The REAL Physics of Possibly REAL Time Travel
Time Travel has been one of those science fiction themes that has been the MOST captivating. Not just for me, but for millions of people. I think the “what if”s are probably the most intriguing. What if I could get a message to someone… what if I could find out what happened …. Would those things even be possible, ethical? Up until now, it’s been more of an intellectual exercise, but I’ve been doing some reading on the subject and there is a very real possibility that time travel would be physically possible. Of course, physics classes for years have talked about how travel into the future should be possible. Simply travel away from the earth at near light speed and then back at near light speed. You will have only aged slightly while much time will have passed on earth. But, realistically traveling into the future isn’t as enticing as traveling into the past. We’re ALL traveling into the future one day at a time on the slow path. Here’s how one could travel into the past….
I guess I started out reading about the Large Hadron Collider breakdown and speculation that particles from the future had broken it. Much of that speculation is in jest because really the LHC wasn’t doing the things it was designed to do when this happened. But… there was reference to a Professor at the University of Connecticut who has theorized that time travel into the past is possible and is looking to raise approximately 11 million dollars to test his Space-Time Twisting by Light Project.
I read at his site and this article at ThePhoenix.com and it seems as though he has a sound idea. There are limitations to this, the main one being that you wouldn’t be able to travel into the past before this machine were activated.
Here’s the general idea. Concentrated light is forced into a loop. This loop bends space-time and allows particles from the future to enter the loop of light and exit at any point going back to when the loop began.
That’s the thumbnail sketch.
It’s a fairly mindblowing concept though. It makes me start wondering if there could be places in the Universe where there might be naturally occurring phenomenon like this (even horizon of a black hole perhaps with light forced to orbit the black hole?) Could it be that there is a “time lens” as I’ve been thinking of it that’s a naturally occurring phenomenon?
If there were a naturally occurring phenomenon like this, then you would be able to travel back in time until the beginning of THAT loop of light. Of course, if such a thing were to exist in nature the real challenge would be GETTING there and back (especially if it’s at the rim of a black hole…. if light can’t escape how do you expect to?)
Fun stuff to think about…. I believe I read that it’s been theorized that a light loop (I REALLY want to call this a “time lens”) could be used as an early warning system to monitor for particles from the future that might indicate problems in our future…. Almost wants me to dig out my own time travel short stories and start editing them to be a bit more scientifically plausible.