Not exactly. Command over space seems commonplace for most adult wizards i.e. expansion charms, Apparition, etc. Not command over time, however. Time Turners are found none else save in the Department of Mysteries, and hence isn't exactly common wizard fare. Moreover, Time Turners are magical artifacts, not spells wizards can use on the fly.

 

Firstly, time and space are linked. Apparition is time travel as well as space travel.

Secondly, I specifically mentioned a spell which slows down time for the target: the Impedimenta curse.

 

I seriously doubt Rowling had general relativity in mind when she conceived of Apparition. In any case, there's clear meaning of "time travel" we're discussing here - and Apparition isn't it. In Apparition, you do not flash forward into the future; time "flows" normally. You do not go to the past or manipulate time in any way. You just go from one location to another. You do not go from one time to another. You can split hairs all you want, but when you say "time travel", you aren't thinking of the sort of "time travel" Apparition involves.

Impedimenta slows down the target. It doesn't "slow down" time. As an analogy, imagine a truck moving at you at approximately 40 m/s. Now, a car comes by and drastically slows it down to only 10 m/s. This sudden change in speed is what gives the Impedimenta it's ability to injure - it's like walking into a wall at full speed. Neither example alters time, but instead, it alters velocity and force.

 

Conjuncture. It seems to me that Impedimenta changes time, not merely physical capability. Different interpretations, but I feel that the all-encompassing nature of the curse backs mine better. Nevertheless, even if it were velocity that is changed, let us not forget that speed = distance / time, and the distance is unchanged, so a change in time must have occurred.

As for apparation, you're rather splitting hairs. In effect, you're saying time travel does not occur, except when it does, but we won't count them. The time travel is extremely slight, but it has occurred when you apparate. And I still count Time-turners. Even if it's not an instant spell, it is the result of a wizard's magic, so it's still wizards showing power over time.

 

There's no indication in any of the books that Impedimenta manipulates time. The time's we've seen it used (in the Third Task, on Harry by Madam Hooch in OP, at the Derpartment of Mysteries, etc), the target either slowed down or came to a crashing halt. When Harry tried to punch Malfoy in OP and was hit by Impedimenta, he came to a crashing halt mid-air - there wasn't any indication at all that he suddenly experienced "time slowing down."

... Which is entirely irrelevant to what we're talking about. When you say "time has changed" here, you aren't talking about time travel. You're just talking about what particular unit of time we care to use. Suppose we have some object that moves a distance of 10 meters in 2 seconds. Let's also suppose we move that object a distance of 20 meters in 4 seconds. How about moving itt 5 meters in 1 second? Despite these disparate distances and times, all of the objects move at the same velocity: 5 m/s. You aren't changing "space and time" by choosing to move the object at a certain velocity over some arbitrary distance during some arbitrary time. You aren't "changing space and time" by choosing to move some object the same distance over a longer duration of time - you've just slowed down the process, not slowed down time. Unless you contend that car crashes or any sort of acceleration or deceleration whatsoever is time travel*, you've got no case here.

*In which case, your definition of "time travel" has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

I don't count the normal forward progression of time as "time travel." That's not what we're talking about. That's not what Rowling means by "time travel." That's not what Dumbledore meant by "controlling space and time." That's not what most people mean when they talk about "time travel." That may be what you call "time travel," but, in that case, you're talking about something that no one else is talking about. If you want to call that "time travel," go ahead. But, don't suppose that you're talking about the same thing everyone else is.

Sure. All the same, my point stands. Time Turners are not spells that can be used on the fly and are esoteric devices regulated by the Ministry of Magic and guarded in the Department of Mysteries. You contended that all (presumably adult) wizards could control space and time. I showed that at best, a select few can. Also, Dumbledore's power in the story is far more advanced and more powerful than any Time Turner, given that he uses self-directed magical power, not an artifact, he makes other beings go through space and time, rather than someone he must physically contact, and the distance by which he sends them is vastly beyond the capacity of normal Time Turners (to go back merely a year with a Time Turner, you'd have to turn the damn thing 8760 times. Dumbledore seems to send them hundreds of years back with a fraction of the effort).

All that said, I've never really liked the inclusion of Time Turners or time travel in general in Rowling's universe. Time travel in the Potterverse seems to be bereft of adverse consequences in general, which would make it massively overpowered. Why wouldn't Dark wizards just take the time (no pun intended) to obtain/build one and use it at will? I can imagine the chaos that would occur if such a device existed in a plausible world. I suppose it's just another plot hole in Rowling's work.*

*For that matter, who in their right mind would give a device that alters space and time and the very foundation of reality to a 13 year old?!

 

Way ahead of you, when I saw the above all of text. I've rather lost my will to TL;DR. Reykht stole it from me.

 

Since we're talking about apparation, is it possible to apparate around the globe and go back in time? You know, like people used to think if you flew around the equator, you could go back in time.

Just sayin'.

 

You can't go back in time if you fly around the equator even it you are close to the speed of light. Of course, the clocks will slow down and stuff. If you do manage to cross light speed they might even run backwards if that's what you mean , but the world will still be moving forward in time.

 

... I strongly suspect it was crossing the international date line that Militis was referring to, not actual time-travel. Yes, Militis, you can go back to yesterday. Or rather, the yester date.

Lolwut.

I was going to reply anyway but decided to waste a minute or two trying to decipher the wall.

 

If one wishes to account for "space and time are linked" explicitly, one can just say that impedimenta rotates an object in spacetime, reducing its angle to the time axis in the caster's reference frame. Here, those familiar with relativity may note that I've just said "it slows things down" in fancy jargon, since in relativity, speed corresponds to the [hyperbolic] angle to the time axis (and indeed accelerations are just particular rotationals in spacetime). I'm not sure why one would bother, but at least it's much more straightforward conjecture than trying to link it to time travel.

Except that there is no indication that an apparating person leaves his or her own lightcone. The speed of light is fast enough to go between London to Glasgow and back again over a quarter-million times in a single second; not only does canon lack any indication that this is surpassed, its descriptions of the sensations caused by apparation suggest the contrary (in particular, that it's long enough for the wizard or witch to process any sensations at all).

Maybe you're referring to something I'm failing to recall... please clarify.

No one's disputing that. What's in dispute is analogous to the difference between saying "Muggles command the power of the atom" because some of them build nuclear reactors and whatnot and having someone conjure up a nuclear bomb from common household itsems and maybe a bit of plutonium in just minutes. Only one muggle can do anything remotely like that, and his name is MacGyver.

You've a tendency to exhibit the peaks of wizarding capabilities as if they were achievable by any joe schmoe of the wizarding world. It's rather curious, since it's doesn't just go against common sense and human nature, but also directly against canon.

In the context of the story, canon time turners are very limited as to what they can and can't do; it's clear just from the set-up that Harry broke restrictions.

 

Apparition is known to create a loud pop, thus we can deduce it takes way less than a second for a wizard to appear (air displacement and stuff; I'd say it's almost instantaneous). What's more, there are absolutely no descriptions of "states" of Apparition. Wizard is. He Apparates. He's left. There is nothing like fading to nothingness, or shrinking, or whatever. It's either too fast for human's eye to notice, or it doesn't occur at all. Anyhow, it's safe to say it takes no more than a tenth of a second.

As far as I know, canon doesn't help to determine how far it's possible to Apparate, but I think it's safe to assume wizards can do it for 1000km.

Basing on deduction and assumption above, and even taking wide error margin for time, we have a way of transportation that can cover 1000km in 0.1s, giving us amazing velocity of 10000kmps. I will not bother you with calculations, but for speed=10000km/s observers in points A and B (source or destination, doesn't matter which is which) will see that Apparition takes 0.1s, but for the travelling wizard it will be only 0,0999444s.

I think this is time travel Taure was speaking of.

 

True enough Krzaq, but the problem is that that is not time travel. It is just that the clocks in two reference frames showed two different times of travel. The wizard is not moving backward in time or something. He is still moving forward at the usual rate - one moment at a time. Just because a wizard observing the event measures this moment as 1s while the wizard in motion measures it as 0.0999s does not mean time travel has occurred.

 

Nobody said it's travelling back. I was just pointing that wizards can affect time without fancy artifacts like time turners, even if their ability is much smaller.

 

Hmmm...I disagree, they don't effect time at all by traveling fast, they effect the clocks. The Clock and Time are two different things.

 

See now I always thought that apparation was just the instant transportation of a wizard from one point to another. There is no need for time travel because no time passes between disappearing and reappearing. The sensation of being squeezed may be anything from a psychological effect to make it easier on the mind to the nothingness of being outside the universe at that instant.

Actually, that's got me thinking. If it is not just instant transportation, could it be transporting yourself outside of the universe (magic remember) and then back in to the universe in the place you want to be? It would explain how it happens instantly, because no time passes in a place without time (...) and if you have the ability to enter/leave the universe is it really so illogical to able to control where you go back in?

 

Maybe apparation just opens up a worm-hole, using magic to connect two points in space?

 

That's how I see it, at least after reading the descriptions given by JKR. But I'm basing that of the description of worm-hole travel Carl Sagan gave in his book Contact.

 

LOL, the Canon Fanboy just got outcanon-ed.

Sorry Taure, the idea that the Impediment Spell slows down time itself rather than the target is just plain ridiculous, and does not really fit into the canon evidence we have of the spell in action.

As for apparation, I think we simply do not know enough of it's mechanics. Is it like teleportation where the wizard is broken down into his constituent particles before being simultaneously reconstructed at the target location? We won't know, for apparation is magic and we don't even know the limits or extent of HP-verse magic in the first place.

 

That should've been said at the beginning. Wizards may be able to travel back in time without Time Turners, they just haven't discovered the spell yet.