Time travel? Really?
 

See the article here.

Uhhhh...

First of all, this whole article was very very weird.

Second of all, I can see this being not a good idea.

Third of all, I don't understand any of the laws being described here. Perhaps somebody with more knowledge of physics would care to elaborate and put the weirdness into layman terms.


But if, just maybe, the dude is right and time travel actually is possible (which I seriously doubt), SHOULD we attempt it? It seems to be something that could go wrong in so many ways that I'm pretty sure it would be a bad bad thing.

In fact, somebody should make up a list of things 'Scientists should not invent'. Ironically, the two things that would top my list (namely time travel and artificial lifeforms) have both been in the news recently...

I really think that we shouldn't attempt time travel back in time. Anything we do could easily have destructive impact on the present. Some things are just too dangerous to toy with.

I would personally, myself, love to travel in time.

... Nobody else should be allowed to, though. Far too disasterous, end of the world and all.

I think the fact that we haven't encountered time travelers yet is a good sign they haven't got it quite right in the future so far.

Well, if there are time travellers, I think we can be sure that they'd make it their objective to actually change anything, and they'd be incredibly inconspicuous. I'm not sure from the article, but did it say that there would be a way for time travellers to come back to their time? If not, we should think of ways that they'd leave messages for their time, and attempt to intercept them. Other than that, I don't think it would be possible to discover time travellers.

Like as in the Movie Millenium?

Yeah as I remember that didnt work out too well. Unless youre a nihlist, they were rather pleased.

That means nothing. Outside of what 42Petunias said,

So nobody would be able to travel back before the machine was made anyway, so we wouldn't run into any time travelers until time travel becomes possible. Something to do with the machine being neccessary in both places to fold space-time or something...

Sounds to me like an effective excuse as to why we've never met a time traveler, but at the same time it does shoot down your argument.

Besides, how far in the future is "so far", and why would that matter to a time traveler? They'll either get it right in the future or they won't. Which I'm hoping they won't.

I bet you that as soon as time travel is discovered, then it would have to be discovered at all points in history all at once.

Havoc.

Scary.

I believe that if time travel does ever become a reality it would likely become one of those forbidden technologies, much like human cloning. The first time machine created would likely be the kind described here, whereby you cannot travel back to before the machine is first activated.

This means that, as soon as the device is switched on, ALL points in that space, from all future times, would be able to come back to our time. This would obviously be a very bad thing and would therefore negate the machines use for more than a few times in its entire existence. Can you imagine if the machine was used by 100, or 1000, or 10,000 peoples, or objects over the course of the next century, and all of those people and things being able to travel back to the same space-time? The effects would be disastrous. The device could therefore only safely be used sparingly, for the odd scientific experiment, to prove that the theory is true and nothing more. Once proven to work it would almost certainly be dismantled, or highly regulated by a government authority (assuming all other world governments would even allow its continued existense becuase let's face it, would YOU trust anyone with a machine that could send valuable intel back to the past?).

So my theory is, it's possible, but limited in its application due to the overwhelming power such a device would hold. Nobody in the world would want it to exist, except those who control it, which would in turn lead to it being decommisioned.

Basicly, the world ends when we get to travel back in time...

They should research a way to give us super-powers first... at least there woudl be a fun factor added to the Chaos of World ending... i mena... "time travelling accident" would end all on like what? 10 seconds? Not amusing at all...

Way to ignore the "quite right" segment of my sentence. Not being able to get back to their present would be a pretty big flaw in the program, so they'd want to work that out before initiating it.

So, with that clarified for ya, "so far" means "as of yet" not a "distance in the future". Whatever future is out there, they haven't gotten it down to a usuable, efficient level.

Finally, yes, if there were travellers, many would care about being inconspicuous. Then, there'd be that one Biff. All it takes is the one. No power, ability, or science exists that hasn't been abused.