Question:
You can't travel to the future? Can you?
17 years ago
We all know that the closer you travel to the speed of light, time slows down. And we all know that if you travelled faster than light, time would go backwards and you would travel back in time.

But how do you travel to the future?
What do you do to achieve that, travel slower than zero miles an hour?
26 answers:
17 years ago
According to modern physics, at least, there is no way to 'travel' into the future, if you take that to mean 'leave the present, and appear instantly in the future'. You could theoretically drastically increase your speed through time. because mass warps the spacetime fabric, and the more massive an object is, massive objects such as black hole stretch out space and time in pretty extreme ways.



Although I don't expect you to do this, and at the current speeds of space travel, you would be dead before you got back, if you found a large enough black hole, you could accelerate yourself into the future. Ignoring travel time, if you found a particularly massive black hole, and tehtered to your space ship, hung about an inch over the event horizon, the point of no return, so to speak, time would warp around your current position so much , that if you hung there for a year, and returned to earth, you would arrive in the year 12,008, only a year older than you were in 2008, effectively placing yourself in the future.
futuretopgun101
17 years ago
No, you are a bit mixed up.

As you approach C time for you slows down relative to the rest of the universe. So if you could orbit the Earth at C you would age slower then someone sitting on the Earth.

So you could in theory travel to the end of the universe in a trillion years time and only age a few years.

But you can never travel a second back in time.

Its theoretically possible to send information back in time through a laser but only back to the point the laser is turned on but its never been done yet.
Joe P
17 years ago
Interesting question that has links to spinning black holes.

According to scientists if you approach the event horizon with a powerful enough spaceship and orbit in the same direction at the speed of light as the blackhole is spinning you can travel into the future and if you orbit , again at the speed of light, against the spin you can travel into the past!

I think the link here is the ability to severely warp space-time (hence the blackhole) whilst moving at the speed of light around the warping without being sucked into the singularity at the center of the blackhole.
azteccameron1
17 years ago
OK hitch a ride on an alien starferrari- some of these mothers can do 0.98c! Head for proxima centauri. Due to the LT someone on earth will observe you making the trip in sqrt(1-(0.98)^2)*4.3 yrs..or about 10.25months. You on the other hand will observe the space between here and PC as shortened by the same factor (1/5) but will still get there in 10.25 months doing 0.98c. Now head back to earth (being careful to dec/accel gently)..about 8.6yrs of earth time has passed and you are only 1.7years older.

The same effect can be achieved more cheaply by getting cosmetic surgery!
ZeroByte
17 years ago
In my opinion, traveling at relativistic speeds IS traveling into the future. If not actually, it is operationally. Let's say you go at a speed very close to the speed of light, such that time is almost stopped for you relative to the "stationary" observer. When you finish, your clock says that only a few seconds have gone by, but thousands of years have gone by on Earth.



Isn't that time travel? Of course, in our universe, using this method, it's a 1-way ticket because nobody's thought of a way possible to accelerate a mass beyond C, so even if moving faster than C reverses time flow for you relative to a "stationary" observer, you can't actually accomplish this feat.
17 years ago
We are travelling to the future right now. The faster you move, the faster you get there, but you'd have to be going at a significant fraction of the speed of light to be able to notice.



The whole "time slows down as you approach the speed of light" thing applies to time from your perspective - if we synchronize watches and you go really fast, your watch will be moving at a normal speed when you look at it, and mine will be going really fast if you look at it - but if I look at your watch from my standingstillness, it will be moving really slowly, while mine is normal.



So we already can travel to the future and we know how to (just put someone in high-velocity orbit around the Earth, or something), but it would require much faster engines than we currently possess.



P.S.: You can't travel back in time, and you can't go faster than light. Sorry to crush your dreams of meeting T. rex.
roachbandit
17 years ago
You're making a very wide generalization of a very complex science.

You can't go back in time because the faster you travel the more mass you would gain,and when you exceed light speed you would have infinite mass,which isn't possible.

and even reaching absolute sero(a temperature so cold that all movement of atoms stops)you wouldn't travle back in time,and it's still up for debate weather or not absolute zero even exists.
forgottenmorals
17 years ago
There's this contraption invented by the members of Dethklok called the Time Travel Face Bag. Basically, you just put a plastic bag over your head. When you take it back off, behold, time has moved into the future.
samim khan
17 years ago
u have studied many theories right, then u must have read abt relative velocity...

so u see a the time moves we also move there is no question abt travelling below or equal to zero mile/ hr ok...

have u see movin anything negatively???
17 years ago
"And we all know that if you travelled faster than light, time would go backwards and you would travel back in time."



Well, actually, I don't know that. But then, I only have a PhD in physics. So how does that compare to the "knowledge" perpetuated on Yahoo Answers? Poorly, I guess.



What I (and every other physicists) know, is that thanks to CPT invariance in quantum field theory



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPT_symmetry



anti-particles LOOK like particles traveling backwards in time. At least in diagrams. I would venture to guess that this symmetry is well broken on the level of low energy quantum gravity.



And since anti-particles do not travel at speeds faster than the speed of light, your argument seems kind of curiously WRONG.



Anyway... glad you asked.



:-)
Adams Azare Bauchi State
17 years ago
I think travelling to the future is in your mind, your dreams and expectations. Let me show you how you do it! Okay, close your eyes and imagine what the world will become in the next 100 years. Now take a picture of that image. Now open your eyes and examine that picture. Please let us know your findings and analysis.
Tony W
17 years ago
You can't travel faster then light according to current mainstream science.
Max Power says relax
17 years ago
Its Friday night and im tired , please ask this question again when i have the 5 hrs it will take me to type an argument for and against this question , try reading books like " Brief history of the universe " Stephen Hawkins , or watch back to the future for an even easier answer,
lazerash
17 years ago
I've travelled to the future...all i do is shut my eyes at night, and a few hours later, I'm already in TOMORROW....sometimes, if i'm really tired, and shut my eyes, I'll find myself 2 ahead of the time I shut my eyes....



hehehe
17 years ago
lol dick head fly paper



time travel both ways cant happen....but you could nearly stop time



if into the past had happened, wed have seen it =P
17 years ago
All we are traveling to the future. Unless you live in a black hole, you travel too to the future.
Dr Bob UK
17 years ago
:) Just continue to exist at the speed of time. You'll find that you move to the future quite easily.
17 years ago
.alright then let me tell you.what do you think were all in the world do everyday.we move to the future.everydaytechnology gets better,everyday we build more cars and invent more.this question is not a joke its serious just think about it.
raju
17 years ago
Aaa..that will not do.

Nobody is slower than me but I m still in the present for so many years.
Trevor h
17 years ago
The future doesn't exist,



it is always the now, whenever or wherever you are!
17 years ago
The future hasn`t happend yet.
17 years ago
...But that's what we do all the time!!!
17 years ago
youve been watching way too much star trek
dcarcia@sbcglobal.net
17 years ago
just keep existing, we'll get there soon. =)
xoxo
17 years ago
what, I thought I just did. damn...
☠Lucy☠
17 years ago
Duh you ask Marty if doc can make another 1


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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