Einstein Time Travel

1. 59

   jtylerposted 12 years ago

   According to Einstein, because of the effects of time dilation, one would travel back in time if he exceeded the speed of light (which itself is impossible).  My question is, would he be aware that he is traveling back in time?
   
   By the way, when he says back in time, he means the person will travel back in his own personal timeline.

   replyreport
   1. 95

      wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      When you start "uneating" your breakfast, you might figure it out.

      replyreport
      1. 70

         Cagsilposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         

         replyreport
   2. 60

      LookingForWaldenposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks for starting this cool thread topic.
      To my knowledge nothing can exceed 99% the speed of light without infinite mass.
      Also, I thought you could only travel forward through time. At least it's only been proven for going forward with time dilation.
      
      I think now physicists say with wormholes or black holes it's possible to go back in time but then you get into the whole grandfathers paradox, multiverse stuff which I love.

      replyreport
      1. 60

         emrldphxposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         The current understanding(under siege) is that something can't accelerate to the speed of light. However, that's not to say that there isn't some other method to 'transition' to the speed of light or faster.
         
         It's really just speculation as to what would happen after that. Wormholes/black holes sound better to me.
         
         If you think about the universe as a 3-d snapshot, imagine that being a point. Then, 'time' which is the progression from snapshot to snapshot would be a line. Kind of like a comic strip. To get to 3-d from 2-d, you have to add depth, but a 2-d being can't comprehend what that third dimension would look like. We can because we are 3-d, but we have the same limitation with time. We can't imagine a higher dimension where it would be possible to skip backward/forward through time.
         
         Along with being able to time travel, with the 5th+ dimension theory, would be 'possibility' travel. It's like if you were a comic character that suddenly could pop out of your comic strip, you could look down on all your comic strips and choose which you wanted to enter.

         replyreport
   3. 90

      Pcunixposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      He said no such thing about  traveling back in their own personal timeline.

      replyreport
2. 92

   habeeposted 12 years ago

   Tachyons?

   replyreport
   1. 61

      Captain Redbeardposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      uhh I think you mean quakyons

      replyreport
      1. 92

         habeeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Nope - tachyons.

         replyreport
         1. 61

            Captain Redbeardposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            yeah...................it was a bad joke nm

            replyreport
            1. 92

               habeeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Oops! Sorry, it went over my head, I guess!

               replyreport
               1. 61

                  Captain Redbeardposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  No it just wasn't delivered well *sails away on his pirate ship into the blue yonder*

                  replyreport
3. 60

   LookingForWaldenposted 12 years ago

   I want to travel into the future where all the problems are worked out and robots do everything.
   Then I shall leave before they revolt. And come back again. To the futures future.

   replyreport
4. 60

   emrldphxposted 12 years ago

   Oh yeah, I meant to say, black holes present an interesting option for a new dimension, basically by putting a hole in space-time.

   replyreport
5. 60

   LookingForWaldenposted 12 years ago

   Yeah, I love reading or watching documentaries about wormholes and black holes. It's some really out there stuff.
   It's seems like we know so much and so little at the same time it's crazy.

   replyreport
6. 88

   Will Apseposted 12 years ago

   I think you are all a little behind the times.
   
   http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/ … than-light

   replyreport
   1. 60

      LookingForWaldenposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Tthey just disproved one result on it like 2 days ago with Icarus.

      replyreport
      1. 59

         jtylerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         This is a more recent experiment than the one you"re thinking of, I believe.

         replyreport
      2. 88

         Will Apseposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I think you misunderstand the nature of scientific inquiry. It will take a genuine experiment (or series thereof) before this inconvenient result is disproved. Or the new data is accepted and digested.

         replyreport
         1. 60

            LookingForWaldenposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            No I understand it quite well. My point reinforces that there is along long way to go before the results are accepted.

            replyreport
      3. 60

         emrldphxposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         The 'disproof' didn't even attempt to measure the speed, but the energy upon arrival. It's ridiculous for them to think they would know what the energy levels would be for something that they think is impossible.
         
         Another disproof is that 'the neutrinos should lose most of their energy' if they travel faster than C. There's no formula in science to describe a particle going faster than C, so there is no such thing as 'should' at this point.
         
         Pseudo-science trying to defend their beliefs is what that is.

         replyreport
   2. 92

      habeeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      So neutrinos might be tachyonic? Fascinating!
      
      http://www.actaphys.uj.edu.pl/vol29/pdf/v29p0113.pdf

      replyreport
7. 61

   Captain Redbeardposted 12 years ago

   Here's a question from a most uneducated person.
   
   Isn't light just a marker in distance? Traveling faster than light would just mean that you reach a point before it does right? You would be in the dark waiting for it to catch up. How does moving faster than light mean you travel through time?
   
   I mean if you run faster than a car, you don't travel in time you just reach yur destination before the car does.

   replyreport
   1. 60

      emrldphxposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Nobody expected to run into the things we did when we started dealing with very high speeds. The problem is, at any practical speed that we use on earth, any time or space dilation is so infinitely small that we couldn't even detect it until not very long ago with very expensive stuff. So, we don't see the effects in our everyday life.
      
      For most of this stuff, you have to be travelling along the lines of 300 million miles per hour to notice differences without precise instruments.
      
      But, we've verified. For instance, several tests took two identical atomic clocks(atomic clocks only lose 1 second of time in 20-100+ million years) and flew them around the world in opposite directions. Because of the rotation of the earth, this means the clocks travelling in one direction are travelling faster than the clocks travelling in the other direction.
      
      When the clocks met back up, they were showing different times. Both speed, and gravity, directly affect the 'rate' at which time progresses.

      replyreport
      1. 60

         LookingForWaldenposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Great explanation.
         
         I'd just like to add that space and time are related.
         
         Gravity warps them.
         
         I believe they proved Einsteins theory by looking at stars during an eclipse and noticing how the suns gravity " bent" the light, altering their observed points.
         
         As of right now 99% the speed of light is the universal speed limit. No mass can travel faster.
         If you were to travel that fast for one earth year, when you returned 223 years will have past.
         However you would have aged one year.

         replyreport
         1. 60

            emrldphxposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            This is the closest we've gotten to C(outside of the current neutrino studies)
            
            "99.9999991% c, or about 3 metres per second slower than the speed of light"

            replyreport
            1. 61

               Captain Redbeardposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                 2+2=4

               replyreport
8. 60

   emrldphxposted 12 years ago

   Just for some interesting thought.
   
   Researchers detected a particle colliding with the earth's atmosphere at 99.99999999999999999999951% c. It had ten million times the energy of the particle  in a particle accelerator that only went 99.9999991% c.
   
   So, the energy needed to accelerate from 3 meters per second slower than the speed of light to .0000000000000000001 meters per second slower than the speed of light is 10 million times greater than the energy it takes to get something from 0 to 99.9999991% the speed of light.
   
   This particle had the energy of a baseball travelling at 55 mph.... tremendous when you consider that the baseball is something like 75 million million times larger.

   replyreport
9. 60

   LookingForWaldenposted 12 years ago

   If I'm fortunate enough to live to be an old man I would volunteer for any time traveling experiment.

   replyreport
10. 59

    jtylerposted 12 years ago

    These are interesting theories.  However, it seems the topic has strayed a bit.
    
    The time dilation, if the object moves faster than the speed of light, would cause objects and people inside of the ship to move back in time.  Would the people inside of the ship be aware of this?

    replyreport
11. 72

    Alastar Packerposted 12 years ago

    As most of us already know, conventional relativity theory says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Einstein's equations suggested that as you approach the speed of light, you gain mass.  You can never actually reach the speed of light, because theoretically at the speed of light you are now as massive as the entire Universe. However, a Dr. Vladimir Ginzberg made a revolutionary discovery: You could turn that same relativity equation upside down. In the process, everything still works- you don't violate any laws of physics, but there is one major difference: As you approach the speed of light, you lose mass instead of gaining it. This means that once you reach light speed, you have no mass left- at least not in space- time. This simple change to one Einstein equation has absolutely stunning implications for human civilization.~ David Wilcock.  So if we could get an atom whirling inside at light speed we could pop it over into space-time. Does this discovery have any implications for time travel?

    replyreport
    1. 92

       habeeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I dunno, Alastar, but it's fun to think about! If time travel were possible, where (when) would you like to visit?

       replyreport
       1. 60

          LookingForWaldenposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          It is possible. Or do you mean like if we had a machine built? Because I have dibs on first.

          replyreport
          1. 92

             habeeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             What era would you like to visit?

             replyreport
             1. 60

                LookingForWaldenposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                Well I got to go see Jesus first and tell him brotheryochanan says hi. Then I'll probably go to the renaissance and watch all of that beautiful art get made. Then, lol, I'll just casually drop by on every historical moment in history. From Martin Luther's 99 thesis to the signing of the declaration.
                
                Where you going?

                replyreport
                1. 92

                   habeeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                   I'd like to meet Jesus, too, and I'd definitely go to Renaissance Italy. Shakespeare is a must, also! And I'd love to meet my favorite poet, Thomas Hardy.

                   replyreport
       2. 72

          Alastar Packerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Habee that's a good one to contemplate. I believe we can make our own future, or rather make choices that will lead us to a certain time-line. As far as history goes there are so many defining events and notables...probably, no, if could only visit one time frame it would be 12,000 years ago to see if there really was an advanced civilization in the world then.

          replyreport
          1. 92

             habeeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             I hadn't thought about that. Good idea!

             replyreport
    2. 60

       LookingForWaldenposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       That's really cool information. I don't know is invite mass still infinite mass if it's going the other way? Or do you think it's more relevant to sub atomic physics?

       replyreport
    3. 59

       jtylerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       If this equation is true (the reversed one), I suppose the effects of time dilation would be reversed, which means that one you reach the speed of light, an infinite amount of time would pass inside of the ship while no time at all passes outside of the ship.

       replyreport
       1. 72

          Alastar Packerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

          Only a simple lay-person in the physics department but it sounds right to me jtyler!

          replyreport
          1. 59

             jtylerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

             Really, I'm a lay-person myself.  Maybe I'm a bit more than that, but there is a lot I still don't know about that kind of stuff.  I'm going to start reading books on it, however.

             replyreport
12. 71

    AshtonFireflyposted 12 years ago

    Great thread going on here. I love reading about these kind of things...very interesting. I know only a minute amount of the subject, so I won't try to contribute, but...very interesting stuff. It reminds me of one of my favorite books, "Brief History of Time," by Stephen Hawking. The more I find out about what we know (or don't know) about the universe, the more fascinated I become with it.

    replyreport
    1. 59

       jtylerposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I know how you feel.  I feel that I am only scratching the surface myself.  I downloaded some ebooks about the subject, but I haven't gotten a chance to read them yet.

       replyreport
13. 75

    Kangaroo_Jaseposted 12 years ago

    Travel forward in time? No way!!!!! I wrote this post 3 days before the time stamp for it appearing here

    replyreport
14. 60

    LookingForWaldenposted 12 years ago

    I feel like traveling in the past would unite us in the present regardless of what we learned to be the truth.

    replyreport