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Asked by Steve to Alan, Ciorsdaidh, Lauren, Leonie, Martin, Neil, Shuo on 6 Mar 2018.
Question: is time travel possible?
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Neil Keddie answered on 6 Mar 2018:
I don’t think so, but then I’m also not an expert in astrophysics. Maybe ask someone over in the Space Data or the Enquiry Zones to see what they thnik.
My other argument is that its not possible, as we would be far more advanced already if it was (as someone would have brought future technology back in time to accelerate scientific discoveries, making us further ahead than we already are)…
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Martin McCoustra answered on 6 Mar 2018:
It depends what direction in time you want to go!
As you travel faster, time get slower… Einstein told us this! So imagine you have two identical and synchronised clocks; one on Earth not moving and one you launch into orbiting the Earth and travelling at few 10’s of km/s. When you bring the two clocks back together on Earth, you’d find that the one that had been orbiting the Earth would be slow compared to the one that had stayed on Earth. In a sense the slow clock had traveled into it’s future by slowing down time.
On the other hand… if you want to go back in time… there are solutions of Einstein’s relativity theory that suggest it may be possible using something called a Tipler Machine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipler_cylinder). Stephen Hawking has pointed out that there are problems with this idea that will likely prevent time travel.
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Lauren Webster answered on 10 Mar 2018:
I love your answer Martin!!!! Very well explained and certainly made me think!
Comments
Steve commented on :
thankyou