Even if man were able to travel at the speed of light, would that mean that we could travel through time?
467849
I think that there is the theory that you could travel back in time, but it is really all Star Treckie.  I don't think there is any possibility of travelling back in time, no matter how fast you can go.
37917
this is somewhat similar to a question I answered realative to time travel. The short answer is no, there was never a time, nor will there ever be a time when matter (massive fermions) travel faster than light (massless bosons). This is because massive objects need energy to accelerate and regaurdless of how much energy was released in the big bang, it could not have been infinite, and that is what is required to move a massive particle faster than light. Light speed is not a derived measurement, it is a fundemental constant that is the same in all reference frames. Here's the cool exception though.....and this is how a theoretical warp drive would work..... the actual expansion of space itself might have been faster than light. There has never been a limit imposed on the speed at which space expands although because gravity is a result of the deformation of space and gravitons are the theoretical force carrier, it has been assumed that the expansion of space would occur only as fast as gravitons can travel....which is most likely light speed. One of the many postulates asserted by string theory is that gravitons may not be bound to our spatial demensions, that they might radiate through extra demensions (which would account for gravity's lack of strenght compared to the other forces). If this is the case that the gravitons travel through other demensions it is quite possible that within a given reference time, a graviton could pop into a superior demension and back into our at some other point and essentially beat light to some defined location.\n\nI know thats a little confusing.....but its fun to think about.
60294
yes, it's possible to travel into the future but not into the past. all you have to do is travel near the speed of light relative to earth and when you return after what feels like a few minutes, you'll find that many years have actually passed by.
34913
It is not possible for any particle that has mass to travel faster than the speed of light. The reason has a lot to do with relativity. Because the faster you go, the slower time passes for you. So if you are at 80% of the speed of light, and launch a projectile in front of you at light speed, because of your slow passage through time, it will still appear to you to travel at light. Everything is relative, and because of that, certain constants like the speed of light never change.\n\nAlso, a particle with mass would achieve infinite weight at light speed. Since you can't obviously exceed infinite weight, you can't exceed light.\n\nThe ideas behind things like "warp speed" don't propose actually traveling faster than light. What they propose is taking shortcuts through space, kind of like skipping a stone across the surface of the water. Even "warp speed" is subject to the laws of relativity.
1082095
Time travel to the future is theoretically possible.  Travel in space at near-light speed for a short time and a much longer period of time will have passed on Earth.  Or you could have yourself cryogenicly frozen (though I'd wait until they perfect the revival process) and see the future that way.\n\nIt would be a good thing to see the progress of mankind, but you may have a hard time fitting in.  Since there's no way to travel backwards in time, you would be stuck there.
222343
you can travel to the future but not the past, the closer you travel to the speed of light the faster the time goes by on the outside. I once knew how this worked but can't rememeber now.\n\nIn order to travel through time, one must travel at the speed of light, or at least at speeds very close to the speed of light. The problem is, as you mention, that it is not possible to accelerate something up to the speed of light. This comes from the theory of special relativity. In that theory, Einstein has shown that as something accelerates and travels at great speeds its mass increases. And the larger the mass of the object, the harder it is to give it a push to make it accelerate some more. So when the speed of the object gets really close to the speed of light, its mass becomes almost infinite making it impossible to actually give it the speed of light (or speeds faster than the speed of light). \n\nBut you don't need to travel exactly at the speed of light to "travel to the future". This also comes from Einstein's special relativity. When things travel at speeds close to the speed of light, time slows down. For example, if you were travelling for 10 years in a spaceship that could go at 95% the speed of light then 32 years would go by for the people that stayed on Earth. So in that sense you could say that you have traveled in the future. However we do not have the means to accelerate our space shuttles to speeds even close to that. The space shuttle travels at about 17,500 miles per hour which is 40,000 times slower than the speed of light. At that speed, an astronaut would have to travel a billion years in his space ship in order to jump one year in the future!
1131993
My opinion is that in order to travel through time we would need to be able to travel uncalculable extraordinary distances.\n\nImagine how fast the earth is moving through space. Not only would we need to calculate the speed of the Solar System; but the speed of the Milky Way Galaxy; the speed of the Universe; and in which direction.\n\nWhy would we need to know this? We would need to be able to travel to the actual physical position in which the Earth would be located at the time in which we were desiring to be present.\n\nIt is my opinion that if it were not for the fact that we are traveling at such and such a speed that "Time" itself would not be possible in the first place.\n\nThe fact that physical matter is never in the same location;;;EVER;;; is what I believe makes the existance of matter a possibility.\n\nImagine that if the Earth were a hundred miles away from its current location in just one small second of time. To travel back one second in time you would have to travel that one hundred miles of distance.\n\nWould the Earth be there if you could travel that distance? Some scientists want to believe that "worm holes" can link up huge distances in space by folding or warping space, distance, and time. \n\nI personally believe that God has the power to time travel; or how else could he know the future in order to prophesy; and I do believe he has proven the ability to prophesy. Yet, did he time travel, or did he make things happen according to his prophecy?\n\nOk; if God exists in the future; or at the end of time (the furthest point in which time has yet reached since the beginning of all time) and has the ability to travel back into various points of the timeline; he then has the ability to travel forward and backward in order to see how well things are going according to his own actions.\n\nSo then, Jesus would have seen everything before it ever happened. I also take into account that God must have the ability to be larger than the Universe and smaller than the smallest forms of energy and matter if he were truly capable of producing and controlling them.\n\nYet affording us free will is what allows us to be who we are.\n(see references below)\n\nIs it possible that matter is frozen in time at every location along the path of which it travels? In other words; Is our history preserved as if it were a tape or recording throughout all of its existence? It does not seem possible; but anything is possible with God. Maybe this is where the "Missing Universe" energy is located; frozen in time. If this were true than I believe it may be possible to time travel. One would have to have the ability to travel amazing distances at amazing speeds.\n\nI would have to believe that traveling into the past would be possible under the circumstance that matter becomes frozen in place as it travels and that a person could travel such distances and had much time available for the journey.\n\nSo if traveling into the past were possibe; because the past would be there; whereas the future may not be yet, would traveling into the future be possibe?\n\nAfter traveling backward, surely we could then travel back to the future from where we just came from. This theory would conclude that we exist in the "real" present and the future really has not happened yet.\n\nSo traveling into the future could only happen if we first traveled back into the past, and then went back to the future.; where we came from.\n\nSo lets say someone else traveled back from the future (which has not happened yet to us; because at which point do we cease to be the "real" point in which time has already existed?) into our present time. We would have to consider that if God really does prophecy by time traveling, then we do not currently live in the "real stream of time"; but time and history has already taken its course and has already been fulfilled.\n\nIn other words; we do not live in the real present; but
467276
In theory, the faster you move, the slower time advances for you. If you were to move at a speed approaching the speed of light, you could slow time enough that you could "travel" forward. It isn't really time travel, but whatever works...\n\nAs far as I know, traveling backwards definitely is not possible; time is a construct, something that only exists in one's mind. It is really a rate of change; the change can only occur in the positive direction, so traveling backwards is out.
50535
OK, first fo all Mr cliffx has it backwards.  As you continue to acellerate tworads the speed of light time will slow down for you and stay normal for everyone else.  Thus at that speeds you could travel 10000 lightyear in only 1 year, your lifetime, but thousands of years could pass on earth.\n\nIt has been theorized that time travel is posible but you could not simply accelerate to that speed.  Even if we could travel that fast the economical need would be currently beyond what any country has, even if they put all there funding into that one project.  but I am getting off the subject.\nOne theory is to travel into a black hole.  The gravetational field in a black hole is so strong that it has been theoryzed that even time cannot escape.  Thus if we were able to travel into a black hole we could use the captuered time there, so to speak, and transverse the timeline.\n\nThen there are ideas of actually traveling on light waves, lasers, to allow us to travel to the speeds necisary.  Of course then we could only travel to the time of how long that peice of machinery is on.  Also we would have to convert ourselvesinto an electrical signale, data (essicially transport), which would then bring up the promblum of measuring matter without moving it and blah blah blah.\n\nSummery, Yes it is possible to travel through time.  We just do not havet he knowledge and/or technology to do it yet.
1000407
Einstein was referring to Time Dilation.  Time dilation would make it possible for a fast moving clock to travel into the future, while aging very little. That is, the clock (and according to relativity, any human travelling with it) shows less elapsed time than stationary clocks. For sufficiently high speed the effect could be dramatic. For example one year of travel might correspond to ten years at home. Indeed, a constant 1g acceleration would permit humans to circumnavigate the known universe (with a radius of some 15 billion light years) in one human lifetime. The space-travellers could return to earth billions of years in the future (provided the Universe hadn't collapsed and our solar system was still around, of course). A scenario based on this idea was presented in the novel Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle.\n\nA more likely use of this effect would be to enable humans to travel to nearby stars without spending their entire lives aboard the ship. However, any such use of this effect would require an entirely new method of propulsion. A further problem with relativistic travel is that the interstellar medium would turn into a stream of cosmic rays that would destroy the ship unless stark radiation protection measures were taken.\n\nCurrent space flight technology has fundamental theoretical limits based on the practical problem that an increasing amount of energy is required for propulsion as a craft approaches the speed of light. The likelihood of collision with small space debris and other particulate material is another practical limitation. As a result, time dilation is not currently a major factor in space travel.\n\nIf you would like further explanation of this theory, just let me know.
347791
Your example is actually a good one for how we know no one can travel faster than the speed of light.  The people on the boat would measure the same speed for the beam of light as those standing on the shore.\n\nEinstein's theory of special relativity states that, regardless of your motion, light's speed remains constant.  Space and time warp in order to make light's speed constant from all perspectives.  As matter gets closer and closer to the speed of light, space stretches and time contracts, requiring infinite energy to reach the speed of light.  Only things with no mass (i. e. energy only) can travel at the speed of light, and nothing we know of can go faster.\n\nHowever, Einstein's theories do suggest that we could bend space and time to allow us to get around the speed of light.  We can't travel a trillion miles per second, but, with enough energy, we could shift some spot a trillion miles away to right next to us.
95316
I believe yes.. It makes sense, You see all of these dimensions are just directions. If you say that the four dimensions are represented by X,Y,Z,T these are merely directions of dimensions then all of those are travellable (meaning you can travel in those directions). You can go to left & Right (X), You can go Forward & Backward (Y), you can go Up or Down (Z). The questions now is how do you travel through time. According to Albert Einstein if there is anything that can go faster than the speed of light then it will be possible to travel through time. It is actually true becuase our mind can go faster that speed of light that whay our mind can travel through time, sometimes we remember things in our past that the way our mind travels.
935501
Well theoretically you wouldnt be able to travel at the speed of light. At the speed of light yoru mass would become infinite and time would virtually stop for you. But at the speed of light the light would still be infront of you. Think of it this way if you are in a race and the runner directly infront of you is traveling at the same velocity as you you would neither fall behind nor would you catch up. So the light would be in front of you.
169854
Of course.  We all travel forward in time, at a rate of 1 second per second.  ;)\n\nBTW, in the time dilation examples cited here, you don't actually travel back in time, it's just that one object travels forward in time at a slower rate as observed from the other reference frame.
303837
Time travel is possible when we travel forward not backward. IF you look to the history books there are no such thing of human come form the future. So that is the proof that has defined the theory that we can't go to the past. There are theory that we can move forward by using the method of speed. Once you increase the speed of travelling the time will change very fast, and you might be in the future. But to have that kind of machine to bring you forward needs a lot of discovery especially about the strenght of metal, fuel, speed, and a lots more. You can get the theory about speed from einstein. Whatever you want to know about it, you can get it there, BUT eventhough you learn about time travel, you won't get that technology while you still alive. Maybe you can use that information just for you knowledge. Not more than that.
442563
There's a number of ways to answer this.  Einstein's theory of Relativity says that all things are moving at the speed of light through spacetime, with stationary objects moving wholely in the time dimension.  As you start moving, some of your velocity is directed away from time and in a physical dimension.  When you approach the speed of light, you are traveling very little in the time dimension and mostly in the physical dimesions.  If you actually reached the speed of light you would experience no time whatsoever; your entire trip across the universe would be one instantaneous flash.  However, the faster you travel, the more difficult it is to travel even faster.  When you are traveling relativistically, Newton's second law of F=ma no longer applies.  You continue adding force, but rather than creating acceleration, you'll begin gaining mass.
386007
yes, and that's why it's impossible to time travel (no going past the speed of light either)