Time Travel Theories

One of my dorkier habits is thinking about things like time travel in my spare time, lol.  I'm no scholar in quantum theory (in fact, I bet a lot of us here aren't), but I think it's fun to think about things like this!  And I'm curious to hear what you guys have to say about the subject.

Let's pretend time travel is possible (which it very well may be - who's to say for sure).  How do you guys think it would go down?

There are a lot of theories out there that are like the 2009 "Star Trek" rule - that if one were to go back in time, they wouldn't alter the past, rather create a divergent timeline/reality.  Ours would remain intact (William Shatner's Kirk), but there would be another reality created that would carry the consequences of said time travel (Chris Pine's Kirk).

However, I'm of the "12 Monkeys"/"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" rule - that if someone were to go back in time and alter the past, we'd never know because it would have already occurred in our past.  Like when Harry gets beaned in the head with the stone that Hermione throws at him in Hagrid's hut.

Naturally, either theory raises all sorts of questions.  With the "Star Trek" rule, I'm curious about what happens to the person going back in time - would Nimoy-Spock really never be seen again in the Shatnerverse?  Why aren't there more consequences to having the two Spocks meet?  (Nimoy and Quinto.)  And furthermore - why wasn't a divergent timeline created when the Enterprise crew went back in time in "Star Trek IV" to rescue the whales?  (Besides the obvious answer of different writers handling different stories, clearly.)

And with the "12 Monkeys"/"Harry Potter" rule - is time travel to the future even possible, then?  What consequences might arise if that were indeed possible?

What do you guys think?  Go nuts with your theories and explanations! 


Edited by AntiBody - 18-Jan-2012 at 5:04pm

Another thing that's difficult for me to wrap my head around - what if I went to the future and did something significant there.  Let's say I traveled 50 years into the future.  What if somebody else then traveled 40 years into the future and did something that incidentally prevented my being able to change the thing in the 50 years... Aaaa!!  Lol

Another funny thing: I never thought about time traveling as also having to be time AND SPACE traveling until someone said it in a comic lately (Uncanny X-Force?  Great, now I can't remember my source material and I'm at work and can't look it up...).  Traveling to Paris in 1848 would be fun, but if the Earth is in a different place in its orbit at that time, well, you're effed.  Lol

according to quantam theory (and Dr. Manhattan) time is non linear and does not seperate itself into past present and future its only the human perception of the passage of time that sorts itself out if we percieved it all at once like it actually occurs wed go insane so inversely traveling through time would be possible  but any change in that reality would send you spiraling into one of many seperate realities that exsist, the universe you were in would still remain intact but you would be in a seperate one however if you do not alter a thing you can travel through the past safely, so when stephen hawking says since we dont see visitors from the future so time travel cant exsist, the reason we dont see them is that if we did it would severly alter the future

Because I AP I always thought time exists simultaneously as past, present, future so that there is no concept of time itself. To travel "back in time" would be to vibrate to another plane of existence still happening as an alternate. That's not to say that what you do won't effect the 'future" as planes constantly split into these branches, so in some branch somewhere your efforts would have made difference. Just not necessarily in the same vein of planes you'll go back to unless you find the certain path and even then, can we be sure? It seems to be a pretty tough call to me.

But it would have occurred either way no matter what. A plane for every infinite possibility and splitting more for each action and breath we take. It never stops splitting. Ever.

What if you incorporated the many worlds theory into a time travel theory? Therefore, if you were able to travel to the future the choices you made while there would tangent off into a new timeline, leaving your original timeline unchanged and other timelines open for trial and error possibilities? Just a thought.