TIME TRAVEL The Effect of Time Dilation

ABSTRACT Time travel has

always been a topic of interest

garnering

attention from

many including

the scientific

community to

those in the

movie industry.

How many of us

while growing up

has said to our

peers “if I could only go back in

time, I would

have done things

differently” or

“wonder what it

will be like in 50

years”.

Dennis Chase

Time Travel: The effect of Time Dilation Dennis Chase

Time travel has always been a topic of interest garnering

attention from many including the scientific community to

those in the movie industry. How many of us while growing up

has said to our peers “if I could only go back in time, I would

have done things differently” or “wonder what it will be like in

50 years”.

Fig. 1. Einstein's equations for faster-than-light travel. Here is a three-

dimensional graph showing the relationship between three different velocities: v, u and U, where v is the velocity of a second observer measured by a first observer, u is the velocity of a moving particle measured by the second observer, and U is the relative velocity of the particle to the first observer. .Figure credit: Hill, Cox/Proceedings of the Royal Society Applied Sciences.

From my viewpoint I submit that time travel is possible. It

was first shown to be possible in 1971 by two American

researchers, J.C. Hafele and R.E. Keating while conducting an

experiment using 4 cesium atomic clocks on two airplanes

circling the globe in separate directions in and order to test

Einstein’s theory of special relativity [1].

The experiment clearly proved the theory with reference

between the clocks on the airplane and the stationary clocks

located at the U.S. Naval Observatory. It was predicted the flying clocks would lose 40+/-23 nanoseconds while flying

easterly and gain some 275+/-21 nanoseconds in the westerly

direction. When actually referenced against the clocks at the

U.S. Naval Observatory It was shown the clocks flying in the

easterly direction lost 59+/- 10 nanoseconds while the clocks

flying in the westerly direction 273+/- nanoseconds. Therefore

it was proven time travel via time dilation is possible.

The equations of Einstein in their form don’t prove anything

can move faster than light. Recently they were manipulated by

two mathematicians James Hill and Barry Cox to show that the

barrier of the speed of light can be eclipsed [2]. The

mathematics involved tells us that if we travel faster than the

speed of light the paradox of time dilation (the fact that time

slows down the faster we move through space) allows for

beyond the speed of light travel.

For informational purposes the speed of light is a universal

constant ‘c’ and measured in a vacuum is exactly 299,792,458 m/s but when you pass light through a medium such as water

or glass the speed of light slows down. This is known as the

Cherenkov Effect.

There are several ways of making time travel possible. One

such way is to slow down the speed of light in a medium such

as water or glass. However recently in a paper published in

Science Express [3], it has been proven that light can be slowed

down though free space. This was demonstrated by applying a

mask to an optical beam giving photons a spatial structure and

the reducing their speed.

Another proposed way of making time travel possible is creating “worm holes” or short cuts in time and space. The

method discussed to do so involved the Casimir Effect to create

large amounts of negative energy in order to keep the hole open

long enough to allow for the travel.

In the physical world there are hypothetical particles that can

travel faster than light, namely Tachyons. The only way for

these to do so is their mass has to take on an imaginary value

such as the square root of -1. I propose the following question.

Given if we were able to manipulate the physical mass of a ship

for travel in such a way that it’s mass would be represented by that imaginary number including a reference frame in which

our own body mass was negligible, would we be able to travel

in time?

As of this writing we do not have a drive engine capable of

producing fast as light speeds or speeds faster than light. Such

drives known as “Warp Drives” or “Hyperspace Drives are

very much in the “speculation” maturity level according to

Nasa [4]. We speculate because the science, technology and

applications do not exist that would enable the engineers and

scientists the opportunity to design and build such engines.

I still believe in the future we will be able to travel the universe.

FURTHER READING

1. J.C. Hafele and R. E. Keating, Science 177, 166 (1972)

2. J.M.Hill, B.J.Cox , Einstein's special relativity beyond the speed of light,

http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/468/2148/4174

3. D.Giovannini, J.Romero, V.Potoček, G.Ferenczi, F.Speirits,

S.M.Barnett, D.Faccio, M.J.Padgett,

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6224/857.abstract

4. NASA, Warp Drive, When?, NASA, 2014.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/warpstat_prt.htm