Science fiction has often been turned into science fact in order to make inventions happened. Isaac Asimov’s robots are now common place in factories, Star trek’s holodeck is now a virtual reality set inside a helmet, back to the future’s hover boards have now been realised. Time travel has been realised in many science fiction novels and films but has yet remains to be elusive which asks the question, is time travel possible?
Travelling Back In Time
Is time travel really possible? Physicists believe that travelling back in time would be an impossibility due to Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The mathematical solutions that would in theory allow travel back to the past are unstable, therefore it would be impossible to use Einstein’s theory to find a sustainable way to travel back in time.
Solutions to time travel show that by theory, time travel is possible however these come with their own problems. One of the solutions to time travel is known as the Godel Spacetime Solution. This theory shows time to be like a ball of string that is folded together. Points in time cross over as there is no true straight line. With time forever crossing over in this method, there is no way to tell what is past, present or future.
Time travel is possible in theory but difficult. but if science did find a way to travel back to the past, there would be philosophical issues and theories that would need thorough investigation. Some of these issues include:
- Grandfather paradox (If you shot your grandfather in the past would you still exist?)
- Parallel Universe theory (If one thing changes in one universe it could remain the same in another, therefore we would not know which universe it is that we are travelling.)
- If you were to make one change in the past, you could inadvertently change the present and the future
- If someone travelled back from the future wouldn’t there be evidence?
These philosophies into time travel to the past suggest that the idea would go against the law of nature and that nature would find a way to make time travel to the past an impossibility.
Travelling Forward In Time
Travelling to the future is a far easier concept than to travel back in time. Is it possible to time travel and visit the future? Time travel may be possible by travelling forward in time. This concept although easy in theory is far harder to act out in reality. The power that is needed to reach the speed of light is something that we have not managed to achieve at this moment in time.
There is also a second theory that shows it would be possible to travel forward in time. If you were able to get close to a black hole without being sucked in, time is said to slow down. Therefore, as you return to earth you would find that people on Earth have aged and therefore the question, is time travel real, could be answered as yes.
The Verdict
Time travel is possible in one direction. In theory it is impossible both practically and philosophically to travel back in time. However, there are two ways in theory that you could possibly travel forward in time but as yet we do not have the ability to harness the power that would be needed to travel forward in time. To answer the question, is time travel really possible, the answer would have to be yes it is possible.