Time Travel is this possible or not | How is it possible |#gyanin |#timetravel |#physics of time travel |#what is the physics of time travel

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Time travel is commonly defined with David Lewis’ definition: An object time travels if and only if the difference between its departure and arrival times as measured in the surrounding world does not equal the duration of the journey undergone by the object. For example, Jane is a time traveler if she travels away from home in her spaceship for one hour as measured by her own clock on the ship but travels two hours as measured by the clock back home, assuming both clocks are functioning properly.

Before the twentieth century, scientists and philosophers rarely investigated time travel, but now it is an exciting and deeply studied topic. There are investigations into travel to the future and travel to the past, although travel to the past is more problematical and receives more attention.   There are also investigations of the logical possibility of time travel, the physical possibility of time travel, and the technological practicality of time travel. The most attention is paid to time travel that is consistent with current physical theory such as Einstein’s general theory of relativity. In science, different models of the cosmos and the laws of nature governing the universe imply different possibilities for time travel. So, theories about time travel have changed radically as the dominant cosmological theories have evolved from classical, Newtonian conceptions to modern, relativistic and quantum mechanical conceptions. Philosophers were quick to note some of the implications of the new physics for venerable issues in metaphysics: the nature of time, causation and personal identity, to name just a few. The subject continues to produce a fruitful cross-fertilization of ideas between scientists and philosophers as theorists in both fields struggle to resolve confounding paradoxes that emerge when time travel is pondered seriously. This article discusses both the scientific and philosophical issues relevant to time travel.

 

 

* Time in Philosophy

How is time related to existence? Philosophy offers three primary answers to this metaphysical question: eternalism, possibilism, and presentism. The names of these views indicate the ontological status given to time. The eternalist thinks that time, correctly understood, is a fourth dimension essentially constitutive of reality together with space. All times, past, present and future, are actual times just like all points distributed in space are actual points in space. One cannot privilege any one moment in the dimension of time as “more” real than any other moment just like one cannot privilege any point in space as “more” real than any other point. The universe is thus a spacetime “block,” a view that has philosophical roots at least as far back as Parmenides. Everything is one; the appearance of things coming to be and ceasing to be, of time passing or flowing, is simply phenomenal, not real. Objects from the past and future have equal ontological status with present objects. Thus, a presently extinct individual dodo bird exists as equably as a presently existing individual house finch, and the dodo bird and the house finch exist as equably as an individual baby sparrow hatched next Saturday. Whether or not the dodo bird and the baby sparrow are present is irrelevant ontologically; they simply aren’t in our spacetime region right now. The physicist typically views the relation of time to existence in the way that the eternalist does. The life of an object in the universe can be properly shown as:

This diagram shows the spatial movement (in one dimension) of an object through time. The standard depiction of an object’s spacetime “worldline” in Special Relativity, the Minkowski diagram (see below), privileges this block view of the universe. Many Wellsian time travel stories assume the standpoint of eternalism. For example, in Wells’ The Time Machine, the narrator (the time traveler) explains: “There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it.” Eternalism fits easily into the metaphysics of time travel.

The second view is possibilism, also known as the “growing block” or “growing universe” view. The possibilist thinks that the eternalist’s picture of the universe is correct except for the status of the future. The past and the present are fixed and actual; the future is only possible. Or more precisely, the future of an object holds the possibility of many different worldlines, only one of which will become actual for the object. If eternalism seems overly deterministic, eliminating indeterminacies and human free choice, then possibilism seems to retain some indeterminacy and free choice, at least as far as the future is concerned. For the possibilist, the present takes on a special significance that it does not have for the eternalist. The life of an object according to possibilism might be shown as:

This diagram shows that the object’s worldline is not yet fixed or complete. (It should be pointed out that the necessity of illustrating the time axis with a beginning and end should not be construed as an implicit claim that time itself has a beginning and end.) Some Wellsian time travel stories make use of possibilism. Stories like Back to the Future and Terminator suggest that we can change the outcome of historical events in our world, including our own personal future, through time travel. The many different possible histories of an object introduce other philosophical problems of causation and personal identity, issues that we will consider in greater depth in later sections of the article.

The third view is presentism. The presentist thinks that only temporally present objects are real. Whatever is, exists now. The past was, but exists no longer; the future will be, but does not exist yet. Objects are scattered throughout space but they are not scattered throughout time. Presentists do not think that time is a dimension in the same sense as the three spatial dimensions; they say the block universe view of the eternalists (and the intermediate view of the possibilists) gets the metaphysics of time wrong. If eternalism has its philosophical roots in Parmenides, then presentism can be understood as having its philosophical roots in Heraclitus. Presently existing things are the only actuality and only what is now is real. Each “now” is unique: “You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.” The life of an object according to presentism might be shown as:

Many presentists account for the continuity of time, the timelike connection of one moment to the next moment, by appealing to the present intrinsic properties of the world (Bigelow). To fully describe some of these present intrinsic properties of the world, you need past- and future-tensed truths to supervene on those properties. For example, in ordinary language we might make the claim that “George Washington camped at Valley Forge.” This sentence has an implicit claim to a timeless truth, that is, it was true 500 years ago, it was true when it was happening, it is true now, and it will be true next month. But, according to presentism, only presently existing things are real. Thus, the proper way to understand the truth of this sentence is to translate it into a more primitive form, where the tense is captured by an operator. So in our example, the truth of the sentence supervenes on the present according to the formulation “WAS(George Washington camps at Valley Forge).” In this way, presentists can describe events in the past and future as truths that supervene on the present. It is the basis for their account of persistence through time in issues like causality and personal identity.

* Time in Physics

Since the use of the term ‘time’ in our definition of time travel remains ambiguous, we may further distinguish external, or physical time from personal, or inner time (again, following Lewis). In the ordinary world, external time and one’s personal time coincide with one another. In the world of the time traveler, they do not. So, with these two senses of time, we may further clarify time travel to occur when the duration of the journey according to the personal time of the time traveler does not equal the duration of the journey in external time. Most (but not all) philosophy of time concerns external time (see the encyclopedia entry Time). For the purpose of natural time travel, we need to examine the scientific understanding of external time and how it has changed.

 

Time travel is commonly defined with David Lewis’ definition: An object time travels if and only if the difference between its departure and arrival times as measured in the surrounding world does not equal the duration of the journey undergone by the object. For example, Jane is a time traveler if she travels away from home in her spaceship for one hour as measured by her own clock on the ship but travels two hours as measured by the clock back home, assuming both clocks are functioning properly.

Before the twentieth century, scientists and philosophers rarely investigated time travel, but now it is an exciting and deeply studied topic. There are investigations into travel to the future and travel to the past, although travel to the past is more problematical and receives more attention.   There are also investigations of the logical possibility of time travel, the physical possibility of time travel, and the technological practicality of time travel. The most attention is paid to time travel that is consistent with current physical theory such as Einstein’s general theory of relativity. In science, different models of the cosmos and the laws of nature governing the universe imply different possibilities for time travel. So, theories about time travel have changed radically as the dominant cosmological theories have evolved from classical, Newtonian conceptions to modern, relativistic and quantum mechanical conceptions. Philosophers were quick to note some of the implications of the new physics for venerable issues in metaphysics: the nature of time, causation and personal identity, to name just a few. The subject continues to produce a fruitful cross-fertilization of ideas between scientists and philosophers as theorists in both fields struggle to resolve confounding paradoxes that emerge when time travel is pondered seriously. This article discusses both the scientific and philosophical issues relevant to time travel.

 

 

* Time in Philosophy

How is time related to existence? Philosophy offers three primary answers to this metaphysical question: eternalism, possibilism, and presentism. The names of these views indicate the ontological status given to time. The eternalist thinks that time, correctly understood, is a fourth dimension essentially constitutive of reality together with space. All times, past, present and future, are actual times just like all points distributed in space are actual points in space. One cannot privilege any one moment in the dimension of time as “more” real than any other moment just like one cannot privilege any point in space as “more” real than any other point. The universe is thus a spacetime “block,” a view that has philosophical roots at least as far back as Parmenides. Everything is one; the appearance of things coming to be and ceasing to be, of time passing or flowing, is simply phenomenal, not real. Objects from the past and future have equal ontological status with present objects. Thus, a presently extinct individual dodo bird exists as equably as a presently existing individual house finch, and the dodo bird and the house finch exist as equably as an individual baby sparrow hatched next Saturday. Whether or not the dodo bird and the baby sparrow are present is irrelevant ontologically; they simply aren’t in our spacetime region right now. The physicist typically views the relation of time to existence in the way that the eternalist does. The life of an object in the universe can be properly shown as:

This diagram shows the spatial movement (in one dimension) of an object through time. The standard depiction of an object’s spacetime “worldline” in Special Relativity, the Minkowski diagram (see below), privileges this block view of the universe. Many Wellsian time travel stories assume the standpoint of eternalism. For example, in Wells’ The Time Machine, the narrator (the time traveler) explains: “There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it.” Eternalism fits easily into the metaphysics of time travel.

The second view is possibilism, also known as the “growing block” or “growing universe” view. The possibilist thinks that the eternalist’s picture of the universe is correct except for the status of the future. The past and the present are fixed and actual; the future is only possible. Or more precisely, the future of an object holds the possibility of many different worldlines, only one of which will become actual for the object. If eternalism seems overly deterministic, eliminating indeterminacies and human free choice, then possibilism seems to retain some indeterminacy and free choice, at least as far as the future is concerned. For the possibilist, the present takes on a special significance that it does not have for the eternalist. The life of an object according to possibilism might be shown as:

This diagram shows that the object’s worldline is not yet fixed or complete. (It should be pointed out that the necessity of illustrating the time axis with a beginning and end should not be construed as an implicit claim that time itself has a beginning and end.) Some Wellsian time travel stories make use of possibilism. Stories like Back to the Future and Terminator suggest that we can change the outcome of historical events in our world, including our own personal future, through time travel. The many different possible histories of an object introduce other philosophical problems of causation and personal identity, issues that we will consider in greater depth in later sections of the article.

The third view is presentism. The presentist thinks that only temporally present objects are real. Whatever is, exists now. The past was, but exists no longer; the future will be, but does not exist yet. Objects are scattered throughout space but they are not scattered throughout time. Presentists do not think that time is a dimension in the same sense as the three spatial dimensions; they say the block universe view of the eternalists (and the intermediate view of the possibilists) gets the metaphysics of time wrong. If eternalism has its philosophical roots in Parmenides, then presentism can be understood as having its philosophical roots in Heraclitus. Presently existing things are the only actuality and only what is now is real. Each “now” is unique: “You cannot step twice into the same river; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.” The life of an object according to presentism might be shown as:

Many presentists account for the continuity of time, the timelike connection of one moment to the next moment, by appealing to the present intrinsic properties of the world (Bigelow). To fully describe some of these present intrinsic properties of the world, you need past- and future-tensed truths to supervene on those properties. For example, in ordinary language we might make the claim that “George Washington camped at Valley Forge.” This sentence has an implicit claim to a timeless truth, that is, it was true 500 years ago, it was true when it was happening, it is true now, and it will be true next month. But, according to presentism, only presently existing things are real. Thus, the proper way to understand the truth of this sentence is to translate it into a more primitive form, where the tense is captured by an operator. So in our example, the truth of the sentence supervenes on the present according to the formulation “WAS(George Washington camps at Valley Forge).” In this way, presentists can describe events in the past and future as truths that supervene on the present. It is the basis for their account of persistence through time in issues like causality and personal identity.

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