is time travel really possible

[The Inqusito]

is time travel possible

[ICEMANSAV]

By passing through time zones then you can actually go back or forward in real time. NZ is 12 hrs behind UK or in front, so you can be speaking on the phone to someone who is in the previous day to yourself. Actually being in one time zone however and not leaving this it is impossible unless the clocks go back or forward, now I am getting confused. Argghhh

[WaldoMcFroog]

All I am allowed to tell you is that that this question really hacks people off when you post it again next week...

[Sylday]

Not in the way you mean.

[SteveD]

If time travel was possible, you could go back to a time before you were conceived and kill your parents.

[kiss2u]

i watched a program a couple of months ago which consisted of a load of scientist blokes. The gist of it was that time travel is possible by distorting the 'waves' in space (cant remember the exact techno stuff). They had built a machine which does such a thing. However it will only be affective from when the machine is switced on, so people in the future can come back to us be we cannot go back in time as the machine for time travel does not exist, or something like that. My brain hurts...

[Quizmonster]

Surely, Steve, if one did what you suggest, then one would never have existed and, therefore, would not have been in a position to 'go back' anywhere!

[PaulB]

I would LOVE it to be true but, if it was possible, surely we would know about it, as in, someone from the future would have come back by now to tell us! The theory I liked was that Jesus was a time traveller - he apparently healed people of pain (Painkillers), walked on water (Skies?) and also, the so called UFOs have also been claimed as to being time travellers from the future. One thing for sure is that we'll probably never know. *Ramble over* :o)

[bernardo]

Quizmonster - yes, indeed; that is the whole point which Steve was making. It's normally known as the "grandfather paradox".

But yes, actually, it is possible to travel in time. The passage of time slows down for travellers according to their speed - the faster, the more severe. If you travelled for a long time at near the speed of light, you would be able to go away for a few months and come back to Earth and find that thousands of years have passed. This has been confirmed by comparison of highly-accurate atomic clocks on aeroplanes being compared with those on the ground. The person who has travelled most in time is a Russian cosmonaut who has spent more than a year or two in space, orbiting around the Earth and several thousands of miles per hour. The cumulative effect of all his travels is that he has gone approximately one-fiftieth of a second into the future, i.e. his age-wrinkles are appearing one-fiftieth of a second later than they would have done without his travels.

[Quizmonster]

I did see the point, B. I just wondered how long we could all go on debating in ever-decreasing circles until the inevitable happened!

[woofgang]

of course it is. I (along with everyone else I know travels forward in time all the time!!)

[Moog]

Time travel is possible, we're all doing it right now, whether travelling back in time is possible is another matter, there are a number of paradoxes such as the grandfather paradox mentioned above which suggest that it may not be possible, though whether the laws of physics allow it is a matter of considerable debate.

[bernardo]

It will never be possible to travel backwards in time. We already know this with certainty, because if it were possible, then someone would have gone back and won the "tuck your hooters into your underpants" competition at the earliest possible stage, thereby saving us all a load of grief.

[abcdefg303]

ask me yesterday and i'll give you the answer