If I die on this universe, does the other me's in other universes die too? I am an out of the box thinker and each year the information we learn is changing by the day, so why not jump ahead?
Actor Rod Taylor tries to fast forward in the 1960 film The Time Machine.
Photograph from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images
Published April 12, 2013
It's not quite Back to the Future, but a young Iranian inventor claims to have built a time machine that can predict a person's future with startling accuracy.
Ali Razeqi, who is 27 and the "managing director of Iran's Center for Strategic Inventions," claims his device will print out a report detailing an individual's future after using complex algorithms to predict his or her fate.
According to the Daily Telegraph, Razeqi told Iran's state-run Fars news agency that his device "easily fits into the size of a personal computer case and can predict details of the next 5-8 years of the life of its users. It will not take you into the future, it will bring the future to you."
Razeqi says Iran has decided to keep his prophetic time machine under wraps for now out of fear that "the Chinese will steal the idea and produce it in millions overnight."
Iran's Deputy Minister of Science, Research, and Technology dismissed Razeqi's claims on Friday in an interview with Fars—a sign of just how much attention the story has received.
We talked to Thomas Roman, a theoretical physicist at Central Connecticut State University and a co-author of the book Time Travel and Warp Drives, to ask about the possibilities for a Razeqi-like time machine and to debunk popular misconceptions about time travel. Here's an edited version of our interview:
What do you think of Razeqi's claim that he's built a time machine that can predict a person's future?
It's completely nuts.
Does his alleged time machine break any laws of physics?
It's hard to know because it's so wacky.
What are some popular misconceptions about time travel?
One popular misconception is that you could go back to any time in the past. And that's not true. You can only go back as far as the time when the time machine was invented. So if I invent my time machine today and I wait 30 years and go back to the past, the farthest back in the past I can go to is today when I turned my time machine on.
Another major misconception—and you see this a lot in time travel movies—is the idea that you can go back in time and change the timeline. In these stories, the time traveler goes backward in time and does something that mucks up the future and subsequently has to do something to "restore the timeline." However, that can't be the case, since we can't have the same event both happen and not happen in the same universe. You can't change the past.
For example, suppose I go back in time and try to kill my grandfather. If I succeed, then of course I'm never born and I could never have made the trip back using the time machine.
Once again, we can't have the same event—the killing of my grandfather—both happen and not happen in the same universe.
Is there any way of getting around this "grandfather paradox"?
There are two possibilities. One is what's sometimes called the self-consistency scenario, in which all events along the time loop that I make are adjusted to be self-consistent.
So for example, if I go backward in time and try to shoot my grandfather, something will always prevent me from doing so. The recoil on my shoulder makes me miss, or my grandfather ducks, or I change my mind. It's like the universe and the laws of physics are conspiring to make things consistent.
The other possibility is that when I shoot my grandfather the universe splits and there's one universe in which I shoot my grandfather and there's another universe in which I did not shoot my grandfather.
Didn't split timelines play a role in the latest Star Trek reboot by J. J. Abrams?
Yeah, there was something along those lines. In the movie, the Romulan bad guy Nero goes back to the past to get revenge against Spock, who he claims is responsible for the destruction of his home planet Romulus. So he's going to get even by going back into the past to destroy [the planet] Vulcan.
But since Vulcan wasn't destroyed in the original timeline—the one Nero came from—then upon going back into the past, he causes the universe to branch.
So the Vulcan he destroys is not the one in his original timeline, but the one in the new branch. So he's not really getting revenge on the original Vulcan from his timeline. But I suppose revenge is revenge.
That aside, I thought that [using the concept of a split timeline] was a clever way of rebooting the franchise because then you have the same characters but you don't have to slavishly follow the past history of the episodes since you're in a new timeline where everything can be different.
Okay, so you might not be able to travel to the past. But is future time travel possible?
There's no problem with that. In fact, we know how to do it in principle. If you travel very close to the speed of light, time slows down for the space traveler compared to someone on Earth.
Another way of traveling to the future is by orbiting very close to a black hole. For example, if you orbit around the black hole at the center of our galaxy, you could also have your time stretched relative to observers on the Earth.
If future time travel is possible, then could a time machine like the one the Iranian businessman claimed to have built actually work?
Going to the future is no problem. A mechanism for traveling into the future is afforded by [Einstein's] special theory of relativity. It's when you try to go backward that you run into the grandfather paradox. However, that said, what the businessman claims to have built is still nuts.
One thing that's rarely mentioned in time travel stories is that if you travel back only in time but stay in exactly the same point in space, the Earth won't be there anymore. So wouldn't time travel require traveling through space as well?
Yes, it would have to. The Earth is turning on its axis, and it's orbiting the sun. So the Earth isn't always in the same spot in its orbit. So if you're staying in the same place and traveling back to the past, the Earth is gone from underneath you. When you stop your time machine, you'll be in a bit of a pickle.
Why do you think time travel is so popular in books and movies?
You have to admit, it's a pretty tantalizing idea. Part of the appeal is that you can go back and see things for yourself that you only know through history books and the geological record. I think everybody would think it'd be really cool to go back and see dinosaurs or go back and visit ancient Greece.
I think another appeal is we all have things in our past that we wished that we hadn't done, or that we wished hadn't happened. And I think there's the desire to be able to go back and prevent those things from having happened.
62 comments
Wrap Speed Below The Speed of Light
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=U_v4zrHQiUI
Seriously? Scientists HAVE to get off the dime on acting like religious people. "It's just nuts" is not a scientific argument, although "he's a heretic" is a religious one. Just recently Dr. Eric Davis, who researches FTL travel and is connected to MIT said in an interview that scientists needed to act like scientists and use the scientific method and STOP having views that interfere with that. I agree, and I think that here we have the perfect example of a MAJOR scientist who obviously does not do that, and given his treatment of work he's never seen probably cannot do that -- and I personally find that both pathetic and disgusting.
For me this is some kind of machine that calculate what will might happen to you in the future, just like numerology it gives you a calculation and prediction of things you might happen on you. But if a time machine really exist I think it's better to just travel your present memory to your past instead of physical travelling. So you have the idea what will gonna happen and change the past. And their's no need the universe to split or happen just like a grandfather paradox. This is just my opinion.
I can't help but think of Doctor Who when I read this article. especially the episode in which they go back in time and Rose tries to save her dad, resulting in a paradox.
The fact that time travelling can be done by travelling at the speed of light is also confusing ,like if i can travel at the speed of light what does it have anything to do with travelling to the future.if i have a watch with me in this machine that is travelling at the speed of light wont time on it b the same as on earth ? Wierd :s .. if i had to travel back in time i would want to stop the US from becoming a power.as it pokes into every countries matters !
I INVENTED THE TIME MACHINE THAT WORKS I TRAVEL IN TO PAST AND FUTURE ITS TRUE I DON'T LIE PLEASE ANYBODY TRUST ME
I INVENTED THE TIME MACHINE THAT WORKS I TRAVEL IN TO PAST AND FUTURE ITS TRUE I DON'T LIE PLEASE ANYBODY TRUST ME
I doubt the grandfather paradox is really as problematic as people say. I know just as much about backwards time travel as the next person, not much, because no one has experienced it to the public's knowledge, but if a person went back in time to shoot their grandfather, I doubt the universe would somehow consciously alter the fifth dimension to avoid a paradox. It would just happen. Their grandfather would be dead, and the time traveler would experience that timeline as the new reality. They wouldn't cease to exist, they would just return to a future that doesn't have any idea who they are, because they and one of their parents hadn't been born. I figure once you manipulate time, you become dislodged from it. It's also pretty much the same as shooting yourself through some kind of time portal. If you shot yourself through that portal of you loading the gun 1 minute earlier, you'd be fine, because all possibilities exist simultaneously, and you would just continue on in the timeline you see with your own eyes.
Another fundamental misconception is that you would return to 'your own past' (that is the past you remember).
Even having the right machine prepared as indicated in the article, you would most likely arrive on the other side to an alternative past (containing a time machine), but never to the one you remember.
In fact the collapse of wave functions (for the
physicists& chemists who understand what i mean) should introduce also uncertainty when you are moving back in time, preventing you of retracing your past when moving back in time. (Everett Many
Worlds interpretation, see Wikipedia: ...Many futures, Many pasts
Cheers!
Is "Time Travel Machine" really exist .If yes then can I travel in it to go to the backward or in My past?& If yes then sir please tell me what is the procedure for that.
"Razeqi says Iran has decided to keep his prophetic time machine under wraps for now out of fear that "the Chinese will steal the idea and produce it in millions overnight."
After reading the entire article, it seems like any glorified zodiac machine making use of "complex algorithms" -- I don't believe in this crap. He's much worse than his fears about the Chinese.
well, i think its just a calculating machine, that calculate things and predict about you, like an astrologist, he just calculate and predict, it might be happened or not. In computer Sciences it not so difficult to built a program that ask u some things and predict. :)
D
I have always enjoyed 'Back in Time' movies and books even knowing it's not possible. However, since everything is energy and has frequency, the past is recorded somewhere just like our memories. If in the future someone really learns how to tap in or attune to those frequencies they could reproduce the past for us similar to the way TV or radio works. We could view it at least. Imagine a future where a dedicated area or room in our home is setup for holographic recreations of the past (or present) sent out via network channels. We could then experience the adventure and excitement of those 'Back in Time' events...but in the safety and comfort of our recliner enjoying a bowl of buttered popcorn.
D
I have always enjoyed 'Back in Time' movies and books even knowing it's not possible. However, since everything is energy and has frequency, the past is recorded somewhere just like our memories. If in the future someone really learns how to tap in or attune to those frequencies they could reproduce the past for us similar to the way TV or radio works. We could view it at least. Imagine a future where a dedicated area or room in our home is setup for holographic recreations of the past (or present) sent out via network channels. We could then experience the adventure and excitement of those 'Back in Time' events...but in the safety and comfort of our recliner enjoying a bowl of buttered popcorn.
D
I have always enjoyed 'Back in Time' movies and books even knowing it's not possible. However, since everything is energy and has frequency, the past is recorded somewhere just like our memories. If in the future someone really learns how to tap in or attune to those frequencies they could reproduce the past for us similar to the way TV or radio works. We could view it at least. Imagine a future where a dedicated area or room in our home is setup for holographic recreations of the past (or present) sent out via network channels. We could then experience the adventure and excitement of those 'Back in Time' events...but in the safety and comfort of our recliner enjoying a bowl of buttered popcorn.
D
I have always enjoyed 'Back in Time' movies and books even knowing it's not possible. However, since everything is energy and has frequency, the past is recorded somewhere just like our memories. If in the future someone really learns how to tap in or attune to those frequencies they could reproduce the past for us similar to the way TV or radio works. We could view it at least. Imagine a future where a dedicated area or room in our home is setup for holographic recreations of the past (or present) sent out via network channels. We could then experience the adventure and excitement of those 'Back in Time' events...but in the safety and comfort of our recliner enjoying a bowl of buttered popcorn.
D
I have always enjoyed 'Back in Time' movies and books even knowing it's not possible. However, since everything is energy and has frequency, the past is recorded somewhere just like our memories. If in the future someone really learns how to tap in or attune to those frequencies they could reproduce the past for us similar to the way TV or radio works. We could view it at least. Imagine a future where a dedicated area or room in our home is setup for holographic recreations of the past (or present) sent out via network channels. We could then experience the adventure and excitement of those 'Back in Time' events...but in the safety and comfort of our recliner enjoying a bowl of buttered popcorn.
Yeah, now it is time for him and his president to take off to another time and place.
Are we living in the Present? Perhaps everything has already happened and we are living in an illusion of space and time?
poppycock.! algorithms to predict the future?better off going to a palm reader,at least you'll get some entertainment.
One thing was clear enough whether or not we have time machine, Mr. Thomas Roman disliked his grandfather very much :D
The person who is talking about time travel into he past has limited knowledge of the subject if he believes that those are the only two possibilities f travelling backward If you study superposition, probability physics, and reverse-causality, the most likely backward-travel scenario would go like this:
You are born in 1900. You then live a hundred years to the year 2000. In 2000 you travel back in time to 1850. According to your perception, you lived in 1900-2000, but according to the timeline of the universe, 1850 is BEFORE 1900. So, although you have memory and are in a physical state of a person who has lived from 1900-2000, the first time you have ever existed is in 1850. Events have cause you to spawn into being in the year 1850, in whatever state you exist, and with whatever memories you have, but that does not mean that the future you remember has been locked in, it just means that you have memories of things that have not happened yet, and may not ever happen.
Because 1850 is the date that you have essentially been created, regardless of what physical state you are in and what memories you have, there is no chance of a paradox, because 1850 is the present.
A good way to explain it is like this: If you were hypnotized somehow to have memories of living an entire life from now until ten year from now, and then brought out of that hypnosis, even though you would remember and believe that the future ten years were real, it by no means indicates that if you were to do something difference a paradox would occur.
Backwards time travel is the same. Just because when you initially begin your existence in 1850 with memories of 1900-2000, it does not mean that merely because you have memories of those events that they will actually occur.
It can sound complicated, but it is really quite simple. Imagine someone appearing in front of you out of nowhere and telling you that they are from the future; they tell you that you are going to eat that hamburger you are holding. You throw the hamburger away, and get a hot dog instead. Life goes on as normal, no paradox. It is his mind that is in-congruent with events, because they have yet to take shape. His memories will not cause the universe itself to change events merely so that his memories are accurate.
Coming from Iran (and of course shrouded in the usual secrecy), we already know there is nothing real about it.
If it was they would patent it and subject it to real scientific scrutiny.
Coming from Iran (and of course shrouded in the usual secrecy), we already know there is nothing real about it.
If it was they would patent it and subject it to real scientific scrutiny.
It would be interesting to learn what these algorithms are based on. Are they based on statistical facts about the future outcome of an event - something inherently hard to predict.....? Or, have such experiments on this "time machine" simply been a gimmick for coercive persuasion or manipulating people into believing they have had their future predicted? Even if this inventor has produced an algorithm which can identify a snapshot of the subject at a specific moment in spacetime and predict the consequences of the smallest details - including beyond a quantum level, does he have the computational power - whether that be grey matter or artificial - to produce the outcome of such an elaborate result? Bearing in mind that all the brains that have ever existed and all the silicon chips that have ever been created have failed to fully understand the world we see around us at this present moment.........
Thomas Roman knows no more than any of us about the true nature of time -- for the purpose of this article. He's concentrating his knowledge of the known Newtonian physics and the Relativity theory, not of the properties of Quantum physics. Quantum duality has already been proven to work outside normal physics and we've just started diving into its other properties. His assumptive comments are arrogant and uncalled for. For the sake of argument though, why would an Iranian invention be shared with the West? Wouldn't Iran use it for their own bidding by creating scenarios and choosing the one that would be the best outcome for their country? I'm sure if it predicts than can be programmed to accept various theoretical variables.
Hay people. What if I say there is no past and no future, nothing exists beyond present. So forget about time travel, once and for all!!!!!!!!
It can be real maybe, the Iranian possible created a machine that he could think that it can predict a person's future, but come on guys it can only be a prediction, and one thing with prediction that it cant be accurate, I have seen lot of predicting machines the one called "sivagami Computer" in chennai(some of the people really used it) is also a future prediction machine type(they says), and I know those all just just nuts..............
So, two sentences which give barely any more information than the title, and then several paragraphs interviewing a white male professor from another continent.
I don't need a time machine to see the bleak, foreboding future awaiting any girl born in Iran - or several other Islamic countries for that matter.
I'm not going to argue whether or not this Iranian guy has created a credible future predictor, but this guy, Thomas Roman, calls his idea nuts all the while knowing zero information on his algorithm or anything other than the idea. That's pretty ridiculous in itself.
I also don't buy into the grandfather paradox. If you're able to go back in time and can physically see and feel your grandfather, you can kill him. In my opinion, if some "magical" intervention prevents you from shooting him or changes your mind, you've just discovered God's will.
Further, in my opinion, you wouldn't need to invent a time machine today just so that in 30 years from now you can go back to today's machine. Our lives are merely the positioning of particles in space and time. If you could rearrange all those particles the exact same way they were ALL located at some point in your past, I think that would constitute time travel. That sounds logical to me - likely, no.
@Muhammad Ahmed your watch would be operating in a setting where time is moving at a slower pace, so actually the hands of your watch would literally (physically), be moving slower. http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/time-travel1.htm
@Adeel Khan I do trust you so much that you may never believe how much. I will give-up all to just travel in time.
god is my witness. travel in time doesn't mean you need to change the world it is up to us in the present to change our future
@Adeel Khan Why would you care if anyone believes you? Just record your travels for yourself. No one else matters.
@H CA Speaking of uncertainty, there's a possible chance you will go back to your past successfully and at the same moment (not to confuse with time) another version(copy) of you will or may end up stuck between space and time as a parallel universe will be created the moment you start your machine. this is possible because the wave function will only collapse after the time traveller stops his machine and observe's the place where he landed.
@Barth LeightIf Razeqi was just as close minded as you are, he wouldn't have discovered that algorithms can be used to predict the future. If the science world were only filled with people who aren't afraid to see the same things differently, we wouldn't have new inventions.
@George Jenkins Theres also the possibility that sharing it with the west is what they (if the above mentioned is true) found to be the option that would initiate the best scenario/outcome based on the devices predictions.
@Nika Mdivani Then I would say study quantum physics, space-time theory, causality, superposition, the behavior of electrons, and ask how it is that you arrived here at the present if you didn't travel here from the past.
@Jeffery White @Nika Mdivani Nika didn't travel here through the past..he travelled through the present..
Latest News
Trending News
-
Mystery of Deadly Volcanic Eruption Solved?
Using ice cores, geochemistry, tree rings, and ancient texts, scientists discover which volcano erupted in the 13th century with worldwide effects.
-
First Cloud Map of Exoplanet
For the first time, astronomers can forecast cloudy skies on a distant exoplanet.
-
First Face Found—On a Fish
The extinct animal's face structure could help explain how vertebrates, including people, evolved our distinctive look.
Advertisement
Celebrating 125 Years
-
Explorer Moment: Azorean Whalers
With Força, Gemina Garland-Lewis learns what it takes to be an Azorean whaler.
-
From the Stacks: Meow Mix, 1938
Not all the animals National Geographic has covered have been wild ones.
News Blogs
Connect With Nat Geo
