Time Travel

[Chessman]

A nice little question for you.

If time travel was possible, and you went back to before you were born, met your parets and killed them, Wat happens to you?.

[Gill 05]

There would b no u.

[jno]

...in which case there'd be nobody to kill them...

[jno]

great piece, that, Eddie - thanks

[qapmoc]

Hey that question is about 200 yaers old, can't you think of something a bit more original !!

[Ding-Dong]

I think its a good question - and one that I've not heard before: its one of those questions that makes the old grey matter ache when you think about it too much.

[Cockney_si]

I know it couldn't be done but how about if you went back in time and got someone else to kill your parents?

[jake-the-peg]

We've had this one an awful lot in the science section.

It's quite complex to explain why but I suspect it may be theoretically possible to send matter backwards in time. A positron which is an anti-electron can be seen as an electron moving backwards in time. However I think it may not be posible for information to travel backwards in time.

A consequence of this might be that although you could travel back to last Friday night you would not have any way of then knowing what the lottery numbers were or indeed anything that happened subsequently.

The grandfather paradox would not arise becase the information about "you" would cease to exist as you travelled before your birth.

Another consequence of this would be that a "time  machine" could not travel back before its' own creation.

Could put Oil of Ulay out of business though!

[Chessman]

qapmoc, it doesn't matter how old it is, its still an interesting question,

Eddie, great link, and thanks to those that took it in the right spirit.