Is time travel being researched today?

Question

Hi. I'm really interested in all the possibilities of time travel. Are scientists concentrating on finding a way to travel through time? Weather it's back in time or to the future or have they got much more important things to concentrate on. If they are looking at it, how far have they got? Have they even found a way of travelling already but it's not idolised by the public yet?
Let me know a bit more about it. Thanks

Answer 1

There is NO work being done on Time Travel by any SERIOUS scientist, as it has been show to be IMPOSSIBLE in "normal", non-relativistic circumstances -- like real life.



Einstein's Theory of Relativity proposed that, as an object approaches the speed of light, the time on the object AS OBSERVED FROM AN OUTSIDE OBSERVER, slows down and stops.



But, to a person ON that object (say, a space ship) TIME APPEARS NORMAL. This is why it is the Theory of RELATIVITY -- everything is RELATIVE to who is doing the measuring.



Now, these theories were PROVEN using the Space Shuttle, the fastest object capable of carrying a man that we have. Using the Space Shuttle and two extremely sensitive Cesium Clocks (one on earth, one on the shuttle) it was PROVEN that the faster you go, the slower time gets! But at 17,500 MPH (the speed of the space shuttle) the difference is only about two seconds in ten days.



So, the ONLY way to travel in time would be to Travel at or near the Speed of Light -- which, again, Einstein says is impossible, and further experiments have proved it.



But even if it were possible, time travel is in ONE DIRECTION ONLY -- forward. Since time would appear to slow down on the space ship, a person who left earth on a 10-years light-speed trip would return to earth 50, 100, may THOUSANDS of years into the future.



But they would NEVER be able to go into past and thus return to Our "present time".



SO . . . .

Time Travel into the future is possible, but the conditions (light speed travel) to allow it are impossible.

Time travel to the past is impossible.

Answer 2

The US physicist Ronald Mallet at the University of Connecticut has been working at it and is trying to raise funds for a large version, he currently only has a prototype which shows the features but not the effect.



As to time travelers from the future, the concept of a time machine only allows time travelers to travel to a time where the time machine exists. So you can not have time travelers from the future appearing on your door step before you've built a machine. The time machine Mallet is proposing would be able to send a single photon through perhaps a miniscule amount of time.



To a certain extent, the Large Hadron Collider is also research into time machine so at the very most fundamental levels, yes, research is being done on time machines but it's easily discounted by the masses who use stock nonsense such as no time travelers from the future as if that was a brilliant conjecture on their part.

Answer 3

Actually, there is a Ph.D. physicist who thinks time travel is possible in theory, and he is in the process of testing the general principals of his hypothesis. He thinks laser light arranged to encircle an area could slow down time through frame dragging, if I understand it correctly. Then at some future date he would hop into the time machine and step out when it was first turned on. Frame dragging is a really small effect that has yet to be verified, so I think he is delusional and this is in the realm of pseudoscience. He is spurred on by the hope that this technology has been developed elsewhere and he could use it to go back and see his dead father.

Answer 4

Interestingly, a very good new novel has recently come out callled 'Riddle of the Red Bible' that gives a very interesting take on how it may one day be possible using the power of the sun as theorised by Freeman Dyson. It's not a well known book yet but it should be, it's very entertaining but uses science to explain anything that happens in the book and though not possible yet it does leave you thinking it could be as amazingly there are no paradoxes.

Answer 5

It's studied in a theoretical way as part of General Relativity.



Time travel in General Relativity is a "closed time-like loop", a trajectory in spacetime that curves around backwards in time, and can therefore join up with itself, like Michael J. Fox meeting his younger self in "Back to the Future".



The question is: can closed time-like loops exist? They probably do exist on the quantum Planck scale. On a macroscopic scale, there are systems like the "Tipler Time Machine" that do have closed time-like loops, but are (probably) impossible to construct.



The conclusion in current physics is that time travel is possible, it's just extremely improbable on human scales --- so improbable that it never happens.

Answer 6

No, this is pure science fiction you'll find only in the movies. Although travel into the future is possible using well-established relativity theory, the capabilities for it are well beyond us to the point of futility. But what's the good of going into the future anyway if you can't come back?

Answer 7

If humanity ever discovered time travel, at any point in our history or future, would we not have had a few time travellers popping back here to have a look around?

Answer 8

nicely the communitcation device from celebrity Trek TOS replaced into used as a epidermis for modren telephones. different than that i don't think of any of it is going to ever be invented. progression can never be anticipated. it is rarely as better as we adore yet some how recommendations blowing on the comparable time. the internet is one discover occasion of that thesis. Ohh and in the previous i forget approximately MP3's have been based of a theory for celebrity Trek the subsequent technology.

Answer 9

The nice thing about time travel, is that nobody has to research it today. We can wait a few thousand or even a million years for somebody else to work on it. Once it's invented, they can come there and tell us about.



So ... nobody is working on it now.

Answer 10

Yes.



Mad scientists and super-villains around the globe are working on the problem this very minute.



I expect a major announcement by the Legion of Doom or the Guild of Calamitous Intent any day now.

Answer 11

No.

From Einstein's theories, the energy needed would be more than available in the sun.

Answer 12

Time travel is scifi BS.

Answer 13

NO. time travel is NOT possible.