Responses for
"Is Time Travel Possible?"

Response from Charlene (No Email Given)
very well said, i couldnt agree more :)

Response from Emilson (Email withheld for their privacy)
I didn't understand why you say time travel is possible. Light from stars spends time to reach Earth. No doubt about that. So, our perception is retarted. But it in no ways imply that some day we could travel in time and "see" what have happened. There are no evidence to claim such a thing. And to say we just would "see" without interact with it is non-sense. Everything in the Universe interacts, even if you are too far from the object, let alone if you are "seeing" event that occured ON EARTH long time ago. Also, time is not equal to space. You can pretty much travel from one place to another place how many times you want, but you never can do "time travel". Such a concept is confusing people around the world, including famous scientist who take too seriuos the idea that time is a dimension like space. I think you, as a skeptic and athesit (like me:-), must take a look very carefully behind the assumptions made by relativity and check out if it is really logically consistent.

My Reply: Your very first sentence tells that you didn't read my article too closely. OK So let's see if we can make this a little clearer for you.

When you see the stars most will concede that you are, in effect, looking into the far past. Hundreds or even thousands of years depending on the star. However no matter what you do, you can't interact with that star at the time period that it sent that light.

This is basically the situation I'm talking about when I say that we can travel into the past via observation but can't travel into the past and interact with it.

This is the whole reason why I separate time travel into four different types. - JR

Response from Emilson (Email withheld for their privacy)
Well, I read your article but it doesn't give any good reason to believe in "time travel". The only reason for that we "see" the past when we look at a star is just because a star is too far from us. It is just our perception that is retarted due to the distance. You can never do the same for something on Earth, for example, no matter how fast you travel because velocity can not change time. The light from the Sun takes 8 min. to reach us. Again, our perception maybe retarted but the gravitational interaction between us and the Sun is almost instananeous so it means that we ARE interacting with the Sun and actually, we ARE interacting with everything in the Universe because everything is essentially connected.

My Reply: I'm still forced to conclude that you didn't read my article too well. Let's recap:

I gave four types of time travel. Of these, I said that right now 3 of the 4 are not possible and the fourth is a one-way trip. So we in fact agree that time travel in general is not possible.

With this in mind I’m wondering why you’re thinking that I’m saying that time travel is possible.

BTW your concept of “interact” is shoddy. Yes we “interact” with the sun and stars. However the question is in what time frame we interact. You can’t interact with a star 1,000 light years away as it was back then. You can only interact with it the way it is now, or the way it will be when your influence reaches it 1,000 years in the future.

Consider this concept for the purposes of explanation: Imagine a weapon in space 10 light minutes away. It’s aimed at a space-ship full of people which is also 10 light-minutes away. They will be hit and destroyed exactly 19 minutes after the weapon’s fired. You have a laser trigger that will stop the weapon (self-destruct the warhead), but you can’t use it until the weapon has been fired. You know the weapon has been fired because you see the blast much like a muzzle flash from a gun.

The moment you see the flash you hit the self-destruct trigger.

Will your “interaction” occur in time to save the target?

The answer is no. You won’t see the flash until 10 minutes after the weapon goes off. Another 10 minutes later, the laser signal reaches the warhead.

Unfortunately, the target was killed a full minute before the trigger reached it. (19 minutes versus 20 minutes)

Yes, we’re connected but not on the same time frame. Our ability to interact is dependent on time and distance.

So again I’m showing that time travel is generally not possible, (otherwise you could have saved those poor people) so get off my back and read stuff more closely before responding. - JR

Response from Jason (No Email Given)
All I have to say is in response to your statement that faster-than-light travel (assumedly for humans and not just neutrinos and other theoretical particles) will happen someday. The simple fact of the matter is that any object with mass (i.e. a human) approaching the speed of light will begin to sublimate into pure energy. Any matter which attains light speed will become light, since light is the only "thing" in the known universe capable of travelling at that speed. Light is energy without mass, and mass becomes pure energy upon attaining such a high velocity. It's basic logic. Yes, there may be ways of "cheating" light-speed travel in the future (folding or bending space, as you said), but actual travel at, let alone beyond, the speed of light is a logical scientific impossibility unless we're willing to become light (which sort of defeats the purpose, don't you think?). Overall, an interesting article which provides plenty of food for thought. Just thought I'd drop you a line about that particular issue.

My Reply: Funny. Prior to October 14, 1947 some experts and scientists theorized that the so-called "sound barrier" could not be broken. That was less than 100 years ago. I admit we have a long way to go before breaking FTL travel, but somehow, I think it's not as big a barrier as we think. I'm guessing we'll break it in about 10 generations or so. You and I'll be long dead, but it will still be broken. - JR

Response from Jason (No Email Given)
I feel that I must point out a fundamental difference in the example you give and the situation with light speed travel. Well before 1947, people were aware that there are objects that can travel faster than sound. It's a simple mathematical proof to show, for example, that the speed of a planet's orbit around a star is significantly faster than mach 1. The only obstacle before 1947 was finding some way for a man-made object to propel itself at speeds greater than that of sound waves. This was a simple question of physics and technology. Once the jet engine had been sufficiently refined, supersonic travel became a reality. The difference that I spoke of is that the "light barrier" is one that has never been broken by any object with mass. It's a Catch-22: the only thing capable of traveling as fast as light is light. Therefore, anything travelling at the speed of light must be light. There's no question of a technological barrier; light speed travel simply cannot be done in the physical universe by anything but light. Aside from neutrinos (which may or may not even exist, have no mass to begin with and are sub-atomic besides), nothing can travel even a little bit faster than light, let alone a hundred times! The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Find me a single instance of any object with mass moving faster than the speed of light and still retaining its integrity when it was finished, and I'll take back everything I've written. I rest my case.

My Reply: OK, I almost agree with everything you wrote. However new information is making us take a close look at light speed. I'll use some news stories to illustrate where I'm coming from.

First take a look at these articles about slowing light itself.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999340
http://physicsweb.org/article/world/14/9/8

If light itself can travel at slower speeds based on certain conditions, then why can't we speed it up? Why can't we make it travel c+1mph? If we can do that, why can't we go c+5mph? c+10mph? c+100mph? What's the true limit? If light can change speeds, than is c truly maximum speed or just the natural cruising speed?

Next, let's look at an article about moving faster than light.
http://physicsweb.org/article/world/13/9/3

I admit it's not a smoking gun, but it is saying that experiments are proving that we don't know everything about light speed.

Bringing this back to the article, one day we may be able to move things faster than light, but it still won't allow us to travel in time in most of the 4 methods I mentioned. - JR

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