Time Travel

[Ozzymandias]

Ozzymandias speaks: I'm interested in this thread. A few weeks ago, I mailed off a story about
time travel to a writing contest. I don't want to go into too much since contest rules forbid
previous publication of the story. Someone might see the conversation and claim this is a
publication.

With that said, I wanted the story themes to be more important that the technical aspect of time
travel. I also make it an accident that the travelers, two nerdy and obnoxious teenage boys,
actually succeed at what they are doing.

The main character is a news reporter for a Top 40 radio station in 1978. The two boys, from the
2009, show up at the station with an Ipod filled with podcast of the main character's talk radio
show from 2009. Everything he says on the podcast is stuff that can jeopardize his chance to
cover a presidential visit and his relationship with a female TV report.

While the main character is appalled by the opinions he expresses on the podcast, the boys are
appalled by the 1978 versions of Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, the Incredible Hulk and the
Batman and Fantastic Four cartoons. 

Ozzymandias has spoken!!!   

[Jim H]

Yeah, but if the Large Hadron Collider destroys the the balance of the world in the future, how on earth would anyone be able to go back in time to stop it, when everything is already messed up. I'm quite sure that if the power of time travel was possible in the future, it would have been exploited for far more greedy and selfish purposes, thus changing time in other ways. I've always like to think that time travel would be possible, I would love it if it ever became a reality, but I do not ever see it happening.

The time loop has to start somewhere.  There's also the possibility of a multiverse on multiple timelines with some crossover.

[Psycho Circus]

Yeah, but if the Large Hadron Collider destroys the the balance of the world in the future, how on earth would anyone be able to go back in time to stop it, when everything is already messed up. I'm quite sure that if the power of time travel was possible in the future, it would have been exploited for far more greedy and selfish purposes, thus changing time in other ways. I've always like to think that time travel would be possible, I would love it if it ever became a reality, but I do not ever see it happening.

The time loop has to start somewhere.  There's also the possibility of a multiverse on multiple timelines with some crossover.

I'd agree on the principle that travelling to the past may be possible, but I still feel in is way beyond man's comprehension. Travelling to the future to me, is simply impossible. I think that yes, you can skip a few hours or days at light speed, but it would just be within the confines of man-made recorded time. I feel that there would have to be some sort of domino effect on the entire universe to trigger a jump forward/back changing millions upon millions of lives and particles and chemicals.

[Jim H]

Yeah, but if the Large Hadron Collider destroys the the balance of the world in the future, how on earth would anyone be able to go back in time to stop it, when everything is already messed up. I'm quite sure that if the power of time travel was possible in the future, it would have been exploited for far more greedy and selfish purposes, thus changing time in other ways. I've always like to think that time travel would be possible, I would love it if it ever became a reality, but I do not ever see it happening.

The time loop has to start somewhere.  There's also the possibility of a multiverse on multiple timelines with some crossover.

I'd agree on the principle that travelling to the past may be possible, but I still feel in is way beyond man's comprehension. Travelling to the future to me, is simply impossible. I think that yes, you can skip a few hours or days at light speed, but it would just be within the confines of man-made recorded time. I feel that there would have to be some sort of domino effect on the entire universe to trigger a jump forward/back changing millions upon millions of lives and particles and chemicals.

Man-made recorded time?  Well, you're not REALLY time traveling when you do what I describe.  You're just experiencing less of time as it goes by, and you're not actually "jumping" anywhere.  The other thing is once you can get a craft that can go that fast, since there's almost no matter at all in the vast majority of space, it's very easy to keep it going at that speed.  Meaning, provided you had enough steering capability to eventually turn yourself around and calculate correctly any incoming objects, it wouldn't be too difficult to go decades or centuries relative to your few weeks or months.