Fiction logo

Could someone truly travel through time?

Exploring the Boundaries of Time Travel

By Opoku-Antwi BenedictPublished 8 months ago 4 min read
Photo by Benedict Opoku-Antwi

Introduction

Have you ever had fantasies about time travel? I'm sure we've all had the desire to travel back in time to see how things were or even to change the course of events. Science fiction has long featured time travel, with books and movies imagining the advantages and disadvantages of this power. But is time travel truly possible, and if so, what conditions must be met in order to accomplish it? In order to comprehend how we might go about travelling through time, we must first understand what time is.

What is time?

According to classical physics, time is a concept that exists for everyone, everywhere in the universe. It is independent of how each person understands it and advances at the same rate for everyone. This implies that a cause always precedes an effect, never the other way around, which is a fundamental tenet of the universe's structure.

This view of time, however, has a flaw in that it isn't always applicable. For this reason, the theory of relativity developed by Einstein is regarded as one of the greatest scientific discoveries in history. This is due to the fact that it clarifies how time changes.

According to the theory of relativity, time is one component of four-dimensional space-time that is subject to external influence. For example, time passed more slowly for items travelling at a high pace than it did for those travelling more slowly. This also applies to objects held within gravitational fields.

This means that, in terms of us humans, an astronaut in orbit around the Earth will age more slowly than those of us who are still here. However, this take has many more unanticipated implications. For example, black holes have the strongest gravitational poles of any object in the universe; they are so strong that light itself cannot escape from them, and they also cause time to slow down extremely.

Theoretically, you would see events lasting hundreds of millions of years if I, Benedict Antwi, were to fall into a black hole and gaze out into the rest of the universe before meeting your unavoidable end or becoming stuck behind some bookcases. There would have been so much time spent outside of a black hole if escape from one were even feasible that life as we know it now would not exist.

Time traveling

With the speed of light, another cork of time bursts. You experience a gradual slowing down of time as you accelerate towards the theoretical maximum speed. Time has been slowed down to the point where events appear to occur instantly by anything that can travel faster than the speed of light. Consider, for instance, a photon of light released by a star on the opposite side of the cosmos. Even travelling at its amazing speed, it will take many millions of years for it to reach Earth and become visible to us as a blip in the sky.

For the Fulton, however, the trip happens instantly. It is generated, and then, moving at the speed of light, it arrives at us all at once. Time is neutral; it neither moves forward nor backward. This suggests that there may be a way to travel forward in time if you move more quickly than everything else and time appears to move more slowly for you. You could travel quickly away from Earth and back, and years would pass without you ageing significantly.

Of course, getting back in time is the really challenging part. Would time operate backwards if you were to go faster than the speed of light, given that time remains stationary at the speed of light?

Many scientists believe this, and there is a theory that a subatomic particle called as a tachyon actually performs this exact function. Since they have never been detected, these particles are purely theoretical. In part because this occurrence would happen in the future and, if the idea is correct, you would never be able to see them approaching you. Although the concepts of cause and effect would apply to tachyons in reverse, some people think that harnessing them could be the most effective way to discover how to travel through time.

Wormholes

Wormhole theory is an additional theory. These might open a path at any moment between any two locations by acting as tunnels through the fabric of space-time. Although the theory of relativity does permit the existence of wormholes, the enormous amounts of energy needed to produce one could lead to the production of a black hole.

According to Stephen Hawking, radiation feedback—which functions similarly to sound feedback—would render wormholes fundamentally unstable and incapable of withstanding long enough to be employed as time machines. Numerous methods have been proposed by different scholars to use space-time to enable time travel. It could be possible to create extremely high gravity using lasers. The creation of a "quantum tunnel" between worlds might be made possible by quantum mechanics, and string theory might provide light on how cosmic strings and black holes could infiltrate wine and distort space-time to the point where time travel is possible.

In conclusion, time travel has long fascinated the interest of researchers. Every one of us has at some point considered the possibility of time travel, and for a very long time, it will be considered completely impossible. However, thanks to the last century's advancements in our understanding of the universe, this perception has changed, and time travel is still considered a possibility even though it is still well beyond our current capabilities and is permitted by the law of physics. It may eventually become more real than fiction.

Fan FictionMysteryFantasyAdventure

About the Creator

Opoku-Antwi Benedict

Enjoyed the story?
Support the Creator.

Subscribe for free to receive all their stories in your feed. You could also pledge your support or give them a one-off tip, letting them know you appreciate their work.

Subscribe For Free

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

    Opoku-Antwi BenedictWritten by Opoku-Antwi Benedict

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.