Author Topic: Physicist: Time travel possible  (Read 1290 times)

Lennis

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Physicist: Time travel possible
« on: September 15, 2013, 11:14:33 pm »
A University of Manchester physicist has claimed that the dream of traveling through time is by no means impossible.  Just don't expect to do it at 88 mph.

Brian Cox said that travel into the future would be possible through simply going really really fast, accelerating to a velocity near the speed of light.  Under Einstein's Theory of Relativity, a person traveling at near-light speeds would be experiencing time at a much slower rate compared to that of the surrounding universe.  Scientists explain this phenomenon through the "Twin Paradox": Imagine twins, one stays on Earth (Twin A) while the other (Twin B) boards a spaceship and flies off at relativistic speeds. Compared with Twin A’s timeframe, Twin B’s timeframe will slow. If time is running slower for Twin B, then he/she will return to Earth where a lot more time has passed and Twin A has aged significantly more than Twin B. The mechanism behind this is “time dilation” and it has a stronger effect as you travel closer and closer to the speed of light.  However, traveling through time in this fashion would be a one-way trip.  Returning to the time of your departure, or to another point in the past, would not be possible using conventional means.  You need a wormhole to do that.  And that introduces a slew of new problems.  How do you create the wormhole in the first place?  How do you make it lead to the desired point in space-time?  How do you maintain its stability?  Neither quantum mechanics nor the theory of relativity provide the full answer to these questions.  We can ask Lucca, of course, but her answer would be completely incomprehensible to us laypeople.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/13/time-travel-possible-physicist-machine-future-only_n_3921944.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/26/wormhole-time-machine_n_3817232.html

Acacia Sgt

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Re: Physicist: Time travel possible
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2013, 12:36:07 pm »
Ah yes, Time Dilation. I've heard about it, and even seen it in use in certain works of fiction (the Gunbuster anime, the SRW@3 game, etc). It's quite interesting, but even so, to nearly reach the point of light... it's at the moment matter is practically almost energy. Would it be possible for matter to return to it's original form just fine? Would a living being survive the process of returning back to matter if it's possible? I'd say, it may perhaps be impossible for a long or whole while...

Mr Bekkler

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Re: Physicist: Time travel possible
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2013, 04:24:31 pm »
Probably not, in the same way that a cake once baked will never return to batter, I think you'd be dealing with some matter-destroying forces here.