time machine

No, but the ability to travel at superluminal velocities might give you the unusual opportunity to watch, say, the original "The Honeymooners" episodes from the comfort of your own living room on a planet orbiting Polaris - 300 years from now.

--Europium

Ah, the invention of the time machine, like all engineering projects, is running behind schedule, again.

Consider if someone does invent such a machine, would it not be sensible to believe that we would have had routine visits from future historians to see key events in history, just to get the facts straight? For instance, no doubt there would have been someone from the future hiding behind the curtains in the White House just to set the record straight on whether Bill Clinton did have sex with that girl.

Perhaps that is where the National Enquirer gets all its juicy stories after all.

Well, ironically I think that we have not seen such a visit and that in itself may be proof that it is not possible!

However, that has not stopped the dreamers. What if there are an infinite number of universes that represent all possible outcomes to every situation? If that was true then each time someone goes back in time the alteration that is caused by their visit simply spawns a new timeline-universe while a version of the original universe that spawned it just goes on like nothing ever happened because it wouldn't.

Of course that would imply that our universe is the original unperturbed universe that represents the timeline that no one has ever invaded from the future. So, how likely would the odds of that be that you and I are in that universe and not one of the countless others that have time travelers popping into and out of?

Still, in that theoretical model there has to be one universe that is undisturbed and someone has to be in it, so why not us? If that was true, then for us time travel is impossible!

There are more theories than you can shake a stick at than the one I proposed, so we best keep an open mind. Being a creature of science fiction I would like to believe in such things. However, I am also pragmatic and still pay my bills on time rather than rely on a bet that there was a future time machine that allows me to go back in time and pay them before the fact!

I like you to know that I wrote this response just before you asked the question, but decided to post it later. Please don't ask me how I knew, I mean know.

"Please don't ask me how I knew, I mean know."

In retrospect, perhaps?

--Europium

You are about to ask?

I just knew you'd say that!

muiporuE--

Nice to meet someone on the same time-space continuum. ;-) However, I will only be here for a short time and then I was off.

c, have u already invented a time-machine? coz how else cud u possibly know what i was gonna ask u!!

n seriously, if u like to tell me 'what', u'll have to tell me 'how' n 'why'!!!

n c don't create yet another mystery for me n do reply...

Elika, I simply must ask: are you typing your posts from a cell phone?

Just curious, that's all.

Europium, I simply must answer: no, that's just out of habit n i wish to get rid of that.

Anything else u'll like me to clarify?

As a creature of science fiction, I am sure you have read the many stories of Philip K. Dick. Time travel, often drug induced, was a common theme in his novels.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but... You are not actually seeing into the past when you look at a distant light source, your retinas are "registering" or recieving photons that are arriving in the here and now. Granted, they may have started their journey a long time ago and from the perspective of the photon (relativity, see Jorrie) the trip would have taken zero seconds, you are still witnessing a current event (the photons striking your eye).

can u plz explain it a bit more, i don't think i got u completely!

Time only exists for few milli-seconds that is as long as our brain takes to process the information coming in.

What it means is that light from a star can have travelled a from very long way distant; and taken a very long time to reach your eyes, but in that you have only just been able to register that fact, it has ony existed for as long as you have been looking at it. What you don't register by site or any other of your senses may or may not exist! How would you know. If some one fired a silent gun at the back of your head you would only know when you felt the bullet strike. The only thing is does time exist? If the earth stood still Time would still exist or would it? Who cares?

Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!

-e

ARABIC??or EUROPIUMESE???

I agree with the rest of it. But, "Who cares?" - who doesn't and why not??