Why are we asking this now?

 

Two Russian mathematicians have suggested that the giant atom-smasher being built at the European centre for nuclear research, Cern, near Geneva, could create the conditions where it might be possible to travel backwards or forwards in time. In essence, Irina Aref'eva and Igor Volovich believe that the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, which is due to be switched on this year for the first time, might create tiny "wormholes" in space which could allow some form of limited time travel.

 

If true, this would mark the first time in human history that a time machine has been created. If travelling back in time is possible at all, it should in theory be only possible to travel back to the point when the first time machine was created and so this would mean that time travellers from the future would be able to visit us. As an article in this week's New Scientist suggests, this year – 2008 – could become "year zero" for time travel.

 

Is this really a serious proposition?

 

The New Scientist article points out that there are many practical problems and theoretical paradoxes to time travel. "Nevertheless, the slim possibility remains that we will see visitors from the future in the next year," says the magazine says, rather provocatively.

It has to be said that few scientists accept the idea that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will create the conditions thought to be necessary for time travel. The LHC is designed to probe the mysterious forces that exist at the level of sub-atomic particles, and as such will answer many important questions, such as the true nature of gravity. It is not designed as a time machine.

 

In any case, if the LHC became a time machine by accident, the device would exist only at the sub-atomic level so we are not talking about a machine like Dr Who's Tardis, which is able to carry people forwards and backwards from the future.

 

Apart from the practicalities, what's to stop time travel?

 

The biggest theoretical problem is known as the time-travel paradox. If someone travels back in time and does something to prevent their own existence, then how can time travel be possible? The classic example is the time traveller who kills his grandfather before his own father is conceived.

 

Where does this leave the time machine in Geneva?

 

The science writer and physicist John Gribbin, who explains these things better than most, points to a saying in physics: anything that is not forbidden is compulsory. "So they expect time machines to exist. The snag is that the kind of accidental 'time tunnel' that could be produced by the LHC in Geneva would be a tiny wormhole far smaller than an atom, so nothing would be able to go through it. So there won't be any visitors from the future turning up in Geneva just yet. I'd take it all with a pinch of salt, but it certainly isn't completely crazy."

So, not completely crazy, just a bit crazy.

 

So will we one day be able to travel into the future?

Yes...

* There is nothing in the laws of physics to prohibit it, and events in Geneva are pointing the way and could be a first step

* In physics, so the saying goes, if nothing is prohibited, it must happen at some point

* All we need to do is to work out how to manipulate black holes and wormholes, and away we go

No...

* The practical problems with time travel are too immense to solve, and even if you could, who would want to?

* You might travel back in time and kill one of your grandparents by accident. Then where would you be?

* If time travel is possible, why are we still waiting to welcome our first visitors from the future?

 

 

See whole article here : http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/...ace-779761.html

 

Do you believe we will be able to time travel in the future?

logically no.... if it ever does get possible why arnt there people from the future here now? and i cant understand how you could travel foreward in time.... as it hasnt happend it doesnt/has never existed.

 

interesting subject which like eternal life in heaven , surely has no credence in reality.

How likely are you to kill anyone "by accident", least of all your own flesh and blood?

 

What a ludicrous story and, no, I don't think time travel will be possible in my lifetime...mind you, chances are my Grandson will turn up this afternoon and accidentally hack my head off with a bread knife.