Backwards Time Travel. Impossible?

Debate serious and interesting topics, rant about politics or pop culture, or otherwise converse in essay form about your opinions. The rules of conduct here are a little stricter.
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Postby Rose » 2010.11.04 (20:56)

999_Springs wrote:I travelled backwards in time last night. I was doing this sudoku puzzle so fast that by the time I'd finished it was 49 minutes and 41 seconds earlier than when I'd started. Woot.
And people told me sudoku was a time-waster.
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Postby Spawn of Yanni » 2010.11.05 (02:53)

DemonzLunchBreak wrote:Negative time sudoku will be possible (kind of) for Americans in just a couple days. Not sure how other countries do DST...
Well, that's exactly what he meant, except England (+ others or something) went back this Sunday.
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Postby 999_Springs » 2011.09.25 (15:32)

Unless you're a neutrino.
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Postby Geti » 2011.09.27 (09:17)

I found that pretty worrying. I guess we'll find out why soon enough, or at least get a certain result on whether it actually did go FTL.
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Postby Universezero » 2011.11.29 (13:42)

squibbles wrote:Despite that, though, I have to say, one thing I've thought about in regard to time travel, is whether time occurs at a speed; that is to say, there is a definable gap between one instance of time and another, even if it is infintismally small. I figured that if so, then traveling forward through time would merely be a case of moving at a speed greater that "the speed of time". It's a similar concept to that of the lightspeed/time travel one (which I admit, is retarded. Light and time are totally unrelated. (Also, on that note, why is lightspeed seen as a speed barrier? That is also retarded.)), however what it does mean is that travelling backwards through time would be impossible. Or at least extremely complicated. I've not put so much though into it to discern between the two.
I don't think anyone's answered this, so I'm just going to say that this time is in fact 3.3x10^-44 seconds (the time taken for light to travel a planck length). As we know it, the speed of time an object undergoes is in relation to its mass and speed, which is why time goes amazing slow as you get ripped to shreds in a black hole. However, if you were to go faster than light, you may have a chance of making time appear to go backwards... At this point I'm merely hypothesizing, since going faster than the speed of light would be silly. At least, as far as modern physics states.
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Postby squibbles » 2011.11.30 (13:04)

Reserving this spot for the most humbling/conceited speech this forum has ever seen, depending on the outcome of the peer review and testing process.
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Tsukatu wrote:I don't know what it is, squibbles, but my brain keeps inserting "black" into random parts of your posts these days.
I totally just read that as, "I'd hate to be the only black guy stuck using v1.4."
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Postby 乳头的早餐谷物 » 2011.12.04 (04:19)

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Postby Tanner » 2011.12.04 (23:30)

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Postby aids » 2011.12.05 (00:22)

Back on topic, I had this idea. (I might even write a short story about it.) If you were to travel backwards in your own timeline (i.e. your past, starting when you were born), then you'd be both in the present and in the past. This closed loop is where changes happen. When you move forward, back to the present, you'd be right where you left off, and the only thing that changes is your memories. I assume this would also work with going into the future, but I'm not sure about the memories part there.

So, what do you guys think? (Please don't steal my idea. I don't get many of them.)
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Postby Tanner » 2011.12.05 (01:25)

Aidiera wrote:Back on topic, I had this idea. (I might even write a short story about it.) If you were to travel backwards in your own timeline (i.e. your past, starting when you were born), then you'd be both in the present and in the past. This closed loop is where changes happen. When you move forward, back to the present, you'd be right where you left off, and the only thing that changes is your memories. I assume this would also work with going into the future, but I'm not sure about the memories part there.

So, what do you guys think? (Please don't steal my idea. I don't get many of them.)
Merlin lived backwards in time. That's how he could know the future. I'll bet someone's already done a sci-fi take on the concept (it sounds like you're aiming for that genre more than fantasy) but I'm not familiar with any so you might have had an original idea.

The core concept isn't new, though. Merlin, Benjamin Button, people (jokingly) said Mozart did this. Just off the top of my head.
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Postby ENT474 » 2011.12.05 (16:10)

Aidiera wrote:Back on topic, I had this idea. (I might even write a short story about it.) If you were to travel backwards in your own timeline (i.e. your past, starting when you were born), then you'd be both in the present and in the past. This closed loop is where changes happen. When you move forward, back to the present, you'd be right where you left off, and the only thing that changes is your memories. I assume this would also work with going into the future, but I'm not sure about the memories part there.

So, what do you guys think? (Please don't steal my idea. I don't get many of them.)
The problem with the into the future thing is that your memories affect your future, so by being in the future you are changing it (how would it work, like a Back to the Future alternate timeline, or a reality that ceases to exist once you exit it?) It could be a closed loop if you take a rigid fatalistic approach, but that could lead to some problems in the past (unless you saw yourself as an old person, it wouldn't happen, right?)
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Postby aids » 2011.12.05 (22:37)

My idea isn't so much 'living backwards' as it is being able to travel back in time, change something, and end up back where you started. So you're not really changing the future unless your actions are effective enough. (Which leads to another debate on how effective is too effective.) Traveling into the future leads to the paradox of 'knowing your future actions may alter said actions,' but I think that going into the future would (on a subconscious level) actually tether you to those actions.

Or I'm just crazy.
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Postby otters~1 » 2011.12.07 (04:50)

Duchess of Awesome wrote:
Aidiera wrote:Back on topic, I had this idea. (I might even write a short story about it.) If you were to travel backwards in your own timeline (i.e. your past, starting when you were born), then you'd be both in the present and in the past. This closed loop is where changes happen. When you move forward, back to the present, you'd be right where you left off, and the only thing that changes is your memories. I assume this would also work with going into the future, but I'm not sure about the memories part there.

So, what do you guys think? (Please don't steal my idea. I don't get many of them.)
Merlin lived backwards in time. That's how he could know the future. I'll bet someone's already done a sci-fi take on the concept (it sounds like you're aiming for that genre more than fantasy) but I'm not familiar with any so you might have had an original idea.

The core concept isn't new, though. Merlin, Benjamin Button, people (jokingly) said Mozart did this. Just off the top of my head.
Mozart totally did this.
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Postby ska » 2011.12.10 (04:41)

squibbles wrote:That, and it's called the Theory of Relativity. The Theory of relativity. That's all it is, and as common as it is, and as many people believe it to be true, it has no more weight than any theory proposed by any other scientist, regardless of how many stupid people consider it undisputable, ultimate fact.
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Postby Universezero » 2011.12.22 (11:58)

My idea of time travel is that, when you go back, you are in fact going into an alternate universe that is the same as the one you came from, with the difference that you have come into it (and of course, the period in which the universe is currently in). Therefore, even if you killed your grandmother, you'd still be alive, since your grandmother is still there in the universe you came from.

Also, unrelated, but typing 'universe' is very annoying, since I often have the tendency to add 'zero' to the end of it.
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Postby Paradox » 2011.12.22 (16:38)

I liked the part when he said 'Paradoxes' willard
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Postby ChrisE » 2012.08.27 (21:45)

As a quick note, wouldn't that also make forward time travel less appealing (should it be possible)

You'd have no way of getting back to your own time. People who were interested in the end of the world would get there and not be able to get home...
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Postby Universezero » 2012.08.28 (04:30)

Well, forward time travelling is essentially the same as cryogenics. You just need to make sure you plan ahead in advance so you don't die the second you come out of freezing.
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Postby Blue_rocks » 2013.06.10 (03:41)

I am not suggesting that time travel is possible or impossible. I am sitting on the fence in this debate as I do not have enough knowledge or qualifications to make any type of point that could hold weight in this conversation, as I am just a teenager who holds little knowledge concerning science. The following question is meant to be a question for entertainment value, so here it is:

If time travel was possible, and someone in the future were to utilize a device that allowed them to do just that, would that mean in this circumstance that time travel has already happened, just not yet?

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Postby Universezero » 2013.06.10 (11:15)

Technically yes. The fact we haven't had anyone come back from the future thus far is a bad sign.
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Postby Blue_rocks » 2013.06.11 (01:25)

Time travel is happening. Everyone is doing it. One. second. at. a. time.

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Postby Universezero » 2013.06.17 (02:51)

*one planck time at a time
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Postby DraxoBox » 2013.06.18 (12:50)

dafuq
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Postby 乳头的早餐谷物 » 2013.06.18 (15:55)

Re-reading this topic makes me wish I could travel back in time.
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Postby otters~1 » 2013.06.18 (17:26)

the best part of this thread is how aidiera deleted all of demonzlunchbreak's posts so it's completely incoherent
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