That would depend on the solids and liquids, Pippy Bongstockings.
Haven’t seen it, so I’ll recommend watching Doc Brown in Back to the Future Part II, where he explains it with chalkboard diagrams! His theory, of creating new timelines wherever you show up, is very convenient for movie plots. Since sending people through time is still basically impossible according to science, we can only guess at the effects. And at whether 1.2 Jigawatts is enough to do a time jump. But I definitely would love to have a handy Mr. Fusion!
{Side note: The Back to the Future films were made for a general audience, not science fiction geeks. I remember people walking out after Part II saying it was “stupid”; in effect saying “I didn’t get it.” Got to keep your time travel theory pretty simple for the general audience!}
Time travel has been treated in various ways by fiction over the years, as seen in many episodes of The Twilight Zone, Star Trek (where it apprently keeps getting “discovered” over and over; you figure they’d have bragged about and documented it the first time!), time travel movies, and of course books. I recommend The Man Who Folded Himself, by David Gerrold (yes, the guy who wrote The Trouble With Tribbles).
So. Can you prevent your birth by going back and killing one of your grandparents? Yes. In that timeline, you won’t be born. But if you stick around, you’ll still be there. Then, to keep things interesting, you could take your grandfather’s place and be your own progenetor. But then the baby wouldn’t really be you, it would be a variation of you.
The Terminator movies also seem to follow the “new timeline” model. Each time someone goes back in time and changes things, it changes history from that point forward. Judgment Day still occurs, but not at the same time and presumably not with the same details. When John Connor first meets his “father” in the new film, what a shock that must be for him!
The stoners and ones who can’t differentiate science from science fiction might follow you down your path to oblivion.
But science reigns supreme in this thread, and time travel is a fiction.
Arnold Schwartzenegger cannot bend time or space, you cannot bend time or space with the most powerful magnet or machine, and you cannot travel BACK in time.
But there is a way to travel into the future, without any significant aging. Suspended animation is possible for long-term space travel over great distances and time, and Cryonics could also become a viable future reality, if they can figure out how not to destroy cells in the freezing process.
Dude!
We’re ALL traveling into the future.
You only SEEM to be stuck in the 1960s …
Billy
Unless you were “meant” to be your own grandfather and you’ve always been a variation of yourself by virtue of trans-temporal incest (An episode of Maury?)–
Would time travelers be able to perceive themselves from an outsiders perspective when they find themselves in these circular histories?
Two additional thoughts on time, as tensed (“New Timeline”) and un-tensed.
So in in the “New Timeline”, tensed, there’s a time bubble of convergence between past and future, wherever we are, it’s the present. The present doesn’t exist anywhere else, but where we are, and so the future will always create a “New Timeline” around the time traveler because it must follow the present. In this sense, “future” events are always negated for what we create in the present.
A tenseless view of time posits something close to infinity, or at least that everything in the universe exists always, so that every frame of reference, past, present, and future, exists simultaneously at different intervals along the 4th dimension. In this sense, split timelines, split universes, and logical incoherencies are allowed at least as far as logic allows paradoxes. The main difference is that this allows for multiple histories of an event.
Billy,
Although time travel does lack authenticity, it also allows for the concept of time to be deconstructed as philosophical inquiry. You knew that.
Ryan
Let me quote some context that appears later in the same Wikipedia article.
…which falls in line with your behavior:
All I have to say here is that ignorance is a poor basis for any discussion.
Could we rephrase this question as “does information appear spontaneously”?
Well, man wrote the Bible, gleaning God’s word from thin air… how is this any different?
Can one peek through the curtain of one world-line, into another? Would this “crack in the wall” allow others to see through, as well? Or, is this reality-with-crack-between-world-lines a reality in and of itself?
I believe the only way one can see as an outsider is through an out-of-body experience, no matter what physics has to say about how one arrives out-of-body. How else would you suggest one arrives? Are you suggesting “temporal tourism”?
Within what context? If each history exists within its own world-line, isn’t there only one history, then, as we only exist within a single world-line?
What does one do when he is aware of multiple histories? Should we then plan for multiple outcomes?
It seems Billy acts as if there are no consequences to his actions. If “Billy knew that,” he certainly isn’t acting as such.
Even better…
There’s something like that in the book I mentioned above. But I don’t want to give away too much…
Ryan,
Yes, of course, and I’m all for philosophical inquiry, fantasy, deconstruction (which works best in literature or philosophy). The problem several of us raised occurred when people confused this with Science, which is offensive to the Church of Science at the p < .01 level of significance.
Billy
Good point. Anyone who has ever backpacked in the Grand Canyon or floated the Colorado River knows that time has a direction, and that direction is downstream.
The rich river spends
From its purse full of time, and
Never counts its change.
TB
Nice find Maestro. 
I’ve been browsing this thread over the last few days. And, quite conveniently, we got a mail shot from an American magazine, whose title you should guess from the following. On the front of the envelope was the order…
TIME
Do not bend
So there you have it! You must NOT bend time!
Jerry
Maybe that is why you have fared so badly in this thread Maestro?
Oh for God’s sake Maestro, recognised when you have been out-manoevered and outclassed.
Although I confess a sneaking admiration for your cheek, when, having provided a link which ( as Jays said) did not do what you claimed it did, then instead of admitting your error and providing a suitable link, you dared suggest he himself go look for something to support your point.
Pretty conceited Maestro, learn to admit when you are wrong, and thereby gain some respect.
And please be a bit more rigorous with the scientific method. Had you referred to man’s dream of flying in such a way, within a formal paper, you would have been laughed out of the laboratory.
The title Maestro has to be earned. It is not self conferred.
Nao
God’s or gods’? (Lights blue touch paper and retires to safe distance.:D)
Thanks for your contribution to this discussion, Nao. Nice to see you crawl out of the woodwork to try and get a rise out of me… although I’d rather you’d use your above-average intelligence to contribute in a more positive way.
I’m disappointed in you, Nao. I was hoping someone of your background would jump in and liven up things… instead all you’ve got to share is bile and vitriol.
There’s plenty of fodder in this thread to stir the imagination of anyone, don’t you think? What happened to yours?
Although there is some indication that time may fold upon itself, this raises the suspicion that time is inflexible.
Perhaps a little temporal yoga is in order, no?
Loosed, a can of dark matter:
http://www.hemmy.net/2007/06/11/inversion-house-tunnel-art/
And apparently a stranger future than once ever conceived:
Darkmatter pshh…
Awesome pizza thing!