Time Travel

[Einstein2]

Dear Fellow Science Researchers,

 

After much thought and research I have come up with an idea that might lead to the invention of time travel. Allow me to begin by explaining how I believe your speed relative to the speed of light changes the way you move through time. I believe that anything that is moving slower than the speed of light is moving forward through time. Anything that is moving at the speed of light is completely frozen in time. Anything moving faster than the speed of light is moving backwards in time.

 

I do not know how anyone will develop a way to move faster than light. That is not my specific category of research. I hope another scientist will solve that problem someday. Anyway, I suppose an easy way to demonstrate what I am saying is thinking about light itself.

 

Imagine that you are in a space craft that is capable of moving faster than light. The space craft has an extremely powerful telescope. You are facing towards Earth, and the space craft is moving backwards. Therefore, the distance between yourself and Earth is increasing. The space craft is currently moving slower than the speed of light. The Earth is spinning counter-clockwise, and you can see time is moving forward. Now, you increase the space craft's speed to match the speed of light. You will be traveling at the same speed as the light you see from Earth. Therefore, the Earth will appear to be perfectly still. Time on Earth would have appeared to have stopped.

 

Now, continue to increase your speed until you are moving faster than the speed of light. I predict that the Earth will appear to start spinning in the opposite direction. When looking at Earth, you will see time begin to reverse. People will be walking backwards, and you will even see dead people living their lives again.

 

My biggest challenge is finding a way to use this for real matter, and not just light. As a result, you can travel backwards in time, and go back to Earth in an earlier time. To do this, I would need to find a way to make the space craft return to Earth without going forwards again. I need to find a shortcut through space itself. If wormholes were real, that could be a possible solution.

[radiohead]

To tell you the truth, that theory has been out for a couple years, you just added a scenario to it.

[ydoaPs]

couple of things:

 

what gives you the idea that things going faster than light move backwards through time?

 

at c, time is undefined, not zero. at ftl, time is imaginary, not negative

 

accelerating breaks the symmetry, so we know the spaceship is moving, not the earth, so even if time went backwards at ftl, you wouldn't see the earth go back in time.

[skuinders]

The amount of energy it would take to propel a spaceship to even a significant fraction of the speed of light is impossibly large.

[radiohead]

Well, a lot of people seem to think that history is recorded in the light that has passed us. When you go passed teh speed of light, you start to catch up to the past through the light. It is absurd I think. Because you are only going back in light, not time. So even if things did start going backwards, it would only be the light, not matter.

[ydoaPs]

Well, a lot of people seem to think that history is recorded in the light that has passed us. When you go passed teh speed of light, you start to catch up to the past through the light. It is absurd I think. Because you are only going back in light, not time. So even if things did start going backwards, it would only be the light, not matter.

first i have heard of that crap...erm, speculation

 

The amount of energy it would take to propel a spaceship to even a significant fraction of the speed of light is impossibly large.

it depends what you are judging the velocity relative to. and no, it isn't impossible. a good ion engine could get to a significant fraction of the speed of light (especially if i were actually two ion engines: one matter, the other antimatter that are at angles relative to each other such that the ions and antiions hit each other)...it just takes time.

[JPQuiceno]

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=11529

[Janus]

 

. and no' date=' it isn't impossible. a good ion engine could get to a significant fraction of the speed of light [/quote']

 

Maybe not theoretically impossible, but on the practical side: An ion engine would require on the order of 1.147 x 10^26 kg (About the mass of Neptune) of reaction mass for every kg of payload to reach even 1% of c.

[ydoaPs]

um no

[eon_rider]

Clearly, None of you have watched a single episode of Star Trek.

I suggest you do and learn more about how we travel at FTL speeds through sub-space.

 

Sheesh

 

but it's all good.

[ydoaPs]

now what exactly is sub-space?

[eon_rider]

Dude,

I mean Reverend

(of the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.)

 

I was just kidding. Sub-space is fiction.

 

Your idea of an Ion engine using matter and anti-matter is interesting.

I just don’t get how it would work.

 

EDIT: Really your idea sounds cool. Do you mean an Ion engine like a very distant future version of these?

 

http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=34201&fbodylongid=1537

 

or

 

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/technovel_smart-1_041119.html

[eon_rider]

An ion engine would require on the order of 1.147 x 10^26 kg (About the mass of Neptune) of reaction mass for every kg of payload to reach even 1% of c.

best,

 

EDIT: after a bit of a rethink even though the idea is cool and fun to ponder,

I think it's just not possible to ever go near the speed of light.

 

Even if we had 4 billion years to work on the technology it just seems that

the laws of physics as we know them will never allow this to happen.

 

Oh well. At least we've got FTL in the movies!

 

best to all,

 

Eon.

[ssarda]

The Very concept of time travel is very exciting. might be because its not a mere fairy tale, but a complete & Logical SCIENCE.

[Janus]

um no

 

Um no what?

 

Have you even done the math?

[PogoC7]

Good ion engines are not practicle. They use up too much energy to ever be really useful.

* Mass at t = 0 (known and constant quantity)

* Mass at time t

* Mass ejected

* Thrust required for specific velocity.

[Daecon]

I thikn it would only "look" like you're going back in time, although you'll still be going forward...

 

Like if you were to rewind a TV show, it would appear you're goign back in time - but it still take time (going forward) to rewind it.

 

All you'd be doing is catching up with light from an earlier point, and earlier, and earlier - but not actually moving through time in reverse.

[skuinders]

it depends what you are judging the velocity relative to. and no, it isn't impossible. a good ion engine could get to a significant fraction of the speed of light (especially if i were actually two ion engines: one matter, the other antimatter that are at angles relative to each other such that the ions and antiions hit each other)...it just takes time.

What I was getting at is: as the ship's velocity approaches the velocity of light, its mass will approach infinity and so will the force required to propel it. I blame my imprecise wording. Depending on what one considers "significant," the answer is yes or no.

[EXA Utopia]

In many encounters with time like gravity/blackholes, lightspeed etc. i researched that time cant be changed backwards in THIS space. Time can be slowed down in local perception to a max of stop because of the effected mass.

Backwards in time however means you can effect time itself what is impossible. You can only go as fast as time it self to every place in THIS space.

 

To freeze time, THIS space has to be truly endless.

[Sholtzy]

Einstein2, here's a thought. Let's say your idea works. Based on what you said let's say we travel faster than light long enough so that what you are seeing of earth is 1 hour in the past. From that point you want time travel? What good is it to "time travel" back an hour. On what you said, accelerating back to earth will only cause things to speed up, there by erasing what you were trying to accomplish. If the trip overall were 4 hours, because of things speeding up, when you got back it would be 4 hours later. Not time travel in my book. I don't believe that speed is the answer to time travel.

[ydoaPs]

Good ion engines are not practicle. They use up too much energy to ever be really useful.

* Mass at t = 0 (known and constant quantity)

* Mass at time t

* Mass ejected

* Thrust required for specific velocity.

you have to think long term. they go faster, it just takes a while. rockets use all of their acceleration in a short time. ion engines have steady acceleration.

[Janus]

you have to think long term. they go faster, it just takes a while. rockets use all of their acceleration in a short time. ion engines have steady acceleration.

 

To say that Ion engines "go faster" is a bit of a misnomer. They are just more efficient due to the fact that they have higher exhaust velocities than chemical rockets, which means that they can reach higher velocities with the same reaction mass to payload ratio. Oh, and by the way, Ion engines are still rockets as they use the action/reaction principle for propulsion.

 

There is a better system on the drawing board, called the VASIMR (VArible Specific Impulse Magnetohydrodynamic Rocket) It could produce even greater exhaust velocities than the Ion engine and more thrust (producing better acceleration).

[ydoaPs]

sorry, i thought i said "chemical rockets" or "conventional rockets".

[Einstein2]

I would like to express my appreciation to all of you fellow scientists that have shared your opinions. I have been studying time for approximately 50 years, and I am still unable to test my own ideas. I'm sure that I will be deceased before technology allows us to exceed the speed of light.

 

I'm sure that the majority of the users here are youthful compared to me. It may be possible that some of you can invent the technology to make my dreams come true. To help you accomplish this, I will try my best to answer some of your posts.

 

Well, a lot of people seem to think that history is recorded in the light that has passed us. When you go passed teh speed of light, you start to catch up to the past through the light. It is absurd I think. Because you are only going back in light, not time. So even if things did start going backwards, it would only be the light, not matter.

 

My research has determined that space and time are unified. I believe that exceeding the speed of light will indeed reverse the flow of time.

 

The Very concept of time travel is very exciting. might be because its not a mere fairy tale, but a complete & Logical SCIENCE.

 

You have the mind of a great scientist. You always need to have interest in your category of research. You clearly have that. I believe that you will accomplish great things in your life.

 

Good ion engines are not practicle. They use up too much energy to ever be really useful.

* Mass at t = 0 (known and constant quantity)

* Mass at time t

* Mass ejected

* Thrust required for specific velocity.

 

You are correct. A new type of technology is required to accomplish this.

[danny8522003]

Tbh i dont think time travel in any direction will ever be achieved. There are way too many paradoxes involved and it would take so much energy to get upto speed that we simply could not do it in real life. I dont think we can say time-travel will take place until we learn more about the nature of time and the universe.