Why Time Travel Will Never Be Possible

Is it really possible for humans to travel into the past? Or to overcome speculation by slipping into the distant future?

The subject has fueled many dreams and also much controversy. But could it happen?

Many of the arguments supporting the possibility of time travel are based upon a stack of dependent theories. However, time will likely show these theories to be insubstantial. Much like the past cosmologists who put the earth at the center of the universe, these theorists will eventually find their ideas crumbling forever into the realm of fantasy.

Debunking these myths and getting to the root of the matter requires a definition of time.

Time is not a simple illusion. Things really do change. However, the concept of time is simply a man-made system for measuring change.

Because time is conceptual, there is no physical or tangible substance that can be physically altered. The only physical reality involved is the state of each particle in the universe. These particles change state constantly, but this changing of state does not allow for time travel as has been proposed.

Since time is merely a measurement of state, traveling through it would require knowing the exact state of all things at the target time, as well as the ability to put every particle in the universe back to that state. In other words, humans would need to be both omniscient and omnipotent. (This has the frightening implication that recreating a past state would obliterate the current state of everything. There would be no other-dimensional continuation of what might have been.)

Until scientists can create a sensor capable of recording the state of all particles in the universe, and of continually taking snapshots of these particles every time a minute change occurs, there is no way humans will achieve such omniscience.

If brilliant minds managed to achieve such an accomplishment, they would face the more daunting task of simulating omnipotence. They would need to devise a way to put all particles in the universe back to the state they were in at the desired time.