|
Hey Chris...
You are right in some senses of the word traveling back in time. Mind you that it was Einstien who proved that it is impossible to travel faster then the speed of light because of special relativity. Understand that as you approch the speed of light your mass becomes infinitly large thus requiring an infinte amount of energy to push you faster. Time becomes to a stand still relative to those at rest and your length in the direction of mostion would become nothing. As you can see this is not possible. But let`s assume that you could by some new machine travel faster then the speed of light and in this machine mind you, you would not take the hundreds of years to accelerate to the speed of light. (Another reason why it is not possible for humans) Because light travels at a constant speed of approx 3.0 x 10^8 you would infact be traveling faster then the light that has just reflected off of your cloths. So when you look back you will see the light that just came off of you. So infact it would seem that you have traveled back in time. But you can`t interact with anything. You are just simply looking at the light that you have some how beaten.
An easier way you can think of it is this. Get you and a friend together both of you start in the same spot and face in the same direction. Your friend will be representing the light reflecting off of you. You will represent what you see and yourself. Now your friend, who represents light, walks at a constant pace. You might want them to walk slowly so you can beat them. You will walk faster then your friend and once you are about 3 or 4 meters stop and turn around. What you see is your friend (who represents the light coming off of you) coming at you. Remember they are simply light. You can`t touch them or ask them questions because it`s just the actions that have taken place now hitting your eyes. If you have ever heard of people saying that the hubble telescope can look into the past they are partly right for the same reason. The light hitting the telescope is billions of light years old. So the action of say a star exploding happened billions of years ago. Thus we have seen something that happened billions of years ago. This is all possible because Light is a constant and thus has a constant velocity.
Well I hope this helped everyone. I know it`s a longer answer then most would have liked but in actuality you where half right and half wrong. Traveling past the speed of light is impossible, though if you could that`s what would happen. Time travel is simply no possible in the sense of acting with it. If you have any questions still contact me at Syrous44@hotmail.com
Good question Chris and I hope this helped.
yours physically...
Mark Parsons
OAC student Galt Collegate. |
