Time Travel via. Maximized Velocity
Traveling back in time is the dream of many, but unfortunately
cannot be done due to paradoxes. Somebody cannot go back in time to
kill their parents, for they would never have been born, and thus
never would have been able to go back in time. To prevent paradoxes,
time can only flow forward. So it is not an unreasonable claim that
forwards time travel is possible. Not only is it a reasonable claim,
but it is constantly happening. The only problem is that the time
travel in our everyday lives is of insignificant magnitudes, which
can be seen by the previous equations of time dilation. In order for
significant time travel to be possible speeds near the speed of
light must be reached. While technically impossible right now, it
might one day be possible to travel at such speeds.
Two methods of time travel using relative velocity time dilation are
as follows:
1. A Train Around the Earth
A massive frictionless train track contained within a vacuum could
be built spanning the entire Earth. The train that went on this
track would be able to maintain a constant acceleration. The
acceleration would have to be low enough so that the human
passengers could survive the G-force. Eventually the train would be
able to achieve speeds near the speed of light, and thus induce
significant time dilation. Once the train's journey is complete, the
passengers emerge however far into the future the trip was designed
for given the relevant time dilation calculations.
Of course there are a number of reasons that this proposition is
unrealistic. Problems with the train track could arise during the
train's journey, and there are a number of natural disasters and
other things that could damage the track, ending the journey
spectacularly. The energy necessary for such a journey would be
massive, and compounded over however many Earth years the train
travels, are even larger. The materials needed to build such a track
are also colossal. There are a number of other reasons this would
not work but, from a theoretical standpoint such a train would in
fact be capable of time travel.
2. An Interstellar Spaceship
A massive spaceship could be built capable of accelerating towards
the speed of light, perhaps maybe even using objects in space as
boosters. It is assumed that the spaceship has some sort of
shielding to protect it from space debris, such as a force field.
The spaceship could easily travel round trip to somewhere in the
universe (maybe a nice time travel vacation package) and come back
to a much older earth, having time traveled in a way similar to the
train.
The need for the acceleration to relatively low in order to make the
G-force tolerable would also have to be considered for this
spaceship. The current limitations of such a spaceship is the
acceleration method itself, all power for the engine would have to
be produced on the ship itself, whereas the train could get its
power from all over the Earth. Space debris would also be
problematic, especially at such velocities, so systems to shield
from these debris would need to exist. Again, from a theoretical
perspective this is a perfectly viable method of time travel, and
one that could become a reality much more easily than the
aforementioned train.
The fact of the matter is that Time Travel in the forward direction
is theoretically possible using time dilation.
Next: Time Travel via. Massive Orbit
Previous: Gravitational Time Dilation
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