Timing my travel to the past !!
I was earlier reading this article on time travel in Rampi's blog and started to think, as to how great it would be, if I could travel back into the time warp and change the things which changed my life. May be, I need to first tell, how at all time travel is possible theoretically.
Now, how do we perceive this world? This world which we interpret is set of events which may or may not be related to each other. We conceive this physical world as being three dimensional. Dimensions by itself do not make sense to us. We need time to make sense an event. Only when we try to relate space and time, we can give meaning to what we perceive. Let me give an example, imagine yourself watching a cube which is 3-D.The cube by itself not make sense to us. We need time as a metric to interpret an event, even if the ball is stationary. Now a stationary ball can be interpreted as an object in the same space (3D Co-ordinate) after the time co-ordinate has changed.
All this is fine when things happen at our normal pace. We can predict the world's motion using the three laws of motion propounded by Newton. Now there was a genius who had the arrogance to ask, how would the things behave if they travel at the speed of light? One thing for sure the Newtonian laws could not explain them. That is when Einstein came up with theory of relativity which fair explained them. Do you remember the formula E=M*C^2.May be I’ll deal with quantum physics in another article. I’ll go ahead with some formulae’s which are of interest to the time travel.
Now, how do we perceive this world? This world which we interpret is set of events which may or may not be related to each other. We conceive this physical world as being three dimensional. Dimensions by itself do not make sense to us. We need time to make sense an event. Only when we try to relate space and time, we can give meaning to what we perceive. Let me give an example, imagine yourself watching a cube which is 3-D.The cube by itself not make sense to us. We need time as a metric to interpret an event, even if the ball is stationary. Now a stationary ball can be interpreted as an object in the same space (3D Co-ordinate) after the time co-ordinate has changed.
All this is fine when things happen at our normal pace. We can predict the world's motion using the three laws of motion propounded by Newton. Now there was a genius who had the arrogance to ask, how would the things behave if they travel at the speed of light? One thing for sure the Newtonian laws could not explain them. That is when Einstein came up with theory of relativity which fair explained them. Do you remember the formula E=M*C^2.May be I’ll deal with quantum physics in another article. I’ll go ahead with some formulae’s which are of interest to the time travel.
Length : L=Lo*sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)
Time : T=To/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)
Mass : m=mo/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)
In the above equation L indicates length (dimensions), T indicates time and m indicates mass. The parameters with a suffix “o” mean the value of the parameter at speed zero or normal mass. ”v” indicates the current speed and “c” indicates the speed of light which is around 3, 00,000 km/s
Now see what happens if we travel at the speed of light, Length becomes zero; Time becomes infinite and mass becomes infinite. Now what if we can travel faster than light the L&T is an irrational number and mass is negative. Now you must be asking as to what we interpret from this zero and infinity. I’ll go step by step using a crude example.
Consider two people who are observing an event of a car traveling from place A to B which is ‘m’ kilometer apart at the speed of ‘s’ kmph. One is the normal observer and the other person is one who travels at the half the speed of light.
Now for a normal person has no problem with the metrics m & s, he measures them in the same way as we do. Now what do you think would be for a person who is traveling at almost half the speed of light, suddenly it seems like he has had more time. Now it appears to him that is this clock is slower. This is precisely called Time dilation
Now what if we are traveling at the speed the speed of light, time becomes infinite and we have all the time in the world whereas the normal person has a definite time. What would I do if I had more time? How about time traveling, there is a possibility that I can go to my past and change events which are slated to happen? Mind boggling isn’t it?
Now we are caught up with an interesting paradox what would happen if we can time travel and kill our great grandfather before he meets our grandmother? This is famously called the grandfather paradox. There is something called Twins paradox which you can search happily and find out!!!
Now the infinite dollar question, can we travel at the speed of light?
Now for a normal person has no problem with the metrics m & s, he measures them in the same way as we do. Now what do you think would be for a person who is traveling at almost half the speed of light, suddenly it seems like he has had more time. Now it appears to him that is this clock is slower. This is precisely called Time dilation
Now what if we are traveling at the speed the speed of light, time becomes infinite and we have all the time in the world whereas the normal person has a definite time. What would I do if I had more time? How about time traveling, there is a possibility that I can go to my past and change events which are slated to happen? Mind boggling isn’t it?
Now we are caught up with an interesting paradox what would happen if we can time travel and kill our great grandfather before he meets our grandmother? This is famously called the grandfather paradox. There is something called Twins paradox which you can search happily and find out!!!
Now the infinite dollar question, can we travel at the speed of light?
Sara,"Absolutely Enlightening".
Posted by
Anonymous |
1:22 pm
I think u forgot to list down the correct but anyway way too much physics man.....
beep....beep..beep...error processing the topic!!! :)
Posted by
Sudarshan |
8:13 pm
Sara my dumb reply - look if u travel at speed of light, u will soon feel dizzy, start vomiting and mayakkum pottu vehinthuduvaaa daa!! Okk now seriouly i m getting dumb- Look as u quoted in example abt some car moving and 2 people doing some maths! The logical conclusion is the guy who travels at speed of light will see every thing in slow motion. So the ultimate conclusion is appoint the Time traveller as the third umpire to judge run outs!!
chandru
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:10 pm
Sudharsan..The image which i had upload did'nt reflect the formula..Now i have made it textual..Hope its better..
Posted by
Sara |
11:39 pm
Chandru..It is not that he would see things in slow motion..He would not seee things moving at all if he had so much time..I hope somebody solves this..I have keep thinking of this possiblity and i could not solve it
Posted by
Sara |
11:41 pm