-pong ball in our hand and have not dropped it in yet, waiting for the 15 minute mark to come so we can then drop it in. And I won't get into some argument on a paradox if, let's say the ball dropped out at 5 minutes and moment's later I threw the original ball out the window so that it had no chance of passing back 10 minutes in time. If the ball dropped out of the bottom of the cylinder at 5 minutes, then obviously I dropped it into the top of the cylinder at 15 minutes so it could pass back in time.
Would this constitute a working time machine?
If one day a time machine was invented, something simple for my example, let's say a cylinder, I won't get into the mechanics of how it works, because obviously, I didn't invent it and would have no clue as to how it was made. Perhaps a large contraption with all the innerworkings of the time machine, but the very part that let's objects pass back in time is a cylinder, like a tin can with both top and bottom removed. If such a thing were set to pass an object back in time 10 minutes, and as an experiment we dropped a single ping-pong ball into the top at 15 minutes, then at 5 minutes into our experiment we should see the ping-pong ball drop out the bottom of the cylinder onto the ground, even though of course we still have the ping-pong ball in our hand and have not dropped it in yet, waiting for the 15 minute mark to come so we can then drop it in. And I won't get into some argument on a paradox if, let's say the ball dropped out at 5 minutes and moment's later I threw the original ball out the window so that it had no chance of passing back 10 minutes in time. If the ball dropped out of the bottom of the cylinder at 5 minutes, then obviously I dropped it into the top of the cylinder at 15 minutes so it could pass back in time.
Would this constitute a working time machine?