Stephen hawking now recants his earlier statement by saying That Time travel is possible, but will take enormous engery needed. More energy than the entire output of the earth at present. 

They say the sun and the moon's gravity affect the tides and water and we are 70% liqid. so it is possible that the luna cycle can affect us in diffent ways.

The moon's gravitational influence has been proposed to explain the apparent link between full moon and behaviour (lunacy), however it usually gets dismissed because even the king tide set up by the moon and sun lining up would be less force than your body encounters taking one step.

My main objection to astrology (and possibly Jimmy's?) is that it's man centered or anthrocentric. Protagoras said man is the measure of all things, and a knowingly subjective view of the world is probably a healthy enough perspective. But in modern science the universe is seen as indifferent to humanity.

However we're all interested in science fiction or we wouldn't be here. Any suggestions as to how you'd explain working astrology in a story?

english please

OK, as per your moon suggestion. You've said the moon effects tides, and then linked this to our component of water. Would this then be a property of water alone to be influenced by the satellite, or is it something which affects all matter on the Earth?

And if so, do other less apparent celestial influences work?

Talk about a can of worms,...

First off, can I say I don`t think these things are likely or imminent but definitely possible and plausible.
  Astrology:  As far as astrology goes I believe there is a possible influence from the alignment of planets and galaxies and other celestial bodies. In fact I find it inconceivable that there would not be. Think of gravity. If you were able to place a bowling ball and a marble within a reasonable proximity (you would have to ask a mathematician or physicist what that reasonable proximity might be) then you would find not only that the bowling ball has attracted the marble but also that the marble has altered the vector of the bowling ball. Each has an effect on the other but the greater mass wins the tug o` war!
    Now it may be that the marble didn`t win, but it did have an influence ( however slight) on the bowling ball. That is what science must, if it can, measure!
    Quite often in our history we look for major events to explain changes in both social and physical history. The major changes are easier to chart and explain but I personally believe it is the smaller and un-noticed factors that we should be exploring. Science now recognises the effects of mosquitoes and bacteria in the shaping of our world. But such tiny creatures were disregarded at one time as "insignificant"!

Secondly,....
    Time Travel.

I don`t think this is likely in the form that many of us would like to imagine. There are so many arguements against it and none (that make scientific or philosophical sense) in favour.
BUT!!!! Never Say Never!
If Prof Hawking is prepared to accept its` possibility then the question should be about what form it might take.
It may be that we may only ever be able to view the past, a concept explored in a short story by Asimov.
If we could affect the past then it would probably not be as visitors but by other means which I find too complicated to even guess at.
    As for the energy required,...
Would someone like to devise a steam powered rocket, fuelled by coal and water, that is capable of reaching orbit,(never mind the moon) because that is all we had to go on at one time.
Remember, things DO change.

where can I buy a can of worms?

fishing bait stores and pet shops.

although some plant nurseries will sell bags of worms for your garden - I do hear they can be good curried. 

or great with a bolognes sauce.

That Asimov's be The Dead Past, one of his most anthologized.

To move on with my argument, we could be explaining astrology away as a product of determinism (and thus probability), or caused by something by us or the stars or even co-dependent.

Gravity's a good a way to explain the manner of influence, which'd be pretty much one way. We don't understand it, it's one of four primordeal forces and its omnipresent. It has spooky qualities! I've ceded it certain powers in relation to our lives--the tides.

And I have mentioned lunacy. This is a real thing; emergency room rates climb at full moon. However the traditional explanation for this last is that the full moon brings enough additional light which drives trouble.

So, if the celestial gravity is to blame, we should then have a benchmark to compare data.
Say we use the king tides mentioned previously, when the gravitational influence of the sun and moon line up (although this doesn't necessarily make the three bodies line up).

We could gather emergency room statistics and compare them to both king tides and full moons (which, granted would have an overlap) and see if any pattern is evident.

This would be scientific. It's falsifiable as the statistics may disprove either hypothesis (although the full moon stats are already proven and could be taken to be a control). The astronomical data is an independent variable and the hospital stats are the dependent variable.

Now that I've designed the experiment, I'd probably find something similar if I searched the relevant literature. I know case studies have indicated the light was the factor and suspect someone's probably done something similar.

I remember there was such a programme a few years ago. The result was that statistics were the same as for any other phase of the moon. I can`t remember the details though.

If the full moon has an effect on people, why does it not effect people when it is on the other side of the planet? 

As some one who deals with the effects of vandalism (trying to fix it up), I have very rarely seen much difference from other stages of the moon. I have found it usually comes in spurts, but the moon has little effect on these spurts. 

That's right, parole has more effect on these cycles than lunar movement.

zaphod : That's right, parole has more effect on these cycles than lunar movement.

Actually I find the major vandalism is during holiday periods, because the little darlings have no imagination and they have become bored as no one will tell them what to do or think, so it is easy to smash something.

That's one of the differences between the two theories; extra light wouldn't (but an absence of light could), whereas the gravity would reach straight through the planet.

The light explanation and urban illumination are at odds.

And as the physicist said to the philosopher in the audience of the relativist who claimed the moon was absent if we couldn't see it, "Lucky the tides keep track on it for us then!"

You could argue that the moons influence is muted on the other side of the planet but I don`t think that is relevant.
What is relevant and should be obvious is that the moons gravitational influence is constant whatever phase it is in.
Personally, I think the "lunatic" connotation harks back to the days when the light of a full moon had a sort of social impact; i,e. you could go out at night and see where you were going and what you were doing (and who to.) Perhaps it may have induced a sort of euphoria in some to be able to do this. More likely though, the more opportunities there are for idiots or lunatics, the more incidences there are of this type.

Anyway, we`re getting sidetracked.
Aren`t we supposed to be discussing time travel?

The tides on the far side of the planet are the same as the ones directly below the moon, leading to a misnomer in calling the effect tidal force when it's really an effect of fractionally weaker gravity (and the same thing goes for centrifugal force, there's no such thing).

It's not supposition on your part about the origin of the term; I've stated this is what it relates to. I was never talking about time travel, but we can hive this off to its own thread if you prefer.

Not necessary! Besides, I dont want to be seen as dictatorial (you`d probably block me off the site anyway.) If there is any possibility of Time travel then surely all aspects of Natures` forces, physics and, as yet undiscovered disciplines, would need to be taken into account. And these ALL need discussion.
  Having said that,....
I had hoped there would be some feedback outlining possible ideas for Time travel (and hopefully not too technical) or arguements against.
Still, so long as the thread is open,....