Time. Everyone should value it more than anything else because time is the only thing you can't get back. But what if you could go forward in time? Are you ready to learn how to travel in time?
Part 1: Relative time
Space-time is a mathematical model of the space around us, consisting of both space and time. We usually think of only the three dimensions of space. Time is the fourth dimension, and space-time is connected. The more you accelerate, the more time slows down for you. Traveling in just time or just space is like driving a car in a straight line. Traveling in both space and time means you are traveling in two relative directions, like driving north-west. If you are running and your friend is sitting, time goes slower for you since you are moving faster than the person sitting down, which means you are experiencing two different periods. But the difference is too small to notice even if we are traveling in the fastest plane available. For this example, let's call the time period of your friend A and your time B. The difference from time A to time B is so small it is not noticeable, but the faster you travel, the more you notice it. This is where we get into our next topic.
Part 2: Traveling at light-speed
As we established before, the faster you travel, the more noticeable the time difference from A to B becomes. Now let's change this example of you running and your friend sitting. Let's say your friend is still sitting, but you are in a spaceship that can travel at light speed. If an object travels at light speed, time completely stops for it, but time continues for everything around it. This phenomenon is explained by Einstein's relativity theory (link to Einstein's relativity theory) and beyond what this blog will cover. So if you are traveling at light speed, and your friend is sitting, time stops for you. If you continue to travel at light speed in your spaceship for five years, your friend will age by five years, but for you, it will be instantaneous, and you won't have aged at all, but your friend would have aged five years since your absence. So when you finally return, ten entire years would have passed for your friend, but no time would have passed for you! This is how time travel can be achieved and how we can reach anywhere instantly.
Part 3: Problems:
So if you travel at light speed, you can reach anywhere instantly, and no time would pass for you, and time would pass for everyone else. So if you took a lovely trip five hundred light-years away to a distant planet, you wouldn't age one bit. To travel forward in time, you have to be able to travel at light speed. But there are some problems with traveling so fast in space. According to Einstein, no physical object can travel at the speed of light. There is a considerable risk of crashing into celestial bodies. At such a high speed, even a pebble would decimate your spaceship. One could solve this problem with a special shield that could protect the ship and yourself from any outside debris. Currently, we don't even have the technology to come close to light speed, let alone travel at the speed of light.
Part 4: Conclusion
Even though we are not even close to traveling at light speed, understand how traveling at extreme speeds warps space-time. It is a fascinating topic, and we recommend that you research more about it if you feel interested. Here are some helpful links that can help your research:
Mann, Adam. “What Is Space-Time? | Live Science.” Livescience.Com, Live Science, 19 Dec. 2019, https://www.livescience.com/space-time.html
Howell, Elizabeth. “Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity | Space.” Space.Com, Space, 30 Mar. 2017, https://www.space.com/36273-theory-special-relativity.html
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