Cool question, jlim48 and mattscientist! As far as physicists know, there isn’t any way to do that. Every way that anyone has suggested requires types of matter and energy that we don’t know even exists. But lots of cool science fiction stories are based around exactly that “what if?” and wondering about what would happen next.
Have you seen Back to the Future? What would happen if you go back to the past? What would happen to you if somehow hurt a distant family member? Does it open up the possibility of a parallel universe? Some people think this would happen, but in Back to the Future it causes our hero to start to fade away! :S
Too many unexplored factors! Yet again this is where I shake my fists at the physicist friends I have and say: MAKE IT HAPPEN DUDES!!!
But what do you think will happen jlim48 and mattscientist? 😀
Ooh, I think I know one way, but it’s pretty difficult to do….
So, gravity bends space and time around it. Literally.
If you’re in higher gravity, time will move slower than if you were in lower gravity.
We know gravity bends space because we can observe stars that SHOULD be hidden from view by other stars/planets/things, but we see the light being *bent* around the heavy object…
So I propose we mess up the space-time continuum by building a HUGE giant cylinder, like the size and weight of 100 Suns, and then put that cylinder in space and start it spinning. I remember one physics lecture about time travel where they said this might be a way to actually TEAR space and time and let us time travel!! As for what would happen if we did this… your guess is as good as mine!
We should test it! But I don’t know where we’ll find a cylinder big enough… any suggestions??
It’s funny you should mention that Eleanor (cool question jlim48)! There was a few articles that have been published recently where scientists talk about time travel and changing space and time. There are also some arguments about it too. Basically what is needed is what Eleanor said; a massive spinning tube. It’s sort of like a black hole/wormhole that has been twisted and spiralled. The problem is that no one knows for certain what would happen yet. Would we be torn to shreds? Could we ever be able to even control where we would end up or be able to stop ourselves where we want, if we could stop ourselves at all! The other argument is that it might be super hard to move anything of significant size. To change the space and time enough to shift something as big as a person, we would would need crazy amounts of power and energy that physicists aren’t even sure is possible yet. So who knows, it is waiting for someone like you to go find the answer!
By the way, here’s a super cool fact! You know how in some time travel movies people go back and change their past? Well, scientists wanted to see if this could happen. So they sent an atom back in time by less than 1 billionth of a second (not very far I know!) and aimed it at itself from the past to see if it would smash into it and destroy itself in the past. But it didn’t, instead, and much to their surprise, it dodged itself from the past and went around it! Who knows what that means for bigger things in time travel! Parallel realities and universes?
Cool question, jlim48 and mattscientist! As far as physicists know, there isn’t any way to do that. Every way that anyone has suggested requires types of matter and energy that we don’t know even exists. But lots of cool science fiction stories are based around exactly that “what if?” and wondering about what would happen next.
Have you seen Back to the Future? What would happen if you go back to the past? What would happen to you if somehow hurt a distant family member? Does it open up the possibility of a parallel universe? Some people think this would happen, but in Back to the Future it causes our hero to start to fade away! :S
Too many unexplored factors! Yet again this is where I shake my fists at the physicist friends I have and say: MAKE IT HAPPEN DUDES!!!
But what do you think will happen jlim48 and mattscientist? 😀
0
Ooh, I think I know one way, but it’s pretty difficult to do….
So, gravity bends space and time around it. Literally.
If you’re in higher gravity, time will move slower than if you were in lower gravity.
We know gravity bends space because we can observe stars that SHOULD be hidden from view by other stars/planets/things, but we see the light being *bent* around the heavy object…
So I propose we mess up the space-time continuum by building a HUGE giant cylinder, like the size and weight of 100 Suns, and then put that cylinder in space and start it spinning. I remember one physics lecture about time travel where they said this might be a way to actually TEAR space and time and let us time travel!! As for what would happen if we did this… your guess is as good as mine!
We should test it! But I don’t know where we’ll find a cylinder big enough… any suggestions??
😀
0
It’s funny you should mention that Eleanor (cool question jlim48)! There was a few articles that have been published recently where scientists talk about time travel and changing space and time. There are also some arguments about it too. Basically what is needed is what Eleanor said; a massive spinning tube. It’s sort of like a black hole/wormhole that has been twisted and spiralled. The problem is that no one knows for certain what would happen yet. Would we be torn to shreds? Could we ever be able to even control where we would end up or be able to stop ourselves where we want, if we could stop ourselves at all! The other argument is that it might be super hard to move anything of significant size. To change the space and time enough to shift something as big as a person, we would would need crazy amounts of power and energy that physicists aren’t even sure is possible yet. So who knows, it is waiting for someone like you to go find the answer!
By the way, here’s a super cool fact! You know how in some time travel movies people go back and change their past? Well, scientists wanted to see if this could happen. So they sent an atom back in time by less than 1 billionth of a second (not very far I know!) and aimed it at itself from the past to see if it would smash into it and destroy itself in the past. But it didn’t, instead, and much to their surprise, it dodged itself from the past and went around it! Who knows what that means for bigger things in time travel! Parallel realities and universes?
0