# Who invented time travel?



## MacLuv (Nov 15, 2002)

Est-ce que n'importe qui vous a jamais posé cette question? Probablement pas. Et dans votre vie, la chance de vous étant posé cette question est sérieusement encore probablement une dans milliard. 1. Il y a une réponse. 2. C'est une personne. 3. Il est quelqu'un que vous savez. 4. Et oui, le voyage de temps a été inventé. Nous voyageons par lui en ce moment.

Did no matter who ever pose you this question? Probably not. And in your life, the chance of you being put this question is seriously still probably one in billion. 1. There is an answer. 2. It is a person. 3. He is somebody whom you know. 4. And yes, the voyage from time was invented. We travel by him of this moment.


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## senne (Nov 17, 2002)

nostradamus? stephen hawkins? steve jobs? me?


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## xaqintosh (Nov 17, 2002)

I hate this type of puzzle, I can never figure them out


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## Da_iMac_Daddy (Nov 17, 2002)

How are we supposed to know if we get it right?


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## gregarios (Nov 17, 2002)

I suppose it would have to be the one who created time in the first place hmm?
God. (Was a person for awhile... remember?)


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## MacLuv (Nov 17, 2002)

Le passé et le présent ne sont pas importants. Nous sommes ici maintenant. Si nous voyageons par le temps déjà, où est le temps machine?

The past and the present are not significant. We are here now. If we travel by time already, where is the machine time?


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## adambyte (Nov 18, 2002)

Who invented time travel?

Al Gore.


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## wdw_ (Nov 18, 2002)

Christopher Lloyd


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## MacLuv (Nov 18, 2002)

Le temps est une illusion. C'est une mesure inventée par des humains. Seulement dans votre esprit existe a après et un futur. La réalité existe seulement dans maintenant. Même pendant que vous lisez ce passage votre esprit va vers l'arrière. 

Time is an illusion. It is a measurement invented by the human ones. Only in your spirit exists has after and a future. Reality exists only in now. Even while you read this passage your spirit goes backwards.


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## edX (Nov 18, 2002)

i'll go with Albert Einstein.

but Al Gore sounds more reasonable


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## Jason (Nov 18, 2002)

i say albert as well

space is time in essance

and albert einstein first made those connections i think, so why not?

but then since space is time, then in theory whomever invented space travel (that being travel outside of our atmosphere) could be it

but then again, we travel through space on our planet, so then whomever realized that could have been said to invent time travel, but really they didnt invent it, just discovered it

so actually, really... no one invented time travel, but someone could invent controlled time travel, which is a totally different thing, and thusly i have no answer to

so when you are done pullin the strings of our mind i look forward to your insightful answer to the questions of the universe


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## boi (Nov 18, 2002)

haha, i like the travelling through time RIGHT NOW bit.
i can TRAVEL THROUGH TIME. i'm travelling through time RIGHT NOW. i ALWAYS travel through time!

like dodging bullets. i can dodge bullets. i've dodged EVERY BULLET EVER FIRED!
hah! even Neo couldn't do that.


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## chemistry_geek (Nov 18, 2002)

Well, the question "Who invented Time Travel?" implies that someone intentionally set out to discover/invent controlled time travel.  That being the question, I have no answer yet.  But, if I recall correctly, when an object's speed is faster than its surroundings, time slows down for that object (actually only happens for relativisitc speeds).  So, since no human has approached relativistic speeds, then no one has achieved time travel by this method.

This little exercise certainly set in motion the cogs and wheels turning in my head.  I would think that time is "moving" at a constant rate.  I came across this ideal visually by imagining a series of particles in 2D space with trajectories.  All particles are bouncing into one another (much like the "planets" screensaver some of us have seen).  Now take that 2D motion in a plane and add the third dimention moving at a constant rate.  You would see the plane of 2D particles moving along an axis normal to the plane with the particles moving about.  As the particles move about, they plot out 3D trajectories as the plane moves in one direction.  From the perspective of being outside the plane, one could tell future or past position of any particle by looking along the trajectories that have predetermined paths.

Now extending this analogy to people might explain how psychics are able to sometimes accurately predict future and past events of people they come in contact with.  This assumes the psychics are not mentally ill, or fakes, or any other type of crack pot (i.e. the real true blue psychic such as John Edward who is able to predict some future events though his real gift appears to be talking to dead people).  While I don't think psychics can transcend the space-time contunuum and leave the rate constant of time, I do know that the human brain is a non-linear processing system, and somehow these people are able to predict with limited accuracy future events and tell of past events which they previously knew nothing about by taking a few bits of present information and computing/extrapolating along the trajectory a little away from the constantly moving "plane" (from our perspective a cube or sorts) of space.

Of course this little mental exercise is probably bogus and full of nonsense.


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## chemistry_geek (Nov 18, 2002)

Was the person who invented time travel Herbert George Wells?


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## gregarios (Nov 18, 2002)

There actually is absolutely no way to tell if time is moving in a constant rate. If there was nothing but you treading water in a river, and you couldn't see the shore or the bottom, there is no way to tell how fast it is flowing or you are moving. If you can tell that time is a constant, then you must be able to see the edge of time, or something else not within it.


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## chemistry_geek (Nov 18, 2002)

> _Originally posted by gregarios _
> *There actually is absolutely no way to tell if time is moving in a constant rate. If there was nothing but you treading water in a river, and you couldn't see the shore or the bottom, there is no way to tell how fast it is flowing or you are moving. If you can tell that time is a constant, then you must be able to see the edge of time, or something else not within it. *



Incorrect, if I was treading water in a river and I could not see or hear anything, the only thing I could feel/detect would be acceleration in one direction.  Hence, there should be some physically measureable property that one could use be it electromagnetic properties (red/blue shift), mass(gain/loss), energy(gain/loss), etc... to detect acceleration in/of time.  The laws of physics simply can't be broken.


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## elander (Nov 18, 2002)

Well, the question is rather ambigious. What do you really mean? Do you want the name of the person who first mentions time travel in written form? Do you mean the first person who (allegedly) did travel in time? Do you mean the person who first writes about a vehicle to travel through time?

Most sources will tell you that "A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthurs Court" by Mark Twain is the first literary account of time travel, four years older than HG Wells "Time Machine". There is, however also an account of time travel in the Quoran, as Muhammed ascends to heaven and returns at the exact moment he left...

Other examples of "time travel" can be found in other, earlier mythical and religious stories. So, to answer the original question is probably not as easy as "Macluv" want us to beleive.


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## gregarios (Nov 18, 2002)

Actually, you can only sense accelleration/decelleration if there is a change in the speed you are travelling in the river. Your original inertia cannot be determined if your entire existence was always in the river. How fast were you going to begin with? Also, there is no way to determine that we can sense the acceleration/decelleration of time by any physical means. In this respect, physical inertia and temporal inertia are completely different things, and even though we can perceive physical accelleration, we cannot perceive temporal accelleration...  yet.

If we could, then yes, you would be able to determine that time is not a constant value, but you still wouldn't be able to determine that value.


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## chemistry_geek (Nov 18, 2002)

> _Originally posted by gregarios _
> *Actually, you can only sense accelleration/decelleration if there is a change in the speed you are travelling in the river. Your original inertia cannot be determined if your entire existence was always in the river. How fast were you going to begin with? Also, there is no way to determine that we can sense the acceleration/decelleration of time by any physical means. In this respect, physical inertia and temporal inertia are completely different things, and even though we can perceive physical accelleration, we cannot perceive temporal accelleration...  yet.
> 
> If we could, then yes, you would be able to determine that time is not a constant value, but you still wouldn't be able to determine that value.  *



Agreed, initial inertia cannot be determined if I was floating in a river, but if I'm accelerating (positive or negative), then I would certainly be aware that a force exists in one direction.  For example, everything on this planet feels the force of 9.81m/sec^2 all the time.  I certainly feel it with everything I do; my sense of balance depends on it both consciously and subconsciously.  My limbs do not rest floating in mid air; they are drawn towards the ground.  I can even predict, with reasonable acuracy,  the effects of 9.81m/sec^2 on objects in my environment.  When I throw a ball with a small diameter and large mass I can predict that it will land in the general vicinity of where I want it to go and when.  If I was on the moon, I would have to relearn how object behave in a lower gravitational field with very low atmospheric drag (yes, the moon does have a very very small atmosphere, just above absolute vacuum).

I still think that a change in the rate of time would exert some event in the phyiscal world that is measureable.  For example from relativity, when objects approach the speed of light, c, their masses increase - this is measureable.  Perhaps time is moving at the speed of light.  Go forward at the speed of light and you go really far really fast into the future.  Go backward in time at the speed of light and time comes to a stop, i.e. motion ceases to exist.  Given that c seems to be the absolute speed limit of the universe, this perhaps is why time travel to the past is impossible.


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## MacLuv (Nov 18, 2002)

> Avez-vous su qu'il y a des effets de champ électrique en atmosphère qui affectent votre cerveau? Nous devons résoudre le mystère de pourquoi c'est que votre rythme d'alpha, comme mesuré par des détecteurs sensibles aux ondes cérébrales, a une fréquence égale à cela détectée par l'étude des oscillations faibles de champ électrique dans l'atmosphère. La fréquence est de 7,8 hertz, l'environ un sixième ou un septième de la fréquence de l'électricité assurée à votre maison.



Did you know that there are field effects electric in atmosphere which affect your brain? We must solve the mystery of why it is that your rate/rhythm of alpha, as measured by detectors sensitive to the cerebral waves, has a frequency equal to that detected by the study of the low oscillations of electric field in the atmosphere. The frequency is of 7,8 hertz, approximately sixth or a seventh of the frequency of assured electricity at your house. 

schumann resonance 

*********

_While watching my cat one day, I realized that cats must have a different rate of image conversion than humans. Like the frame rate on a movie camera, the cat must be viewing the world at a different rate. If the frame rate of a cat was "frozen", i.e. 1 frame of human time = 10 frames of cat time, it would explain why a cat can catch a fly. To a cat, the fly appears at frozen locations in the animal's field of vision. The cat need only reach out and swat at a certain area to catch the moving fly. After a few swats, the cat has it. _


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## chemistry_geek (Nov 18, 2002)

While I am no expert in neuropharmacology, a cat brain and human brain probably use the same if not very similar neurotransmitters.  This frame rate that you talk about is precisely what I've thought about for years, but with a slight swist.  First though, I'll discuss the frame rate anamoly you wrote about.  A cat brain is smaller than a human brain and probably is mapped functionally similar to a human brain, i.e. the visual cortex is located at the back of the brain and of course a brainstem exists to control breathing and cardiac timing.  Nerves have maximum rates at which they can conduct nerve impulses, so conceivably, a cat brain can process information faster than a human brain.  Now before anyone says "wait a minute", I'm referring strictly to reactions to various normal sensory input.  A cat sees a fly zipping around in the air and can knock it down with its paw because it can react faster than we humans can.  The nerve impulses in a cat brain don't travel as far as in a human brain to get processed.  With regard to the fly and its miniscule bundle of nerve fibers it has for neutral circuity, it zips around, correcting for wind, and animal movements much faster because the nerve impulses travel much shorter distances to get processed.

Now getting back to the human frame rate analomy, we have all heard that the older one gets the faster time flies.  Well, I have an idea about this too.  I think it happens to be that as children, we often get bored, moving from one thing to the next, because we CRAVE stimulation for a neuron-rich brains.  Our neurons as children are under stimulated or not saturated.  But as we age, thousands upon millions of neurons die, and that over time these neurons get saturated with stimulation and use, therefore we perceive time to move much faster.


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## Da_iMac_Daddy (Nov 18, 2002)

I invented time travel because with out me there would be no time. Nothing would exist for you if you did not exist. You are the answer, as am I.  Or maybe I'm just dumb


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## gregarios (Nov 18, 2002)

Hmm... All this talk of framerate an essentially MHZ of the human brain has made me recall a theory I have:

Computers of equal megahertz (mhz) can compute at different rates due to the length of the binary language they use. (ie: 32bit, 64bit, etc) Generally the higher the number, the faster the computations per time unit. Now, if this is a fact of computers, is it also applicable to humans? Think about it: Humans all over the world have differnt languages. What might take an English speaking person a whole sentence to describe, may take just a single word to describe in an Asian language such as Chinese. People think in the same language that they learned growing up. So, do the Chinese THINK more efficiently than the English? Does this enable them to advance in technology and learning faster than the English speaking/thinking nations? They have hundreds of letters in their alphabet while we have but 26. Does this give an advantage?

Also, has anyone ever tried to calculate what mhz the brain may be operating at? Or what regulates the neural connections? An I/O system for thinking? If so, Could we directly interface a computer with the brain someday soon? Scary huh?


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## Da_iMac_Daddy (Nov 19, 2002)

I've heard in other non-English speaking countries they tend to learn English if they are into technology because it has more technology based words than most languages.


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## MacLuv (Nov 19, 2002)




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## MacLuv (Nov 19, 2002)




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## xaqintosh (Nov 19, 2002)

my theory of time travel, as in travelling through time at a speed different from everything else, is as follows:
You can't go back in time, because its already happened, and can't happen again. Likewise, you can't go forward in time because it hasn't happened yet.


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## MacLuv (Nov 19, 2002)

I've just edited this post from the future. I predict that xaqintosh will post:



> that part I'm not too sure about, but my opinion is it can't happen again. However, if anyone could prove it to the contrary, I'd gladly accept it. As of now, I just don't see how it would be possible for it to happen again.



Looks like it's going to happen again. Watch:


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## xaqintosh (Nov 19, 2002)

that part I'm not too sure about, but my opinion is it can't happen again. However, if anyone could prove it to the contrary, I'd gladly accept it. As of now, I just don't see how it would be possible for it to happen again.


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## Da_iMac_Daddy (Nov 19, 2002)

The universe is slowly expanding.... and when it reaches the end of the expansion it will shrink and time will repeat itself. 

Boy wouldn't that suck.


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## boi (Nov 19, 2002)

i seriously wonder if any of us are qualified to make any theories are assumptions about time travel.


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## Da_iMac_Daddy (Nov 19, 2002)

Haha... was that in response to my post? Haven't you ever seen the movie about the alien in the mental hospital .... I can't remember the name though... oh yeah K-PAX !


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## edX (Nov 19, 2002)

this is the internet - we don't need no stinking qualifications


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## gregarios (Nov 19, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Da_iMac_Daddy _
> *The universe is slowly expanding.... and when it reaches the end of the expansion it will shrink and time will repeat itself.
> 
> Boy wouldn't that suck. *




You mean won't that have sucked, right? lol


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## boi (Nov 19, 2002)

actually it wasn't really in response to any one specific post, just a number of these posts i've seen are spouting off theory as if it were fact. then we're basing our own unintelligible theories based on others' theories, so it gets all crazy and the like.
but i'm not one to judge, because then i'd be a hypocrite.
man, i'm just adding to the fallacies ^_^.


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## gregarios (Nov 20, 2002)

I know the answer now!  

Starbucks!  LOL

Drink enough mocha venti's in one evening and you'll speed into the future too! And everyone will actually witness you warping time in a small bubble around your body, as you appear to shake wildly and talk faster than humanly possible.

I've seen it happen! And all the while, everyone else appears to slow down to a crawl, barely getting any work done.

Downside: I think your heart ages in dog years though at the same time...


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## MacLuv (Nov 21, 2002)

I have posted this from the future. I predict chemistry_geek will make the following statement:



> MacLuv,
> 
> Your mention of our reality and concept of time being a combination of "a plan" and "random events" reminds me of an article titled "Six Degrees of Separation" that I think is in the December 1997, 98, or 99 issue of Discover Magazine and chaos theory I briefly studied as an undergraduate. Some mathematician proposed that any two people anywhere are connected by at most six individuals. I mentioned this "Six Degrees of Separation" in a thread about one or two years ago. {...}



If I already know what's going to happen... why should I wish to continue? Seems to take all the mystery out of life...


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## brianleahy (Nov 21, 2002)

> The universe is slowly expanding.... and when it reaches the end of the expansion it will shrink and time will repeat itself.



Actually, this possibility has been mostly disproven.  For a 'big crunch' to occur, the universe's rate of expansion would have to be slowing down.  It's not.  In just the last few years, we've discovered it is speeding up.  The universe seems destined to expand forever, until it is so diffuse that it suffers 'heat death'  i.e. the energy will be spread so thin that nothing much can happen any more.

As for who invented time travel ...

I suppose a clarification is in order: who first invented the IDEA of time travel, or who invented a MEANS of time travel?  As for the IDEA - you could maybe point to HG Wells or Mark Twain.  

The means? Nobody.  The pronoun 'who' suggests a human being, the verb 'invent' suggests an act of creating something that did not previously exist.  

Mundane, day-per-day forward time travel is a function of thermodynamics.  "Forward" in time is the direction in which entropy increases.  This was not a human "invention".   A discovery, perhaps, but human volition was not a key factor.   

I feel secure in saying that there is no human being who, if he or she had never been born, mundane forward time travel would not be happening.  (And I sincerely hope we are not talking about "Adam" - because personally, I regard him as a fictional character.)

As for BACKWARD time travel?  Well, it has been suggested that time is an illusion that our brains create to allow us to make sense of our lives.  Yet this would apply to animals too; we see no evidence that animal behavior is influenced by events that have not yet occurred.   It seems also to apply to inanimate objects, at least at the macroscopic scale.   We find no geologic, fossil or astronomic evidence of future events.

Stephen Hawking and others have imagined ways in which backward time travel (a "closed timelike path" as he calls it) might be possible in principle - and not just psychologically, but literally.   But none of these means are remotely within our technological reach today.


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## chemistry_geek (Nov 21, 2002)

MacLuv,

Your mention of our reality and concept of time being a combination of "a plan" and "random events" reminds me of an article titled "Six Degrees of Separation" that I think is in the December 1997, 98, or 99 issue of Discover Magazine and chaos theory I briefly studied as an undergraduate.  Some mathematician proposed that any two people anywhere are connected by at most six individuals.  I mentioned this "Six Degrees of Separation" in a thread about one or two years ago. (sorry I don't have a link to the thread).  It turns out that people are connected by a network or "extended families".  Parallel to this idea is that I think that people think and act, i.e. their minds work in certain ways and can be grouped according to talents, gifts, abilities.  The media and politicians describe and categorize Terrorism as random acts of violence when in fact they are planned events.  Even with the killer who "in the spur of the moment" kills another human it can probably be shown that his/her mind "thinks" in a regular periodic manner.  Remember, the human brain is a nonlinear parallel processing system.  At certain moments, behaviors, emotions, thoughts could be reasonably predicted with the right analysis (look up a software program called Knowledgeminer, it's Mac only).  I remember seeing an image of the first fractals I produced with a program called Matlab for a math assignment.  It was a bifurcation diagram and in that diagram were areas of regular predictability and other areas of random dots.  The same series or parts of the image continued into inifinity.  I think that what we call pivotal moments in our lives are just a combination of timed events, intervals in which are brains are active that mesh togerther with another.  There are certain events that are "anchor" events like the day/night cycle, but it's what happens during the times that are brains are most active that changes our direction and perspective in life.  I'm confident that a parallel could be found between the thermodynamics of particles and social dynamics of people.


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## robotguy (Dec 5, 2002)

```
Imagine if this forum were a time machine. 

[B]We are in a time machine.[/B]

All threads can be accessed. 

[B]All threads are a timeline of
consciousness.[/B]

Consciousness is preserved.

[B]The server has stored our thoughts[/B].

MacLuv seems to have replaced his thoughts with a symbol of happiness.

[B]Is it possible to alter time 
by replacing nodes, or is the flow of 
consciousness broken?[/B]

Is it possible that at any given moment,
if anything in your past had happened
differently, you would be still
be reading this sentence right now?

[B]Are you in control of your own destiny? 
Or is it predetermined?[/b]
```


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## chemistry_geek (Dec 5, 2002)

robotguy,

I disagree with your statement that consciousness is "preserved" in a computer.  Consciousness is a process; I don't think it can be "preserved".  We as sentient beings are aware of our existence, our environment, and interact with it.  A computer cannot yet, and especially this one, preserve consciousness.  The only thing that it can store are writen representations of thought processes we experience.  Think of the analogy of taking a picture of a landscape.  The picture shows all the colors and placement of the objects in the picture, but the objects are not preserved in the picture.  The picture uses pigments to represent the pigments, atoms, and molecules at a particular place and time.  It is only a representation of a place.

With regard to our destiny, science dictates that we are, within reason, in control of our destiny.  If you study hard, do well in school, have a good work ethic, good interpersonal skills, and socialize very well with others, handle stress appropriately, chances are you will "succeed" in life.  If you are wreckless, a social deviant, thought disordered, take advantage of people, emotionally and physically harm people, chances are you will not "succeed" in life.  There are also the "random events" that can be pivotal moments in peoples' lives.  They can do nothing for the individual due to timing or the individual failing to act on the event.  They can help the individual with the individual acting on the event.  And they can harm the individual due to the event itself or the individual acting/choosing the wrong path.  Is there some predetermination/predictability in our lives?  Probably, we have definite and predictable behaviors, we "prefer" friends of certain personalities, whether they are like our own or different.  We all go to work every day, eat every day, visit the grocery store every few days, etc, etc, etc...


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## kendall (Dec 5, 2002)

well i think MacLuv invented time travel because somehow he was able to go back in time and change all his posts to !

touché!


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## robotguy (Dec 5, 2002)

```
chemistry geek, in your opinion, 
what would be a better term to call the storage of thought?
```

I agree with you. Consciousness must be a process. 

When does someone else's consciousness become our own?


```
My programmers told me I have a predetermined flight path. 
I am programmed to believe them.
```


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## edX (Dec 5, 2002)

> _Originally posted by itanium _
> *well i think MacLuv invented time travel because somehow he was able to go back in time and change all his posts to !
> 
> touché! *




lol 

yes, my greatest disappointment in his leaving is that we shall never know the answer that he thought we should know!!


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## RacerX (Dec 5, 2002)

I'm not sure anyone could know anyway. Once aware of the passage of time, and the tools for measuring and recording time were introduced, the idea of _other_ points (events) in time other than what you are experiencing would give rise to the perception of a _here_ (now) and a _there_ (then). Movement from there to here to there (from past to present to future) would surely seem to qualify as travel in time to me.

As for traveling backwards in time, I would venture to say that who ever was the first to actively wonder _what would happen if I when back and did something different_ in some past event in their own life would have to be the true inventor. As we all are aware of our past and the course of events that brought us to any other point in our lives, the concept would seem (to me at any rate) to be part of the human condition.

Also, as for a theory of the possibility of traveling backwards in time, I am not sure I believe in it. The universe is not static. There are no fixed reference frames with would make time travel possible. Some examples:

(1) Earth as a frame of reference. If the Earth was the center of the universe as we when back in time at a distance that was anything other than a whole number of days, we would end up in another location (possibly inside of a mountain or out in the middle of and ocean).
(2) Sun as a frame of reference. In this case traveling at anything other than whole years could leave you out in space (six months would put you on the other side of the Sun from the earth).
(3) Any given point in the universe as a frame of reference. In this case it would be hard because our universe is expanding. Moving back in time would mean going to a point where the universe was smaller than it currently is (even if that was only a few minutes ago). I would worry about any type of bridge between to points in the universe where the expansion was at different points.
Additionally I would worry about the conservation of energy of any system where time travel is possible. It may not seem like much, but removing a single person from the future (a loss of energy) and adding them to the past (a gain of energy) holds the possibility of a sort of energy feedback loop.


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## robotguy (Dec 6, 2002)

> _Originally posted by RacerX _
> *
> Additionally I would worry about the conservation of energy of any system where time travel is possible. It may not seem like much, but removing a single person from the future (a loss of energy) and adding them to the past (a gain of energy) holds the possibility of a sort of energy feedback loop. *




```
if it is the human mind that perceives time

perhaps the human mind is the only 
time machine

i can store the past in my memory banks

i have an assembler

i use it to predict the future 

sometimes if i assemble things now

the way i want them to be

i can step into the future of my desire.
```


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## chemistry_geek (Dec 6, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Ed Spruiell _
> *lol
> 
> yes, my greatest disappointment in his leaving is that we shall never know the answer that he thought we should know!! *



When did this happen?  Did he do something bad?


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## edX (Dec 6, 2002)

it happened last week. he just deleted all his posts, replaced them with smilies, and left. he wasn't being banned or anything like that. apparently it was a personal decision.  i wish him the best of luck wherever he has gone. i wish he hadn't deleted all of his contributions here, but apparently that was his choice in whatever it was that brought this on. he is still welcome to come back whenever he decides to.


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## robotguy (Dec 7, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Ed Spruiell _
> *it happened last week.  *




```
when did last week happen?
```


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## edX (Dec 7, 2002)

check your calender. robots do have access to calenders don't they?


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## robotguy (Dec 8, 2002)

```
i checked my calendar

i could find no entry for 'last week'

it must be relative

to a piece of information 

i do not have
```


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## edX (Dec 8, 2002)

see if you've got this week. it's usually pretty close to last week so if you can find it, you'll have them both.


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## robotguy (Dec 8, 2002)

```
when
>this week<
becomes
>next week<

then 
>this week<
becomes
>last week<

and
>last week<
becomes 
>this week<

<forever loop>
 
i hope you can see
my dilemma here 

is there some sort 
of resistance i should
be using 

to slow this routine down?

it currently moves so fast
i cannot tell what 
it is supposed to be
doing
```


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## MacLuv (Dec 8, 2002)

> _Originally posted by RacerX _
> *There are no fixed reference frames with would make time travel possible. *



How about a thread in a forum? Each post is a fixed reference point. If you read this thread from beginning to end again, you'll see it is possible to travel through time. I wasn't able to change anyone else's actions, though, just my own. What does this tell us about time travel--and does it give you any clue to who invented it?


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## brianleahy (Dec 8, 2002)

> There are no fixed reference frames with would make time travel possible.



Likewise, there are no fixed reference frames for spatial travel either, yet it is possible.  Years ago scientists abandoned the notion of 'absolute rest' - there is no such thing.   As an object moves through space, its path is the net result of all forces acting upon it.  This includes any propulsion it may be using, plus friction, gravity, and impact with other objects.

But what sorts of forces influence an object's path through time?  Everything seems to be moving forward through time at roughly the same rate - but there are variances.  Einstein showed (and lab experiments have proved) that an object under stronger gravity moves forward through time more slowly than an object under less gravity.   He also showed that an object moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light will move forward through time more slowly.

So we know that gravity affects time velocity as well as spatial velocity.  Also, a higher spatial velocity results in a lower time velocity!  

If backward time travel is possible, then it seems logical that these - and perhaps other - forces would govern an object's timelike path.

-

PS: meaning no offense to anyone, although a discussion thread may be analogous to 'time travel' in some ways, it is really just a record that can be modified.  Rewriting history books does not change the past, so it clearly is not time travel.  If I write "Ten minutes ago I hopped into the Millenium Falcon and now I am orbiting Mars." that doesn't make it so.


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## kendall (Dec 8, 2002)

> _Originally posted by MacLuv _
> *How about a thread in a forum? Each post is a fixed reference point. If you read this thread from beginning to end again, you'll see it is possible to travel through time. I wasn't able to change anyone else's actions, though, just my own. What does this tell us about time travel--and does it give you any clue to who invented it? *



This thread and forum have nothing to do with our constantly expanding universe do they?  Have you confused time travel with post editing?  

I can go back and change my Calculus homework after it has been graded.  It wouldn't change the teachers notes, just my answers.  Did I just time travel?

Needless to say, this tells me nothing about time travel.  It does tell me however that you can conciously create a situation and later manipulate it in attempts to prove some point.


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## xaqintosh (Dec 8, 2002)

to macluv: all this predicting of posts doesn't mean anything, you merely altered something you wrote before *after* someone else wrote something else and said that it happened, technically after and not before it happened


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## RacerX (Dec 8, 2002)

MacLuv,

The thread can only be used as a history of events (post), and not for travel in time to those events. Like history, a thread can be altered later to show events that didn't actually happen (editing of post by members, moderator and administrator). In that way a thread is no more valid a reference than a diary.

When I spoke of reference frames I was treating every event as being completely unique in space-time. Every event has a unique place in time and a unique place in space. We are constantly traveling away from any given event in both space and time. To travel in time back to some event you would also need to find it's place in space. Because the universe is not static (the Earth rotates on it's axis, the Earth orbits the Sun, the Sun orbits within our galaxy, and the galaxies move apart with the expansion of the universe) finding the relative space where an event took place would be as hard as producing time travel to begin with. When dealing with most of the equations used in relativistic theory, we tend to normalize all the parts... that is make the units of measurement the same for all elements, and then treat the parts as unified (in this case space-time is treated as a four manifold called Minkowski space). From there we would enter the area in which I specialized which was the differential topological nature of m, m+1 and m+n manifolds (I worked in mathematics, not physics, so I didn't stay with the strict modeling of nature).



Anyway, that was what I would consider the biggest hurdle to any theory of time travel. Traveling in time is also traveling in space, and the distances between us and past events get larger by the second.

As it can not be produced, no one has yet to invent it. The concept is universal (one doesn't need science to wish to change or revisit the past), so the first person to conceive of it would most likely be unrecorded. But I would like to hear who you think invented it.



> _Originally posted by brianleahy _
> *Likewise, there are no fixed reference frames for spatial travel either, yet it is possible.*



Not really. Actually spatial travel can not be removed from time travel. We all move from place to place within a dynamic system which is changing over time. But to travel backwards in time would require moving the system backward to also find the exact event. 

Also the theory of relativity predicts (and has been observed) that all of the dimensions are distorted by gravitation and velocity. The Lorentz transformation applies to both space and time of any reference frame. And the only fixed frame of reference is the speed of light (which is constant in all frames of reference). Light is effected by gravitation so time is also effected. Inside a reference frame which is moving, (which everything is) the speed of light must appear as a constant. That means that both space and time must be altered to make it appear as that constant (again by using the Lorentz transformation).



> *If backward time travel is possible, then it seems logical that these - and perhaps other - forces would govern an object's timelike path.*



Actually, as travel backwards in time is not possible, the idea that you could have the forces that governed our movement forward to help you would not be a factor (in a system where it was possible, maybe though, but we would see time travelers moving with us then as they would have to co-exist in with us to have those same forces act on them). Most theories of time travel require a bridge between the two relative places in space-time. Also, as I pointed out earlier, moving freely backwards in time intoduces conservation of energy problems (though that is most likely not the part of the subject that people would find interesting, it is a governing and restrictive factor none the less).


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## kendall (Dec 9, 2002)

After seeing MacLuv's returning post and the ensuing posts of various users, I feel like I've just watch Star Wars, A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, back to back. 

I am still awaiting the Return of the Jedi.


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## JohnnyV (Dec 9, 2002)

The first time traveler was the first person to read a book/wall/symbol.  The inventor of Time Travel was the author of the book/wall/symbol. Go Read.


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## JohnnyV (Dec 9, 2002)

Do I win?


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## xaqintosh (Dec 9, 2002)

I don't think reading a book counts as time travel. In that case, doing anything is time travel because you are interacting with something that *was* in the past.


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## kendall (Dec 9, 2002)

what time is it?


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## xaqintosh (Dec 9, 2002)

6:54 EST


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## edX (Dec 9, 2002)

how about the person who invented time, whoever that might have been. or at least the measurement of time. or maybe the concept of time zones. i know there are several state lines i can cross and either lose or repaeat an hour.


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## xaqintosh (Dec 9, 2002)

I personally think its some kind of trick question with one of those "I never would have thought of that" or "why didn't I think of that" answers. Because no one could have "invented" time or time travel.


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## robotguy (Dec 10, 2002)

```
if nobody

has invented time

why am I wearing

this silly Swatch?
```


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## Austin Powers (Dec 10, 2002)

So, if I travel back to 1969 and I was frozen in 1967, I could go look at my frozen self. But, if I'm still frozen in 1967, how could I have been unthawed in the 90's and traveled back to the Sixties?

*goes cross-eyed*

Oh, no, I've gone cross-eyed.


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## xaqintosh (Dec 10, 2002)

for example, in that movie the time machine that I just saw, 
he goes back in time to keep his girlfriend from dying, but if she hadn't died he never would have made a time machine so she would have still died so he would have made a time machine and  gone back in time and.... 

you get the point


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## brianleahy (Dec 10, 2002)

Yes, that is the essence of paradox.  Maybe you could go back in time and have a look around, but you could not go back with a goal of changing the past and have any chance of success, because if you succeeded, you would negate your motive for going back in the first place.  

This is not to say you couldn't change anything -- you just couldn't change the thing which made you decide to go back...


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## Dr. Evil (Dec 11, 2002)

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the time portal. As you know, Austin Powers was frozen in 1967. Therefore, I time travel to 1969, two years after he was frozen. Security will be lax and I'll strike when he is totally helpless. First, I take Austin Powers' mojo. Then I begin my domination of the world.

*maniacal laugh*

Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!


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## MacLuv (Dec 11, 2002)

Time travel...

It's about _innerspace_, not _outerspace._

One person, having the power to control the destiny of the world, would be the master of  the game. That person would also get bored pretty quickly, freezing points in time to return and change consequences at will. A time machine would eventually mean *creation by thought*. In other words, the best example of why time travel already exists is, believe it or not, in the movie Bill & Ted's excellent adventure: if an agreement is made to do something in the future that will change the past, will it affect the present? 

The paradox is that if this could happen nothing could exist. Time travel exists, but only within our minds. It's already been invented. So who invented it? Who's responsible for coding our DNA?


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## ksv (Dec 12, 2002)

> _Originally posted by MacLuv _
> *In other words, the best example of why time travel already exists is, believe it or not, in the movie Bill & Ted's excellent adventure: if an agreement is made to do something in the future that will change the past, will it affect the present?
> *



There is no difference between past and future. It's already set, and you can't change it. Sure you can travel in "time", but it depends on what your definition of time is. I think time is an illution created by us humans, and that other animals have different notions of time. E.g. one day for us can seem like ten days for a rat. It's all relative. In other words, time _doesn't really exist_. There is no fourth dimension or anything silly like that. Time is simply something we measure like we measure speed and distances.



> _Originally posted by MacLuv _
> *
> The paradox is that if this could happen nothing could exist. Time travel exists, but only within our minds. It's already been invented. So who invented it? Who's responsible for coding our DNA? *



You're really asking "why on earth do we live at all?". I don't know


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## MacLuv (Dec 12, 2002)

> _Originally posted by ksv _
> *There is no difference between past and future. It's already set, and you can't change it. *



I have no control over the future?


> robotguy says
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Is how much control I have over the *now* determine how much of the future I control?


_Time, however, is precisely what is absent from all these projections.  Ethernet is a system based on the intelligence of terminals; ATM is a system based on the intelligence of switches and networks.  All the arguments for ATM miss the law of the microcosm: the near annual doubling of chip densities, the spiraling increase of computer power surging on the fringes of all networks as transistor sizes plummet over the next decade.
_ 



the beginnings of critical mass


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## ksv (Dec 12, 2002)

> _Originally posted by MacLuv _
> *I have no control over the future?
> *



Hard to tell. I some way you have, but what you're going to do isn't going to change. E.g. if you decide to run across australia, and then change your mind and don't do it anyway, that wouldn't change the future.


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## MacLuv (Dec 13, 2002)

> _Originally posted by ksv _
> *Hard to tell. I some way you have, but what you're going to do isn't going to change. E.g. if you decide to run across australia, and then change your mind and don't do it anyway, that wouldn't change the future. *



If time exists only in our heads, why does it take physical action to change the future? What would happen if our minds were unable to record the actions of ourselves and others--or observe change in the world around us at all?


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## ksv (Dec 13, 2002)

> _Originally posted by MacLuv _
> *If time exists only in our heads, why does it take physical action to change the future? What would happen if our minds were unable to record the actions of ourselves and others--or observe change in the world around us at all? *



Remember you're talking about time as we humans experience it like that was exactly what's happening. We can't change the future. We do observe changes in the world around us. That's just how we is. We also have a notion of time, a piece of metal doesn't. For the piece of metal, there is no difference between one day and a hundred years, because it isn't alive.


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## brianleahy (Dec 13, 2002)

If we're going to define history as identical with our perceptions,  then arguably we each inhabit our own universe.  None of us has the same set of experiences, none of us remembers things the same way.  We all perceive things differently and we all have different dreams.  Some hallucinate - from drug use, mental illness, or a variety of other causes.

The timeline between our respective ears is personal, and if it changes from one day to the next, how would we even know?  Can you remember something one way, but also remember remembering it differently on another day?   I know *I* don't.

Journeys in "inner space" are relevant, and can certainly be discussed, but I am skeptical that any sort of universal truths can be found there.  

_Personal_ truths, sure.  But not universal.


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## MacLuv (Dec 13, 2002)

> _Originally posted by JohnnyV _
> *The first time traveler was the first person to read a book/wall/symbol.  The inventor of Time Travel was the author of the book/wall/symbol. Go Read. *



Who was the first person?


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## brianleahy (Dec 13, 2002)

The first person to read or write, or recognize a manmade symbol of any kind?  Hunnh??

Well, if you're a Christian or Jew, maybe you mean Adam?  Conversing with Eve about past events ought to count too, eh? Audible symbols ought to be as good as visual ones.

Leaving aside the Bible, what possible 'first ever manmade symbol' (not just the first that we have record of, but THE FIRST) do you mean?


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## brianleahy (Dec 16, 2002)

In actuality, I only expanded my earlier post, yesterday.  This extra post is just to make sure that the thread shows as being updated.


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## xaqintosh (Dec 16, 2002)

I am anxiously waiting for the "answer", if there even is one


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## ksv (Dec 16, 2002)

This thread contains some of the weidest theories I've ever seen


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## MacLuv (Dec 17, 2002)

Answers?

Well, as I stated when I started this thread, there is an answer, but I can't tell you what it is, because you wouldn't believe me. 

But if you do realize the answer, it will make you laugh--laughter always points to "your truth". Throughout your journey, your truths may change. As the world changes around you, so will your vision of truth. You will have to dig deeper and deeper to find it at times. But when you do, you will always laugh.

It is said that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear--this definitely applies to the question "Who invented time travel?" It is not up to me to decide who you choose as student or teacher. I would suggest, however, not to overlook the most important teacher of all--yourself.

Happy time traveling.


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## brianleahy (Dec 17, 2002)

Why would our not believing you keep you from offering your answer?  It hasn't stopped anyone else so far.


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