Written by Julius K. (KIS'19)
Edited by Jenny C. (VHS'19)
━━ August 4th, 2018 ━━
Time Travel
Time travel--the ability to either travel back to the past and possibly change history, or go to the future to see how much life has progressed. This futuristic ability is one that seems only possible in one’s dream. However, what if this dream could become a possibility?
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Time travel, the moving between two different time periods, is a characteristic that is often seen in sci-fi movies. Despite scientists’ many claims that time travel is impossible, theory say otherwise. However, the theory only restricts time travel to traveling to the future, and not traveling to the past. One of the reason as to why this is has to do with Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity. Einstein’s theory of special relativity states that the passing of time relative to a certain object depends on the speed of that object. In other words, time can either slow down or speed up depending on how fast you are traveling. To be precise, time wouldn’t change, but the amount of time that you feel relative to the speed you are traveling would change. For example, if someone were to travel in a spaceship at the speed of light and then returned 2 years later, then the exact replica of that person that had remained on Earth(just to set a point for relative comparison) would have aged much more than the one in the spaceship. The exact year gap felt between the two bodies would be difficult to calculate, but the difference will be enough to give both people a tough time sleeping for a few days. This same concept of the time changing relative to the speed of an object also applies when someone approaches locations of different gravitational strengths. If a person were to travel near a black hole(a region of space with a gravitational field so strong that not even light can escape) for a certain amount of time and returns to Earth, then the time that passed for the person’s identical-self on earth would be much greater than what he or she felt near a black hole .
The creation of wormholes is another theory that explains how time travel could be possible. The existence of wormholes would allow an object to move from one point in space to another faster than the speed of light by not even traveling at the speed of light. What this means is that because a wormhole bends space and time, the existence of a wormhole would provide a shortcut for two infinitely distant locations in space by “folding” that plane and having those locations meet back to back. Now while this application of the wormhole theory only explains how to get one place to another at almost instantaneous speeds, optimists of the wormhole theory suggest that if these wormholes could ever be controlled or manipulated in some way by either adding energy or shaping it, then they could be altered to create a wormhole that not only makes two regions instantly accessible, but also two different time dimensions.
Last but not least is the theory of the cosmic string. Cosmic strings are hypothetical 1-dimensional topological defects that are proposed to have formed when the universe was at its earliest stages of development, or post-moment of the Big Bang. Because cosmic strings are concentrated energy in a formation of a loop, almost like a wormhole, they create their own mini-dimension of space-time. Some scientists claim that an object interaction with a cosmic string could lead to fields of a closed time-dimensional curve, where different regions of time can be accessed. The idea behind this concept can be explained in this way: just as a black-hole is a one-dimensional singularity with a small point with an infinite amount of gravitational pull, a cosmic string would be a two-dimensional thin line of space-time (basically a line of black hole with two ends) that would disturb the cosmic field in incomprehensibly strange ways. So in theory, if a cosmic string could ever be reached and accessed by a human without that person tearing to pieces, then traveling back to the past to see the dinosaurs could very much be a possibility.
While all these theories about time travel being a possibility do show some guarantee, the real issue is that they are just theories. There is no hard evidence proving that any of these theories are a reality; scientists are only able to hypothesize that these astronomical phenomena exist because of these unexplainable illusions or anomalies that they observe in space, such as distortions in cosmic frequencies that are received from outer space by radars. But then this is not to say that the possibilities of time travel are so slim that time travel is impossible. If technology in space travel advances far enough, then it could be very much possible. The only issue is that whether or not the human species will still exist by the time that such advanced technology can be developed.
But what about time travelers?
Although many speculations denying proof of time travelers exist, there already have been many cases of time travelers observed. A famous case would be the “present day hipster” photo taken in 1941 at the opening of South Fork Bridge, Arkansas. As seen in the photo on the right, there stands a man who is dressed extremely out of trend. Whereas everyone else seems to be wearing formal type clothing, the one man in the middle wearing sporty-type sunglasses is also wearing a zip-up hoodie, which is a fashion trend of the 21st century, not of the 1940s. So does this prove that time travelers exist? No one knows for sure, but scenes like these do make the conversation of time travel much more interesting.
Now as for the science of time travel, it’s important to note that even if time traveling to the future (Einstein’s theory of relativity) is possible by traveling at the speed of light, you would not be able to see a duplicate version of yourself for the time period of the future. Because you left the region of the past, you would only see the original versions of everyone. In other words, the only possible way of traveling to the future is not by entering a parallel universe that is ahead of the present time (in which you would be able to see a duplicate version of yourself), but by simply experiencing a different rate of time than others on Earth. So if you had plans of wandering to the future to see if you ended up rich, don’t dwell on it too much.
Before we get too excited about the possibility of manipulating time, we must understand that without time, nothing would exist. From matter to energy, time is the factor that controls all of it and allows us to exist. So to talk about being a species that transcends even time is something to be cautious of. But again, we are so far off that it’s definitely a goal worth pursuing.
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