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.



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Previous: Gravitational Time Dilation
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