Travelling back in time.

Question

People talk about travelling back in time. But thinking about it, even if you "travel" back in time, wouldn't a stream of time still be going forward for you and your time machine? So you're not really going back in time, you're going forward in time while the universe goes back?

Answer 1

The only way to travel back in time currently thoguht to be possible is a wormhole that is that one end had been accelerated close to the speed of light so its time has slowed. Actually reversing the flow of time seems to be impossible, because entropy must always increase. So in this sense, the answer is no because your not traveling, your just changing your position. You dont have to go through all the points in between.

If that made any sense

Answer 2

Einstein published his Theory of General Relativity in 1915 but it was not until the late nineteen forties that, the Austrian mathematician, Kurt Gödel found a time travel possibility within a solution to some relativistic equations. He found, that if the universe is rotating then time travel in both directions should be possible. By both directions, I mean, into the past and back or into the future and back. Alas, recent observational work used to study the cosmic back-ground radiation has indicated that the universe has not rotated significantly since its creation. Hence, time travel into the past would appear to be impossible.

However, Einstein's theory of Special Relativity allows 'time-dilated' travel into the future. If an astronaut sets off on a journey travelling at a high percentage of the speed of light, then his on board clock will run more slowly than an equivalent clock here on Earth. Thus, when the high speed traveller returns after a few years of his elapsed time; here on Earth many hundreds of years may have elapsed. The time dilation equation is given below: -

t(Earth) = t(traveller)

..............._________

...............√(1 - (v/c)²)

Where 'c' is the speed of light and 'v' the traveller's velocity, which may be expressed as a percentage of the speed of light ((say) 0.99999c).

Therefore, to summarise, the answer appears to be that you cannot travel through time into the past but you can travel into the future - at least theoretically! Thus, you could study the history, between when you left and when you returned, from the future but not necessarily take part in it!

Answer 3

Its not so much that you are going backward or that time is running forward or anything else...

Its that your time stream is reversed so the perception is that everything is running backwards and that you are going forward.

When traveling backwards, everything else will look like anti-matter as well - better not touch it or you and that matter will annihilate.

A proton going north in the normal time stream is the same thing as an anti-proton going south in a negative time stream.

For the observer, there is no way to distinguish between the two.

A neutron decaying into a proton, electon (and others) is the same thing as an anti-proton, positron (and others) colliding in a negative time stream.

Gravity in the normal time stream acts like an explosion in a reversed time stream.

Answer 4

What a lot of people seem to misunderstand is that we are not traveling in space and time, we ARE space and time. As we travel through space/time we can distort it, but it is impossible to rip ourselves out of it, and graft ourslves back into it in another location.

Answer 5

time is just a measurement of night and day on earth, once you go into universal time and atomic time it differs.so if you can go faster than the speed of light you would be reversing matter.so yeah the universe is going back.

Answer 6

And as you drive your car, you worry about the direction of the rotation of the earth because?

Answer 7

Yeah, that's right.

Answer 8

This is actually the type of question that one could argue back and forth for centuries as it is not easily resolved. One would need proof to be able to positively say yes or no.

Having said that here is my view:

No, your question does not make sense. Forward means exactly that how can you travel against the flow of everything around you and still think you are going forward. Okay you will think well we can go against the flow of a river and travel upstream but to do so against the universe would contradict all the laws of physics as we understand them today.

Everything has it own position in time and space which in turn is part of the greater picture called the universe and all is interconnected. You would actually have to be outside of time and space otherwise you would move in the same direction as the rest of the universe.You simply cannot isolate yourself from the universe and say I am going against the flow at least not as we understand things at the moment.

As you can see it can get very confusing trying to understand the mechanics involved and I am not going to pretend that I know it all so on that note I think enough has been said otherwise I will end up confusing everyone including myself.  

Answer 9

thats crazy...