The Mechanics of Time Travel

2011, ABC News The theoretical time machine as proposed by Ronald Mallet, American theoretical physicist at the University of Conneticut, which utilizes light instead of mass [10]

Time travel has long been a favorite subject among physicists, science fiction aficionados, and Hollywood movie makers alike. Many books have depicted the concept, most famously H. G Wells The Time Machine which was published in 1895. In the novel, the time traveler builds a time machine and makes a journey to the far future where he witnesses and interacts with the last generation of the human race. Bruce Willis character in the Disney movie The Kid time travels 30 years into the future to pay his adult self a visit. Although these books and movies are heavily lacking in genuine science, the idea of time travel is not as bizarre as it seems. While the concept is certainly mind-boggling, advanced experiments conducted in modern laboratories prove that time traveling should no longer be dismissed as something from a science fiction novel. However, that does not mean that scientists have come up with a physical method to travel through time. The scientific definition of time travel does not conform to the conventional concept of time travel. People tend to think of time travel as arbitrarily moving from one time period to another without experiencing the time that passes in between. In a strictly scientific sense, in our everyday lives we are already traveling through time, but only forwards [1]. From

birth and onwards, we are all traveling towards the future. Our clocks measure time in seconds, minutes, and hours, units we use to keep record of our rate of travel. Physicists describe length, width, and height as three spatial dimensions. In physical terms, what we travel through daily is all

three of the dimensions, as well as space-time, commonly called the fourth dimension. This fourth dimension can be thought of an elastic piece of fabric that, when disturbed by an object with mass, creates a dent to accommodate the object [2]. gravity. This bending of space-time is known as

When more gravity pulls on an object, the object becomes less

likely to travel through time because it has not broken through the gravity barrier. The farther away we are in empty space, away from the influence of gravitating planets, the more likely it is to make light year leaps because we are accelerating near the speed of light. Albert Einstein, one of the great minds of the 20 th century, proposed the special theory of relativity which became one of the fundamental principles that convinced scientists of the validity of time travel. One part of the special theory of relativity states that for any object that travels close to, or at, the speed of light, then time slows. According to Einstein, time can speed up or slow down according to perception. As we approach the speed of light, our experience of time slows [3]. If this rule could be broken, that is to say, if the object were to travel faster than the speed of light, then time travel is physically possible. The only thing needed is an actual machine that travels faster than the speed of light. The catch is, current technology does not make such a machine possible, nor do scientists know of any object that can travel faster than the speed of light. Such complications make progressive time travel currently undoable.

In the real world, time travel does not mean getting into a machine, pressing a few buttons, and being able to go backwards or forwards to any time you want. Such scenes are only possible in the world of fiction. The theory of time travel is much more complicated and many factors are involved. It is impossible to travel backwards in time. This contradicts the grandfather paradox, a famous example used to explain why backwards time travel is not possible. Suppose a man goes back in time and murders his grandfather, which means that his grandfather would have never met his grandmother, had children, and thus the man would not exist. If the man had never been born, he would not be present in the current time to travel through the time machine [4]. The man cannot exist and not exist in the same time dimension, so the grandfather paradox refutes the idea of traveling to the past. To a greater extent, it also implies that one cannot travel to the past to try to change the future. Although time travel is not a feasible as of right now, the hypothesis of progressive time traveling is still valid and subject to discussion. The special theory of relativity, after its publication, provoked scientists around the world to view the concept of time travel in a new light. Extensions based on Einsteins ideas began to emerge. The majority of these deal with black holes and wormholes, or Schwarzchild holes. These three are considered the only three scientifically valid theories for time travel.

Black holes, despite the way the name suggests, is not merely empty space. Predicted by Einsteins theory of general relativity, it is a remnant of a massive star after it dies. Black holes are produced by intense gravity when the remnant, which can be more than three times the mass of the Sun, crushes all mass to a single point. What results is an object so dense that even light cannot escape from it [5]. A black hole would have an enormous impact on time because it would slow down time significantly. Three years ago, the famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking once explained that supermassive black holes are natural time machines [6]. Imagine two astronauts in a spaceship, circling around the border of the black hole. Since the gravity is so strong, time could be slowed down by half. The control center on Earth could measure that the astronauts had traveled for 18 minutes, while the astronauts feel that they had only traveled for 9 minutes. In this way, the astronauts have already traveled through time. After circling the hole for about five years in the astronauts perspective, everyone back on Earth would have already aged ten years by the time the astronauts have returned home. However, as Hawking also noted, black holes are very

dangerous, and do not carry us very far into the future. This does not make black holes the ideal method of time travel. Also known as Einstein-Rosen bridges, wormholes are hypothetical areas of warped space-time with great energy which can create tunnels that allow us to travel through space time [7]. Although wormholes are

equally dangerous to travel through as black holes, it does allow for the time traveler to cover a greater distance over a relatively short time span. To simplify things, we can view space-time as a two-dimensional surface through which a fold can create a wormhole tunnel which has an opening and a closing. However, research by Wheeler and Fuller in 1962 has

indicated that it would be almost impossible to keep a wormhole tunnel open long enough for humans to travel through. Indeed, the wormhole would disintegrate so quickly that even light cannot get through to the closing end in time. In 1988, Kip Thorne and his student Mike Morris published a paper which stated that it might be possible to keep the openings of wormholes open by using exotic matter [8].This theory is currently unsubstantiated and scientists are continuing to look into its potential. Black holes, wormholes, and fancy theories aside, there is one last resort that is seemingly simple but too advanced even for todays technology. Stephen Hawking has suggested that to travel forward in time, all we need to do is go fast, as close to the speed of light as possible, in space. The fastest manned vehicle built to date has been Apollo 10, which went into space at 25,000 miles per hour. But to truly travel through space-time, we will need a machine that travels 2,000 times faster than the Apollo 10 can. The machine would have to withstand high degrees of pressure and carry enough fuel to accelerate it near the speed of light. Time travel, like aviation, has long been one of mankinds most fantastical fascinations. Humans

wanted to have wings and soar into the sky like birds, so airplanes were invented. If we can invent a machine to fly, why cant we invent a machine that would take us into the future? As Walt Disney once said, All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them. [9] Although the future of time travel is still uncertain, we have established enough basis to know that it definitely is possible. Howone day, it will dawn upon us.

*Note: the paper covers only basic theories and ideas proposed by scientists that involve time travel. There are many more postulates, most of them dealing with very advanced theoretical physics, to be found on the subject. To cover everything would not be possible within the scope of a 4-5 pages paper.

Sources Cited: 1. Monte, Louis A. Del. "Time Travel to the Future Is Real." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 28 Mar. 2013. Web. 22 July 2013. 2. You Can't Travel Back in Time, Scientists Say." LiveScience.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 July 2013. 3. How Does the Special Theory of Relativity Enable Time Travel? Curiosity." Curiosity. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 July 2013. 4. Grandfather Paradox." Grandfather Paradox. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 July 2013. 5. Black Holes - NASA Science." Black Holes - NASA Science. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 July 2013. 6. "STEPHEN HAWKING: How to Build a Time Machine." Mail Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 July 2013. 7. Wormhole Time Travel." Wormhole Time Travel. Anderson Technologies, 2012. Web. 22 July 2013. 8. Thorne, Kip S. and Morris, Michael S.. Wormholes in spacetime and their use for interstellar travel: A tool for teaching general relativity. Am. J. Phys. 56(6), May 1988. 9. BrainyQuote. Xplore, 2013. Web. 22 July 2013. 10. Warnes, Elizabeth. "Taking the Cosmic Shortcut - ABC Science Online." Taking the Cosmic Shortcut - ABC Science Online. ABC, 22 Feb. 2002. Web. 22 July 2013. <http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/wormholes/>.