Time travel, a concept that has captivated the human imagination for centuries, remains one of the most intriguing and perplexing ideas in theoretical physics. The prospect of journeying backward or forward in time challenges our understanding of the universe's fundamental laws. Theories like Einstein's general relativity suggest that time is relative and can be affected by factors such as gravity and velocity. While time travel has been a popular theme in science fiction literature and movies, real-world applications and experiments remain elusive. Theoretical physicists grapple with paradoxes such as the famous "grandfather paradox," which questions the coherence of changing the past. Despite the challenges, the quest to comprehend and perhaps manipulate time persists, as scientists explore the boundaries of our understanding of the space-time continuum. The allure of time travel continues to fuel scientific inquiry and captivate the human imagination, sparking discussions that transcend the boundaries of both science and philosophy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By using different theories and different experiments, we can create a big picture about time travel.

 

When we think about time travel, we think that we go 50 years back and see our grandparents and how their lives were, or we go 50 years into the future and we see the advancement of technology, how different AI have improved, and things like that.

 

Time travel is just the action of travelling through time, whether it is in the past or the future. (used Google as definition) 

This definition does not state ANYWHERE that you are to travel a certain amount of time back or a certain amount of time in the future to have called it a time travel.

 

Using grade 9 science as a guide, we know that light years mean that it takes those many years for light to travel from one place to another. Light is indeed fast, but it does have a speed limit.

TIME TRAVEL - GR, GFP, STARS

Time travel, a concept that has long been a staple of science fiction, remains a tantalizing enigma within the realms of theoretical physics. The very notion of journeying backward or forward through time challenges our fundamental understanding of the universe. While the concept has fueled the imaginations of writers and filmmakers, its exploration in the scientific community delves into the intricacies of relativity, quantum mechanics, and the very fabric of space-time itself.

 

Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity laid the groundwork for our modern understanding of space and time. According to relativity, time is not a universal constant but rather a dynamic entity influenced by gravity and velocity. This theory has paved the way for the exploration of time dilation, a phenomenon observed in high-speed travel and intense gravitational fields. As scientists delve deeper into the fabric of the cosmos, the possibility of manipulating time becomes a tantalizing prospect.

 

The journey into the concept of time travel is not without its paradoxes. The renowned "grandfather paradox," which questions the consequences of altering the past, challenges the logical coherence of such ventures. This paradox, along with others like the "bootstrap paradox," forces scientists to confront the complexities and potential contradictions that may arise from tampering with the chronological order of events.

 

While time travel remains largely within the purview of theoretical physics, experiments and thought experiments continue to push the boundaries of possibility. The concept of closed time-like curves, as proposed by physicists like Kip Thorne, explores the potential for creating paths through space-time that could allow for time travel. Wormholes, another theoretical construct, offer a hypothetical shortcut between distant points in space and time, providing a fascinating avenue for exploration.

 

Beyond the scientific inquiry, time travel raises profound ethical and philosophical questions. The alteration of past events poses moral dilemmas and challenges our understanding of free will. The potential consequences of manipulating time could have far-reaching impacts on individual lives and the course of history, prompting reflections on responsibility and the interconnectedness of past, present, and future.

 

As we stand at the threshold of the 21st century, the concept of time travel remains an enduring mystery that captivates the human imagination and pushes the boundaries of scientific exploration. While the practical realization of time travel remains uncertain, the journey into the theoretical realms of relativity, quantum mechanics, and space-time continues to offer tantalizing glimpses into the nature of our universe. Whether time travel will remain a fantasy or become a tangible aspect of human experience is a question that continues to drive scientific inquiry and spark philosophical contemplation.

 

 

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OTHER INFORMATION

 

When you see stars at night, it is possible for those stars to not even exist anymore. Light travels at 299 792 458 m / s. This is a lot, but when you think of this time regarding the size of space, it is not that big! 

Even the closest star to us - the Sun - takes around 8 minutes and 20 seconds for the light of the sun to reach our eyes. Even though the sun does not change a lot in this much time, but you are seeing the Sun 8 minutes younger than it actually is.

 

A recent supernova visible to the naked eye wsa "Supernove 1987A" in the year 1987. Here's the twist; this supernova was 168 000 light years away from us. This meant that this was 168 000 years old! We see these facinating things in the world, but not remembering that they might not even exist anymore! 

 

The first picture of our black hole, was also 55 MILLION LIGHT YEARS AWAY, that is around the time that dinosaurs went extinct (65 million years ago). 

 

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IMPORTANT!!!!

 

Time travel to the future is also easy.

 

The rate us, normal humans do it at is one second per second. The quicker we travel, the slower seconds pass. 

 

According to Einstien's general theory of relativity, gravity also affects clocks: the more forceful the gravity is, the slower time goes.

 

Dave Goldberg, a cosmologist at Drexel Univerity said that "Near massive bodies - near the surface of neutron stars or even at the surface of the Earth, although it's a tiny effect - time runes slower than it does far away."

 

For an example, if we were near the edge of a black hole, for us only a few hours would pass while it would already be 1 000 years for someone on Earth. This means that if the person who was near the black hole came back to Earth, they would have traveled to the furture. (ScientificAmerican, 2023)

 

Fabio Costa, a physicist at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, noted that an early solution for travelling back in time had a solution with a scenario written in the 1920s. This idea involved a massive long cylinder that spun very quickly, kind of like you rolling a straw in your hands. This also twisted space time with it. A few decades after scientists discovered something called "closed timelike curves" was when the understanding that the cylinder could act as a time machine, allowing one to travel to the past, which happened in the 1970s.

 

Gaurav Khanna - a member of the University of Rhode Island - said that time machine are a little difficult. "It has some attractive features, possibly some potential, but then when one starts to soft of unravel the details, there ends up being some kind of a roadblock."

 

Most time travel models require the use of negative mass - hence negative energy. Albert Einstein revealed that mass and energy are one and the same when he found the equation; E = mc2. Using this theory, if an electric charge can be positive or negative, so should mass! We never found an example of negative mass. In different situations, you need negative mass to open a wormhole. Wormholes are "tunnels" in spacetime that are predicted by general relativity, which connects on point in the universe to another.

 

Even though Khanna and Goldberg think that it is unlikely that matter which contain negative mass exist, Khanna does have notes that some quantum phenomena show negative energy on very small amounts. "But that would be "nowhere close to the scaled that owuld be needed" for a relistic time machine"

The data we have found is:

 

Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity laid the groundwork for our modern understanding of space and time. According to relativity, time is not a universal constant but rather a dynamic entity influenced by gravity and velocity. This theory has paved the way for the exploration of time dilation, a phenomenon observed in high-speed travel and intense gravitational fields. As scientists delve deeper into the fabric of the cosmos, the possibility of manipulating time becomes a tantalizing prospect. When you see stars at night, it is possible for those stars to not even exist anymore. Light travels at 299 792 458 m / s. This is a lot, but when you think of this time regarding the size of space, it is not that big!

 

Using these two informations, we know that we HAVE travelled through time!

Many people think that time travel is somthing that only happens in fiction books. This is not true. At the same time, people have this mindest that time travel means that you are in a whole different time zone; but that statement is false. We confuse time travel with something called time teleportation (Scientific American, 2023)

 

Looking up at the night sky, you are seeing things that might not even exist anymore, because light takes time to come to Earth. Even our Sun needs 8 and a half minutes to give it's light to Earth. The only picture of the black hole, which was taken in 2017, was also 55 million years old!

 

Albert Einstien stated that time and space are linked together. If particles can move through space, they can also move through time. He also stated that "it is possible for one to travel into the future if one travels at the speed of light"

 

Light travels very fast. If we travel at the speed of light, we'd be really quick. We would reach a very fast time.

 

According to Scientific America, "time's flow depends on how fast you're moving," stated in Einstein's special theory of relativity.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-time-travel-possible/

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/time-travel/en/

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231110-doctor-who-is-time-travel-really-possible-heres-what-physics-says#:~:text=So%20far%2C%20what%20we%20can,%2C%20time%2C%20mass%20and%20gravity.

https://www.space.com/21675-time-travel.html

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/faq/26/what-is-a-light-year/

 

I would like to acknowledge the fact that many people actually researched on these things in the world, whether it was just a theory, or an experiment. These people today helped me create this project, but they also helped our overall understanding of the universe. E=mc2 was a formula for what energy equals to (mass times the speed of light squared), and now using that I found out that mass and energy are the same, and that we might have matter with negative mass. 

 

I would also like to acknowledge the fact that our school, and our teacher gave us this oppertunity, as we would have not do anything without them. 

 

Space has always interested me in many ways, and that space is so big that we still could not have found everything about our solar system, let alone our Galaxy or our the entire Universe.