19 ms·
Time travel backwards is causality breaking, which is a far, far more important physical principle than relativity. Time travel forwards is quite simple though,
by constantcrying 3y ago
Time travel backwards is causality breaking, which is a far, far more important physical principle than relativity. Time travel forwards is quite simple though, but less exciting.
- jpadkins 3y agowe can't rule out time travel forward on Earth. There is geological evidence of civilization destroying events 12k years ago, possibly more. I've often thought about why it took 300-400k years to go from fire to agricultural-civilization, then tech takes off in under 5k years from that point. What if the time from fire to civilization was faster, but those civilizations were wiped out (by geological, astrological or self-inflicted reasons)?
- phyrex 3y agoThere’s good evidence against that. All the easily mineable resources that a civilization needs to build more advanced technology will be used up by the first civilization. I’ve heard it said that if we destroy our current technology there will be no way to rebuild it because there’s no way to mine the resources to build it back up.
- ryandvm 3y agoToday's landfills are tomorrow's mines.
- jpadkins 3y agoYes, I've read that without easily accessible surface level coal, there is no industrial revolution. Maybe the advanced past civilizations were based in what is now called Africa or Indonesia, and the UK was some remote frozen place where it wasn't worth it to mine the surface coal?
- Shawnj2 3y agoFrom what I’ve heard it’s completely plausible for pre industrial human civilizations to have existed and been wiped out in the past but anything past that point would leave things like heavy metals we could detect in the geological record.
- delecti 3y agoTechnology begets itself. As you're less pressured by environmental limitations, you have more time to advance instead of just survive, which brings even more time to advance further faster, etc. Additionally language is a pretty huge factor for spreading knowledge, written language another huge factor, mass printing again, remote communication yet again, and mass digital communication yet again on top. It makes sense that each next leap in our past came faster than the previous.
- soligern 3y agoTime travel to the future is extremely exciting. Being able to pass a 1000 years in a year or two means you could observe the long term evolution of mankind over millennia. I’d much rather see that than the past if only one of the two were an option.
- constantcrying 3y agoTime travel forward is comparitively simple, relativity basically tells you what to do. The implementation is hard but no need to break causality.
- danenania 3y ago> Time travel forward is comparitively simple So simple, in fact, that all of us are already doing it.