Timeline for How to test a time machine?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
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| Jan 11, 2017 at 4:25 | comment | added | a4android | @Peteris "However, "Time-machines will leave and never return" is" true. Your argument applies to different model of time-travel from one I discussed. Yours is closer to an ensemble of parallel timelines. Mine basically branched everytime a time-traveller arrived. This applies to past, future & present. There is time-travel model where time-travel migrates sideways across parallel timelines, always in the same direction, this would look like the one you postulate. You haven't proved my argument false because it's not the model you assumed. | |
| Jan 10, 2017 at 23:18 | comment | added | Peteris | However, "Time-machines will leave and never return" is false - let's assume that I travel 5 minutes to past. Yes, there will be one timeline where I enter the time machine and disappear, but there will be also one timeline where I arrive and meet myself 5 minutes before my departure - and in this timeline, time travel will flourish. In effect, each travel to the past will appear as successful in 50% of the timelines, and there will be a single timeline where all attempts are successful, where "the coin never landed on tails". | |
| Jan 10, 2017 at 23:14 | comment | added | Peteris | As you describe, time travel in a branching timeline universe is near impossible to experiment on, however, there certainly can be evidence of time travel - you may encounter a time traveler from the future who may possess extensive knowledge of events that have not happened yet (in your timeline) and knowledge of future technology, including time machines - they can provide solid evidence to convince everyone that time travel is possible. However, you can't experimentally distinguish a working black-box time machine from one that's faulty and functions as a disintegrator. | |
| Jan 10, 2017 at 19:02 | comment | added | Marshall Tigerus | This is like a very depressing teleporter problem | |
| Jan 10, 2017 at 15:40 | comment | added | Mrkvička | I disagree slightly with part of the reasoning, such as "Also, those branching timelines may only visited by one time-traveler in their entire existence.". If traveler A arrives to time-line X, then it forks and you have X (in which A never arrived) and X' (where A did arrive). At some point later, then Traveler B might arrive at X' forking it to X' and X''. Even though it's near zero chance, it's still a non zero chance. Given infinite number of timelines, it should happen at least once. And people in X' saw one appear (if they noticed) and in X'' two appeared, so they will send travelers. | |
| Jan 10, 2017 at 15:06 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Jan 10, 2017 at 15:47 | |||||
| Jan 10, 2017 at 12:09 | comment | added | a4android | @JDługosz Anyone using a time machine would disappear forever from their home timeline. But they would keep turning up at, what seem like different times, but which are different timelines. My guess is time-travel will be abandoned. Of course, if the theory behind this type of time-travel is well understood, then this would be a way to escape. (It's funny how different devices can have similar stories about them.) | |
| Jan 10, 2017 at 11:45 | comment | added | JDługosz | Yea, a whole cult could spring up around people who believe it actually works and pester the builder to use it on them. (That's a story idea I have had on a different device but it works here too) | |
| Jan 10, 2017 at 10:27 | comment | added | a4android | @JDługosz What does lay out is an argument that travel in a branching timeline universe is untestable -- except in the sense that time-travellers will disappear from their original time and never return. This led to my amused remark that this type of time-travel could be indistinguishable from a disintegrator. | |
| Jan 10, 2017 at 9:23 | comment | added | JDługosz | I’m afraid that’s a long comment but does not lay out a plan for testing to determine anything, as asked. | |
| Jan 10, 2017 at 3:28 | history | answered | a4android | CC BY-SA 3.0 |