Which method seems to make the most sense? Why was it not consistent?
Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific perspe
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Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
I'm not sure how consistent it is, but I'm in favor of the Guardian of Forever. A deliberate technological device, as opposed to a natural phenomenon like a slingshot around a sun or a accident stemming from having to implode your own engines to avoid "doing a Troi" into a planets surface.
I'm not sure how consistent it is, but I'm in favor of the Guardian of Forever. A deliberate technological device, as opposed to a natural phenomenon like a slingshot around a sun or a accident stemming from having to implode your own engines to avoid "doing a Troi" into a planets surface.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
I'd say the slingshot because it works like a Tipler Cylinder (if you squint), thus avoiding all the issues with an artificial device like the Guardian.
I'd say the slingshot because it works like a Tipler Cylinder (if you squint), thus avoiding all the issues with an artificial device like the Guardian.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
Yeah, Time Travel has got to be one of these 3 to be more believable to me.
1. Technological Device (That Causes Time Travel)
2. A Super Powered Being who has the power to time travel.
3. A theortical phenomenon that naturally causes a rip in time and space.
Yeah, Time Travel has got to be one of these 3 to be more believable to me.
1. Technological Device (That Causes Time Travel)
2. A Super Powered Being who has the power to time travel.
3. A theortical phenomenon that naturally causes a rip in time and space.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
Q.
Q.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
This. NONE of them really make scientific sense. It's best when you can simply attribute it to something like a powerful alien.
This. NONE of them really make scientific sense. It's best when you can simply attribute it to something like a powerful alien.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
Time travel itself doesn't really make sense from a scientific perspective. Just choose something completely far-fetched and foolish for your method like a police box or a hot tub and the general public will eat it up.
Time travel itself doesn't really make sense from a scientific perspective. Just choose something completely far-fetched and foolish for your method like a police box or a hot tub and the general public will eat it up.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
The actual mechanism for travel is bullshit, but the time travel philosophy embraced by Star Trek 11 is the only time Trek time travel has ever been logically consistent, where Spock and Nero essentially traveled to a different universe instead of McCoy traveling back in the same universe and erasing an extant universe, violating conservation laws all over the place.
This is one of the several reasons why I hate "City on the Edge of Forever," it introduced the a paradigm of time travel that makes no sense, and gave us nonsense about "protecting timelines."
Only two paradigms of time travel make sense, and they're really only different interpretations of the same thing--many-worlds time travel, like in Trek 11, or four-dimensional solid time travel, which I can't think of a good example right now...
The actual mechanism for travel is bullshit, but the time travel philosophy embraced by Star Trek 11 is the only time Trek time travel has ever been logically consistent, where Spock and Nero essentially traveled to a different universe instead of McCoy traveling back in the same universe and erasing an extant universe, violating conservation laws all over the place.
This is one of the several reasons why I hate "City on the Edge of Forever," it introduced the a paradigm of time travel that makes no sense, and gave us nonsense about "protecting timelines."
Only two paradigms of time travel make sense, and they're really only different interpretations of the same thing--many-worlds time travel, like in Trek 11, or four-dimensional solid time travel, which I can't think of a good example right now...
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
To clarify, "four-dimensional solid" means time travel is fatalistic, and all events are understood as having already taken place, if seen from a hypothetical vantage point outside the space-time structure of the universe (sort of like Dr. Manhattan). It occurs to me now, though, that the problem with that paradigm is that it can be just as illogical, creating information by way of causality loop.
I remember a good example now--The Terminator, with John Connor being the result of a causality loop (or T2, where Skynet is the result of a parallel causality loop). The troubles in "All Good Things" were also the result of a causality loop.
I'll still take that over recreating the universe, but it's still kind of nonsensical, so the many-worlds time travel may remain the only good option standing.
That said, one needs to be careful not to state that the time travel is creating an "alternate timeline," because that leads back to the conservation violation problems inherent in the "change the future" system.
To clarify, "four-dimensional solid" means time travel is fatalistic, and all events are understood as having already taken place, if seen from a hypothetical vantage point outside the space-time structure of the universe (sort of like Dr. Manhattan). It occurs to me now, though, that the problem with that paradigm is that it can be just as illogical, creating information by way of causality loop.
I remember a good example now--The Terminator, with John Connor being the result of a causality loop (or T2, where Skynet is the result of a parallel causality loop). The troubles in "All Good Things" were also the result of a causality loop.
I'll still take that over recreating the universe, but it's still kind of nonsensical, so the many-worlds time travel may remain the only good option standing.
That said, one needs to be careful not to state that the time travel is creating an "alternate timeline," because that leads back to the conservation violation problems inherent in the "change the future" system.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
"Where did it come from?"
"Some guys built it. Apparently they were much more advanced than we are, because I don't understand how they built it."
"How does it work?"
"F***ed if I know. I can't even tell what it's made of."
Much more satisfying than "If we just rewidget the frombotzer to 7000 pericycles, it should transpose out temporal displacement so we are actually moving backwards through time."
(None of the quotes above are from anything other than my imagination.)
(None of the above is intended to be sarcasm: I genuinely believe it makes more sense scientifically to say you have no idea how it works than to try to explain it.)
That's my pick, too.
"Where did it come from?"
"Some guys built it. Apparently they were much more advanced than we are, because I don't understand how they built it."
"How does it work?"
"F***ed if I know. I can't even tell what it's made of."
Much more satisfying than "If we just rewidget the frombotzer to 7000 pericycles, it should transpose out temporal displacement so we are actually moving backwards through time."
(None of the quotes above are from anything other than my imagination.)
(None of the above is intended to be sarcasm: I genuinely believe it makes more sense scientifically to say you have no idea how it works than to try to explain it.)
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
I'd argue, that this time travel logic, however, provides the most promising opportuity to create drama and tension. What are the obstacles, when there's no original timeline to be protected? From a storytelling point of view it's not very exciting when everything will either eventually turn out as it always turned out or it doesn't matter how everything turns out, because it is an alternate timeline anyway.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
I disagree, at least when it comes to "bad" timelines. I wouldn't want to live in an alternate Earth where Hitler won the World War 2 if I lived in the Trek universe. Sure, there would be alternate universes that would be almost identical to the one I used to live in, but I couldn't go to them without some kind of anomaly/transporter accident/whatever. Saying that protecting timelines makes no sense is like saying we shouldn't cure diseases because everyone is going to die eventually anyway.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
I have no problems with there being multiple ways of achieve time travel, because I also believe there are multiple ways to achieve faster-than-light travel in the Star Trek Universe.
Now in regards to what is the most scientifically plausible time travel method, I think that's where things start to break down and where the fiction aspect of science-fiction comes through, IMO. Sometimes you just got chalk it up to Star Trek taking place in a fictional universe rather than a realistic one...
I have no problems with there being multiple ways of achieve time travel, because I also believe there are multiple ways to achieve faster-than-light travel in the Star Trek Universe.
Now in regards to what is the most scientifically plausible time travel method, I think that's where things start to break down and where the fiction aspect of science-fiction comes through, IMO. Sometimes you just got chalk it up to Star Trek taking place in a fictional universe rather than a realistic one...
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
Suspended animation. High sublight velocity. Time dilation effects around extreme gravitational fields like black holes.
All plausible ways of getting to the future quickly.
As for travelling back in time... Beats me!
Suspended animation. High sublight velocity. Time dilation effects around extreme gravitational fields like black holes.
All plausible ways of getting to the future quickly.
As for travelling back in time... Beats me!
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Fleet Captain
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
How to do it:
Flying around a rotating black hole/Tipler cilinder to travel into the past.
Using a variant of quantum erasure experiments to send information (teleport) into the past - enhanced with a way to transmit useful information.
How does it work:
Either one can change the past - creating paradoxes.
Or one can't chage the past due to some freak law of psysics stopping him - either probability works against him or he becomes ghost-like, maybe he cretes a new, separate time-line, etc.
In Star Trek both the means of travelling into the past and what can one do there are all over the place - most times, they make no sense.
How to do it:
Flying around a rotating black hole/Tipler cilinder to travel into the past.
Using a variant of quantum erasure experiments to send information (teleport) into the past - enhanced with a way to transmit useful information.
How does it work:
Either one can change the past - creating paradoxes.
Or one can't chage the past due to some freak law of psysics stopping him - either probability works against him or he becomes ghost-like, maybe he cretes a new, separate time-line, etc.
In Star Trek both the means of travelling into the past and what can one do there are all over the place - most times, they make no sense.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
Here's one that should work in the Trek universe (or our own), but was never used on the series:
A wormhole with a moving end.
Anything moving is experiencing a slowing of the passage of time that becomes more pronounced as the speed increases. Thus, if one end of a wormhole is moving and the other is not, time is passing at different rates at the opposite ends of that wormhole. Some of the top minds in theoretical physics believe that it is possible to enter the stationary end of such a wormhole and emerge at the other end before you entered it.
Here's one that should work in the Trek universe (or our own), but was never used on the series:
A wormhole with a moving end.
Anything moving is experiencing a slowing of the passage of time that becomes more pronounced as the speed increases. Thus, if one end of a wormhole is moving and the other is not, time is passing at different rates at the opposite ends of that wormhole. Some of the top minds in theoretical physics believe that it is possible to enter the stationary end of such a wormhole and emerge at the other end before you entered it.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
I remember andan article in Scientific American about twenty years ago, when they said you needed to head towards an object with a high gravitational field at high speed to do it, that it was theoretically possible.
Though Stephen Hawking says it is possible, but the chances of it happening are 1 with a billion zeroes after it.
You read contradictory stuff about this all the time.
I remember andan article in Scientific American about twenty years ago, when they said you needed to head towards an object with a high gravitational field at high speed to do it, that it was theoretically possible.
Though Stephen Hawking says it is possible, but the chances of it happening are 1 with a billion zeroes after it.
You read contradictory stuff about this all the time.
Re: Which time travel method makes the most sense from a scientific pe
What about the "Time Cop" Style method of Time Travel?
Riding in a Sled at high speed and hoping your Jump works or you slam into a wall and end up like the Voulmers? [I think that was their name]
But if you ask me the only real way to travel through time is the use of the Temporal Transporter like they used on the Time Ship in the 29th Century, Seemed to be the easiest way to travel through time.
What about the "Time Cop" Style method of Time Travel?
Riding in a Sled at high speed and hoping your Jump works or you slam into a wall and end up like the Voulmers? [I think that was their name]
But if you ask me the only real way to travel through time is the use of the Temporal Transporter like they used on the Time Ship in the 29th Century, Seemed to be the easiest way to travel through time.
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