time travel science project

Is Time Travel Possible?

We all travel in time! We travel one year in time between birthdays, for example. And we are all traveling in time at approximately the same speed: 1 second per second.

We typically experience time at one second per second. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's space telescopes also give us a way to look back in time. Telescopes help us see stars and galaxies that are very far away . It takes a long time for the light from faraway galaxies to reach us. So, when we look into the sky with a telescope, we are seeing what those stars and galaxies looked like a very long time ago.

However, when we think of the phrase "time travel," we are usually thinking of traveling faster than 1 second per second. That kind of time travel sounds like something you'd only see in movies or science fiction books. Could it be real? Science says yes!

Image of galaxies, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

This image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows galaxies that are very far away as they existed a very long time ago. Credit: NASA, ESA and R. Thompson (Univ. Arizona)

How do we know that time travel is possible?

More than 100 years ago, a famous scientist named Albert Einstein came up with an idea about how time works. He called it relativity. This theory says that time and space are linked together. Einstein also said our universe has a speed limit: nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (186,000 miles per second).

Einstein's theory of relativity says that space and time are linked together. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

What does this mean for time travel? Well, according to this theory, the faster you travel, the slower you experience time. Scientists have done some experiments to show that this is true.

For example, there was an experiment that used two clocks set to the exact same time. One clock stayed on Earth, while the other flew in an airplane (going in the same direction Earth rotates).

After the airplane flew around the world, scientists compared the two clocks. The clock on the fast-moving airplane was slightly behind the clock on the ground. So, the clock on the airplane was traveling slightly slower in time than 1 second per second.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Can we use time travel in everyday life?

We can't use a time machine to travel hundreds of years into the past or future. That kind of time travel only happens in books and movies. But the math of time travel does affect the things we use every day.

For example, we use GPS satellites to help us figure out how to get to new places. (Check out our video about how GPS satellites work .) NASA scientists also use a high-accuracy version of GPS to keep track of where satellites are in space. But did you know that GPS relies on time-travel calculations to help you get around town?

GPS satellites orbit around Earth very quickly at about 8,700 miles (14,000 kilometers) per hour. This slows down GPS satellite clocks by a small fraction of a second (similar to the airplane example above).

Illustration of GPS satellites orbiting around Earth

GPS satellites orbit around Earth at about 8,700 miles (14,000 kilometers) per hour. Credit: GPS.gov

However, the satellites are also orbiting Earth about 12,550 miles (20,200 km) above the surface. This actually speeds up GPS satellite clocks by a slighter larger fraction of a second.

Here's how: Einstein's theory also says that gravity curves space and time, causing the passage of time to slow down. High up where the satellites orbit, Earth's gravity is much weaker. This causes the clocks on GPS satellites to run faster than clocks on the ground.

The combined result is that the clocks on GPS satellites experience time at a rate slightly faster than 1 second per second. Luckily, scientists can use math to correct these differences in time.

Illustration of a hand holding a phone with a maps application active.

If scientists didn't correct the GPS clocks, there would be big problems. GPS satellites wouldn't be able to correctly calculate their position or yours. The errors would add up to a few miles each day, which is a big deal. GPS maps might think your home is nowhere near where it actually is!

In Summary:

Yes, time travel is indeed a real thing. But it's not quite what you've probably seen in the movies. Under certain conditions, it is possible to experience time passing at a different rate than 1 second per second. And there are important reasons why we need to understand this real-world form of time travel.

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April 26, 2023

Is Time Travel Possible?

The laws of physics allow time travel. So why haven’t people become chronological hoppers?

By Sarah Scoles

yuanyuan yan/Getty Images

In the movies, time travelers typically step inside a machine and—poof—disappear. They then reappear instantaneously among cowboys, knights or dinosaurs. What these films show is basically time teleportation .

Scientists don’t think this conception is likely in the real world, but they also don’t relegate time travel to the crackpot realm. In fact, the laws of physics might allow chronological hopping, but the devil is in the details.

Time traveling to the near future is easy: you’re doing it right now at a rate of one second per second, and physicists say that rate can change. According to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, time’s flow depends on how fast you’re moving. The quicker you travel, the slower seconds pass. And according to Einstein’s general theory of relativity , gravity also affects clocks: the more forceful the gravity nearby, the slower time goes.

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“Near massive bodies—near the surface of neutron stars or even at the surface of the Earth, although it’s a tiny effect—time runs slower than it does far away,” says Dave Goldberg, a cosmologist at Drexel University.

If a person were to hang out near the edge of a black hole , where gravity is prodigious, Goldberg says, only a few hours might pass for them while 1,000 years went by for someone on Earth. If the person who was near the black hole returned to this planet, they would have effectively traveled to the future. “That is a real effect,” he says. “That is completely uncontroversial.”

Going backward in time gets thorny, though (thornier than getting ripped to shreds inside a black hole). Scientists have come up with a few ways it might be possible, and they have been aware of time travel paradoxes in general relativity for decades. Fabio Costa, a physicist at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, notes that an early solution with time travel began with a scenario written in the 1920s. That idea involved massive long cylinder that spun fast in the manner of straw rolled between your palms and that twisted spacetime along with it. The understanding that this object could act as a time machine allowing one to travel to the past only happened in the 1970s, a few decades after scientists had discovered a phenomenon called “closed timelike curves.”

“A closed timelike curve describes the trajectory of a hypothetical observer that, while always traveling forward in time from their own perspective, at some point finds themselves at the same place and time where they started, creating a loop,” Costa says. “This is possible in a region of spacetime that, warped by gravity, loops into itself.”

“Einstein read [about closed timelike curves] and was very disturbed by this idea,” he adds. The phenomenon nevertheless spurred later research.

Science began to take time travel seriously in the 1980s. In 1990, for instance, Russian physicist Igor Novikov and American physicist Kip Thorne collaborated on a research paper about closed time-like curves. “They started to study not only how one could try to build a time machine but also how it would work,” Costa says.

Just as importantly, though, they investigated the problems with time travel. What if, for instance, you tossed a billiard ball into a time machine, and it traveled to the past and then collided with its past self in a way that meant its present self could never enter the time machine? “That looks like a paradox,” Costa says.

Since the 1990s, he says, there’s been on-and-off interest in the topic yet no big breakthrough. The field isn’t very active today, in part because every proposed model of a time machine has problems. “It has some attractive features, possibly some potential, but then when one starts to sort of unravel the details, there ends up being some kind of a roadblock,” says Gaurav Khanna of the University of Rhode Island.

For instance, most time travel models require negative mass —and hence negative energy because, as Albert Einstein revealed when he discovered E = mc 2 , mass and energy are one and the same. In theory, at least, just as an electric charge can be positive or negative, so can mass—though no one’s ever found an example of negative mass. Why does time travel depend on such exotic matter? In many cases, it is needed to hold open a wormhole—a tunnel in spacetime predicted by general relativity that connects one point in the cosmos to another.

Without negative mass, gravity would cause this tunnel to collapse. “You can think of it as counteracting the positive mass or energy that wants to traverse the wormhole,” Goldberg says.

Khanna and Goldberg concur that it’s unlikely matter with negative mass even exists, although Khanna notes that some quantum phenomena show promise, for instance, for negative energy on very small scales. But that would be “nowhere close to the scale that would be needed” for a realistic time machine, he says.

These challenges explain why Khanna initially discouraged Caroline Mallary, then his graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, from doing a time travel project. Mallary and Khanna went forward anyway and came up with a theoretical time machine that didn’t require negative mass. In its simplistic form, Mallary’s idea involves two parallel cars, each made of regular matter. If you leave one parked and zoom the other with extreme acceleration, a closed timelike curve will form between them.

Easy, right? But while Mallary’s model gets rid of the need for negative matter, it adds another hurdle: it requires infinite density inside the cars for them to affect spacetime in a way that would be useful for time travel. Infinite density can be found inside a black hole, where gravity is so intense that it squishes matter into a mind-bogglingly small space called a singularity. In the model, each of the cars needs to contain such a singularity. “One of the reasons that there's not a lot of active research on this sort of thing is because of these constraints,” Mallary says.

Other researchers have created models of time travel that involve a wormhole, or a tunnel in spacetime from one point in the cosmos to another. “It's sort of a shortcut through the universe,” Goldberg says. Imagine accelerating one end of the wormhole to near the speed of light and then sending it back to where it came from. “Those two sides are no longer synced,” he says. “One is in the past; one is in the future.” Walk between them, and you’re time traveling.

You could accomplish something similar by moving one end of the wormhole near a big gravitational field—such as a black hole—while keeping the other end near a smaller gravitational force. In that way, time would slow down on the big gravity side, essentially allowing a particle or some other chunk of mass to reside in the past relative to the other side of the wormhole.

Making a wormhole requires pesky negative mass and energy, however. A wormhole created from normal mass would collapse because of gravity. “Most designs tend to have some similar sorts of issues,” Goldberg says. They’re theoretically possible, but there’s currently no feasible way to make them, kind of like a good-tasting pizza with no calories.

And maybe the problem is not just that we don’t know how to make time travel machines but also that it’s not possible to do so except on microscopic scales—a belief held by the late physicist Stephen Hawking. He proposed the chronology protection conjecture: The universe doesn’t allow time travel because it doesn’t allow alterations to the past. “It seems there is a chronology protection agency, which prevents the appearance of closed timelike curves and so makes the universe safe for historians,” Hawking wrote in a 1992 paper in Physical Review D .

Part of his reasoning involved the paradoxes time travel would create such as the aforementioned situation with a billiard ball and its more famous counterpart, the grandfather paradox : If you go back in time and kill your grandfather before he has children, you can’t be born, and therefore you can’t time travel, and therefore you couldn’t have killed your grandfather. And yet there you are.

Those complications are what interests Massachusetts Institute of Technology philosopher Agustin Rayo, however, because the paradoxes don’t just call causality and chronology into question. They also make free will seem suspect. If physics says you can go back in time, then why can’t you kill your grandfather? “What stops you?” he says. Are you not free?

Rayo suspects that time travel is consistent with free will, though. “What’s past is past,” he says. “So if, in fact, my grandfather survived long enough to have children, traveling back in time isn’t going to change that. Why will I fail if I try? I don’t know because I don’t have enough information about the past. What I do know is that I’ll fail somehow.”

If you went to kill your grandfather, in other words, you’d perhaps slip on a banana en route or miss the bus. “It's not like you would find some special force compelling you not to do it,” Costa says. “You would fail to do it for perfectly mundane reasons.”

In 2020 Costa worked with Germain Tobar, then his undergraduate student at the University of Queensland in Australia, on the math that would underlie a similar idea: that time travel is possible without paradoxes and with freedom of choice.

Goldberg agrees with them in a way. “I definitely fall into the category of [thinking that] if there is time travel, it will be constructed in such a way that it produces one self-consistent view of history,” he says. “Because that seems to be the way that all the rest of our physical laws are constructed.”

No one knows what the future of time travel to the past will hold. And so far, no time travelers have come to tell us about it.

We Already Know How to Build a Time Machine, Scientists Say

It’s just a matter of time before we build one that can take us into the far future.

“When Mr. Padalka came back from his adventures, he found the Earth to be 1/44th of a second to the future of where he expected it to be,” explains J. Richard Gott, Princeton physicist and author of the 2001 book Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe . “He literally traveled ... into the future.”

While being a fraction of a second younger than if he had stayed on Earth isn’t mind-bending stuff, it nonetheless gave Padalka the distinction of the “current time traveler record,” according to Gott.

Although not exactly a plutonium-charged DeLorean , time travel is anything but fiction. Real astrophysicists like Gott are pretty sure they know how to build a time machine, and intense speed—much, much faster than Padalka’s orbital jaunt—is the key ingredient.

A Brief Crash Course on Time Travel

black and white photo of albert einstein

Until the 20th century, time was believed to be completely immutable, and time travel a scientific impossibility. In the 1680s, Sir Isaac Newton’s thought time progressed at a consistent pace throughout the universe, regardless of outside forces or location. And for two centuries, the scientific world subscribed to Newton’s theory.

That is, until 26-year-old Albert Einstein came along.

In 1905, Einstein revealed his ideas on special relativity , using this framework for his theory of general relativity a decade later. Einstein’s universe-defining calculations introduced, well , lots of things, but also some concepts related to time. The most important being that time is elastic and dependent on speed, slowing down or speeding up depending on how fast an object—or person—is moving.

.css-2l0eat{font-family:UnitedSans,UnitedSans-roboto,UnitedSans-local,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.625rem;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;padding:0.9rem 1rem 1rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:1.75rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:1.875rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-2l0eat{font-size:2.25rem;line-height:1;}}.css-2l0eat b,.css-2l0eat strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-2l0eat em,.css-2l0eat i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;} “Without Einstein’s general theory of relatively, our GPS system wouldn’t be working.”

In 1971, four cesium-beam atomic clocks flew around the world and were then compared to ground-based clocks. The resulting minuscule time difference proved that Einstein was onto something. There’s also another technology, tucked inside your smartphone, that also validates Einstein’s theory.

“Without Einstein’s general theory of relatively, our GPS system wouldn’t be working,” says Ron Mallet, an astrophysicist and author of the book Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality. “That’s also proof that Einstein’s [theories are] correct.”

But apart from this mutable version of time, Einstein also calculated the speed of light . At 300,000,000 meters (or 186,282 miles) per second, Einstein describes the figure as the “ultimate speed limit” and a universal constant no matter if one is sitting on a bench or traveling in a rocket ship.

The last bit of Einstein’s time-bending ideas suggest that gravity also slows time, meaning time runs faster where gravity is weaker, like the vast emptiness among massive celestial bodies like the sun, Jupiter, and Earth .

Fast forward a century later, and all of these theories—highly summarized, of course—now form the building blocks of astrophysics , and buried among all this expert-level math, Einstein also proved that time travel was possible.

The Subatomic Time Machine

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In fact, not only is time travel possible, it’s already happened—it just doesn’t look like your typical sci-fi film .

Returning to our time-traveling cosmonaut Padalka, his 1/44th-second jump into the future is so minuscule because he was only traveling at 17,000 miles per hour. That isn’t very fast, at least in comparison to the speed of light. But what would happen if we created something that could go much faster than geostationary orbit? We’re not talking a commercial jetliner (550 to 600 miles an hour) or a 21st-century rocket to the ISS (25,000 miles per hour), but something that could approach 186,282 miles per second.

“On a subatomic level, it’s been done,” says Mallett. “An example is ... the Large Hadron Collider . It routinely sends subatomic particles into the future.”

The particle accelerator has the ability to propel protons at 99.999999 percent the speed of light, a speed at which their relative time is moving about 6,900 times slower compared to their stationary human observers.

“The Large Hadron Collider ... routinely sends subatomic particles into the future.”

So, yes, we’ve been sending atoms into the future and we’ve been doing it for the last decade, but humans are another matter.

Gott says given that we propel particles nearly the speed of light on a regular basis, conceptually, it’s rather simple for humans to time travel into the future. “If you want to visit Earth in the year 3000,” Gott says, “all you have to do is to get on a spaceship and go 99.995 percent the speed of light.”

Let’s say a human is put on such a ship and sent to a planet that’s a little less than 500 light years away (for example, Kepler 186f ), meaning if they traveled at 99.995 percent of the speed of light, it would take them about 500 years to get there, since they are going at nearly the speed of light.

planet, astronomical object, outer space, earth, atmosphere, astronomy, space, atmospheric phenomenon, world, moon,

After a quick snack and a bathroom break, they would then turn around and head back to Earth, which would take another 500 years. So in total, it would take about 1,000 years for them to arrive safely back home. And, on Earth, it would be the year 3022.

However, since they were moving so fast, the resulting time dilation wouldn’t seem like 1,000 years for them, since their internal clock has slowed. “[Their] clock will be ticking at 1/100th of the rate of the clocks on Earth. [They] are only going to age about 10 years,” says Gott. While a millennium would pass for us, for them it would be a decade.

“If we [on Earth] were watching through the window, they would be eating breakfast veeeerrry slooooowly,” says Gott, “But to [them], everything would be normal.”

But there is a massive gulf between what is theoretical and what is real. So how do we overcome the immense technological challenges of how to build a time machine?

The Not-So-Distant Future of Human Time Travel

Building a time-traveling spaceship may be the best place to start, but the engineering obstacles, at least for now, are enormous. For one, we are not even close to having a spaceship that can travel at the speed of light. The fastest spacecraft ever created is the Parker Solar Probe , which launched in 2018 with the mission to study the sun’s outer corona. It travels only .00067 percent the speed of light .

There’s also the enormous amount of energy that would be needed to propel a ship to go that fast. Gott suggests that highly efficient antimatter fuel could be the key; other world agencies and scientists also think such a fuel could be a potentially invaluable piece to interstellar travel .

But ensuring the safety of human cargo on such a futuristic mission would also be tricky. First of all, the ship would need to carry enough supplies—like food, water, and medicine— and be self-sufficient for the entire journey.

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Then there’s the whole acceleration thing. To make sure our hypothetical traveler wouldn’t be obliterated by overwhelming g forces, the ship would need to gradually and steadily accelerate. While steady 1g acceleration (like what we feel on Earth) for a long period of time would eventually get the ship to approach near speed of light, it would add to the length of the trip and minimize how far in the future one could go.

Using our 500-light-year planet example, Gott predicts that the steady acceleration of 1g up to near light speed would increase the aging of the time traveler to 24 years, “but you would still get to visit Earth in the year 3000,” says Gott.

To create a vehicle with these specifications would require a lot of time, resources, and money. But the same can be said for other massively ambitious experiments, like detecting gravitational waves and building the Large Hadron Collider. A time machine could be the world’s next scientific megaproject .

The Trouble of Going in Reverse

But there is one big caveat to this theoretical portrait of real-world time travel— this machine doesn’t go in reverse . While Bill and Ted travel to the past to pick up Socrates with relative ease, in reality, scientists and researchers need to find a way to circumvent the rules of physics in order to travel back in time.

Wormholes , black holes, cosmic strings , and circulating light beams have all been suggested as potential solutions for time-traveling to the past. The main challenge that astrophysicists are grappling with is figuring out is how to beat a light beam to a point in spacetime and back.

“The technology isn’t far off ... we could do it in the next twenty years.”

Since the speed of light is the absolute maximum, physicists are concentrating on finding phenomena like wormholes, which could provide tunnel-like shortcuts that jump across curved spacetime and, in theory, beat a light beam to a particular point in spacetime.

While wormholes do work within the confines of Einstein’s theories of relativity, they have yet to be observed in space, and scientists have no concrete evidence that these galactic shortcuts would even work .

sky, galaxy, space, atmosphere, outer space, spiral galaxy, eye, astronomy, astronomical object, universe,

So while time traveling to the past may be the more exciting concept, scientists are much more likely to fling someone into the unknown future rather than the well-trodden past. But despite overwhelming odds—fiscal and scientific—Mallet believes the future of a time-traveling society is possible.

“What happened with going to the moon ... we wanted to go there, Kennedy asked for it, and there was proper funding so we got there within a decade,” Mallet says. “The technology isn’t far off. If the government and taxpayers wanted to pay for it, we could do it in the next 20 years.”

For now, wannabe time travelers will still have to look to science fiction for a time travel fix, with some movies being much more accurate than others.

“A good movie ... was the original Planet of the Apes ,” says Mallett. “The astronauts thought they had landed on another planet that was ruled by apes, but what they found out ... was that they had traveled so fast, that they had arrived into Earth’s future . That movie accurately depicts Einstein’s special theory of relativity.”

Oh ... spoilers.

Matt is a history, science, and travel writer who is always searching for the mysterious and hidden. He's written for Smithsonian Magazine, Washingtonian, Atlas Obscura, and Arlington Magazine. He calls Washington D.C. home and probably tells way too many cat jokes.

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Is time travel even possible? An astrophysicist explains the science behind the science fiction

Published: Nov 13, 2023

By: Magazine Editor

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Written by Adi Foord , assistant professor of physics , UMBC

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected] .

Will it ever be possible for time travel to occur? – Alana C., age 12, Queens, New York

Have you ever dreamed of traveling through time, like characters do in science fiction movies? For centuries, the concept of time travel has captivated people’s imaginations. Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time, just like you move between different places. In movies, you might have seen characters using special machines, magical devices or even hopping into a futuristic car to travel backward or forward in time.

But is this just a fun idea for movies, or could it really happen?

The question of whether time is reversible remains one of the biggest unresolved questions in science. If the universe follows the laws of thermodynamics , it may not be possible. The second law of thermodynamics states that things in the universe can either remain the same or become more disordered over time.

It’s a bit like saying you can’t unscramble eggs once they’ve been cooked. According to this law, the universe can never go back exactly to how it was before. Time can only go forward, like a one-way street.

Time is relative

However, physicist Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity suggests that time passes at different rates for different people. Someone speeding along on a spaceship moving close to the speed of light – 671 million miles per hour! – will experience time slower than a person on Earth.

People have yet to build spaceships that can move at speeds anywhere near as fast as light, but astronauts who visit the International Space Station orbit around the Earth at speeds close to 17,500 mph. Astronaut Scott Kelly has spent 520 days at the International Space Station, and as a result has aged a little more slowly than his twin brother – and fellow astronaut – Mark Kelly. Scott used to be 6 minutes younger than his twin brother. Now, because Scott was traveling so much faster than Mark and for so many days, he is 6 minutes and 5 milliseconds younger .

Some scientists are exploring other ideas that could theoretically allow time travel. One concept involves wormholes , or hypothetical tunnels in space that could create shortcuts for journeys across the universe. If someone could build a wormhole and then figure out a way to move one end at close to the speed of light – like the hypothetical spaceship mentioned above – the moving end would age more slowly than the stationary end. Someone who entered the moving end and exited the wormhole through the stationary end would come out in their past.

However, wormholes remain theoretical: Scientists have yet to spot one. It also looks like it would be incredibly challenging to send humans through a wormhole space tunnel.

Paradoxes and failed dinner parties

There are also paradoxes associated with time travel. The famous “ grandfather paradox ” is a hypothetical problem that could arise if someone traveled back in time and accidentally prevented their grandparents from meeting. This would create a paradox where you were never born, which raises the question: How could you have traveled back in time in the first place? It’s a mind-boggling puzzle that adds to the mystery of time travel.

Famously, physicist Stephen Hawking tested the possibility of time travel by throwing a dinner party where invitations noting the date, time and coordinates were not sent out until after it had happened. His hope was that his invitation would be read by someone living in the future, who had capabilities to travel back in time. But no one showed up.

As he pointed out : “The best evidence we have that time travel is not possible, and never will be, is that we have not been invaded by hordes of tourists from the future.”

Telescopes are time machines

Interestingly, astrophysicists armed with powerful telescopes possess a unique form of time travel. As they peer into the vast expanse of the cosmos, they gaze into the past universe. Light from all galaxies and stars takes time to travel, and these beams of light carry information from the distant past. When astrophysicists observe a star or a galaxy through a telescope, they are not seeing it as it is in the present, but as it existed when the light began its journey to Earth millions to billions of years ago. https://www.youtube.com/embed/QeRtcJi3V38?wmode=transparent&start=0 Telescopes are a kind of time machine – they let you peer into the past.

NASA’s newest space telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope , is peering at galaxies that were formed at the very beginning of the Big Bang, about 13.7 billion years ago.

While we aren’t likely to have time machines like the ones in movies anytime soon, scientists are actively researching and exploring new ideas. But for now, we’ll have to enjoy the idea of time travel in our favorite books, movies and dreams.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article and see more than 250 UMBC articles available in The Conversation.

Tags: CNMS , Physics , The Conversation

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A beginner's guide to time travel

Learn exactly how Einstein's theory of relativity works, and discover how there's nothing in science that says time travel is impossible.

Actor Rod Taylor tests his time machine in a still from the film 'The Time Machine', directed by George Pal, 1960.

Everyone can travel in time . You do it whether you want to or not, at a steady rate of one second per second. You may think there's no similarity to traveling in one of the three spatial dimensions at, say, one foot per second. But according to Einstein 's theory of relativity , we live in a four-dimensional continuum — space-time — in which space and time are interchangeable.

Einstein found that the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time — you age more slowly, in other words. One of the key ideas in relativity is that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light — about 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second), or one light-year per year). But you can get very close to it. If a spaceship were to fly at 99% of the speed of light, you'd see it travel a light-year of distance in just over a year of time.

That's obvious enough, but now comes the weird part. For astronauts onboard that spaceship, the journey would take a mere seven weeks. It's a consequence of relativity called time dilation , and in effect, it means the astronauts have jumped about 10 months into the future.

Traveling at high speed isn't the only way to produce time dilation. Einstein showed that gravitational fields produce a similar effect — even the relatively weak field here on the surface of Earth . We don't notice it, because we spend all our lives here, but more than 12,400 miles (20,000 kilometers) higher up gravity is measurably weaker— and time passes more quickly, by about 45 microseconds per day. That's more significant than you might think, because it's the altitude at which GPS satellites orbit Earth, and their clocks need to be precisely synchronized with ground-based ones for the system to work properly.

The satellites have to compensate for time dilation effects due both to their higher altitude and their faster speed. So whenever you use the GPS feature on your smartphone or your car's satnav, there's a tiny element of time travel involved. You and the satellites are traveling into the future at very slightly different rates.

But for more dramatic effects, we need to look at much stronger gravitational fields, such as those around black holes , which can distort space-time so much that it folds back on itself. The result is a so-called wormhole, a concept that's familiar from sci-fi movies, but actually originates in Einstein's theory of relativity. In effect, a wormhole is a shortcut from one point in space-time to another. You enter one black hole, and emerge from another one somewhere else. Unfortunately, it's not as practical a means of transport as Hollywood makes it look. That's because the black hole's gravity would tear you to pieces as you approached it, but it really is possible in theory. And because we're talking about space-time, not just space, the wormhole's exit could be at an earlier time than its entrance; that means you would end up in the past rather than the future.

Trajectories in space-time that loop back into the past are given the technical name "closed timelike curves." If you search through serious academic journals, you'll find plenty of references to them — far more than you'll find to "time travel." But in effect, that's exactly what closed timelike curves are all about — time travel

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There's another way to produce a closed timelike curve that doesn't involve anything quite so exotic as a black hole or wormhole: You just need a simple rotating cylinder made of super-dense material. This so-called Tipler cylinder is the closest that real-world physics can get to an actual, genuine time machine. But it will likely never be built in the real world, so like a wormhole, it's more of an academic curiosity than a viable engineering design.

Yet as far-fetched as these things are in practical terms, there's no fundamental scientific reason — that we currently know of — that says they are impossible. That's a thought-provoking situation, because as the physicist Michio Kaku is fond of saying, "Everything not forbidden is compulsory" (borrowed from T.H. White's novel, "The Once And Future King"). He doesn't mean time travel has to happen everywhere all the time, but Kaku is suggesting that the universe is so vast it ought to happen somewhere at least occasionally. Maybe some super-advanced civilization in another galaxy knows how to build a working time machine, or perhaps closed timelike curves can even occur naturally under certain rare conditions.

An artist's impression of a pair of neutron stars - a Tipler cylinder requires at least ten.

This raises problems of a different kind — not in science or engineering, but in basic logic. If time travel is allowed by the laws of physics, then it's possible to envision a whole range of paradoxical scenarios . Some of these appear so illogical that it's difficult to imagine that they could ever occur. But if they can't, what's stopping them?

Thoughts like these prompted Stephen Hawking , who was always skeptical about the idea of time travel into the past, to come up with his "chronology protection conjecture" — the notion that some as-yet-unknown law of physics prevents closed timelike curves from happening. But that conjecture is only an educated guess, and until it is supported by hard evidence, we can come to only one conclusion: Time travel is possible.

A party for time travelers

Hawking was skeptical about the feasibility of time travel into the past, not because he had disproved it, but because he was bothered by the logical paradoxes it created. In his chronology protection conjecture, he surmised that physicists would eventually discover a flaw in the theory of closed timelike curves that made them impossible.

In 2009, he came up with an amusing way to test this conjecture. Hawking held a champagne party (shown in his Discovery Channel program), but he only advertised it after it had happened. His reasoning was that, if time machines eventually become practical, someone in the future might read about the party and travel back to attend it. But no one did — Hawking sat through the whole evening on his own. This doesn't prove time travel is impossible, but it does suggest that it never becomes a commonplace occurrence here on Earth.

The arrow of time

One of the distinctive things about time is that it has a direction — from past to future. A cup of hot coffee left at room temperature always cools down; it never heats up. Your cellphone loses battery charge when you use it; it never gains charge. These are examples of entropy , essentially a measure of the amount of "useless" as opposed to "useful" energy. The entropy of a closed system always increases, and it's the key factor determining the arrow of time.

It turns out that entropy is the only thing that makes a distinction between past and future. In other branches of physics, like relativity or quantum theory, time doesn't have a preferred direction. No one knows where time's arrow comes from. It may be that it only applies to large, complex systems, in which case subatomic particles may not experience the arrow of time.

Time travel paradox

If it's possible to travel back into the past — even theoretically — it raises a number of brain-twisting paradoxes — such as the grandfather paradox — that even scientists and philosophers find extremely perplexing.

Killing Hitler

A time traveler might decide to go back and kill him in his infancy. If they succeeded, future history books wouldn't even mention Hitler — so what motivation would the time traveler have for going back in time and killing him?

Killing your grandfather

Instead of killing a young Hitler, you might, by accident, kill one of your own ancestors when they were very young. But then you would never be born, so you couldn't travel back in time to kill them, so you would be born after all, and so on …

A closed loop

Suppose the plans for a time machine suddenly appear from thin air on your desk. You spend a few days building it, then use it to send the plans back to your earlier self. But where did those plans originate? Nowhere — they are just looping round and round in time.

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Andrew May holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Manchester University, U.K. For 30 years, he worked in the academic, government and private sectors, before becoming a science writer where he has written for Fortean Times, How It Works, All About Space, BBC Science Focus, among others. He has also written a selection of books including Cosmic Impact and Astrobiology: The Search for Life Elsewhere in the Universe, published by Icon Books.

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Exploring the Reality of Time Travel: Science Fact vs. Science Fiction

By Adi Foord, University of Maryland, Baltimore County November 16, 2023

Time travel, a longstanding fascination in science fiction, remains a complex and unresolved concept in science. The second law of thermodynamics suggests time can only move forward, while Einstein’s theory of relativity shows time’s relativity to speed. Theoretical ideas like wormholes offer potential methods, but practical challenges and paradoxes, such as the “grandfather paradox,” complicate the feasibility of actual time travel.

Will it ever be possible for time travel to occur?

But is this just a fun idea for movies, or could it really happen?

The Science Behind Time Travel

Time Is Relative

Theoretical Possibilities and Challenges

Some scientists are exploring other ideas that could theoretically allow time travel. One concept involves wormholes, or hypothetical tunnels in space that could create shortcuts for journeys across the universe. If someone could build a wormhole and then figure out a way to move one end at close to the speed of light – like the hypothetical spaceship mentioned above – the moving end would age more slowly than the stationary end. Someone who entered the moving end and exited the wormhole through the stationary end would come out in their past.

However, wormholes remain theoretical: Scientists have yet to spot one. It also looks like it would be incredibly challenging to send humans through a wormhole space tunnel.

Paradoxes and Failed Dinner Parties

Famously, physicist Stephen Hawking tested the possibility of time travel by throwing a dinner party where invitations noting the date, time, and coordinates were not sent out until after it had happened. His hope was that his invitation would be read by someone living in the future, who had capabilities to travel back in time. But no one showed up.

As he pointed out : “The best evidence we have that time travel is not possible, and never will be, is that we have not been invaded by hordes of tourists from the future.”

James Webb Space Telescope Artist Conception

Artist’s rendering of the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: Northrop Grumman

Telescopes Are Time Machines

Interestingly, astrophysicists armed with powerful telescopes possess a unique form of time travel . As they peer into the vast expanse of the cosmos, they gaze into the past universe. Light from all galaxies and stars takes time to travel, and these beams of light carry information from the distant past. When astrophysicists observe a star or a galaxy through a telescope, they are not seeing it as it is in the present, but as it existed when the light began its journey to Earth millions to billions of years ago.

NASA’s newest space telescope , the James Webb Space Telescope , is peering at galaxies that were formed at the very beginning of the Big Bang , about 13.7 billion years ago.

Written by Adi Foord, Assistant Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

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11 comments on "exploring the reality of time travel: science fact vs. science fiction".

Until the problem of the second law of thermodynamics(entropy) is solved, the concept of time travel will remain the subject of science fiction. Since this is a basic law of our universe, there is no conceivable way that we know of to do this. The great thing about our knowledge of the universe is that it continues to grow and with that our view of what is possible continues to change. After all, at one time it was believed we could never leave earth!

The 7 planets are soul pollen in the space @ life has been the world has been prepared @ The pollen of the universe is hidden @ Around the axis of the galaxy, the universe is hidden@@ The pollen of the galaxies is a hidden cluster Itis made that we thought about what wisdom is in God’s work and how it is arranged in the form of words.The verse that is made is as follows @@ John, you are in time @ worlds, planets around the axis of the branches of galaxies @@ 8 Prophets, divine prophets, God-aware witnesses @ God’s words of revelation, they are aware @@ 48 What the words of revelation that every prophet has about @ sometimes Sometimes the message of God has become a verbal cliché in the head @@ 62 The message of God was given to every prophet @ The message was made around the power of God @@ 46 The truth of the religions of the cradle of time is said in the world @ Prophets always came for justice in time @@ 62 A warrior became brave in time @ Delaver Ghahrmani Boud Taarani@@ 43 Omar Noah never died, who knows!@ Imransan Is there an unseen world, immortality!?@@ 49 Men’s rights in the sign @ Human rights, the observance of world justice @@ 40 We have God’s love @ A love that is not patched, separation!!!: @@ 39 Take one word from the end of the first and second stanzas to the bottom of these eight verbal verses, and this sentence is made @@ God-aware, the world is born, you know the sign of God @ Agah,the beginning of time, the world, eternity, the world of separation @@ The meaning of this sentence is That God, who before us humans lived on the earth, formed the earth’s crusts with full knowledge, and we humans know the sign of God, which is on the earth, on the continents and countries, and some names have been shown by God for our knowledge since the end of time.In a later video, if I have a lifetime left, I will explain exactly about these poems, God willing @@ The word of the Prophet 17 is the 17th and Muhammad (PBUH) said that the Bedouin Arabs should pray 17 rakats so that theyperform ablution and be clean and not kill and loot.From the caravans, these were all God’s will, and he is good everywhere, in every nation, God does not like evildoers, sinners, and oppressors.Muhammad (PBUH) was God’s last messenger to the Arab people, he was God’s best prophet, and the third verse is because they do not accept Muhammad (PBUH).Some Iranians who were in contact with me, that’s why in the third verse of this surah, he said that his message was given to every prophet, the message is based on divine power, and the word truth, the first two letters of which istruth, is truth, and truth is the 43rd and forty-third word, and the word is time.It is exactly 46, and this song of the Prophets was revealed at the age of 46 ببخشید اگر قبلآ مطالبی فرستادم که به مذاهب مذاهم ارتباط داد شاید به درد شما نمیخورد من در کامنت های بعدی سعی میکنم از نجوم و حیات زمین سخن بگویم این چند بیت را به خارجی انگلیسی که تبدیل کردم معنی آن حیرت انگیز تعغیر کرد گفتم برای شما بفرستم و بداند که این کلام من نبوده کلام خداوند بوده شما نظرتان در مورد خداوند چیست من میگویم خداوند که پدر ومادر انسان بودند قادر به ساختن ما بودند اما آیا آنها قادر به ساختن ستاره ها هم بودند

Your comment has validity to God. But it surely has no place here, it is only fare if the hole comment were in english and has less of a convincing push in a belief a person either believes or not.

I thank Johnson for saying that my opinion is valid before God.I read Johnson’s other comments about time.Johnson said that time is forward in physics.Time is determined by us.Previously, Einstein said that if an object moves faster than light, time It becomes zero, and it was said that there is a fourth dimension, I should say that they move a thousand times the speed of physical light, time does not become zero,and the world has three dimensions, length, width, height, but we determined and interpreted this length, width, and height, and we must determine the fourth dimension in At the moment, they did not define the fourth dimension and it does not exist.For now, in the case of Johnson, who said that we should see strange changes faster than light, maybe Johnson was right, but how can we see changes ahead of the speed of light, and what will be the use of Johnson’s opinion?The events that are going to happen in the future must be known.I understood from the Lords who were raised by humans that the earth was previously inhabited by the same humans who lived on the earth, continents and seas in the form of four-legged mammals and humans and birds by humans who lived in the millions.They had years of history, continents and seas were formed on the earth, and those who inhabited the earth before us in the past had advanced so much in the science of astronomy, physics and chemistry that they simulated the souls of humans and raised many godsand lords.By the same Lords, I got very, very important information and secrets that I explained in my comments, but because I have been familiar with this very interesting website for a few weeks, I have not yet provided many comments, but soon more information aboutastronomy.and the structure of the solar system and the earth, the issues of belief and the events that are going to happen in the solar system in a few thousand years, I will report to you, those who are interested, the sun is currently located inthe big arm of the galaxy and it is hitting the stars of this arm, the stars that are close to Neptune Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and eventually hit the sun.There were more than hundreds of stars, all of which were a hundred times smaller than the sun and their mass was several hundred thousand times smaller than the sun, and most of the planets that came with these small stars collided with the objects of the solarsystem.About 240 planets turned into moons and rocky planets of the solar system.I have already said that the sun is slower than the stars of the two arms of the galaxy due to the very heavy mass and weight that it has attached to the stars of the two large arms of the galaxy, but it may not be just becauseof this issue.The objects of the solar system collide with the stars and planets of the arm of the galaxy.Maybe it is because of the very strong gravitational force of several large planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, that the star systems of the arm of the galaxy are pulled towards the solar system.I know for a fact that those who live on earth They had advanced so much in astronomy, chemistry and simulation that they knew about the sad incident of the collision of the stars of the galaxy’s arm with the solar system, that’s why they drew America asa bird that is flying in the sky.God bless you in all the languages of the earth, hoping to meet you dear ones

If the big bang happened, why aren’t there galaxies that are a billion times the size of the Milky Way?I say this theory that when an explosion occurs, the order that galaxies have now could not exist in an explosion in the core of a super black hole, regular materials and elements.They do not spread.I understood from the distance of the stars that the age of the sun is at least a few hundred billion years, and life on earth arose in the last hours and minutes of the sun’s life.It is possible that the earth revolved around the stars of the arm of the galaxy tens of billions of years ago.The galaxy returned to the earth, the moons of the four planets Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, which are about 231 moons, they were separated from the stars that came from the arm of the galaxy towards the sun, from those stars that collidedwith the gas planets, the cause of the hydrogen gas in the gas planets was due to the collision of the stars that I said.Their size is a hundred times smaller than the sun.If those stars had a large size, the earth would never have a temperate climate and it would be so hot that life would never exist. I translate the content that I send to those interested in astronomy and technology on this very interesting website using Google.I retranslate them from Latin to Farsi.Problems occur during translation in dictation, composition and spelling, but because I am very I have to take time to correct them.I sent them to you, dear readers, without any mistakes.I hope you understand the content.If you don’t understand something, call my phone number via text message.Thank you, sorry, and apologies to you, dear doctor.and chosen by the Lords of the world, Mehrdad Kathiri Kasiri time in tehran 10:46 pm

I have to explain a point that there were mistakes in the translation.In the comment at 22:46 that I sent a few minutes ago, I did not say that the stars collided and I did not say that I understood from the distance of the stars how many hundred million years have passed, I said from the distancebetween the stars The arm of the galaxy, I realized that the sun lives not a few years from the age of the sun, I said that since the sun was in the form of a huge cloud and very big and like a nebula, from theage of the formation of the sun to this time, at least a few hundred billion years have passed.

It’s too bad physics can’t come to a complete consensus about time, I would like to add some thought about discoveries it has been proven that time travels in only one direction forward, the experiment dealt with light thru glass and how it reacts in the middle and what change happens after light exits the other side, a simple explanation of this experiment. Brings me to theorize and start that time existed before the big bang and is outside of our universes influence, when time is acted on by gravity the ( Form ) of time is changed until the influence no longer has effect, this could go hand in hand with light photons the photon has a influence in the Form that time has. This can not be a observed difference unless we were to see beyond the speed of light. We do agree that physics changes at a subatomic state and also does some strange changing once the speed of light has been exceeded.

The experiment I referred to was posted on IFL in October 2023 headlined ( Solution to complex light problem shows that time can only go Forward ).

One of the problem with travel time is the one people keep forever. And, that is that the earth is always move through space. Matter of fact, the earth is not in the same place that it was 50 years ago. So you will have to move through space as well as time.

Ironically, the only science fiction that seems to handle this is the original story “The Time Machine”.

Time travel is happening now. It has been done since the 1950s. The method satisfies all the requirements. Traveler can’t change the past, but only observe. You can’t go farther back than when the machine was first invented (1950s). There’s one more limitation, you can only observe what the machine was directed. The time machine, the common video camera, and video tape recorder. Now it’s the camera, and file capture computer. Yes, viewing a video tape is effectively going back in time. It’s more than the video, it’s the sound too. There are working versions of smell, and touch which can be recorded too. If you record, and replicate all the senses, you have effectively complete time travel. The most primitive form is the picture. This technology has been around for thousands of years, and is manually intensive. Later many pictures were strung together to make a film. Using a camera to record film was the first example of complete visual time travel (back to when the film was made). Later sound was added, and we have the movies. A way of going back in time that included sight, and sound. Now we have video systems (YouTub) that can play back past events selected by you. Yes, video systems are virtual time travel machines we have now.

Tom Mariner | December 17, 2023 at 5:26 am | Reply The folks “out there” are just answering the SETI message sent by the Arecibo radar station in Puerto Rico in 1974.

Our neighbors light years away are waiting for another message from that most power radar transmitter ever, but the bright lights have turned the facility into a STEM training facility after other organizations stole the money from Puerto Rico.

dr mehrdad kesiri | December 18, 2023 at 9:06 am | Reply Steve | December 9, 2023 at 6:20 pm | Reply

Would you be able to calculate if the whole multiverse Is spinning and depending on the distance. You are from the center you would be going faster than in another position?

Fixed gravity for you. | December 10, 2023 at 1:20 am | Reply

Kroupa is allowed out there with high profile exposure because he’s flacking for an idea by a new hero of famously top-dog self-victimizing self-absorbed insect opportunists, as Einstein’s gravity theory is becoming known as a closet failure over-celebrated by the generation that bred said famously top-dog self-victimizing self-absorbed insect opportunists.

Fixed gravity for you. | December 10, 2023 at 1:48 am | Reply

The overexposed cat icon seems to be a free-range reddit group run by AI frat boys.

Fixed gravity for you. | December 10, 2023 at 8:35 am | Reply

Replacing “expansion of the universe” with “dilation of the photon” would not be respecting “an establishment of religion” (establishment of a religion-based theory) but science has no bill of rights and gravity experts are prone to shunning reason anyway.

dr mehrdad kesiri | December 17, 2023 at 7:36 am | Reply

I understand to a certain extent, but religion and religions always interfere with progress and old religions should be put aside.I am the representative of your Lords and I am the master of time with hundreds of signs.The Lords of the world tried for hundreds of years until they came to the conclusion that they had to remove the disturbing religions by bringing the new religion and law of God in the Middle East because many people abused religion and came to power.Unfortunately, that person who should appear with his companions I am, but this work will be done because all the signs that the Lords of the world have placed on me in the earth and time are the numbers that are connected to time in the date ofmy birth and the surahs that have been revealed to me.The surahs and the words of the surahs, which are numbered, connect us to the words of signs and time.What we mean is that when the words are counted, they are connected to the time of the events of the words.This issue is very important.I will give you an example.I was injured in the history of 365 and this number belongs to time.This is the kind of owner of time, and God has revealed books, treatises, and surahs to me.This is a religious debate.It has something to do with astronomy, and the destruction of life on Earth, which God said earlier, is the end of time.The sun is hitting the big arm of the galaxy, and it is possible.It is possible that life on earth will be destroyed.This happened more or less a hundred million years ago and humans have raised gods.It is possible that in a few hundred years we will be able to raise gods with the help of artificial intelligence, physics and chemistry.A thousand system stars have joined our solar bodies and collided with Mars and Earth.No stars and planets from the arm of the galaxy that came towards the Sun did not collide with Earth and Mars, but when they collided with gas planets and the Sun, the system The stars of the arm of the galaxy after hitting the sun, theelements of the said planets and stars, like meteorites, their elements hit the earth and the life of the earth was destroyed about a hundred million years ago.This is the true story of Dr. Mehrdad Kathiri. thank you gods by time in in tehran 7:07

Should America, Britain and its allies be silent, why did they allow Imam Khomeini (RA) to brutally shoot those great chosen ones of the Gods of the Earth?Then God struck the parliament in the year 60 and seventy-two people were killed from those who signed the order to shoot the soldiers.Was it the will of the lords of the gods of the soldiers to avenge the blood of the soldiers that Khomeini and the Ayatollah approved in the Islamic Council of the Islamic Republic?Did they follow the order that Imam Khomeini had given for the execution and shooting of the soldiers?Why do the Gods of Iran send Al-Qaeda to shoot the American passenger planes inside the twin towers on September 11?Maybe these things were done by the Gods of the Earth.It is not known.Before al-Qaeda carried out that brutal suicide operation, in the same way as the United States in 1967, they fired two missiles at the Iranian passenger plane from the launcher, and the missiles proved to the Iranian passenger plane that the two F-14fighters Iran was escorting a passenger plane to reach the destination of Dubai, 290 people were killed in the skies of the Persian Gulf of Iranzmin, 290 innocent people were killed.I don’t know if this was the will of the gods of the earth, that Imam Khomeini should sign Resolution 598, or it was the will of American politicians, why didn’t the big powers stop that horrible and brutal crime of the evilImam Khomeini and Iranian mullahs in 1957?that the gods of Iran bring war in Iran, where the mullahs forbid a morsel, a morsel, a morsel that is not halal, or the mullahs take a morsel from the Islamic Qur’an, God and the people are not pleased that the mullahseat that morsel, the mullahs do not work, most of them and Hafiz The great Iranian poet in 900 years ago, when the Arab mullahs had dominated Iran and the Arabs had attacked the Iranian soil, Muhammad Hafez said in Surah Vaizan that the sheikhs andmullahs eat a morsel of ghosts and hypocrisy, and the mullahs are heartless in the work of God, which means interference.In the case of Iran, the mullahs act as judges and the god of Iran.The mullahs are the judges in Hafez’s poem, which means God.Why did they start the war between Iran and Iraq?The gods of Iran, after the mullahs slaughtered the soldiers unjustly, say that they are stupid and ignorant anklets.In one night, 57 generals and officers of the imperial army Iran was executed and shot, I say Khalkhali is crazy, he didn’t know that the imperial government had spent millions of dollars for a general.Until that general, Khalkhali became a general because of the enemy he made to the Iranian army and destroyed Reza Shah’s grave.People should curse him the worst.But The messenger of the gods of the earth tells me, Mehrdad, you are the representative of the gods of the world of Iran, don’t call anyone a bastard, or if you say a bastard, say that he himself was a bastard,neither his family nor his ancestor, the messenger of the gods of the earth tells me, Mehrdad, because you are the most accurate person, the kindest person, and the smartest.And you are the greatest poet of Iran.Perhaps the gods and lords of the earth chose you, and perhaps they raised you from Nadfa, who entrusted your justice to you.May the gods bring forth the truth and truth of religions until the world is no longer at war over the old religions.As for religion and religions, because religions are a collection of religions, they disturb peoples and nations, like Islam, which is not a religion, there are religions that disturb people.Is it possible to follow all the religions of Islam?Also, know why the word disturbing is the same family as religions.Why is the word disturbing similar to religions?

I am the owner of time, with dozens of signs in the date of my birth, the gods and lords of Iran, the God of the world, made me the owner of time, that is, the owner of time means the chosen ones.Gods who are connected to time, those who own time on earth in this age, what There may be many people like me on earth, people in Iran should own their time in a different way, because they say that the Imam of the Time doesnot appear except with his companions, but I do not say that I am the Imam of the Time, because of Imam Khomeini who destroyed Iran.I use the word Imam.Before and after 1957, there was Khomeini, whose father was a rebel and was executed by Reza Shah, and Khomeini took revenge from the army for his father Seyyed Mustafa Khomeini, and in 1958, when he came to Iran, he killed hundreds of armytroops.I hate the word imam, but the people of Iran tell me that you are the imam of the time, but I say that I am not the imam of the time and I am the owner of the time with dozens of signs.The earth and in the eight surahs that were revealed to me.I am the owner of time and a human being.I am like all Iranians, but the difference between me and others is that I know what is happening in the unseen world and I will inform you about the future of the earth in time.My date of birth and age with street numbers Tehran and the squares of Tehran are related to time in history when numbers are connected to the year.These things I want to claim have a reason because I am the owner of time and the only representative of the gods of the earth.I know all the secrets of the unseen world and dozens of signs.In the places where I said the street numbers of Tehran and Tehran squares, I was connected to time, for example, how in 1960, when I was 17 years old, our house was on 117th Street, or I was 54 years old.Our house was exactly on 54 Square.At the age of 55. We bought a house at 55 Narmak Square.I was injured in Qasr Shirin war zone in 365, and 365 is the middle of the year, which is the leap year of 366, and I finished my service in the 88th army division in 66 and I did three jobs.88 Zahedan, I did three things.I brought the ammunition to the front line.I brought food to the front line for three companies from the 196th battalion of the 88th army and led the warriors and soldiers to the front line.That is, I was… in the middle of my military career, I went to the army I helped the 88th Armored Division of Zahedan, that is, I helped the army of the 88th Armored Division of Zahedan.I was an IFA driver and I played my role like this, and five times at a distance of a few meters and tens of meters, a Russian IFA truck that was I was driving and was hit by bullets and mortars from a French tank.Our car hit the ground, but maybe the gods of the earth saved me from all the attacks and fire that Saddam Hussein’s military party threw at us soldiers, many fires on the war front.They gave me, but I was lucky to survive in high school.When I was in my first year, in 1957, the guide of the revolution became available, and I was in the seventh grade, and it was the year 1957, and I was connected to time.I belonged to the imperial government and Mohammad Reza Shah was 11 years old.He fed millions of students all over Iran every day, but for several years I was unable to guide people in religion, which direction to go, and I was 17 years old.I should not raise these issues

But there are many issues that I am connected to time, but you should say, well, what is the use of these things that God has placed me as the owner of time on earth, who has chosen me and chosen me as the savior andleader of the world, to the people of Iran.guide and let the elders of the world accept my proxy to express the orders of the Lord according to the order of the new religion and religion that God has revealed to me so that justice is done and we understand that Muslims especially in the Middle East willnot fight over the old religions because Islam It has been everywhere, the Muslim men of those Muslim countries were at war, why should the people of the earth still fight over religious and Islamic issues?Prejudice, prejudices?Why did Israel, Palestine and Iran go to war with Iraq?How am I the owner of time?There is a number in the date of my birth.When I multiply my date of birth from the beginning and the end, it is equal to the speed of the earth.It is obtained in one second and one hour.The speed of the earth and the speed of light are obtained in one second and one hour.And these are all related to time.You can multiply the date, month, year, and decade of my birthday.Then comes the number 90, and the number ninety is related to the right angle, and Qam has several meanings.Qam means a ninety-degree angle.Qam means firm.Unfortunately, Mehrdad is the ruler of time and being the representative of God is not interesting to me.Now how am I the owner of time when ninety multiplied by 40, which is forty, is ten Kan. On my date of birth, ninety multiplied by forty equals three thousand six hundred three thousand six hundred seconds in one hour, and This is howI am the ruler of time in the combination of my father’s birthday, which is Muhammad, and he was born on the 17th, and I was born on the 43rd, together with my father’s birthday, which is the 17th, and my birthday, whichis the 43rd.60 and sixty seconds in one minute and sixty minutes in One hour should be 360 and I was 17 years old in the year 360. And from a school in Vahidiya called Hefdeh Azar, that school was called when I was 17 years old andwe went to 17th Street in Tehran, Pars.You should know that there is a very strange issue that you You must know that I know for sure that God has chosen me in such a way that England and America, who are the most versatile people in the world, should know the secret of whoI am, Mehrdad, the owner of time, and why God has entrusted all the secrets of the earth to me.See, words are not like that.pass by them, there is a secret in the words of the Lord of the Earth, that not everyone is privy to the secrets of God, that God will reveal this secret to a human being, if the capacity and tolerance of that person is notperfect and he does not have the capacity to hear it, with whom should the secret be kept explain the world of the unseen and how they can help the justice of God to be implemented by his savior who unfortunately this very heavy responsibility is institutionalized on Mehrdad’sshoulders.

This very, very heavy responsibility on Mehrdad is institutionalized in me.This issue is so complex, sensitive and precise that it has no limits.Maybe I know the entire secret of the creation of the earth and the creation of the universe, but this is not an interesting thing for me, a person who knows everything.He can’t have a peaceful life.These issues in the date of my son’s birth become more complicated by combining my own date of birth, my wife’s date of birth with birth certificate number and my date.My birthday with the date and the time I was in my mother’s womb with the addition of the day I was born will be the number of 114 surahs of the Qur’an, the number of 30 parts of the Qur’an and the number of60 parts of the Qur’an, all in the combination of the dates that I said at the time of my birth with the date of birth I and the number 17 of the Muslim prayer and the number 72, which is related to the seventy-two people who were killed, are related to the story of the Qur’an.By combining the dates of birth of my paternal family members with mine and dozens of these more complicated issues, it made me wonder how they could do God’s work.So, compared to the work of the gods and lords of the world, it is very strange and amazing and immeasurable.It is not possible for anyone to learn from me all the experiences that I have and have experienced about the unseen world, and now I have learned all my knowledge in one night, unless you have experienced what I have experienced in practice, the same problemthat I have said, but I I may not be a happy person.I have not saved anything from the world and I suffered very, very hard.I was forced to go to camps for 11 years and sat in 900 sessions in Narcotics Anonymous and collected the experiences of others.If he has worked the twelve steps and sat for ninety sessions and listened to the words, he will become a saint.A saint means, for example, he will become a professor and perhaps a philosopher, but I sat for 900 sessions and listened to the words, and later I understood that all of this was a divine test.I will tell you later.I am sending a message that I have a book and a treatise, and the great powers of the world should help me bring my treatise to the fore, so that the old religions become new and the disturbing religions are abandoned, and the law of thegods and the masters of the world gradually take the place of religion and religions.He revealed and said that the time has come for the Muslims of the world to follow the law instead of religion, and the treatise that I bring from the Lords and Masters of the world separated religion and religion from politics and did not make the choice ofreligion mandatory, our Lord God said that time It has come that the law works instead of religion, and God and our reason said that mankind has progressed so much in terms of establishing security in countries that there is no longer a need for the clergy toforbid people from sinning and history has shown that in order to implement the orders of the Qur’an The old religions are the most abuses and killings of Muslims because of disturbing religions and the time has come for God to bring a new religion and religion thatrepresents God from among the Shiites who should be from those who agree with the Islamic principles of the Qur’an and the correct verses of the Qur’an and the perspective of the Qur’an.I have to reveal the book of God’s law that I have written

to bring to light so that old religions become new and disturbing religions are abandoned and the law of God and the masters of the world gradually take the place of religion and religions.God revealed to me and said that the time has come for the Muslims of the world to practice law instead of religion which I bring from the Gods and the masters of the world, they separated religion from politics and did not force the choice of religion.The idea of establishing security in countries where there is no longer a need for clerics to forbid people from sinning and history has shown that due to the implementation of the false orders of the old books of religions, the most abuses and killings of Muslimsare due to disturbing religions and it is time that God By bringing a new religion and religion that is the representative of God from among the Shiites, he must be one of those who agree with the Islamic principles of the Qur’an and the correct versesof the Qur’an and the view of the Qur’an.He set me up with the Quran and other times when the numbers of the times are related to the verses of the holy books and to the times when I am connected in the numbers of the squares of Tehran to the numbers of the verses of the Quranin the times when I was residing in Mehrdad and I was living in the numbers The fields that are related to the numbers of the verses of the Quran, none of the Muslims, especially the clergy of Iran, can not accept Mehrdad’s being chosen and theowner of time, who is the vicegerent of the time, the vicegerent, the savior, and the savior of the human world, but I have nothing to do with ordinary people.I have no difference from a human point of view, only my difference is that the Gods and the masters of the world chose me to put aside the old religions and wars and conflicts because of religious, ethnic, racial differences and other issues, etc., which caused war, and no religion over another There is no superiority.All religions lived in order to guide mankind to the right and true path.They came so that people should have good deeds and good behavior.Whether these principles came from God or from earthly people, we must be righteous and righteous.I was 17 years old.We went to Haq Azar Middle School, Tehran, Pars Khazarin, 117. I shouldn’t bring up these issues, but there are many issues that I am tied to time, but you say, well, what is the use of these things thatGod has given me time on earth to to be chosen by the world as a savior and executor to guide the people of Iran and let the elders of the world accept my proxy so that I can put forward the divine orders through the orders of the religionand the new religion that God has revealed to me.Lord, so that justice is done and realized, and Muslims, especially in the Middle East, do not fight over old religions, because wherever Islam was, the Muslim men of those Muslim countries were fighting, why should people still fight over religious issues andIslamic prejudices, Israel and Palestine.And why did Iran and Iraq go to war?How do I own time?Now there are signs in my birth date.When I multiply my date of birth from beginning to end, it is equal to the speed of the earth.It is obtained in one second and one hour.The speed of the earth and the speed of light are obtained in one second and one hour

And these are all related to time.From the day, month, year, to the decade of my birth, multiply it and get the time ruler.In the combination of the birth of my father who is Muhammad and he was born on the 17th and I was born on the 43rd with the birth My father, who is 17 years old, and my birthday, which is 43, are combined.60 and sixty seconds in a minute and sixty minutes in an hour.It may be 360 and I was 17 in 360. These issues in the date of my son’s birth are combined with my own date of birth., my wife’s date of birth is complicated with birth certificate number and my date.Birthday with my wife and son, combining the date of birth of my paternal family members with me and dozens of such things.He thought how to do God’s work.Work May the gods of the world be so precise that all this is shown to me, compared to the work of the gods and lords of the world, it is very strange and amazing and immeasurable, this is how Iran is connected to the earth.It was connected and has a strange meaning.The old word Iran-earth I remember 52 years.Before the start of the nationwide program of the Iranian television network, which started working, the logo of the program was Iranzmin, the name of the program of the first channel of Iranzmin and Iran was a message to all the countries of the earth.In terms of the language of the gods and lords of the earth, there are many words.I have to say because I have to tell and tell the truths of the gods of the earth.Why am I the owner of time, because I know from the future what will happen in the world and what will come to the earth and what will be the order of the gods of the earth for the superpowers of the world and my religions.I am saying important things, but those who were from the Iranian army were shot in 1958 and 1957 by Imam Khomeini (RA) and the leadership of the Assembly of Experts.The execution and shooting of generals were done by the Ayatollahs, but why America and England?did not stop them from being executed, know that the structure of the gods made by humans is so detailed that I believe there are forty of your gods.It still appears in various forms.I could not understand the structure of your gods and my gods, but you The superpowers of the world, with all that progress, you still haven’t been able to understand the secrets of God’s creation, how many million years of history and civilization didhumans have?When did the earth get destroyed?It has been burning for trillions of years and the earth is a planet that has been formed for twenty billion years, but it was not habitable because it has thousands of active volcanoes.Scientists said that the life of the universe is about thirteen billion years.A year has passed, but now that the James Webb telescope The most distant galaxies arrived, those galaxies said that they are ninety-seven billion light-years away from us earthlings.Now they should say that ninety-seven billion years have passed since the age of the universe, but this is not the case.The distance of the galaxies has nothing to do with the age of the universe.No bang.Consider that two hundred billion galaxies are placed in a black hole, in that big black hole there will be no healthy hydrogen atoms left and after the explosion the stars will be reborn and in a very, very big explosion, it’s great.Materials Chemicals, proteins and vitamins, which are the necessary ingredients for life.They are not healthy enough to create life on a planet next to the stars after the big bang.I said thirty years ago that Herschel and Kepler’s theory could not be true.

Of course, I read the book Asterism and the Galaxy, which the two American scientists used a radio telescope to emit microwave waves from the galaxies, and it took billions of years for them to reach the earth.They were able to imagine the world with that very large radio telescope and I saw the images of billions of galaxies opened my mind and I read that astronomy book when we were in Tehran Pars Street 117 and I was 17 years old, that is forty-two years ago I had read that book and at that time I also believed in the Big Bang theory I had my doubts about the two great American scientists, but I would not reject it.However, I accept America, which is very supportive.Its astronaut scientists are the first to speak in the world, but the general policy of America is in the hands of the big American capitalists, and they, unfortunately, determine the final decisions of the Parliament and the Assembly.They are the enemies of America, and this has caused the United States to implement policies for the countries of the Middle East region in which the economic interests of the United States are considered, and this policy has caused a lot of damage to Iranians, whichincludes many other social and cultural issues.The clerics have been left open in Iran and this policy of American politicians has caused the power in Iran to be in the hands of a handful of religious sheikhs, mullahs and extreme Shia ayatollahs in Iran and the situation of the unfortunate people of Iran and theMuslim people of the Middle East since the time when Christians The priest and the pope held power in Europe and committed heinous crimes against the people of Europe.The situation of the people of Iran is no better than during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it is even worse.And the institution, headquarters, and courts that the clerics had at their disposal have already been shown in history that they oppressed the people through both Islamic and Christian religions.And they came to power according to the Qur’an, they were the cruelest religious government and they committed so much cruelty and murder.Just refer to the history books of Tabari and Sana’i.It is not necessary for me to explain anymore.I only ask America and England, which are the great powers of the world, to Help me so that I can reveal the instructions of our Gods, whose language is the Gods and masters of the world, most of them are Farsi, perhaps all theGods of the earth, those who previously had millions of years of history on the earth came to the conclusion that the alphabets of the Gods who create should be It should be Farsi because the most accurate alphabet and words are in Farsi and the signs I sawon the countries and seas are related to Farsi.This issue is so important in the work of the authors of the earth and you should not easily pass it by.Regarding this issue, it is very, very important.I can’t explain it in a few pages, but over time, I will send you a message in this regard, the great servers of the world, and let me also say that when I translate Persian into English, you know the text,dictation, and spelling will change, but you will understand the meaning of the text in general.May you understand Mehrdad, chosen by God, the land of Iran, may he protect you in all stages of your life

Sorry thank you dr aghakesiri ghaeem sahebzaman in iran and universal

How Stellar Cannibalism Illuminates Cosmic Evolution

جزایر فیلیپین دایناسوری که توسط انسان خلق شده در بیش ده ها میلیون سال و بخاطر ریخته شدن دوهزار متر خاک غرق شده بخاطر بالا آمدن آب اقیانوس اما جزایر فیلیپین شبیه دایناسوریست

The address of the above comment on the site about a thief who was trained by a dinosaur bird who was trained by humans tens of millions of years ago and who arrested murderers and robbers.The police were arrested by big birds.don’t the scientists of the world think about this?They were buried in the bed of important cities, they were buried with all the tools and machines, the traces of humans tens of millions of years ago, they had a civilization and a history of hundreds of thousands of years, they built a base underthe earth, from the meteorites that explode from the planets when they hit the sun, and they knew that several thousand meters of soil is poured on the surface of the seas and islands, and they knew that the shapes they made of the islands in thecountry of Papua may go under the ocean, of course, the Philippine islands.The picture is of a baby dinosaur that went under the ocean, but the northern island of Australia, which is Papua, is quite clear.It is a big dinosaur whose tail is towards the east and its mouth is open towards the west.There is the Philippines, but it was more difficult to take the soil to the Philippine islands to create a dinosaur than the island of Papua, that is why the height of the soil in the Philippines is lower, and when the meteorites fell a few kilometerson the surface of the ocean, the image created by humans under the ocean in the shape of a dinosaur is hidden in the American continent The picture is of a bird in the shape of a dinosaur that is flying, and this bird was made to flyby the Indians of the tribe, that bird was talking to people, but its spirit might have heard something from the police because a thief while in the bird’s mouth He was handcuffed by the police and the weapon, which is a machine gun, is fromthe east of the American continent on the coast

The country of Florida is a machine gun.When you continue to New York City, you will reach the mouth of the dinosaur, where a thief is trapped in the mouth of a bird, and the little finger of the police handcuffed the thief’s hand, and a small colt is in the hand ofthe thief, who the police caught in the mouth of the dinosaur.put in the mouth of the bird dinosaur, you can clearly see that the thief fell on the ground and was shot in the head, and it is clear that his forehead was pierced, the bird’s mouth is open in flight, the head of the birdis from the east of the American continent, and a fish is placed in the bird’s mouth in the water of the ocean.The stretched glove of the police, which is in the form of a fist, with a handcuff attached to the left hand of the thief who fell on the ground in the sea and the mouth of the bird, the head of the thief and the killer, is located towards the southwest and west coast of America.All these images were created from the American continent and islands by Humans were created, but they didn’t have enough fuel and time to create more accurate images and meteorites ruined the beauty of the images, but it is clear that all these changes were createdby humans, but you have to consider that two thousand meters of soil from meteorites are fish.And they buried the whales under the beaches, and after a very long time, the bodies of the whales turned into oil under the two thousand meters of soil on the beaches, and on the other hand, the presence of two thousand meters of soil onthe surface of the seas and droughts could not make the created images disappear.

Is time travel possible? Why one scientist says we 'cannot ignore the possibility.'

A common theme in science-fiction media , time travel is captivating. It’s defined by the late philosopher David Lewis in his essay “The Paradoxes of Time Travel” as “[involving] a discrepancy between time and space time. Any traveler departs and then arrives at his destination; the time elapsed from departure to arrival … is the duration of the journey.”

Time travel is usually understood by most as going back to a bygone era or jumping forward to a point far in the future . But how much of the idea is based in reality? Is it possible to travel through time?

Is time travel possible?

According to NASA, time travel is possible , just not in the way you might expect. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity says time and motion are relative to each other, and nothing can go faster than the speed of light , which is 186,000 miles per second. Time travel happens through what’s called “time dilation.”

Time dilation , according to Live Science, is how one’s perception of time is different to another's, depending on their motion or where they are. Hence, time being relative.

Learn more: Best travel insurance

Dr. Ana Alonso-Serrano, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Germany, explained the possibility of time travel and how researchers test theories.

Space and time are not absolute values, Alonso-Serrano said. And what makes this all more complex is that you are able to carve space-time .

“In the moment that you carve the space-time, you can play with that curvature to make the time come in a circle and make a time machine,” Alonso-Serrano told USA TODAY.

She explained how, theoretically, time travel is possible. The mathematics behind creating curvature of space-time are solid, but trying to re-create the strict physical conditions needed to prove these theories can be challenging.

“The tricky point of that is if you can find a physical, realistic, way to do it,” she said.

Alonso-Serrano said wormholes and warp drives are tools that are used to create this curvature. The matter needed to achieve curving space-time via a wormhole is exotic matter , which hasn’t been done successfully. Researchers don’t even know if this type of matter exists, she said.

“It's something that we work on because it's theoretically possible, and because it's a very nice way to test our theory, to look for possible paradoxes,” Alonso-Serrano added.

“I could not say that nothing is possible, but I cannot ignore the possibility,” she said.

She also mentioned the anecdote of Stephen Hawking’s Champagne party for time travelers . Hawking had a GPS-specific location for the party. He didn’t send out invites until the party had already happened, so only people who could travel to the past would be able to attend. No one showed up, and Hawking referred to this event as "experimental evidence" that time travel wasn't possible.

What did Albert Einstein invent?: Discoveries that changed the world

Just Curious for more? We've got you covered

USA TODAY is exploring the questions you and others ask every day. From "How to watch the Marvel movies in order" to "Why is Pluto not a planet?" to "What to do if your dog eats weed?" – we're striving to find answers to the most common questions you ask every day. Head to our Just Curious section to see what else we can answer for you.

Science in School

Time travel: science fact or science fiction understand article.

Author(s): Jim Al-Khalili

Do you believe that time travel has no place in a serious science lesson? Jim Al-Khalili from the University of Surrey, UK, disagrees. He shows how the topic of time travel introduces some of the ideas behind Einstein’s theories of relativity.

When physicists want to get people excited about their subject, they usually turn to cosmology or particle physics. There is always going to be something exciting to say about space or the search for new particles at the Large Hadron Collider (for a discussion of the LHC, see Landua & Rau, 2008 , and Landua, 2008 ). Of course, it is far more challenging to make electromagnetism or thermodynamics sound exciting.

So is introducing a subject like time travel a little like giving in to science fiction? I would argue not. In fact, I think it is an excellent way of getting across some of the basic ideas behind Einstein’s theories of relativity (yes, there are two of them). One can begin by asking the simple yet emotive question: is time travel really possible? Anyone who has watched a movie such as The Terminator or is a fan of Dr Who may worry that the concept of time travel, while great fun to contemplate, is just nonsense with no place in real science. However, not only do the laws of physics allow for time travel, but it has also been proven possible in many experiments.

Of course I should qualify this bold statement by pointing out that only time travel into the future has actually been achieved. Time travel into the past is much more difficult, and is probably impossible. What is so fascinating, though, is that it cannot be ruled out yet. My aim in this article is to explain the difference between these two directions of time travel and to show how relativity theory forced physicists to abandon common-sense notions about the nature of time itself.

Isaac Newton: the common sense approach?

Until Isaac Newton completed his work on the laws of motion in 1687, the definition of time had been considered to be the domain of philosophy rather than science. However, when Newton described how objects move under the influence of forces, time was an integral part of his mathematical description of reality, since all movement and change require the notion of time to make sense. Newton viewed time as absolute and relentless; he described it as existing entirely outside of space and independent of all processes that occur within space. This is still the view that most of us have: we think of time as flowing at a constant rate, as though there were an imaginary cosmic clock that marks off the seconds, hours and years regardless of our feelings about the passage of time. We have no influence on its rate of flow and cannot make it speed up or slow down. We feel we know what time is – but no one really does. The best definitions we have are rather silly, like saying ‘time is nature’s way of stopping everything happening at once!’ or ‘time flows by at a constant rate of one second every second’. What on earth does that mean anyway?

Was Newton right? Does such absolute time really exist? Albert Einstein showed that it doesn’t.

Albert Einstein: a revolutionary

In 1905, Einstein discovered, through his study of the nature of light, that time and space are not independent but are intimately linked. His ideas became known as the special theory of relativity, which heralded a revolution in physics. It showed how and why the old notions of space and time had to be replaced with a new and unfamiliar set of concepts. Basically, relativity theory unifies time with the three dimensions of space into something called space-time. This is where the idea of time as the fourth dimension comes from.

In 1915, ten years after his work on special relativity, Einstein completed his theory of gravity, known as the general theory of relativity. Widely regarded as the most beautiful scientific theory ever discovered, it describes how the gravitational effects of matter affect space-time. This led to many exciting predictions that were subsequently shown to be correct, such as the birth of the Universe in the Big Bang and the existence of black holes.

But let us return to the topic of special relativity. Einstein showed that for anything (or anyone) travelling at speeds approaching that of light – an impressive three hundred thousand kilometres per second – time literally runs more slowly. The closer to the speed of light that a clock moves, the slower it will tick as seen by observers watching it zoom past. Nowadays, the slowing down of time is confirmed routinely in particle accelerators, such as the CERN facility in Switzerland w1 . Many physics students get a chance to see this effect in the laboratory by observing a certain type of sub-atomic particle called a muon (pronounced ‘mew-on’) w2 .

Let us consider a simple example with numbers. A sprinter runs 100 metres in exactly ten seconds, according to the reliable and highly accurate timekeeping of the judges. Had he, however, carried his own very accurate stopwatch along with him, then, due to time slowing down very slightly for him, his watch would show a time of 9.999999999995 seconds. Of course, this is so close to ten seconds that we would never know the difference. However, scientists routinely need to measure times with this sort of accuracy. The difference between the runner’s and the judges’ watches is just five picoseconds; it is such a small time difference because the athlete is moving so much slower than light.

This is actually quite a subtle concept. If people know anything about the theory of relativity, it tends to be its insistence that all motion is relative. So why is it the sprinter’s watch that runs slower, hence recording the shorter time? If all motion is relative, then we should be able to argue that it is in fact the track that is moving relative to the sprinter. So it should be the judges’ trackside watches that run slower. This is true, but in reality the situation is not completely symmetrical. For one thing, the sprinter has to accelerate and decelerate and this change in speed affects the rate at which his time goes by, relative to that of the judges. Another way of understanding why the sprinter’s stopwatch reads a faster time is that, for him, the distance he has to run is in fact slightly less than 100 metres. This is another consequence of the theory of relativity: that distances are shortened when you move very fast.

High-speed motion: time travel to the future

As this is beginning to sound somewhat strange, we might as well explore how it all links up with time travel. The idea of time slowing down gives us, quite literally, a means of time travel into the future. If you were to travel around our galaxy in a rocket, at close to the speed of light for, say, four years, you would get quite a shock when you returned home to Earth. If your onboard calendar said you left in January 2005 and returned in January 2009, then depending on your exact speed and how twisted your path was through the stars, you might find that on Earth, the year was 2045 and everyone had aged 40 years! They would be equally shocked to see how young you still looked considering how long you had, according to them, been away.

Inside the rocket, four years would have elapsed while Earth-bound clocks counted off 40 years. This means that you would have, for all intents and purposes, leapt 36 years into the future.

This effect has been checked and confirmed many times in different experiments to extremely high degrees of accuracy. In 1971, J. C. Hafele and Richard E. Keating placed four highly accurate atomic clocks on a jet aircraft and flew them eastwards around Earth. After the jet returned, the onboard clocks were compared with reference atomic clocks at the US Naval Observatory: the travelling clocks were a tiny fraction of a second behind the reference clocks ( Hafele & Keating, 1972a , 1972b ) w3 . Even though the jet had a ground speed of up to a thousand kilometres per hour, the speed of light is a further million times greater than this, hence the very small and rather unimpressive difference between the two groups of clocks. Nevertheless, that difference is real and the clocks are so accurate that we do not doubt their readings or the conclusions we draw from them.

Time travel to the past?

Time travel to the past, it turns out, is much more difficult. To many people, it might come as a surprise that travelling forward in time is easier than travelling backward. If anything, you might think that the notion of travelling into the future is the more ridiculous. The past may well be inaccessible, but at least it is out there in some sense: it has happened. The future on the other hand, has yet to happen. How can we visit a time that has not yet happened? However, time travel to the future by high-speed motion does not require the future to be already ‘out there’ waiting for us. What it means is that we move out of everyone else’s time frame and into one in which time moves more slowly. While we are in this state, time outside ticks by more quickly and the future unfolds at high speed. When we rejoin our original time frame, we will have reached the future more quickly than everyone else.

On the other hand, there are many mind-boggling examples of how ridiculous things would be if time travel to the past were possible. For example, what if you were to go back in time, to last year for example, and kill your younger self. What would happen then? Would you simply pop out of existence as the younger you slumps to the ground? And if you died last year, who would have killed you? I know this is a bit morbid, but it is a well-known paradox. Think about it. It seems you cannot kill your younger self because you must survive the assassination attempt to become the assassin. The thing to remember about time travel to the past is that you are allowed to meddle with history as long as things still turn out the way they do. You cannot change the past.

In principle, there would be two ways of going back to the past. One is by going backwards through time, during which the hands of your watch would move anticlockwise. This would require faster-than-light speeds which relativity theory tells us are impossible, and so is not the sort of time travel I am discussing here. The other way is by travelling what appears to you to be forward in time (your watch runs forwards) but by moving along a warped path through space-time that takes you back to your past (like looping the loop on a roller coaster). Such a loop is known in physics as a closed time-like curve and has been the subject of intense theoretical research during the past decade. Perhaps surprisingly, it has been known for half a century that Einstein’s equations of general relativity allow such closed time-like curves: the American mathematician Kurt Gödel showed in 1949 that this type of time travel into the past was theoretically possible.

So what is all the fuss about? Time travel to the future has been done and time travel to the past, while difficult, has not been ruled out by theory. What are we waiting for? Why haven’t we built a time machine yet? The problem is that, apart from the fact that closed time-like curves in space-time are exceedingly difficult to create, we do not really understand them theoretically. As things stand at the beginning of the 21st century, general relativity tells us that we cannot rule out time travel, but many physicists are hoping that a better understanding of the mathematics involved will eventually lead to the conclusion that time loops are impossible.

At the moment, we cannot rule out the possibility that a naturally occurring time machine exists somewhere in the Universe. It is theoretically possible for space-time to be so warped in the presence of a very strong gravitational field that, under certain special conditions, a time loop is created. If we stumbled across such an entity, known as a wormhole, during future space travel it might provide us with a permanent link to the past.

For now, the best way to rule out the existence of time loops is to ask where all the time travellers from the future are. If future generations ever succeeded in building a time machine then surely there would be many people wanting to visit the 21st century and we should see these visitors among us today. So just to keep the debate alive, below are five possible reasons why we should not expect to see any time travellers:

Time travel to the past is forbidden by some as-yet-undiscovered laws of physics. Physicists hope to discover a new theory that goes beyond general relativity and which explains why time loops are forbidden. We already have two possible candidates for such a theory, known as superstring theory and membrane theory. But neither is properly understood yet.
There are no naturally occurring time machines, such as wormholes, so the only way to travel back in time is to build one. But it turns out that this would only take us as far back as the moment it was switched on (because that would be the earliest moment in time that could be accessed). So we cannot see any time travellers from the future because time machines have not been invented yet.
Naturally occurring time machines exist and people do use them to travel back to the 21st century, but – an idea taken seriously by many theoretical physicists – our universe is just one of an infinite number of parallel universes. Thus time travel to the past slides the traveller into a parallel world. There are so many of these that our universe is just not one of the lucky few that have been visited. If you are not convinced by these reasons, then I might interest you in a couple of more mundane possibilities:
Expecting to see time travellers among us presupposes that they would want to visit this century. Maybe for them, there are much nicer and safer periods to visit.
Time travellers from the future are among us but they keep a low profile!

If I were a betting man I would say that time travel to the past will soon be shown to be impossible even in theory. Getting to the future, on the other hand, just requires us to build a fast enough rocket. Beware, though, that if you reach the future, there is no coming back.

Hafele JC, Keating RE (1972a) Around-the-world atomic clocks: predicted relativistic time gains. Science 177(4044) : 166-167. doi: 10.1126/science.177.4044.166
Hafele JC, Keating RE (1972b) Around-the-world atomic clocks: observed relativistic time gains. Science 177(4044) : 168-170. doi: 10.1126/science.177.4044.168
Landua R (2008) The LHC: a look inside . Science in School 10 : 34-45.

Web References

w1 – For more information about CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, see: www.cern.ch
www.teachspin.com/instruments/muon_physics/experiments.shtml
www.jlab.org/~cecire/muonlife.html
www.physics.smu.edu/~coan/outreach/overview.html
w3 – For more information about the Hafele-Keating experiment, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele-Keating_experiment

On relativity and time travel

Al-Khalili J (1999) BlackHoles, Wormholes and Time Machines . London, UK: Taylor and Francis

On time travel

Davies P (2002) How to Build a Time Machine . London, UK: Penguin

On relativity

Epstein LC (1981) Relativity Visualised . San Francisco, CA, USA: Insight Press Mermin ND (1989) Space and Time in Special Relativity. Prospect Heights, IL, USA: Waveland Press

Stannard R (1989) The Time and Space of Uncle Albert . London, UK: Faber and Faber

On string theory

Greene B (2000) The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory . New York, NY, USA: Vintage

Jim Al-Khalili is a physics professor and the Professor of the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey, where he has taught a course on relativity to undergraduates for the past 12 years. He appears regularly on TV and radio.

What do we know about time travel? Is it possible to travel to the future,or to the past? To what extent has it been tested, and what were the results? This article gives short but very exciting answers to these questions.

The article is very useful to introduce relativity and associated topics of modern physics to the students. Teachers can use it to discuss issues such as the nature of time and its meaning, or the exciting topic of time travel. It allows for a combination of physics with philosophy.

Taking the article as a starting point, teachers can then discuss further problems of time travel, such as the difficulty of accelerating a 70 kg human to the speed of light.

Alessandro Iscra, Italy

Download this article as a PDF

Time Travel

A collection of “time travel” columns published in the new york times..

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Time Travel Possible? What Scientists Found Out With Latest Experiment

The study was a gedankenexperiment, a term used by albert einstein to refer to theoretical investigations carried out in place of actual experiments which are helpful for probing the boundaries of physics..

We all have a fascination with the idea of time travel, much like what we see in popular fiction. In films, we have mostly witnessed people sitting in a large, heavy machine and travelling hundreds of years into the past or future. However, this is not the case. Now scientists have come up with another experiment using quantum entanglement to simulate the activity- the strange way that quantum particles can interact, as per Gizmodo Newsletter . The concept found its way in the 2018 movie 'Ant-Man And The Wasp'.

The latest study was a Gedankenexperiment, a term used by Albert Einstein to refer to theoretical investigations carried out in place of actual experiments which are helpful for probing the boundaries of physics, such as particle motion at the speed of light. However, the team's latest work in Physical Review Letters describes a simulation that contains "effective time travel." The phenomenon wherein the properties of two or more quantum particles are determined by one another is known as quantum entanglement. Since the entanglement of two particles occurs on a quantum level, factors like their physical distance have no effect on the interaction. Hence, understanding the characteristics of one entangled particle provides knowledge about the other.

A possible time-travelling method known as closed-timelike curves was investigated in a recent study. The curve is the arc formed by a particle throughout its lifetime in spacetime that runs backwards. In the experiment, scientists subject photonic probes to a quantum interaction, with the aim of producing a quantifiable outcome.

They may ascertain what input would have produced the best outcome based on that outcome. However, since the outcome was the consequence of a quantum operation, the researchers may adjust the quantum probe's values through entanglement to get a better result even if the operation has already taken place, as opposed to being stuck with a less-than-ideal outcome, as per the Gizmodo Newsletter.

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Through the study, scientists found that the time travel effect would happen once every four times, or at a failure rate of 75 per cent. The researchers proposed delivering a lot of entangled photons and using a filter to verify that the photons with the revised information got through while sifting away the outdated particles in order to solve the high failure rate.

David Arvidsson-Shukur, a quantum physicist at the University of Cambridge and the study's author told the outlet, "The experiment that we describe seems impossible to solve with standard (not quantum) physics, which obeys the normal arrow of time. Thus, it appears as if quantum entanglement can generate instances which effectively look like time travel."

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A photograph of the night sky, featuring gleaming pinpoints of white, blue and orange light.

Could a telescope ever see the beginning of time? An astronomer explains

Assistant Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Disclosure statement

Adi Foord does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to [email protected] .

If the James Webb telescope was 10 times more powerful, could we see the beginning of time? - Sam H., age 12, Prosper, Texas

The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST for short, is one of the most advanced telescopes ever built . Planning for JWST began over 25 years ago, and construction efforts spanned over a decade. It was launched into space on Dec. 25, 2021, and within a month arrived at its final destination: 930,000 miles away from Earth. Its location in space allows it a relatively unobstructed view of the universe .

The telescope design was a global effort , led by NASA, and intended to push the boundaries of astronomical observation with revolutionary engineering. Its mirror is massive – about 21 feet (6.5 meters) in diameter. That’s nearly three times the size of the Hubble Space Telescope, which launched in 1990 and is still working today.

It’s a telescope’s mirror that allows it to collect light. JWST’s is so big that it can “see” the faintest and farthest galaxies and stars in the universe. Its state-of-the-art instruments can reveal information about the composition, temperature and motion of these distant cosmic objects.

As an astrophysicist , I’m continually looking back in time to see what stars, galaxies and supermassive black holes looked like when their light began its journey toward Earth, and I’m using that information to better understand their growth and evolution. For me, and for thousands of space scientists, the James Webb Space Telescope is a window to that unknown universe.

Just how far back can JWST peer into the cosmos and into the past? About 13.5 billion years.

Against the blackness of space, the golden mirrors of the telescope are prominent.

Time travel

A telescope does not show stars, galaxies and exoplanets as they are right now. Instead, astronomers are catching a glimpse of how they were in the past . It takes time for light to travel across space and reach our telescopes. In essence, that means a look into space is also a trip back in time.

This is even true for objects that are quite close to us. The light you see from the Sun left it about 8 minutes, 20 seconds earlier. That’s how long it takes for the Sun’s light to travel to Earth .

You can easily do the math on this. All light – whether sunlight, a flashlight or a light bulb in your house – travels at 186,000 miles (almost 300,000 kilometers) per second . That’s just over 11 million miles (about 18 million kilometers) per minute. The Sun is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth. That comes out to about 8 minutes, 20 seconds.

But the farther away something is, the longer its light takes to reach us. That’s why the light we see from Proxima Centauri , the closest star to us aside from our Sun, is 4 years old; that is, it’s about 25 trillion miles (approximately 40 trillion kilometers) away from Earth, so that light takes just over four years to reach us. Or, as scientists like to say, four light years .

Most recently, JWST observed Earendel, one of the farthest stars ever detected . The light that JWST sees from Earendel is about 12.9 billion years old.

The James Webb Space Telescope is looking much farther back in time than previously possible with other telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope . For example, although Hubble can see objects 60,000 times fainter than the human eye is able, the JWST can see objects almost nine times fainter than even Hubble can .

A diagram that shows how far back the James Webb Space Telescope can see.

The Big Bang

But is it possible to see back to the beginning of time?

The Big Bang is a term used to define the beginning of our universe as we know it. Scientists believe it occurred about 13.8 billion years ago . It is the most widely accepted theory among physicists to explain the history of our universe.

The name is a bit misleading, however, because it suggests that some sort of explosion, like fireworks, created the universe. The Big Bang more closely represents the appearance of rapidly expanding space everywhere in the universe. The environment immediately after the Big Bang was similar to a cosmic fog that covered the universe, making it hard for light to travel beyond it. Eventually, galaxies, stars and planets started to grow.

That’s why this era in the universe is called the “cosmic dark ages.” As the universe continued to expand, the cosmic fog began to rise , and light was eventually able to travel freely through space. In fact, a few satellites have observed the light left by the Big Bang, about 380,000 years after it occurred. These telescopes were built to detect the splotchy leftover glow from the Big Bang , whose light can be tracked in the microwave band.

However, even 380,000 years after the Big Bang, there were no stars and galaxies. The universe was still a very dark place. The cosmic dark ages wouldn’t end until a few hundred million years later, when the first stars and galaxies began to form.

Clouds of red, pink and white gas and dust highlight this starscape.

The James Webb Space Telescope was not designed to observe as far back as the Big Bang, but instead to see the period when the first objects in the universe began to form and emit light. Before this time period, there is little light for the James Webb Space Telescope to observe, given the conditions of the early universe and the lack of galaxies and stars.

Peering back to the time period close to the Big Bang is not simply a matter of having a larger mirror – astronomers have already done it using other satellites that observe microwave emission from very soon after the Big Bang . So, the James Webb Space Telescope observing the universe a few hundred million years after the Big Bang isn’t a limitation of the telescope. Rather, that’s actually the telescope’s mission. It’s a reflection of where in the universe we expect the first light from stars and galaxies to emerge.

By studying ancient galaxies, scientists hope to understand the unique conditions of the early universe and gain insight into the processes that helped them flourish. That includes the evolution of supermassive black holes, the life cycle of stars, and what exoplanets – worlds beyond our solar system – are made of.

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Google's Time Travel Research: Unlocking the Past and Future

Google’s new research division, Project Chronos, is set to revolutionize our understanding of time and the possibilities of time travel. The division will be led by some of the brightest minds in physics and technology, and will focus on developing a theoretical framework for time travel as well as practical applications for the technology.

“We’re excited to embark on this journey of discovery with Project Chronos,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “Time travel has been a topic of science fiction for decades, but with advancements in physics and technology, we believe it’s possible to make it a reality. We’re bringing together some of the world’s top minds to unlock the secrets of the past and future, and to explore the potential benefits and implications of this technology.”

One of the key goals of Project Chronos is to develop a theoretical framework for time travel that is based on current scientific understanding. This will involve studying the theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics, as well as looking at other possible explanations for time travel. The team will also explore practical applications for the technology, such as using it for historical research, weather forecasting, and even space exploration.

“The potential benefits of time travel are immense,” said Dr. Jane Smith, head of Project Chronos. “Imagine being able to go back in time and witness historical events firsthand, or being able to predict natural disasters and take preventative measures. The possibilities are truly endless, and we’re excited to see where this research takes us.”

One of the most exciting possibilities of time travel is the ability to go back in time and witness historical events firsthand. This could have a profound impact on our understanding of history and could potentially provide new insights into some of the most mysterious and debated events in human history. For example, scientists and researchers could witness the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the fall of the Berlin Wall, or even the formation of the universe itself.

Another potential benefit of time travel is the ability to predict natural disasters and take preventative measures. By studying past weather patterns and natural disasters, scientists and researchers could develop new techniques and technologies to better predict and prepare for future events. This could save countless lives and reduce the damage caused by natural disasters.

However, with any new technology, there are also potential dangers and ethical implications that must be considered. “It’s important that we approach this research with caution and consider the potential consequences,” said Dr. John Doe, a physicist on the Project Chronos team. “We want to make sure that any potential benefits outweigh the risks.”

One of the most significant concerns is the potential for time travelers to alter the course of history. If time travelers were to go back in time and change something, it could have unintended and far-reaching consequences that could potentially change the course of human history. Scientists and researchers must also consider the potential impact on the environment, as well as the possibility of creating temporal paradoxes or other inconsistencies in the timeline.

Project Chronos will also collaborate with other organizations and institutions to share information and resources in order to advance the research. Some of the key partners include universities, research institutions, and other tech companies. Google’s Project Chronos is not the only time travel research out there, but it is one of the most ambitious and well-funded. Some other notable time travel research include the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Temporal Physics Research Group at the University of Maryland.

In conclusion, Google’s new research division, Project Chronos, is set to change the way we think about time and the possibilities of time travel. With a team of brilliant minds in physics and technology, and a focus on both the benefits and potential dangers of the technology, Project Chronos is poised to make significant strides in this field.

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Activity ideas for British Science Week 2024 - Time (secondary)

These resources can be used to support British Science Week 2024 activities around the theme of 'Time'.

Suitable for secondary level.

Climate Change
Cross curricular
Design and technology
Mathematics
Activity sheet
Interactive resource
Open-ended task
Presentation
Teacher guidance
Include Physical Resources

Can trees time travel?

This immersive escape room activity introduces the BIFoR FACE (Birmingham Institute for forest research free air carbon enrichment) experiment and encourages learners to consider the impact of climate change on forest ecosystems. Learners work as a group to complete a virtual tour of BIFoR FACE before using...

Reaction time

The video and worksheet set out a measurement challenge for students that can be carried out either at home or in school. They use a ruler length drop to record the reaction time for different participants. The results are recorded on a downloadable sheet that allows conversion of drop distance to a reaction time...

Determining Doubling Time

As the number of cells in a microbial culture increases, turbidity increases. In this experiment students calculate doubling time and growth rate constant using absorbance as the measure of growth. Turbidity is caused by suspended cells in the growth medium scattering light, and may be measured using a colorimeter...

This resource, from Twig World, looks at time zones around the planet and how these changes affect people.

The key points made in the film are:

•There are 24 time zones, which are regions on Earth that are bound by longitudinal lines. •Local time depends on what time zone you are in. •The system of...

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How time travel gets weird: The science behind 'The Adam Project'

Time travel sounds stressful, honestly.

We love a good time travel story , we love a good family friendly flick without a trip to the theater, and we love Ryan Reynolds . Basically, The Adam Project hits all the marks we're looking for in these trying times. That said, it does play a little fast and loose with what we've come to understand about the rules of time travel. Fair warning, there are spoilers for the movie after this sentence.

Last chance to turn back before your own timeline is irrevocably changed.

Okay. Many time travel stories go to great lengths to avoid contaminating the timeline by interacting with your past self, but the plot of The Adam Project relies on those interactions. Adam, played by Ryan Reynolds, is a pilot from the year 2050 who comes back in time to the year 2022 where he teams up with his 12-year-old self to prevent the invention of time travel. He's basically doing a terminator but less violent and more attractive. Sorry, Arnold .

Meanwhile, Adam's boss has also been going back in time to give her younger self financial tips so she can amass a fortune and maintain control over the future. Because of some handwavey explanations — director Shawn Levy told SYFY WIRE that the time travel "rules" in The Adam Project are intentionally very simple — reality doesn't crumble into a pile of competing paradoxes, but it probably should.

THE GRANDFATHER PARADOX

Time more or less travels in a straight line. We could get into the wiggly bits to do with time dilation and the relative experience of time each of us has depending on our speed and point of view, but that's mostly irrelevant at the speeds we typically travel, so we can probably ignore it for now.

What is relevant is that effect follows after cause. The stream of events always flows in one way. Trinkets don't hit the fall and shatter until after they've fallen off the shelf. The arrow of time is linear. When we introduce an element of time travel things get more complicated.

Once a person goes back in time, the arrow of time is no longer linear, it's curved back on itself. Cause and effect falls apart, especially if the traveler comes into contact with their younger self or any of their direct ancestors. To that end, it's a decidedly bad idea to team up with your 12-year-old self but you might be able to get away with it as long as you don't do anything which would prevent you from going back in time in the first place.

That's where the Grandfather Paradox gets its name. It's a thought experiment in which a traveler goes back in time and, for whatever reason, decides to kill their own grandfather before their parent is born. You can come up with any number of similar scenarios but the crux of it relies on the traveler completing an action which prevents their ability to have been there at all. If you kill your grandfather then you'd never be born, then you couldn't go back in time, so you would be born, so you'd go back in time and kill your grandfather… you get the idea.

The Adams, young and old, travelling back to 2018 to stop their father from inventing time travel is the ultimate grandfather paradox. They're not killing anyone, but they're preventing not only themselves but anyone else, from being able to time travel. They shouldn't be able to pull it off because reality would get stuck in an endless buffering loop trying to figure out how to move forward with two competing futures. But that's not the only big paradox at play here.

THE BOOTSTRAP PARADOX

Adam isn't the only one going back in time to change things. His boss, Sorian, the villain of the flick, has also been meddling with time for her own benefit. In fact, they're only in charge of the dystopian future because they've been going back in time to give themselves information. This is almost a textbook example of the Bootstrap Paradox .

This paradox isn't as immediately obvious, but it runs into similar problems, defying a simple explanation. To get a clearer view of the weirdness, lets change the scenario.

Imagine you're at the library browsing the shelves when you come across a book with no author, no title, and no library label on the spine. Inside, you find the instructions for building a time machine. You take the book home and get to work but it isn't easy. It takes decades but eventually you figure out how to build a working machine. While you were working, you always wondered where the book came from, who put it there? So, you travel back to the year you found it. You arrive at the library hours before your past self found the book. When you go to the shelf, the book isn't there. So, you find a quiet spot and watch, waiting to see who delivers the book to its spot, but no one ever comes. Finally, you see your younger self enter the library and start browsing. They're almost to the spot and the book still isn't there. That's when it hits you.

You put the book there. You delivered the book to your past self. The question then becomes where the book came from. It seems to inherently exist, being constantly passed from one version of yourself to another.

That's basically what's going on with Sorian in the movie. Instead of a book about time travel, it's money and power which are being passed backward in an endless loop. Sorian doesn't become powerful if their future self doesn't give them inside knowledge. Their future self doesn't have inside knowledge unless they become powerful. How does the cycle begin?

It's paradoxes like these which make some scientists believe time travel to the past is impossible. Other scientists believe time travel is possible, but the paradoxes aren't. Maybe the universe prevents you from changing anything which would result in a paradox.

We may never know the truth. Or maybe we always have.

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Scientists have actually discovered how to time travel

Ready to be a little bit confused by complex science? Ok, here we go…

Until now, time travel has only been possible in fiction (and on TikTok, according to some ), but it might not be as far away as previously thought.

Scientists delving into subatomic structures and quantum physics have claimed that the concept of time travel might actually be possible.

The concept of humans hopping back and forth through time is still exactly that – a concept.

However, scientists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and University of Vienna believe they’ve proven it’s achievable in the world of quantum physics.

In fact, in a series of papers over recent years, Miguel Navascués of ÖAW and Philip Walther of University of Vienna have been entertaining the idea of speeding up and reversing the flow of time at a subatomic level.

Speaking to the Spanish-language publication El País , Navascués attempted to explain the phenomenon by comparing it to watching a film.

“In a theater [classical physics], a movie is projected from beginning to end, regardless of what the audience wants,” he said. “But at home [the quantum world], we have a remote control to manipulate the movie. We can rewind to a previous scene or skip several scenes ahead.”

How do they do it? With a device called a “quantum switch”, which sounds more like something out of a Marvel movie than something in real life.

They use the device to ‘evolve’ a photon as it passes through a crystal. That way, the photon returns to its previous state before it completes the journey. The idea is to alter the states of quantum particles, which the scientists call “time translation”.

Humans going back and forth in time for now remains impossible, though, namely because human bodies contain so much information that it would take millions of years to process it all and make it work.

As you’d expect, the whole thing is incredibly complicated to track and observe even at a subatomic level. Just watching a system causes it to change. Once it changes, its progress through time can’t be recorded.

Explaining their method for going forward in evolutionary time, Navascués explained: “To make a system age 10 years in one year, you must get the other nine years from somewhere. In a year-long experiment with 10 systems, you can steal one year from each of the first nine systems and give them all to the tenth. At the end of the year, the tenth system will have aged 10 years; the other nine will remain the same as when the experiment began.”

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Is CERN activating the world’s most powerful particle accelerator for the April 8 eclipse? No

Cern restarted its large hadron collider after a regular winter stop for maintenance. it is unrelated to the eclipse. .

As people around the country await the April 8 total eclipse, conspiracy theories about a Switzerland-based nuclear research facility have some social media users on edge. In their view is CERN, also known as the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

“Why is CERN being reactivated on April 8, the same day as the infamous eclipse?” asked a March 29 Facebook post , referencing what it called the group’s plan to activate “the large hadron collider” on the day of the eclipse. “My gut instinct is that something really big is being planned for that day… perhaps a total takedown of both the grid and society in general worldwide.” In another post April 1, a man in a baseball cap speculated that CERN is deliberately starting back up April 8 to “open up a gateway, a portal.”

(Screenshot/Facebook)

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta , which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

It is not unusual for scientists to conduct research during an eclipse, when the sun’s corona becomes visible and areas in totality go briefly dark in the moon’s shadow. Total solar eclipses allow researchers “to study Earth’s atmosphere under uncommon conditions.” NASA, for example, is launching three sounding rockets on the day of the eclipse to study its effects on the ionosphere (a mission that also became a subject of misinformation ).

But CERN’s research is different. The primary research focus of CERN — an acronym derived from the French name “Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire” — is particle physics , or “the study of the fundamental constituents of matter and the forces acting between them.” The organization seeks to find answers about the universe’s fundamental structure .

CERN houses the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator in the world , which measures around 16.8 miles (27 kilometers) in circumference. The collider’s aim, as Britannica explains , is to “understand the fundamental structure of matter by re-creating the extreme conditions that occurred in the first few moments of the universe according to the big-bang model.”

CERN spokesperson Sophie Tesauri told PolitiFact in an email that the collider’s activities have nothing to do with the April 8 eclipse.

“What we do at CERN is doing particle physics with accelerators such as the LHC, and this has little to do with astrophysics in a direct way,” Tesauri said. “So there is no link between the solar eclipse on Monday 8th April, and what we do at CERN.”

CERN has an accelerator complex composed of machines with “increasingly higher energies.” A beam of particles is injected by one machine to the next one, bringing the beam to a higher energy — and the Large Hadron Collider is the last element in this complex.

“Hadrons” are a group of particles that include protons and ions. In the Large Hadron Collider, two beams travel in opposite directions at nearly light speed and are made to collide. In 2012, Large Hadron Collider experiments led to the discovery of the Higgs boson particle , a particle named for British physicist Peter Higgs, who in the 1960s postulated about the existence of a particle that interacted with other particles at the beginning of time to provide them with their mass.

Tesauri told PolitiFact that the accelerator complex is restarted every year after a brief winter technical stop, when beam production ceases so that the accelerators can undergo maintenance. Restarting an accelerator like the Large Hadron Collider “requires a full commissioning process in order to check that all equipment works properly.”

“Now that all the checks have been performed, the LHC is ready to provide particle collisions to the LHC experiments, and first collisions for this year should actually happen today 5th April,” Tesauri said in her email. “This will mark the beginning of the physics run for 2024.”

The beams were initially expected to enter collision April 8, according to a March 14 report . It said, “Depending on how work progresses, this milestone may shift forwards or backwards by a few days.”

On April 5, CERN announced that the Large Hadron Collider achieved its first stable beams in 2024, “marking the official start of the 2024 physics data-taking season.” The statement said that from March 8 to April 5, the Large Hadron Collider was set up to handle the beam and tested for any issues.

“Although the solar eclipse on 8 April will not affect the beams in the LHC, the gravitational pull of the moon, like the tides, changes the shape of the LHC because the machine is so big,” CERN’s announcement said. This phenomenon is not unique to an eclipse; a 2012 news release discussed distortions in the machine brought about by a full moon.

According to CERN’s frequently asked questions page, the Large Hadron Collider is expected to run over 20 years , “with several stops scheduled for upgrades and maintenance work.”

Conspiracy theories surrounding CERN’s work have been circulating for years . In a statement to Verify fact-checkers, CERN said that its research “captures the imagination of lots of people, which is why CERN has been featured in a lot of science fiction books / even movies, around the world.” CERN said works inspired by its research are fictional and “should not be confused with the actual scientific research.”

False claims about the group’s work are so common that the organization addresses some common theories on its FAQ page : No, it won’t “open a door to another dimension,” and no, it won’t “generate black holes in the cosmological sense.”

We rate the claim that CERN is activating its Large Hadron Collider in connection with the April 8 solar eclipse False.

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Eclipse experiments: How to turn the 2024 solar eclipse into a fun science lesson

The first total solar eclipse of 2024 is in April and it will be the only solar eclipse this year that will have a path of totality stretching across the U.S. It’s been nicknamed “The Great North American Eclipse.”

Florida isn’t in the path of totality, but depending on where you are in the state , you might be able to see a little over half of the sun being covered by the moon.

Although your location has everything to do with how well you’ll be able to see the eclipse , it isn’t the only thing that determines what you see on eclipse day. And eclipse glasses aren't the only accessory that you'll need to experience this natural phenomenon to the fullest.

Did you know that what color you choose to wear can enhance your eclipse viewing experience?

If you’re planning on watching the eclipse with friends and family, tell them to wear red or green and see what happens.

Here’s the science behind why and how our eyes see colors differently in low light and some fun eclipse experiments you can do on April 8.

What are the differences between rod and cone cells?

Understanding how to experiment with color during an eclipse requires a quick anatomy and physiology lesson.

You might remember from a high school anatomy class that there are two kinds of photoreceptors in your eyes: rods and cones.

More simply put, photoreceptors are nerves that take in light and tell your brain what you’re seeing.

There are 6 million to 7 million cones, or cone cells, in your eyes that help you see colors clearly in well-lit scenarios, like in regular daylight. Cones are mostly concentrated in one place in the back of your eye (the retina). When your cones are in charge, it’s called photopic vision.

Psychology and vision studies of how human eyes perceive color have found that cone cells don’t function properly in low lighting, so that’s when the other photoreceptors in your eyes (the rods, or rod cells) take over. There are around 120 million rods in your eyes that are in a different place within your eye, in the periphery. And their location makes them better for seeing in dim light.

Although rod cells allow you to see in low light, they aren’t very sharp when it comes to helping your brain process colors. When your rods are in charge, it’s called scotopic vision.

Rods are one thousand times more sensitive to light than cones. Since rods don’t process color the way cones do, they are responsible for a different job: telling your brain how bright it is and adjusting your vision accordingly.

Mesopic vision is what happens in the in-between. This is when your rods and cones work together since it’s the transitional stage between photopic and scotopic vision.

What do you see during a solar eclipse?

Here’s what all this eyeball science has to do with a solar eclipse.

There’s a four- to five-minute window of time before an eclipse reaches totality, when your eyes are functioning in the in-between zone (the mesopic vision zone).

During the mesopic vision zone of an eclipse, your surroundings may look grayish and lack color. It's most noticeable with warm colors, like red or orange.

But remember, when your rods take over in dim lighting, your eyes still pick up green and blue hues.

This natural phenomenon of how our eyes respond to specific colors with a change in lighting even has a cool name. It’s called the Purkinje effect, named for 18th century Czech experimental physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkinje who found that the perceived vibrancy of red objects fade faster than blue objects of the same brightness.

Green, specifically, will look very bright against the dim surroundings as the moon covers the sun.

If you want to experiment with color and optical science this eclipse, have one of your friends or family wear green and dress yourself in something red (or vice versa). You can compare how the red clothing seems to fade to a shade of gray as the green clothing seems to get brighter.

Remember not to look directly at the sun without special eclipse glasses or special lenses on your camera, phone camera, binoculars or telescope. We won't see full totality anywhere in Florida so there will be no point when it will be safe to look at the solar eclipse with the naked eye.

Protect your eyes: Warby Parker offering free eclipse glasses. Here's when and where to get them in Florida

How to make a DIY eclipse viewer

If you don’t have special glasses for viewing the eclipse, you can make a pinhole projector to see it.

According to Time and Date , “The simplest and quickest way to safely project the Sun is with a projector made from only 2 pieces of card or paper.”

Supplies you’ll need:

Two pieces of stiff white cardboard (two paper plates will work) … alternatively, two sheets of plain white paper
A thumbtack, a sharp pin or a needle

To make a quick and easy pinhole projector, all you need to do is puncture a hole in one of your pieces of cardboard or paper and hold it above your shoulder with your back to the sun. If you have a friend hold the second piece of cardboard or paper at a distance, you can see the shape of the sun projected onto the second piece of cardboard.

To see a more detailed explanation and visual of how to make a quick and easy pinhole projector for the eclipse, visit timeanddate.com.

What is the NASA citizen science program?

You can even become a NASA scientist (not really, but kind of) by participating in any of NASA’s citizen science projects for the eclipse.

“NASA’s citizen science projects are collaborations between scientists and interested members of the public. Through these collaborations, volunteers (known as citizen scientists) have helped make thousands of important scientific discoveries…” NASA’s citizen science projects webpage says.

“NASA citizen science projects are open to everyone around the world, not limited to U.S. citizens or residents.”

NASA citizen science projects for the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse

NASA has more than 10 citizen science projects related to the sun or the upcoming eclipse.

Some of them require you to buy or already own hundreds of dollars worth of antenna parts and a telescope kit, but some are as simple as using an app during the eclipse.

Here are some of the most simple citizen projects NASA is conducting for the upcoming eclipse:

Download the SunSketcher app and use your phone to help measure the exact shape and size of the Sun by photographing an eclipse phenomenon called Baily’s Beads.
Use GLOBE Observer, the app of The GLOBE Program , and a thermometer to measure air temperature changes and monitor the clouds during the eclipse.
How does wildlife respond to a solar eclipse? Record sounds before, during, and after an eclipse to find out and join The Eclipse Soundscapes Project, a citizen science project that is studying how eclipses affect life on Earth during the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse. Eclipse Soundscapes will revisit an eclipse study from almost 100 years ago that showed that animals and insects are affected by solar eclipses and compare the results from then and now.

Will the 2024 eclipse be visible in Florida?

Florida isn’t in the direct path of the total eclipse.

The path of totality of the Great North American Eclipse will start between New Zealand and Mexico in the South Pacific Ocean, pass from Mexico, through Texas, skim Oklahoma and travel northeast (diagonally) across the country. The path of totality will cross the New England region of the U.S. and then a portion of Canada, before ending in the Atlantic Ocean near the French and Spanish coasts.

While we're not in the path of totality, we'll still be able to see some of it from Florida. From just over half of the sun to over 3/4 of it will be obscured by the moon from our angle, depending on where you are in the state.

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Time Travel

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Time travel

The Big Bang

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