11 May 2004 | mike said...

- the best argument against time travel.

however, what if time travel is possible, but controlled by extremely effective laws of exposure?

did I just say "extremely effective law"? nevermind.

11 May 2004 | Paul Hart said...

Cheapass Games created a great game based on this theory a while back; US Patent Number 1. A brilliant concept, several inventors of time travel machines go back in time to post their invention as the first patent in the system. For curiosity's sake, I seem to recall that the UK's Patent 1 is related to maps.

11 May 2004 | orban said...

"the best argument against time travel." - No. If time travel was possible, why would you go to the year 2004?

-orban

11 May 2004 | authgeek said...

I almost took him seriously (not Hawking, the guy who wrote this 'article') until I found out that his site also had an article about "Making Easy Money"
http://members.madasafish.com/~newtheories/easy_money.html

11 May 2004 | Brad Hurley said...

Time travel may be impossible, but looking back in time is simple: just take a look at the sun, for instance. You can never see how the sun actually is at this very moment; you can only see how it was about 8 minutes ago, since it takes that long for its light to travel here. Now, if you could just look ahead instead of back...

11 May 2004 | steve said...

just take a look at the sun

Or you could look at the stars, and not go blind in the process.

11 May 2004 | Matthew Oliphant said...

Maybe Stephen meant, "Telling me about it."

Don't get me wrong, Steve's a great guy, but why be so egocentric as to believe he'd be one of the ones to know about it.

I've said too much already.

11 May 2004 | dansays said...

The fact that the stock market functions at all seems like empirical evidence that time travel is not possible. Otherwise, everyone with a time machine and a bit of cash would be travelling back to 1986 to invest in MSFT.

12 May 2004 | mortyy said...

dansays said...
... Otherwise, everyone with a time machine and a bit of cash would be travelling back to 1986 to invest in MSFT.

- Perhaps they did ...

12 May 2004 | sandor said...

Essentially what orban said. It may be that it's possible, but that no one's gone back in time earlier than 2004.

Or, you can think of things working in the Back to the Future realm of logic. Everytime someone goes back in time, she creates an alternate branch of space-time that starts at the point she goes back to and continues on forever, essentially parallel to the space-time that you and I exist in. We'd never know about it.

12 May 2004 | sandor said...

One more possibility: time travel is possible, but only in the forward direction.

(We essentially already have this ability. See: cryogenics or long-duration space travel, though the time gained in the latter is minimal.)

12 May 2004 | MegaGrunt said...

Or time travel is possible, but only to a time where (when?) a time machine exists, i.e. you would need a transmitter and receiver.

12 May 2004 | Don Schenck said...

I took the red pill.

An interesting question: If you could go back to a moment in your life and start again with the knowledge you now have, where would you go?

I'd go back to age 14 ... the perfect summer; no work, plenty of spending money (allowance!) and no responsibilities. And the Steelers were the champs. And Linda Ronstadt was hot.

12 May 2004 | Paperhead said...

He really should know better.

1. Just because something is not practical doesn't mean that it's theoretically impossible.

2. Maybe it is possible, but we - as a species - don't survive long enough to work it out.

12 May 2004 | victor said...

I'm with Sandor. Maybe we're just in the first iteration.

Besides, how can we be so sure that they'd tell us? I for sure wouldn't dare.

12 May 2004 | Ian said...

Sander seems to have the right idea... space travel makes earth time faster than the space crafts time. The closer you get to the speed of light, the more the effect is compounded. Of course, accelerating yourself to the speed of ligtht without turning your body into mush is the difficult part ;)

If you could go back in time, 0BC sounds like a good time to return to and make a bit of a name for yourself...

12 May 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Ian -- but as Tim Rice wrote, "Israel in 4 B.C. has no mass communications".

12 May 2004 | One of several Steves said...

I used to say that very same thing. But there's an inherent flaw in that line of reasoning: There are people telling us about it. They're in institutions, along with the people who think they're Jesus or that the government planted a chip in their head to control their behavior or monitor their thoughts.

It would be difficult to come back from the future and claim that you have done just that and not come off as a lunatic.

12 May 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Oh man ... great movie plot ... man and woman come from the future to try to change the world, and end up being institutionalized as crazy. One doctor, who herself is considered "slightly off her rocker", believes them. Action/romance/mayhem/drama (pick one) ensues.

Gotta run ... got a script to write!

12 May 2004 | One of several Steves said...

Don, ditch the woman from the future and have only one man come back from the future, and you've just repitched "12 Monkeys."

12 May 2004 | Don Schenck said...

Never saw it (note to self: rent "12 Monkeys").

12 May 2004 | pid said...

time travel is one thing, but please don't republish the author of that site, unless to mock...

he claims he is "perhaps the single greatest mind in the United Kingdom today". riiiiight

13 May 2004 | Sean Tevis said...

one well-documented time traveller was here a couple of years ago and talked about lots of things.

16 May 2004 | LNJ said...

Ahhhh, The Hawk strikes again. Are he and "Hawk Boy" on the case as to why The Hawk isn't the first to know about time travel.

"Hawk Boy... to my robotic exoskeleton."

"Wowwy-Zowwy Hawkings!!!"

17 May 2004 | James Craig said...

I heard a hypothesis that time travel is theoretically possible, but you would have to have working tie machines on both sides of the jump. A "gate" idea, I guess.

I thought this was pretty interesting... especially considering that you would probably never have to run QA tests. As soon as you build a working one, someone would from the future would jump out and say, "It's about time you got it right. I've been waiting."

31 May 2004 | Elmo said...

Could time travel ever become possible by any man today or would it take a further understanding of the concept.

31 May 2004 | maria said...

One more possibility: time travel is possible, but only in the forward direction.

01 Jun 2004 | rushton said...

Has anyone ever heard of the theory of cosmic strings? Supposedly, if two cosmic strings were to come together, a rift would be created and distort timespace. Also, has anyone heard of anything about white holes? White holes are the opposite of black holes, forcing any matter away from it with an anti-gravitational force...anyone have any thoughts about these two theories?

01 Jun 2004 | rushton said...

Has anyone ever heard of the theory of cosmic strings? Supposedly, if two cosmic strings were to come together, a rift would be created and distort timespace. Also, has anyone heard of anything about white holes? White holes are the opposite of black holes, forcing any matter away from it with an anti-gravitational force...anyone have any thoughts about these two theories?

03 Jun 2004 | Jonny R. said...

"the best argument against time travel." - No. If time travel was possible, why would you go to the year 2004?

-orban"

wow, smart. try 2004 and before, buddy.

anyways, i agree w/ sandor, though i for some reason have trouble calling that time travel. your not skipping ahead, it just happens a lot seems a lot faster to you

heh, i said time happens faster, didn't i? o well, u get me.