How might time travel occur?
I want strictly none mechanical means.
With no devices, how might time travel occur?
Intentionally, or by accident, how many ways can your imagination find that it might occur?
Bonus points if you include whether/how they might return.
Anybody who ignores my details will get punched, no, deleted; something like that.
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16 Answers
Time travel occurs naturally, locally at 1 second per second forward into the future.
I’ve read quite a few stories about time travel but most involve a time machine of some sort. The only one I can vaguely remember did not was a short story by Michael Moorcock (I believe). I cannot even remember the name of the story, it having been about 40 years ago and my memory not being what it once was. But in it I remember there was a crisis involving, I believe, a big bomb on a timer and one guy had to disarm it. While trying to do so, others noticed him fading in and out and the timer countdown slowed and finally stopped. When asked what happened, he mentioned something along the lines of noticing that time moved in a line with little packets of time being measured by the clock (seconds, minutes, etc). He then tried to step back through the time packets to allow himself adequate “time” to disarm the bomb. Later in the story he appeared again but was now moving his family and followers out of this packet of time to another that was safer for them (some apocalypse coming). I also remember there was something about only being able to go one way in time…I think it was back. Since the future has not happened, it is impossible to move physically to a point that doesn’t exist yet. But they could move backwards through time.
Moorcock wrote a lot about a multiverse and time travel. Great sci-fi/fantasy author, but hard to find some of his older stuff now.
Another way that time travel can happen without an actual time machine is to travel far and fast (close to speed of light) and then return. Far more time would have passed for those who never left than for you.
Spacetime is affected by gravity. I think physics starts to do funny things when you’re in close proximity to massive objects like within the event horizon of a super massive black hole. My guess is that if it were possible it would involve messing with spacetime in a similar manner. I’m still uncertain if it’s possible to go backwards, or if it’s just going to slow time down to very close to zero.
I believe that we could be in a simulation, like the Matrix, and time resets through computers.
Also I have an ex-friend is into religion, the occult, and psychic powers. She could be using it.
I can go back in time, but not forward. I have to live life over to get, back to the future, to go forward.
I tried taking back the winning lottery numbers, and the ticket vanished. I had the same numbers for a year. There was someone with my same first name that I signed on the lottery ticket, and he won 30 million dollars.
Well, in Lost, they travel back in time inadvertently when Ben accidentally tilts the island off its axis in spacetime. And the time travel is sporadic and random, with them flashing through different periods of time in the past. They return to the present when a bomb is set off in the island’s most potent electromagnetic energy pocket. So I guess a device is involved there, but they didn’t know that was going to happen, and once the time flashes stabilized and they were stuck in the 70s, it took three years to return.
Take a plane trip around the earth at 500mph. Greet the TSA agent before you leave, take off and land at the same airport. Greet that same TSA agent when you arrive. The age difference between you has increased slightly during the trip. They have aged several nanoseconds more than you
@gorillapaws Physics does funny things even if you’re not in close proximity to a black hole. Your time frame of reference is different than an orbiting GPS satellite. GPS satellite makers have to take this into account.
@Caravanfan Good point. Are there any hypotheses in physics models that you’re aware of that would allow reversal of time and not just time passing at different relative rates?
@Caravanfan I’m so tempted to write “There are more things in heaven and earth…” just to pull your leg but that would be mean. lol
@janbb Yeah, I overreacted on that one, I’m sorry.
My front door frames a portal some forgetful visitors left at the time of the dinosaurs. It has been sending random animals, dead leaves and particles of dust back, and sometimes forward, in time ever since. I’ve no idea how it works and it came with no instruction manual.
I invite you to come over and try it sometime.
Another way to time travel without a machine would be to get closer to a large gravity item. Time slows down the closer to a large gravity field you are so while you might spend hours near it, you could find that decades have gone by when you get back to your original point. Getting back would be a lot harder. You’d have to come up with a way to put yourself into a zero gravity area for a long time. The gravity of Earth and the sun would then become the larger gravity field. Maybe?
SOME people DID NOT read the details.
I have difficulty in understanding how they feel they can offer a response that is helpful or on topic without reading the details for ANY general question.
Loli, seriously, that seems helpful to you?
My details do specify use of your imagination, so obviously, fiction is welcome.
Rudeness, not so much. >:•{
It’s pure fantasy so will never happen.
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