“Time Travel” Will Never Be Possible

[pony]

The simplest and most obvious way to prove with absolute certainty that “Time Travel” will never be possible is; it never has, hence, it never will! Let me explain.

Think of any technological breakthrough past or present. What transforms it from cutting-edge to obsolete, exclusive to common? Time. When the first car was rolled out how many had access to or the means to acquire one. Or consider the computer. At first, used exclusively by the Government, Military and a select number of major companies. And now?
Now before you counter with a rant about how something so powerful and dangerous, would of course be limited, secure, protected and used only when absolutely necessary; that’s what we said about nukes.
Time has a way of making the unobtainable, attainable. Simply put; Man is incapable of possessing such power. Look at the unintended consequences from trying to “improve” our environment. Or consider the catastrophic outcome to humanity when, inevitably, a “madman” obtains this power, our world would be in perpetual chaos.
This is why I say, “it never has, hence, it never will”. Pure logic.

“Time Travel” is best left to an eternal omnipotent God!

 

[KerrTexas]

The simplest and most obvious way to prove with absolute certainty that “Time Travel” will never be possible is; it never has, hence, it never will! Let me explain.

Think of any technological breakthrough past or present. What transforms it from cutting-edge to obsolete, exclusive to common? Time. When the first car was rolled out how many had access to or the means to acquire one. Or consider the computer. At first, used exclusively by the Government, Military and a select number of major companies. And now?
Now before you counter with a rant about how something so powerful and dangerous, would of course be limited, secure, protected and used only when absolutely necessary; that’s what we said about nukes.
Time has a way of making the unobtainable, attainable. Simply put; Man is incapable of possessing such power. Look at the unintended consequences from trying to “improve” our environment. Or consider the catastrophic outcome to humanity when, inevitably, a “madman” obtains this power, our world would be in perpetual chaos.
This is why I say, “it never has, hence, it never will”. Pure logic.

“Time Travel” is best left to an eternal omnipotent God!

Seems that the explaination is based on moral reasoning - why there shouldn't be Time Travel - didn't read anywhere in your post "proof with absolute certainty that Time Travel will never be possible".

 

[Darby]

The simplest and most obvious way to prove with absolute certainty that “Time Travel” will never be possible is; it never has, hence, it never will! Let me explain.

[snip moral-ethical arguments]

This is why I say, “it never has, hence, it never will”. Pure logic.

I agree with KT that the majority of your post goes to your moral and ethical standards of why time travel should not be attempted. I've snipped that out of the quote and left that which is consistent with your OP subject line.

The fact that we don't see time travelers is one valid argument for the case against the ability to time travel. However it is not proof that it is not possible. Given sufficient time, and time is of the essence in "time travel", if non Special Relativistic time travel is possible then it is virtually assured that eventually it will be researched and invented. Even then the fact that it is invented does not necessarily mean that we should be seeing time travelers throughout the history of mankind. The laws of physics as we currently understand them seem, first and foremost, to preclude the possibility. Second, those theories that postulate that it is possible also indicate that such travel only includes periods of time from the instant of the creation of the time machine to the instant that it is destroyed (from the time that it is turned on to the time that it is turned off).

A manmade gadget turned on in 2013 and left on continuosly from that date creates a closed timelike curve (a loop in spacetime) that only leads back in time as far as whatever date it was turned on in 2013; 2012 and before are not included in the loop. Stellar black holes of the proper type (Kerr-Newman Black Holes - both maximally charged and spinning) that were formed by a super nova a billion years ago, for example, would allow time travel back 1 billion years and probably into the future for the remaining life of the universe. The problem is that there are no black holes of any sort within tens of thousands of light years of Earth. Travelling to such a black hole in a reasonable amount of time for both the astronauts and the people back home on Earth isn't possible. Travelling at near the speed of light the astronaut could arrive at a black hole thousands of light years distant in months by his/her clock. But on Earth the time would still be seen as thousands of years, which is not much use for them.

So, why don't we see time travelers? Time travel has not yet been invented (if, indeed, it is even possible).

As to "pure logic":

We are talking about the deepest most fundamental level of physics when we are looking at time travel. "Deep" meaning the General and Special Relativistic and quantum mechanical levels of reality as well as causal ordering of events. "Pure" common logic does not apply here because SR, GR and QM all defy our everyday logic system. The fault isn't in the laws of physics. Each of these theories has been daily tested for almost a century and are always been shown to be correct to an approximation. The "fault" is in our inability to conceive that view of reality because the macro world that we can actually see is strictly Newtonian mechanical.

 

[Darby]

Given sufficient time, and time is of the essence in "time travel", if non Special Relativistic time travel is possible then it is virtually assured that eventually it will be researched and invented.

In case you are not familiar with what I mean by "Special Relativistic time travel":

Time travel to the future for the time traveler is a fact of physical reality. We do it all the time, even though we can currently only accomplish a few dozen nanoseconds per day. We have to constantly recallibrate the GPS clocks so they correctly locate objects. The GPS satellites are orbiting Earth at ~14,000 km/h which means they desynchronize at a rate of ~38 ns/day. Tiny but it is time travel to the future.

Under the laws included in Special Relativity all one need do is travel very fast. The closer that velocity is to the speed of light the slower one's clock ticks off time relative to the "stationary" observer's clock. So, if our astronauts are traveling at a hair below the speed of light they might make the trip to the black hole in weeks or months as measured by their clock. But back on Earth they see the situation much differently. They still see the black hole as being thousands of light years distant but their clocks tick away at the "normal" rate. From their perspective it still takes thousands of years for the astronauts, travelling at near the speed of light, to travel thousands of light years.

This same argument is relevent to the "pure logic" issue. According to our normal logic system, different clocks that are otherwise exact copies of each other and which were initially synchronized should not tick off time at different rates just because one clock is on a spaceship travelling through space at a higher velocity than the Earthbound clock. Yet that is precisely how the world works. The Special Theory of Relativity is tested daily and for over 100 years has been found to be true to a very high degree of accuracy. "High degree of accuracy" meaning to at least ~40 parts per billion because that is the necessary tolerance for the GPS system.

 

[astroboyuk]

the op is flawed logically:

comparison of a time travel machine to a tv or car or other consumer good doestn hold water. Nuclear weapons were invetneted and i doubt I will be able to buy them at the supermarket soon....

and a time machine is probably the ultimate weapon bar none.. so as a means of maintaining control of pesky minions and enemy nations it will easily prevent it becoming ubiquitius.

 

[Einstein]

Well, let's see. If I had a time machine, that would give me power over my fellow man. And in order to maintain my power status, I would need to create some type of diversionary tactic, to keep my fellow man from following in my footsteps. I suppose it would take real facts to invent and perfect a time machine. I can't really burn all the books to prevent a similar recurrence of the discovery. But perhaps I could convince everyone to look elsewhere. Maybe go back in time and introduce the concept of "THEORY". A very simple idea which basically replaces facts with possible facts. And then construct some mathematical ruse by convincing everyone that the concept of "MASS" is a must use for any theory. That ought to do it...

 

[Darby]

and a time machine is probably the ultimate weapon bar none.. so as a means of maintaining control of pesky minions and enemy nations it will easily prevent it becoming ubiquitius.

This is a problem in time travel scenarios. A time machine is created, thus the knowledge exists. Nuclear weapons, especially fission weapons, are invented. The knowledge exists. In each case we assume that the knowledge is intended to remain a secret.

The "secret" involving the Manhattan Project lasted for...

It was never a secret, at least not from other governments. Even during WWII Austrian physicist Lise Meitner in Copenhagen and Otto Hahn (her former boss at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute) in Germany along with Nils Bohr (also in Copenhagen) were publishing open articles in the journals concerning atomic fission. Meitner actually discovered it. The Russians knew all along most of the details of the Manhattan Project, at least as far as the "gun assembly" A-bomb process goes. The implosion assembly device involved straight forward physics but the engineering package was hugely difficult. Much, much more difficult than the physics package. They had to use sliderules, not computers, to design the entire device and had to use the same tool to calculate to the nanosecond certain reactions during the explosive assembly - subcritical, first criticality, max super criticality, second criticality, second subcriticality...assembly to disassembly. Shockwave velocities, shockwave convergence vs. nuclear trigger activation; neutron capture cross-section for U-235 at different densities and purities (it becomes "poisioned" during detonation), explosive lens technology, etc. Huge math and engineering job. The theoretical physicists had the "easy" part. It took thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians to do this and only required a few "leakers" for the secret to get out.

Now add in time travel. It is used. Not used once but over and over, virtually "forever" as the gadget moves forward in time. We couldn't keep the secret of atomic weapons a secret for five minutes. Here we have forever that we must keep it a secret. That is simply not possible. Eventually the secret of the technology leaks into the open literature (after all - Hahn was technically at war with both Meitner and Bohr yet they all openly published during the war).

Here's the real difference: The secret never really "leaks" out. Given that it is a time travel scenario the information simply "is". It is there and there is no real way to determine when it arrived or from whom. It had forever to leak out and forever to be passed around. Normal secrets involve events that occured in the past - the flow of information is toward the future only. In our time travel scenarion future knowledge can also flow toward the past. And remember, when we are talking about "future" and "past" knowledge we are taking the perspective of an omnicient "God" standing outside the universe and looking in. We can trace the worldlines of the information flow because we are God's. The perspective from inside - without the omincient presence - is very different. They don't know what information came from the future, or the past and possibly have no logical reason to ask. In their world it is a given that information just "is".

Forever is a long time and involves more details than be counted.

 

[Darby]

I would need to create some type of diversionary tactic, to keep my fellow man from following in my footsteps. I suppose it would take real facts to invent and perfect a time machine.

That's the burning question, isn't it? If time machines exist in our neck of the woods on this universe that information can, and will, flow toward the past. Why would you invent a time machine in 2025 if the information already found its way to 2015? What possible perspective could you take that would convince you to believe without any doubt of any kind that you invented time travel if it exists prior to your inventing it? What would even motivate you to re-invent the wheel? If it has been there "forever" we wouldn't just have time machines available, they would be the most advanced sort of TT gadget possible and they would have always been that advanced. Moreover, the knowledge would seem to have come from nowhere - it invented itself.

 

[Einstein]

That's the burning question, isn't it? If time machines exist in our neck of the woods on this universe that information can, and will, flow toward the past. Why would you invent a time machine in 2025 if the information already found its way to 2015? What possible perspective could you take that would convince you to believe without any doubt of any kind that you invented time travel if it exists prior to your inventing it? What would even motivate you to re-invent the wheel? If it has been there "forever" we wouldn't just have time machines available, they would be the most advanced sort of TT gadget possible and they would have always been that advanced. Moreover, the knowledge would seem to have come from nowhere - it invented itself.

I suppose the knowledge already exists by itself. Man just comes along to uncover it. A time machine would merely just be an extension of mother natures design. The design would have been there since the dawn of time. All of mankind's inventions are merely just thefts of mother natures design.

I suppose the biggest hurdle to overcome in reinventing a time machine, is to accept the fact that our science doesn't have the answers. Stop looking in that direction. The answers will most likely be found elsewhere.

 

[Darby]

suppose the knowledge already exists by itself. Man just comes along to uncover it.

That's not what I'm stating. I'm talking about actual knowledge - active memory - not some fact of physical law that had gone undiscovered. That's not knowledge.

The knowledge that I'm suggesting is the existence of the physical gadget itself, the precise knowledge of how to build such devices but with no ability to determine when they were first constructed or when the knowledge was discovered. As I suggested, in such a society where this can occur even asking why, where and by whom time travel was invented may never occur to the inhabitants. The very idea of inventing any technology may be so foreign to their psychies that it simply does not exist. Time travel technology would not be the only technology that percolates to the past. All technology would percolate to the past in their most advanced forms. In theory there would be nothing left to invent or upgrade.

 

[Einstein]

That's not what I'm stating. I'm talking about actual knowledge - active memory - not some fact of physical law that had gone undiscovered. That's not knowledge.

The knowledge that I'm suggesting is the existence of the physical gadget itself, the precise knowledge of how to build such devices but with no ability to determine when they were first constructed or when the knowledge was discovered. As I suggested, in such a society where this can occur even asking why, where and by whom time travel was invented may never occur to the inhabitants. The very idea of inventing any technology may be so foreign to their psychies that it simply does not exist. Time travel technology would not be the only technology that percolates to the past. All technology would percolate to the past in their most advanced forms. In theory there would be nothing left to invent or upgrade.

I would agree that this could be a possible outcome. But it would be short lived at best. If everyone has access to a time machine then people in power would lose that power instantly. Banks would no longer be able to make money on loans. Everyone could pay off their debts immediately. The stock market would no longer exist as we know it. Who would invest in a losing stock if they already knew it was a loser?

It's the people that lost power that concern me. I believe they might conspire together on a plan to put things back the way they were. Possibly by altering the very knowledge that made the invention of a time machine possible. That could be accomplished by going back in time and altering or masking the understanding of key scientific discoveries. So in essence, the world we live in today, might actually be the result of the invention of a time machine.

Of course I've been pursuing this as already having happened. It's just that pesky F = MA equation that doesn't quite match the physical observation. And my personal observations that the concept of Mass appears to be a mask. A mask that hides what quite possibly could be the behavior of the four basic forces.

 

[Darby]

I would agree that this could be a possible outcome. But it would be short lived at best. If everyone has access to a time machine then people in power would lose that power instantly. Banks would no longer be able to make money on loans. Everyone could pay off their debts immediately. The stock market would no longer exist as we know it. Who would invest in a losing stock if they already knew it was a loser?

I disagree sabout "short lived." If something occurs "in the future" (from the God-like external POV) and percolates to the past it already exists WRT "today". It simply "is". Time, short-lived or not, is not what we generally believe it to be if we are in a time travel enabled societry. Cause and effect from our perspective no longer applies. In terms of the actual physics, given that a causal factor (a physical thing), has its individual worldline, the God-like creature could fathom out the actual chain of events. But we couldn't.

The rest of your post is spot on. Markets, market payout and market volitility depend on a general lack of knowledge about what the future holds. "Predicting" state lottery outcomes via time travel would yield nothing. As I've previously stated, time travel implies the ability to have complete knowledge of what occured in the past. Big payouts for lotteries depend - and solely depend - on scarcity. If thousands of people choose the same lottery numbers the payout is minimal. If only one person chooses the winning numbers the payout is maximum for that person.

 

[Blair]

The simplest and most obvious way to prove with absolute certainty that “Time Travel” will never be possible is; it never has, hence, it never will! Let me explain.

Think of any technological breakthrough past or present. What transforms it from cutting-edge to obsolete, exclusive to common? Time. When the first car was rolled out how many had access to or the means to acquire one. Or consider the computer. At first, used exclusively by the Government, Military and a select number of major companies. And now?
Now before you counter with a rant about how something so powerful and dangerous, would of course be limited, secure, protected and used only when absolutely necessary; that’s what we said about nukes.
Time has a way of making the unobtainable, attainable. Simply put; Man is incapable of possessing such power. Look at the unintended consequences from trying to “improve” our environment. Or consider the catastrophic outcome to humanity when, inevitably, a “madman” obtains this power, our world would be in perpetual chaos.
This is why I say, “it never has, hence, it never will”. Pure logic.

“Time Travel” is best left to an eternal omnipotent God!

You know whats funny if i had a time machine i would not care if you believed me or not

 

[astroboyuk]

That's not what I'm stating. I'm talking about actual knowledge - active memory - not some fact of physical law that had gone undiscovered. That's not knowledge.

The knowledge that I'm suggesting is the existence of the physical gadget itself, the precise knowledge of how to build such devices but with no ability to determine when they were first constructed or when the knowledge was discovered. As I suggested, in such a society where this can occur even asking why, where and by whom time travel was invented may never occur to the inhabitants. The very idea of inventing any technology may be so foreign to their psychies that it simply does not exist. Time travel technology would not be the only technology that percolates to the past. All technology would percolate to the past in their most advanced forms. In theory there would be nothing left to invent or upgrade.

I think this is a brilliant post and thread, but none of this precludes the possibility of the future inventor/s of time travel from containing both the technology, the activities of time travellers and the 'perculation' of knowledge to the past.
We could debate the 'liklihood' of the technology spreading and the procedures around it's use breaking down and leading to "temporal knowledge anarchy" (TKA (tm))!.... and I agree history has many examples of technology defying the most elite and spreading out.. but there others that never did.. eg roman cement, greek fire, aboriginal pigment for blue, the pyramid building techniques and I imagine a few others....

Ultimately, even if the original point of invention is lost in the TKA loop.. it doesnt meant there wasnt an origin.. its just that it has become obscured. Its not a paradox, just a complication.

 

[astroboyuk]

by the way, love ethe concept of a society where they have no concept of inventing technology because its ultimate form has always existed! Can I use that?

 

[Darby]

none of this precludes the possibility of the future inventor/s of time travel from containing both the technology

I agree that at least in theory as a statistical probability any secret can be kept. My suggestion is that given the scenario where time machines exist the secret has to be kept forever. However someone has to know the secret. During the course of "forever" that means an infinite number of someones keeping the secret in their turn. You then have a Gaussian distribution of an infinite number of "secret keepers" each with a probability of not keeping the secret. Regardless of how many standard deviations away from the middle of the curve (total secrecy) there exists the finite possibility of not keeping the secret. Forever is a long time.

So, in the future the secret only gets out one time and ends up in the past just that one time. At that point in the past there are now two seperate groups with the secret. This is time travel. Consider that first instance of breaking the secret to be, not a time machine, but a thermal neutron and the point in the past that it percolates to, a U-235 nucleus. Bang! Fission. Two (actually 1 to 6 with an average of ~2.5 ) more neutrons. It results in a prompt critical fission chain. Exponential growth. But unlike the fission chain of uranium, this is time travel. The prompt critical "fission chain" of the now non-secret occurs in one's past. The effect is felt in the present - it already occured. The other difference between the U-235 prompt critical fission chain is the local latency period between "fission" events is not time dependent for the secret. It, again, has forever for the next fission to occur because it will eventually find itself being carried out in the past WRT the previous fission. In the present the latency is perceived to be virtually zero because all the events, infinite in number, that have previously occured relative to breaking the secret have their combined effect felt instantaneously in the present.

 

[astroboyuk]

got it: so - the wise prince would have to build incredible safeguards around the knowledge - safeguards that ensured the knowledge could never disseminate, knowing that once leaked, it would virus like, consume all. It would be a terrifying responsibility.

 

[Darby]

safeguards that ensured the knowledge could never disseminate

That's the entire point of my posts. It is statistically possible to keep the secret forever (any secret, not just time travel) but that only translates to an infinitesimally small probability. There really are no such safeguards. One can say that the best safeguard is not to research and build it in the first place. A good thought but the knowledge, at least in tenuous and highly speculative theory, already exists. Short of extermination of all humanity in order to...save humanity from time travel...well you see the false logic road this is going down. LOL

 

[Einstein]

That's the entire point of my posts. It is statistically possible to keep the secret forever (any secret, not just time travel) but that only translates to an infinitesimally small probability. There really are no such safeguards. One can say that the best safeguard is not to research and build it in the first place. A good thought but the knowledge, at least in tenuous and highly speculative theory, already exists. Short of extermination of all humanity in order to...save humanity from time travel...well you see the false logic road this is going down. LOL

So basically if someone were to build a time machine, in order to insure their safety, it would be best to keep the secret of the invention to oneself. That way any meddling in the past would be harder to trace back to the source. The time traveling insurgency, operating in the background, attempting to right all the wrongs, created by the powers that be. Why there could be a secret war going on as we speak.

 

[Darby]

So basically if someone were to build a time machine, in order to insure their safety, it would be best to keep the secret of the invention to oneself. That way any meddling in the past would be harder to trace back to the source. The time traveling insurgency, operating in the background, attempting to right all the wrongs, created by the powers that be. Why there could be a secret war going on as we speak.

That might work. It's thin but maybe. The problem then becomes one of "a person" inventing time travel. That is highly unlikely. I know that we like to speculate that a time machine can be built with a 12v battery, a few wires, a micro mass black hole, etc. but that isn't likely to happen. A huge research company with thousands of scientists (theoretical, mathematical, experimental and applied physics), an entire division of engineers and technicians plus investors is the likely scenario.

The atomic bomb project was highly compartmentalized, with various departments in New Mexico, Tennessee, Illinois, Washington State and California. The specifics of each deparment were not shared with other departments even within a single facility but new information about the project, with a few exceptions, was out in the world sometimes within hours of a new discovery or break-thru. New science is not created in an information vacuum therefore it really cannot be totally kept a secret because research in the same or related fields across the globe is an ongoing process. What the Russians didn't get through espionage their scientists were able to figure out through a general knowledge of the field coupled with the espionage obtained information. The Germans were close as well. Their error was in putting a pure theoretical physicist, Werner Heisenberg, in charge of the project. Like Einstein, he was a brilliant theorist. But, also like Einstein, he was not a particle physicist. His team was close. His personal push on creating a self-sustaining fission reactor was so off base that Germany would have struggled through to 1948 or 49 had the war continued. But they did have the basics down. Had Lise Meitner not been a woman, a Jew and forced to quit her position at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and leave Germany it is very possible that Germany could have beat the Allies to the punch. She was absolutely brilliant! Very much on par with, if not ahead of, her contemporary German physicists, including Heisenberg. At the time she may well have been the best particle physicist on the planet. The American team was far better but individually she was, arguably, top dog in the field of nuclear particle and atomic fission research.

The same applies to Japan. They too were close but failed at the same place as Germany - getting a fission reactor activated. There's a reason why they invaded and wanted to hang on to Korea, aside from their racist policies. Uranium! Korea (North Korea specifically) has a huge amount of uranium in the ground. Japan has little natural uranium. The Japanese atomic weapon program was located in Korea.

So, as secret as the Manhattan Project was what they were attempting to do was not a secret.