Time Machine

[kannan selvaraj]

I have been so much fascinated about time travel and time machine.
People who share similar interest please post your queries and stuffs.
I could watch "back to the future" movies umpteen number of times without getting bored

[Ulf Dittmer]

Time Machine exists.

[Chetan Parekh]

I am sure that you people will not believe me but I came from future -5000 AD. I have to submit a project about �People and Culture in Second Millennium�.
[ November 24, 2008: Message edited by: Chetan Parekh ]

[Prabhat Gupta]

Sometimes i feel that if we are able to know our future in advance then it would destroy the beauty of life i.e " UNPREDICTABLE "

[Chetan Parekh]

Originally posted by Prabhat Gupta:
Sometimes i feel that if we are able to know our future in advance then it would destroy the beauty of life i.e " UNPREDICTABLE "

You must be reading Osho

[Sameer Jamal]

Originally posted by Chetan Parekh:


You must be reading Osho

No, I think its common sense.

[Prabhat Gupta]

You must be reading Osho

Not really..i feel that anything that is predictable would loss its excitement.For example a cricket match between Australia vs Bangladesh and match between Australia vs India have different excitement because former has much more predictable result but later doesn't has.

Also, astrologers wouldn't like this time machine otherwise they would be jobless
[ November 24, 2008: Message edited by: Prabhat Gupta ]

[Pradeep bhatt]

I think western countries believe in time machine. While I was in UK,TV channels were telecasting many such programs such as Doctor Who.

[fred rosenberger]

I have a time machine that works quite well. it allows you to travel into the future at the rate of 1 second per second.

[Frank Silbermann]

We can travel forward in time, but unfortunately, there is no way to go back. Right now I'm living forty years in the future (the present is 1968).

[Sri Anand]

Well this is the story i belonged to 30th Century living on Jupiter, I was sent on mission to Study how Jupiter was in 20th Century, after i landed to 20h Century, i took up another mission to study earth and i landed on earth , now i work in a IT firm posting regularly in Java Ranch, I am thinking of not going back because of Java Ranch. but the Economic recession is troubling me

[john edwin]

[Copied material removed. Even in Meaningless Drivel, please be sure to not infringe upon the copyrights or intellectual properties of others.]
[ November 28, 2008: Message edited by: Bear Bibeault ]

[Bear Bibeault]

[Gregg Bolinger]

Originally posted by kannan selvaraj:
I could watch "back to the future" movies umpteen number of times without getting bored

If you want to watch a good movie about Time Travel that doesn't make it look all glamorous and fake watch Primer. Probably the best movie about time travel made.
[ November 28, 2008: Message edited by: Gregg Bolinger ]

[Bear Bibeault]

Netflixed.

[Mike Simmons]

Primer is very good, agreed.

John Edwin: I gather you're talking about the 2002 movie, The Time Machine. Where "talking about" is shorthand for reposting an unattributed excerpt from Mark Bourne's DVD Journal review of the movie. Wouldn't it have been easier to just link to that? Also, let's remember that there was an earlier film version, as well of course the original, which was a book. Your out-of-context cut-and-paste is woefully vague on what it refers to, and may just confuse people not already familiar with the work.

Another time-travel favorite of mine (sans machine) is Life on Mars. The UK original is very, very well done. The current US remake is good too - so far it's mostly adapting the UK episodes, quite closely in some cases, albeit with different musical and other cultural references. Which is not a bad thing - but it remains to be seen if the US version will manage to move out from the shadow of the original, the way The Office did. My fingers are crossed.

I suppose I should note that one intriguing aspect of the show is that it's not necessarily about time travel at all. There are several possible interpretations of what's really going on. That's part of the fun. Regardless, the UK original is darn good stuff. And the US version is worth keeping an eye on, at least.

The is also a sequel to the UK version, Ashes to Ashes, set in a later time with a different main character (but several other characters from the first show). One 8-episode series/season has been broadcast so far, but more episodes are on the way. So far I like it, but not as much as the earlier show. I think the biggest difference, however, may be that I like the music of 1973 better than that of 1981. At least from the UK side. Eh, probably that would be true for a US version as well.
[ November 28, 2008: Message edited by: Mike Simmons ]

[Bear Bibeault]

My favorite time travel novel of all time is To Say Nothing of the Dog in which time paradoxes cannot occur because time just won't let it happen.

[Mike Simmons]

Interesting. I have yet to read any of Connie Willis' novels, but Sensei Bear has given me yet another reason to move one or two of hers to the top of the list. (I've had several strong recommendations of her work before this, as well.) I'm a bit suspicious of the "time just won't let it happen" explanation, but OK, I try to be flexible. That said, I do think Connie is a great short story writer, and also a very entertaining guest at conventions. I look forward to reading her longer works.

[Bear Bibeault]

Originally posted by Mike Simmons:
I'm a bit suspicious of the "time just won't let it happen" explanation...

So as not to potentially spoil anything, highlight the following quote with the mouse only if you want to read it:

*** If you are looking for a deep explanation of why paradoxes cannot occur, or how time travel itself works in the novel, you may be disappointed. In fact, no one in the novel knows how it works either. They sort of stumbled upon it and use it, but no one really understands how it all works. Personally, I liked that!***

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

So based on this thread, I ordered "To Say Nothing of the Dog" (and also Canticle for Liebowitz -- I might have gotten that idea from another thread, though). After these arrived from Amazon, they had to filter their way up through the pile -- I always have a backlog of half a dozen books or so to read.) Then I had to read it, in the 20 minutes or so I have available each day. And so finally, just now, I finished "To Say Nothing."

Thanks for the recommendation, Bear -- loved it! It's without a doubt the least scientific science fiction novel I've ever read The humor is gentle and restrained, but sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and it was an enormous pleasure to read. Best quote ever (spoiler)

*** And (I) kissed her for a hundred and sixty-nine years.***

So do you suppose I should get ahold of Fire Watch, Mike? Or Doomsday Book? What else of hers have you read, Bear?

[harilal ithikkat]

Sometimes i feel that if we are able to know our future in advance then it would destroy the beauty of life

dude if you could understand the future ..
and according to your intution your girlfriend gonna fell in love with someone else...............what you will do........if you love her ....you will give your life(i mean all you could) to make her back to your life......so if you could understand whats gonna happen next, deffenitely you will solve it ......................so there is no point in knowing the future you will rewrite it with your effort...................

So my point is live in Present......................

[Mike Simmons]

I still haven't read any of her novels, but any of her collections would be good. The Winds of Marble Arch collection is a hefty "best of" that includes a few you can't find otherwise. But Fire Watch or Impossible Things would be good choices too, and cheaper (especially used on Amazon). The title story in Fire Watch is set in the same world as TSNotD and Doomsday Book, though I don't know if that matters too much either way.

As for other time travel fiction... apparently last time, I forgot to mention Ted Chiang's novella, The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate. It's a story within a story within a story, told in a style that would let it fit in comfortably amongst the 1001 tales of the Arabian Nights. Best way to get it is probably an anthology like this or this. Maybe available at your local library. My own local library had a copy of this nifty volume which is now an overpriced collectors' item; too bad. Or you can listen to it for free in audio form, here. Though I personally find it a little distracting to hear a line like "My name is Fuwaad ibn Abbas" voiced with a thick Scottish accent. Which is unfortunate, because the reader does a great job overall.

More generally (not just for time-travel stuff), I recommend anything by Ted Chiang. Most of it, other than TMatAG, is available in a single volume here. Oh, and see also a nice one-page story originally published in Nature (!), now available here.

Hmm, I just reread that last one. It's worth a lot more than an "oh, and see...". That's a seriously good story, there, well worth the time of anyone who's read this far. Again: one page. Do it!

[Mike Simmons]

harilal ithikkat wrote:

Sometimes i feel that if we are able to know our future in advance then it would destroy the beauty of life

dude if you could understand the future ..
and according to your intution your girlfriend gonna fell in love with someone else...............what you will do........if you love her ....you will give your life(i mean all you could) to make her back to your life......so if you could understand whats gonna happen next, deffenitely you will solve it ......................so there is no point in knowing the future you will rewrite it with your effort...................

So my point is live in Present......................

"My message to you is this: pretend that you have free will. It’s essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know that they don’t."

[Bear Bibeault]

Ernest Friedman-Hill wrote: What else of hers have you read, Bear?

Doomsday Book is on my reading pile, but like you, it's been slow going as of late! Maybe I'll have to up the priority a bit...

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Bear Bibeault wrote:

Ernest Friedman-Hill wrote: What else of hers have you read, Bear?

Doomsday Book is on my reading pile, but like you, it's been slow going as of late! Maybe I'll have to up the priority a bit...

I'm working on Doomsday right now, and I'm loving it. I read "Passage" a while back, and that one, not as much: it has a very distinct feeling of being deliberately padded out, as if it were a 300-page book that was deliberately diluted to 700+ pages. It was still a good yarn, but it could have been more directly told.

[Teja Saab]

I am not interested in travelling too far into the future, just till tomorrow night 11 PM is fine when the powerball numbers are drawn.

[Joe Ess]

Speaking of time travel, I see Ernest hopped in the WABAC machine to retrieve this topic!

[Rogerio Kioshi]

Movies about time:


About "Back to the future", I only like the first episode. Michael J Fox was not supposed to be Marty, because
the first actor was Eric Stoltz. By the way, I'd like to see a scene with Eric Stoltz in Back to the Future, do you know any link?


Sometimes my life looks like this movie... every day is the same...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/

[Pat Farrell]

Frank Silbermann wrote:We can travel forward in time, but unfortunately, there is no way to go back. Right now I'm living forty years in the future (the present is 1968).

Interesting talk from Google Tech Talk series, the physics folks don't believe that time goes only forward.


Arrow of Time

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

definitely wanna go to see egyptian and mahabharata time....

[hem kumar]

I have an interesting observation to make here, may be an outrageous one! So all of us assume that we are moving forward in time to the future. But this is still to be verified. We still do not know how this universe is created or who created it or if it started with a bang from nothing or from something we dont know yet. So my question is what if we are moving backward in time while we actual thinking that we are moving forward ? May be there is someone who controls all this creation or destruction things or may be there is no one and we are on our own. The question is what is the definitive proof is that we are moving forward? I am saying about the big picture here, the time of our universe not our individual life time. While it seems that we are moving forward from birth to death in our life time, the whole universe or the things that covers the universe may be going backward. Any thought about this? Or it simply a mad man's rambling. Laugh Out Loud.

[Pat Farrell]

hem kumar wrote:I have an interesting observation to make here, may be an outrageous one! So all of us assume that we are moving forward in time to the future. But this is still to be verified. We still do not know how this universe is created or who created it or if it started with a bang from nothing or from something we dont know yet. So my question is what if we are moving backward in time while we actual thinking that we are moving forward ?

If you watch the video that I linked in up thread, they ask exactly that question. They point out that for many observable things, say two pool/billiard balls hitting, if you film it and run it in reverse, you see the same trajectory. So forward and backward have no real meaning.

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

According to einstein also time machine is possible ::::: source Pay-check movie

[Ryan McGuire]

Pat Farrell wrote:

hem kumar wrote:I have an interesting observation to make here, may be an outrageous one! So all of us assume that we are moving forward in time to the future. But this is still to be verified. We still do not know how this universe is created or who created it or if it started with a bang from nothing or from something we dont know yet. So my question is what if we are moving backward in time while we actual thinking that we are moving forward ?

If you watch the video that I linked in up thread, they ask exactly that question. They point out that for many observable things, say two pool/billiard balls hitting, if you film it and run it in reverse, you see the same trajectory. So forward and backward have no real meaning.

Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like banana.

[Ryan McGuire]

kannan selvaraj wrote:I have been so much fascinated about time travel and time machine.
People who share similar interest please post your queries and stuffs.
I could watch "back to the future" movies umpteen number of times without getting bored

So you like "Back to the Future", do ya? You might enjoy the Back to the Future Card Game.

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

I think Past is quite well than the present and life is quite excting also if there's an time machine

[bidmi robson]

well to think there is anything like a time machine is really interesting..i`d like to see for myself if there`s a real life application of this....if we can know our future then what is the essence of life..for example if i knew i was going to lose my loved ones what then would be the joy in there?

[Kaustubh G Sharma]

I think future option should not be there because in life suspense is required.. and one should not predict there future because it is difficult to handle it better if we go back to past and fix the errors we made there...