Daniel Carrillo
Marilyn Gonzalez
English 2
P. 7
14 May 2016
Time Travel
Abstract Page
Time Traveling has always struck close to people's imagination, from H.G Wells “The Time Machine“, to a blockbuster like “Back to The Future”. Although it is a legitimate field of scientific endeavor, many physicists and scientists still approach the subject of Time Travel carefully for fear of ridicule. The purpose of this research paper is to discuss the possibility of time travel as well as bringing credibility to it. The aspects explored in the paper are divided in two sections, traveling to the past and traveling to the future, in which various experiments, examples, paradoxes, and scientific research are stated in order to demonstrate the validity of Time Dilatation. This research also explores Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, which has proven to be a strong factor when talking about the human’s perspective of time.
Traveling to the Future
Many Physicists laugh at the idea of time travel saying it’s preposterous. Despite this, there is a growing number of Physicists that have a revolutionary new way of looking at the problem of Time Travel, not ruling it out because of many of their professors labeling the field as a joke. Today’s Science-Fiction is tomorrow's Science Fact, that’s how fast our knowledge of the universe is expanding many things that were thought as impossible, but that now are addressed as reality. The reason behind many scientists denying any study related to the subject is the media which, ironically, also brought Time Travel lo life. However, current studies and experiments have demonstrated that it is possible.
Before explaining how Time Traveling actually works, it is necessary to go over some simple terms to change the interpretation of Time itself. To begin with, the stereotype of a “Time Machine” needs to be completely erased. In addition, it is vital to have in mind that human race and every single form of life on earth is constantly Time Traveling.
An easy way to look at it is remembering how we travel from one place to another. Think of two friends, Cesar and Jorge. Cesar and Jorge will travel from Miami to Tampa using the same route, the same car model, and with no traffic. However, as in any scientific experiment, there is one variable, which is speed. If Cesar drives at 60km/h and Jorge at 80km/h, Jorge would get faster to Tampa than Cesar. In the same fashion, Time travel occurs in our daily life. We travel one second per second, one minute per minute, one hour per hour, one year per year, etc. Now think of traveling ten minutes per minute, ten hours per hour, ten years per year. Even though it seems impossible, it has been scientifically explained and it is already been done. Sergei Krikalev, a Russian astronaut that after orbiting Planet Earth for a total of 803 days, 9 hours and, and 39 minutes and traveling at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour Time Traveled into his own future by 0.02 seconds. This process in which time slows down from the perspective of one user by traveling faster through space is called Time Dilatation, and that is how traveling to the future works.
Time Dilatation was first experimented on 1887, when two American scientists, Edward Morley and Albert Michelson, were trying to measure the effect of the Earth’s movement around the sun, and the speed of light. When a beam of light was moving in the same direction as the Earth, the scientists expected the light to travel faster, and when the Earth was moving in the opposite direction, they expected it to go slower. However, they found something very curious that would change everyone’s perspective of light. The speed of light remained the same no matter what the Earth was doing. But it was not until two decades later, on 1915, when Time Dilatation was addressed for a second time by Albert Einstein after exposing his Theory of Relativity. He determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and he showed that the speed of light within a vacuum is the same no matter the speed at which an observer travels. As a result, he found that space and time were interwoven into a single continuum known as space-time. In simpler terms, Einstein concluded that Time and Space are connected and that events that occur at the same time for one observer could occur at different times for another. Since the speed of light always remains the same, the speed at which we move through space have an effect in each person’s perspective of Time. A good example was proposed after the theory was revealed:
A scientist named Joe is standing in the middle of a train carriage, traveling at a steady speed while bouncing a ball. What would scientist Jill, standing on the platform, see through the window as the train whistles through?
According to Einstein’s formulas and theories, between Joe dropping the ball and catching it again, Jill would have seen him move slightly further down the track, resulting in her seeing the ball follow a triangular path. However, Joe, who is bouncing the ball inside the train, sees the ball forming a vertical line. This means Jill sees the ball travel further than Joe does in the same time period. Since speed equals distance divided by time, after plugging in the numbers, and solving for the variable “speed”, Joe’s result is less than Jill’s, meaning that Jill sees the ball move faster.
But how does this example relate to Time Travel? imagine that the ball is replaced by two mirrors bouncing a beam of light between them. In this case, Joe stills sees the beam dropping down, and Jill still sees the light beam travel a longer distance, except this time Joe and Jill cannot disagree on the speed because as stated before, the speed of light is always remains the same. And if the speed is the same, while the distance is different, this means that the time taken would be different as well. Thus time must tick at different rates for people moving relative to each other.
Even though the second scenario is based only on theories and it would be harder to prove, it can be tested.
In 1975 Carol Allie of the University of Maryland synchronized two atomic clocks, an extremely accurate type of clock that is regulated by the vibrations of an atomic or molecular system, and placed one on a plane and flew it around for several hours and left the other on Earth. When the airborne clock was returned to Earth, she compared its time with the one that had not moved and found that time had moved a fraction of a second more slowly for the clock on board the plane, meaning that the pilot of the airplane was a fraction of a second younger than the rest.
Of course, on trains and planes the difference is minuscule, but the faster you go, the more time dilates. If an astronaut travels around the globe in a spaceship very close to the speed of light, 30 minutes in the ship could mean 20 years on earth.