Time Travel - Forwards or backwards?

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Simple question, if time travel was possible would you prefer to go forwards on time or backwards in time?

Go back in time you would get to see all the great events you've heard about but not witnessed or be able to do something differently in your own lifetime. I'd like to go back and experience species that no longer exist such as Dinosaurs or Neanderthal people. Or even go back a few hundred years and watch some of the great composers perform such as Beethoven and Mozart.

Going forward in time you'd get to see the advancement of human technology or even your own destiny.

[anthonyvop]

Forward.
Check out the Financial news.
Come back and pass Bill Gates and Carlos Slim on the list.

[Wade91]

forward

[Brown, Jon Brow]

It would be quite profitable to go back in time to 2008 and put £100 on Jenson Button being 2009 WDC. (touch wood)

[Donney]

Assuming it's only a trip as a mere spectator not being able to alter history or anything, definitely backwards, going into the future takes the fun away.

[Alfa Fan]

Sorry to put a dampener on this; but the very nature of the idea of time travel requires a non-linear time line. If you were to go back in time and change anything, what you change would alter the future from that point. So its all good going back and putting a bet on Jenson to win, but there'd be no guarantee in this new, "alternative" reality that he would, or that there would even be a driver called Jenson! Its confusing stuff. And then we have the problem of actually time travelling by travelling faster than the speed of light, at which point everything has a mass of 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel This is a very interesting read. As you can see by the discussion there what I've just posted is only one viewpoint and its far from a resolved issue.

[Wade91]

Sorry to put a dampener on this; but the very nature of the idea of time travel requires a non-linear time line. If you were to go back in time and change anything, what you change would alter the future from that point. So its all good going back and putting a bet on Jenson to win, but there'd be no guarantee in this new, "alternative" reality that he would, or that there would even be a driver called Jenson! Its confusing stuff. And then we have the problem of actually time travelling by travelling faster than the speed of light, at which point everything has a mass of 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel This is a very interesting read. As you can see by the discussion there what I've just posted is only one viewpoint and its far from a resolved issue.
i dont see how placing the bet would stop Jenson from winning, you would probalby have to directly interfear, which is pretty much impossable unless of course you are a member of his team, or you are another driver on the track,

but it defantly would be possable to change the course of history with time traval,

like if you went back in time and bought a used car, who ever was the person who bought that car how ever many years ago before you went back in time and bough it before they had a chace, is gonna have to buy a diffront car (of course now history is being re-writen and they dont even know the car they were gonna buy exists)

it would take awhile for alot of noticable changes to show up, but eventually that one change to the course of history would completly change the course of who owns what car in the future :eek:

[Firstgear]

Why go forward?
We're all going to get there eventually anyway.

[anthonyvop]

Sorry to put a dampener on this; but the very nature of the idea of time travel requires a non-linear time line. If you were to go back in time and change anything, what you change would alter the future from that point. So its all good going back and putting a bet on Jenson to win, but there'd be no guarantee in this new, "alternative" reality that he would, or that there would even be a driver called Jenson! Its confusing stuff. And then we have the problem of actually time travelling by travelling faster than the speed of light, at which point everything has a mass of 0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel This is a very interesting read. As you can see by the discussion there what I've just posted is only one viewpoint and its far from a resolved issue.

Ok Ok.


This is a fun thread. Take the astrophysics to another thread.

[Wade91]

Why go forward?
We're all going to get there eventually anyway.
but only so far unless we can find a way to live for ever

[MrJan]

I'd go back a bit to somewhere between the 60s and mid-80s when motorsport was different. I'd love to be out on rally stages when ground breaking stuff comes through for the first time (for me it's mind boggling to imagine just how different the Audi Quattro was). Either that or back further to when racing cars were properly beautiful, things like the C-Type which we only get to see at revival meetings etc.

[Jag_Warrior]

I'm going back. Going forward could make me look like a caveman coming to our time. They'd probably make fun of me when I couldn't figure out how to use the ZX-1400 Food Replication device: "Come on dude, it's so easy a cave man can use it!"

Nah, just drop me off in Rome, circa 50 BC.

[leopard]

Sometimes I feel that I may dig more experience form going backwards, but on another occasions going towards seems to be more exciting...

[slinkster]

I don't really have a desire to see how things will turn out in the future... It all looks pretty bleak world wise so I think it's best not knowing hehe.

If I could go back though, I think I'd hop back and forth to see some amazing gigs that I've missed out on like Queen, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles... Nirvana and Jeff Buckley.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

I don't really have a desire to see how things will turn out in the future... It all looks pretty bleak world wise so I think it's best not knowing hehe.

.

I don't think this is true. It would have looked a bit more bleak in 1939 or during the Cuban Missile Crisis etc

A bit fanciful but backwards to Africa after hot air balloons were invented and before the animal populations were decimated. Drifting over the continent in a balloon looking down on the wildlife would have been truly wonderful.

[leopard]

yeah... wildlife Africa is miracle... :)

[Storm]

Assuming it's only a trip as a mere spectator not being able to alter history or anything, definitely backwards, going into the future takes the fun away.
I second that.

[chuck34]

I would love to go back in time. But only if I could change things. I'd love to be the guy to introduce rear engines, wings, and tunnels to racing (specifically Indy) in, oh I don't know, about 1950ish. That would be awesome to show up at Indy, get laughed at like Chapman did, and then just blow everyone away because I'll have ALL the right bits, unlinke Chapman.

[emporer_k]

I'd go back in time and prevent the girl i like at work from meeting her boyfriend.

Also I'd place a few seemingly ridiculous bets.

[donKey jote]

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:p :
:dozey:
:laugh:

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