Saint wrote: Brian wrote: Time travel is a difficult issue. All of the things that would make time travel actually useful are paradoxical, at best, and therefore probably impossible. I think the scientist here is wrong to look at it as just a technological hurdle. The logical hurdle is much greater.
The Grandfather Paradox is a fairly significant hurdle to overcome. Even if time travel was possible to the past, you'd probably only be able to do it as an observer. You wouldn't actually be able to change anything, which, I think, would be why most people would want to do it in the first place.
On the other hand, it would be a great way to teach kids history. 
I disagree, Brian. You could avoid that paradox if time was branching and not a steady stream.
In fact, another you on another branch may have already met yourself.
The act of meeting yourself would create a branch in time creating two branches where one of you had met himself and one where you had not.
You are the branch which, by definition, has never met himself.
Hi, Saint.
I would argue that if you did branch off into another universe, and you, for example, killed Hitler, that wouldn't change anything in the past that you came from. The Hitler in that timeline would still exist. Otherwise, how could you have had the idea to go back and kill him? Thus, it would be impossible to change anything in the universe in which you wanted to change it. If you could change the past that way, you'd basically be destroying causality (which, by the way, is a bad thing ). You can't destroy the cause and still have the effect.
"It's been a long December, and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last."
-- "A Long December", Counting Crows
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