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Is a Time Machine Technologically Possible?
In short, it is possible to build a time machine, but just because building something is possible, however, does not make it easy or likely. Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity states that time and space cannot be separated but are dependent upon each other. Therefore, a time traveler must move through both time and space. For example, if a traveler went back in time six months but did not travel in space, he might step out of the time machine into outer space, because the Earth would be on the other side of the sun. Spacetime is the entity through which a time machine must travel.
Time travel is possible. The faster an object moves, the slower it ages compared to a stationary object. If the time machine moves close to the speed of light into outer space, it will return to Earth many years into the future.
When people gaze at the stars, they are seeing into the past, because it took light years for the light to reach Earth. In theory, the person in the time machine would travel through time but not age. Mankind has yet to build an engine that will propel a rocket that can carry a human at the speed of light or a rocket that would withstand the pressure and the heat that would result from doing so.
Science fiction aficionados are familiar with wormholes as a means not only for traveling through time but also for bridging the gaps between two distant places. In the Star Trek: Deep Space 9 television series, spaceships travel through wormholes in order to reach far corners of other universes. Wormholes can be better understood when one visualizes a piece of paper with a hole punched in either end. The distance between the holes is reduced by bending the paper and placing the holes one on top of the other. The small space between the two holes is the wormhole.
Black holes in space have an increased gravitational pull. Objects in space, such as comets, asteroids and even entire solar systems are being sucked into black holes. The gravitational pull of the black hole eventually bends light and changes — slows down — the speed at which light travels. If Einstein is correct that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, then time itself has slowed down near the mouth of the black hole.
If a man were to fly a rocket or spaceship near the mouth of the black hole, he would find himself in a time machine, because the time in which he is traveling moves more slowly than the time in rest of the universe. As he pulls his ship away from the black hole, time would have moved faster away from the black hole, and he would, presumably, be in the future.
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![According to Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, an astronaut traveling near the speed of lights would experience time much more slowly than a stationary person.]()
By: pds209According to Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, an astronaut traveling near the speed of lights would experience time much more slowly than a stationary person. -
![The crew of a manned spacecraft technically move slightly ahead of the inhabitants of Earth in time as they orbit the planet due to the high speeds they experience, but the time lapse can only be detected by precise atomic clocks.]()
By: unclepodgerThe crew of a manned spacecraft technically move slightly ahead of the inhabitants of Earth in time as they orbit the planet due to the high speeds they experience, but the time lapse can only be detected by precise atomic clocks. -
![Tesseracts visually represent the four dimensions, including time and space, which a time traveler would need to move through.]()
By: Clay ShonkwilerTesseracts visually represent the four dimensions, including time and space, which a time traveler would need to move through. -
![The characters on "Dr. Who" use a time travel machine called the TARDIS.]()
By: MaisnaThe characters on "Dr. Who" use a time travel machine called the TARDIS.
Discussion Comments
We live in a time machine. If you travel faster than the speed of light you do not travel back in time. Why would you. The universe does not respond to man's dreams. You simply arrive somewhere faster than it takes light to get there. That does not screw up the concept of causality either. Obviously you can't return to your starting point before you left it. If a physicist tells it's a possibility then he/she's not a physicist. So much physics theory is just science fiction now. The greater the education, the greater the blinders. If you've got a brain, think for yourself.
Some day we'll be able to travel faster than light and someday we'll be able to view objects light-years away with great definition and so be able to see great events in our history as they really happened. When we look at the stars we are looking at our universe as illuminated/attenuated by light . We live in a time machine and we will only truly begin to appreciate it once we break the light speed barrier. So what's holding us back? Those who think it's impossible, can't. Those who think it's possible, can. Happy trails.
Einstein obviously invented a time machine, because otherwise there wouldn't be computers.
Strictly speaking, it's impossible to travel to the past of this universe, because the events of this universe have already happened. A time traveler can't insert himself or herself into the past of this universe. The past of this universe can't be changed or altered in any fashion.
In our minds, time travel is possible. In our solar system have we not proven that nothing can travel "faster than the speed of light". If this was possible in the future, then would not the people of the future travel back in time and enlighten us about the future possibilities at least?
No one would've come back in time because technically the future hasn't happened yet, so there is no one to come back.
It's a paradox. Go back in time and change anything, and the future changes. In a changed future you don't go back, so you didn't go back, so nothing changes. Also, there's another idea that if something is changed, an alternate reality is created in a different dimension that is parallel but separate from the one in which you formerly existed, so one reality continues as it was, and the other as you altered it to become and in which you would now exist should you return to the future on that same plane. If you returned to the same plane from which you originally departed, nothing would have changed.
Hollywood has done a fine job of screwing up concepts of time travel. Take "Terminator," in which the future essentially creates itself through Kyle Reese being the father of John Connor. Another is “Star Trek,” where bringing the humpbacks to the future took them out of the past, and so could have likewise precipitated itself. Even "Looper", where they kill the man from the past, which would have meant the man from the future would never have been brought back in the first place, so none of the events leading up to the man from the past being killed could have happened and he therefore wouldn't have been killed. In this last example, they essentially create an infinite loop. Killing the man from the future, though, wouldn't have resulted in such a course of events. Closing your own loop, though, and understanding when it occurred via the big payout could itself alter the future which led to being sent to the past to be executed.
Hollywood has little grasp on the dynamics of time travel. About the closest they've come is "The Butterfly Effect".
If time travel was possible, how come nobody has come back in time yet?
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