We Will Never Invent Time Travel

[Deleted]

If we ever do invent time travel, then surely at some point in that potentially infinite time that time travel was present, then someone will have used time travel to travel back to before this date, thus we would already know that we invent time travel, as we would already have time travel. Am I right?

Alternatively, if we ever did invent time travel and someone was to travel back in time to a date prior to now and the world became aware of our future ability to time travel, this would cause a paradox and the whole timeline from that point until that particular time travel scenario occured would be re-written and this current reality would cease to be.

Third option, we invent time travel and an official law/common courtesy is to "not travel to a time before time travel". Can we honestly expect that the entire human population would adhere to this restriction?

To conclude, we will never invent time travel.

[Dezerte]

Travelling back in time may still be possible if the Multiverse hypothesis is correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

[Duridi]

The downsides of timetravel is also enormous.

I mean, I love watching Doctor Who, but seriously, just thinking of all the potential damage time travel would cause, gives me a headache.

[semaphore]

Or it could just create a new alternative timeline everytime that's separated from the original. Not that I think we will invent time travel though. Never say never, but the laws of physics seem pretty fixed here.

[Deleted]

check grandfather paradox

[Blueobelisk]

Well "invent" is a bad word. Did Edison "invent" electricity?

Flaw in your first point: Why are you assuming this person would share his knowledge or even know how to recreate it? If you got sent back to 1800 would you be able to tell people how to build plasma screen TVs?

Flaw in your second point: Maybe this "current" reality we're in is already the rewritten reality of someone coming back.

Flaw in your third point: You aren't making clear what the problem is if someone travels "before time travel is discovered."

[Theodon]

What if travelling back in time caused the future to change when that time traveller revealed the secrets of time travel, and therefore his future, and him along with it, no longer exist, therefore he never went back in time to tell us?

Perhaps many people have already attempted this and have simply ceased to exist due to their intent. If they were erased from existence the moment they changed their own future time-line then we wouldn't be any the wiser.

[ptwonline]

We already have time travel. But it's only to the future, and only in miniscule amounts.

[Deleted]

That or you can't travel back in time. Which doesn't exclude traveling forward in time.

[zorkuus]

Not being able to create a way to travel to the past does not prevent travel to the future. We already have evidence of time travel into the future, although the effects are very very miniscule at this point.

[oplawlz]

While I agree that we'll never go "back in time", I suspect we will learn how to bend space-time in pursuit of intergalactic travel.

[Deleted]

Time travel (into the past) isn't possible (I think) because we forget one thing: the idea of time travel requires everything to be happening at the same time OR that the universe stores everything that has happened. Time is a man made concept, I love the idea of time traveling and wish to redo a lot of stuff, but it's never going to happen.

[Spl4sh3r]

Travelling back in time may still be possible if the Multiverse hypothesis is correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

This, like they do on the tv-series Terra Nova :P

[Amyllia]

There's also the possibility that by the time we'd be able to make something as advanced as time travel, we'd be able to come up with a way to not interact with that plain of reality, but still be able to move through it and witness what was happening.

[Deleted]

You can't presume to know the limitations and parameters of technology that doesn't yet exist.

[Duridi]

This, like they do on the tv-series Terra Nova :P

Yup, and wonder what future they fuck up there?

[Sierra85]

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually — from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint — it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff

[PolarVargen]

What if they invent a way to travel back in time but only as a spectator?

[Deleted]

There's also the possibility that by the time we'd be able to make something as advanced as time travel, we'd be able to come up with a way to not interact with that plain of reality, but still be able to move through it and witness what was happening.

Maybe the UFOs are really people from the future watching us :O

[Duridi]

What if they invent a way to travel back in time but only as a spectator?

Who knows... Maybe they have already!