1. In one very limited sence, "time travel" has already been proven - the closer something accelerates to the speed of light, the more time appears to slow for the observer. This was proved in a very limited way in 1971. My plan is to invest all of my money in one of those 100 year bonds that companies come out with every blue moon, and then compress time at a high enough ratio that I'd come back when the bond reached maturity at something like 1 year relative time. Of course, the equation is very logrythmic, so you need to be going like 9/10 of the speed of light to get any real dialation. You also get strong dialation close to large gravity sources, like supermassive black holes, like Sagitarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the milky way. 2. The paradox issue can be solved by the manyt worlds interpritation of the Schrodinger's Cat complaint to quantium mechanics. In this setup, every time there is a quantum superposition, a seperate galaxy is created to account for both states. When you go back in time and kill your father, therefore, one universe exists where you grew up and bought a gun and went back in time, and another where your father was murdered by someone from "an alternative universe" before you could be born. 3. Unfortunately, when you get down to it, time travel is not disproven by special relativity, but neither is any easy (or even plausable) method mentioned, nor has anybody been able to suggest any methods that don't have serious flaws. I hate to keep siting the same source, but there is actually a really good Wikipedia article on the possible methods that covers most of the practical problems that people like to ignore 4. There is a novel which deals with the concept of "Time travel" (as a means of communication) in terms that I've seen as being almost universaly described as the novel which is most consistent with probable reality. It is called Timescape and it's by Gregory Binford, who is a physics professor at UC-Davis or somewhere like that. It's a bit dry but very technically good. Finally, in answer to the original question, the guy's site isn't full of errors as far as I can tell, but it's kind of a politician's position speech - it words things in ways that are most favorable while basically ignoring some massive problems and unsolved issues. Also, the "arrow of time" bit at the beginning has been a big connundrum, but some of his stuff on the big bang is negated by competing superstring theories that involve the creation of the universe as a result of coliding branes or other exotic methods.
I'd love to time-travel. Imagine leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that my next leap might be my leap home.
You're already doing that. At least to the people who follow the zodiac as their inspiration for existence.
http://themonocle.tripod.com/QL.html In the year 1995 (remember the show began in 1989, so we are in the 'future'), the brilliant Doctor Sam Beckett led a group of elite scientists into the desert of New Mexico (Stallions Gate, to be exact) to develop a top sercret project known as Quantum Leap. He theorized that one could time travel within his own lifetime. Pressured to prove his theory or lose funding, Sam prematurely stepped into the project accelelator and vanished ... He awoke to find himself trapped in the past with suffering from partial amnesia (which they call 'Swiss Cheese') and facing mirror images that was not his own. Also, he is being driven by an unknown force (often called 'God/Time/Fate/Whatever') to change history for the better. Fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brainwaves transmissions with the project observer, U.S. Navy rear admiral Al Calavicci, who appears in form of a hologram that only doctor Beckett can see and hear. And so, doctor Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right to what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap, will be the leap home.
I read a screenplay with this scenario. Aside from my objections to the theory involved, it was a horrible screenplay. Time travel doesn't seem to make a good focal point for a plot, particularly when there is a large emphasis on how it could work.
Granted, but the fact that it was a bad screenplay is not a fact that renders the scientific postulate untrue. The best science fiction movies are things based on Philip K. Dick novel type issues things, where the science is actually not important (in his books he had robots with real-to-real tape machines inside of them and the like), but where you are forced to deal with either issues which impact on current problems with the world, or issues where people are forced to deal with very familiar human problems juxtaposed against the very strange science-fiction surroundings. What is often regarded as the best of the original Star Trek episodes is City on the Edge of Forever which is a time travel story which really is a human interest story. (Written by Harlan Ellison, who wrote a fabulous SF short story I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream which gave me nightmares as a child.) Likewise, Minority Report was a good "time travel" story (in the sense that they looked into the future), because it was really a story about an erosion of justice which leads to more civil order, which seems nice unless you happen to be part of the "error rate".
Even if you don't care for the particular series, but like the original Star Trek, you should see the episode of Deep Space 9 called "Trials and Tribble-ations". It's hilarious. They make fun of all the goofy time travel episodes in the original series, as well as a bunch of other original series stuff.
I've seen it. They even explained the reason the Klingons looked so different in the original series. Well, sort of.
I liked that movie "Time Bandits" that's about as much as I know about the subject... btw, don't let these guys discourage you from posting your thoughts...A lot of cynical bastards are here, including myself...
You know, maybe for Quarks, Muons, Photons or Tachyons but the minute you start talking about anything with appreciable mass like..... a 400 pound nerd maybe, the energy requirements exceed the possible.
There's a theory that once we are able to make quantum computers, it still will be able to run even though it's turned off. The reason is that it's still running on the quantum level in another state. I posted an article about a random number generator being able to see the future. It is part of a larger experiment called the Global Consciousness Project, where collective human thoughts can have paranormal implications. Take a type of snake that is nearly blind. Though it can see shades of light and random movements, it doesn't actually see like we do. So it's possible that our senses aren't attuned to viewing time on a non-linear level. If time travel is real, we wouldn't even know how to sense it. It's like working with 2 dimensional senses on a 3 dimensional plane. An intersection could be one infinitely small point.
Check out the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research lab at Princeton University. They've found minute, but statistically significant evidence of people being able to affect physically randomized events in minute ways. The problem is things like non-local effect are prominant on the quantam level, but on the level at which we percieve they are basically nonexistant. Quite a few of the really neat in the realm of science which are possible turn out to be silly when you actually calculate the amount of energy required to make it happen, or require things like negative energy or other stuff that's beyond the realm at this point. But, the insane sometimes becomes possible. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C. Clark
OK this will completely expose me as a nerd but didn't Worf totally dodge the question? He simply said "Its not spoken of to outsiders." Also was 'City on the Edge of Forever' the Joan Collins one? Never liked that one too much. It just smacked too much as another transparent dig at the Peace Movement. The space hippie one "We reach" was a much more entertaining episode. As far as time travel Star Treks IMO the all time best was the TNG one where they blew up the Enterprise every commercial break.
