Stumblebum

I think all we can hope for is that over the eons a nomadic race of intelligent beings has been recording Earth's history as they whip around the universe at close to lightspeed. Perhaps someday they will share it with us. And now....more nonsense! If time is a river, are we going with or against the current? Or are we standing in the river while it flows by? Is the future upstream or downstream from us? Personally I think the future would be upstream flowing towards me if I was standing still, thereby making the past downstream. But nothing is at rest in the universe so technically I am in motion but would the time river be also? Which direction am I swimming to move forward in time, upstream or down?

I'm not advocating a cyclical repetitive universe, just introducing it into the conversation. I don't know how we would ever know if the universe was cyclical or repetitive. I don't agree when you say the universe tries to make order unless chaos is a form of order but that's another topic. Time remains an enigma but these forums are a good place to put down an idea which perhaps may lead to a better understanding of it. Here is another reason I don't think reverse time travel is possible. What if millions of people owned a tt machine and they all at once decided to go back in time to a specific recorded event such as the Wright Brothers first flight? Does history record millions of spectators at Kitty Hawk?

You're right but let's say that a time traveller creates the temporal loop. He goes past the end and ends up at the beginning which as you stated is not the same as the original. But from now on it will be as the sequence is repeated ad infinitum. I'm not disagreeing with, just trying to make it more interesting.

To Mad S.- I don't think it would mess it up because if everything is repeating then it stands to reason that the trip into the past was done before. So your matter would have been present once before. In other words you & your spaceship were supposed to be there because it did happen once before. Hope I'm making sense.

Yes. Don't know the mechanics of it but it seemed reasonable to assume it could happen.

I agree that time travel into the past is impossible. However, if we exist at a point on a giant time loop then maybe yes, going forward the only way to find out.

Here's a different take, if a time traveller was to go into the past by surpassing lightspeed he might end up in the future. On acceleration he/she would eventually have to pass through the light barrier where time and distance mean nothing. Upon deceleration he/she would also have to make the same pass. So, all that travelling placed him/her at the light barrier twice, if only for a moment. So as he/she further decelerates to a stop there is advancement into the future. Maybe the only way to get into the past by exceeding c is to never slow down to lightspeed once past it. Don't think you would see much or even know. Don't take this post too serious, its just for fun.

Oh, I dunno. You might be a little older, like a guy coming out of a coma. As I said, its just a thought, possibly indicating the futility of reverse time travel. I would certainly love to see the massive calculations required in order to hit a specific event back in time.

Here's a thought I had a few years ago. Let's say you want to travel back in time using the faster than light-reversal of time method. For now let's just forget about light barriers and such. As you accelerate towards lightspeed you move into the future. When you reach c you have travelled x amount of years into the future. Now you go faster than light, theoretically moving backwards in time. Eventually you have to slow down but as soon as you decelerate to lightspeed you start moving forward in time again. Now you finally stop, step out the door and find yourself right back where you started.

Come on lets give our author some credit. He got the part of archaeopteryx being extinct correct. I'll go as far and say feathers also. Ahhh....to be able to go back in time and witness the past

Follicle mite....your local eyelash denizen

The population can only grow to a point where there isn't enough food to sustain it. Stoke up the Soylant Green cooking vats boys, we eat tonite.

Always doom and gloom when it comes to the future of humanity. Easy to predict in a predominantly violent world, solar system, galaxy, universe. Given enough time I think humanity can get their act together. Meeting a comet or some remnant from the Ort Cloud a real possibility however.

A genetic mutation, survival of the fittest and pure chance