Does time exist? Is it an illusion? Some have suggested that time does not exist. It is reasoned that we only experience time because we measure motions that happen to occur sequentially. There is no mathematical proof for this view point. In fact, there is substantial proof that time does exist as a part of the Time-Space Continuum of our tangible Universe.
So, if time exists, why is it only possible to travel forward in time as a certain rate? Why do we have memories of the past, but are unable to remember our future? These are common questions during discussions regarding time travel. We ask these questions because we perceive Time as linear. Maybe this is a false interpretation of our perception? In fact, we don’t experience time as a line with the Past in one direction and the Future in the other. We experience Time at a single point, the Present.
Problems with Linear Time
Time travel into the Past allows two violations of well proven laws and principles. First, it allows for an effect without a cause. For example, you could go back in time and prevent your own birth. However, if you prevented your own birth, how did you exist in order to go back in time? Second, time travel into the past allows for the creation of a perpetual motion machine through time by various means. Of course, such self sustaining system is a violation of the Laws of Thermodynamics.
Problems with Time Travel regardless of the nature of Time
Another problem with Time Travel to the Past is that the entire Universe is relative. Any action from one frame of reference is only applicable to that frame of reference. If an object could go back in time, that object would only be travelling within its own frame of reference. The Universe around the object wouldn’t change. Even worse, if you had a time machine that allowed time travel within one’s own frame of reference and you tried to make a person go back in their own Time, that person wouldn't get younger in the human sense, but only in the quantum sense. In other words, if the person went into your time machine at the age of 50, they would re-appear still a 50 year old afterwards. Only the person's atoms would've grown younger, not the person themself. This is because the placement of that person’s atoms in space (i.e., within a facial skin winkle) is irrelevant to the atoms’ place in Time (a facial skin winkle is still a winkle regardless of the quantum date of the atoms that make up the winkle).
Even without this little problem, in a relative Universe, the only way to travel back into the Universe’s Past is to make the entire Universe travel back in time, while only you stay in the present. Such a feat would require more energy than what currently exists in the Universe.
This brings me back to the idea that Time is not a line, but a single point. We only experience the Present because only the Present exists. Of course, that means we can’t travel to the Past or Future because neither exists.
Just as with Space, Time can have length (linear), height (planar) and breath (cubic). Maybe Time just doesn’t possess those properties in our own Universe?
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