IF you could build a big enough rocket (don't ask me how, that's an engineering problem) to provide a constant acceleration of 1g (9.8 meters per second per second; the same acceleration as provided by the Earth's gravity at its surface), you could reach the center of the Milky Way galaxy — a healthy 20,000 light-years away — in just a couple decades of your personal time. this should be in every intro to physics text book ever. That's the iron law of thermodynamics that states that closed systems go from ordered to disordered.

edit: Maybe that's why time flys by when youre asleep! 357 votes, 270 comments.

Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. What you can change, however, is the direction you move through space-time. © that was amazing. Original article on Space.com. Think of a gigantic box that contains the whole universe. So here goes. Anyway, even the most innocuous time travel would ultimately cause the death of the universe. you dont have the change the movie a lot just it a bit . Thanks to Jack S., Evan W., @myscienceylife, and @TanyaDavis. i nearly fell off the chair reading it and now i have to put my eyeballs back in. Maybe the speed at which my mind is analyzing things also takes away from my movement in time. I'm going to be really picky. Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter. The arrow is your constant speed, horizontal is your speed in space, and vertical is your speed in time. How Time Travel Works in Science Fiction (Infographic), Pictures from space! And, conversely, the slower you move through space, the faster you move through time. We're not sure why these facts are the way they are, but they seem like basic, unalterable facts about the universe. Time travel is possible and has already happened One way to achieve time travel into the future would be travelling at the speed of light in space, as first theorised by Albert Einstein. Wells' The Time Machine (1895), the actual science of time travel didn't come into being until well into the twentieth century, as a side-effect of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity (developed in 1915). But there isn't one.

No, we made up the measurements for time the same way we made measurements for space but space still exists, in special and general relativity it’s treated like another dimension similar but different to space. While reading the part about slowing down our progress through time, it hit me like a ton of bricks...we get so impatient sitting in traffic and waiting in line or just when others prevent us from going where or doing what we want, not just because we are in a hurry, but because we are very literally and physically "wasting time". Just as you can have a two dimensional space (a flat plane - a grid with only length and width, like a sheet of paper), you can add an extra dimension to it - height - to have a three-dimensional space with length, width, and depth. Time seems to have an "arrow," whereas the spatial dimensions are ambidextrous. Let me clarify by saying that time travel IS possible, but when we tug at the strings of the time/space continuum we will undoubtably begin to unravel the threads of universe itself. (This law explains why an egg will never just happen to unscramble itself if you leave it alone long enough). Seriously, though, that was fantastic. Forward time travelling, is something we can essentially achieve right now with travelling at higher speeds relative to others. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the explainlikeimfive community. You will receive a verification email shortly. If we diverted half our speed through time to speed through space (by travelling at half the speed of light) we would move through time half as fast. My running theory of time travel is that all things spawn an infinite number of disparate time streams. Astronauts travel in time due to time dilation. You can travel to the future special and general relativity prove that. I was able to follow it throughout without losing track of anything, thanks! Isn't time just human-made for measurement? Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity suggests backward time travel is possible in some scenarios, but do those situations ever exist in our universe? And, just as the addition of a third dimension to a flat plane creates the three-dimensional manifold we call real space; the addition of this fourth dimension to real space creates a four-dimensional manifold that we call space-time. A seemingly minuscule reversal or alteration of predetermined order would set off a series catastrophic events in an attempt by the universe to maintain or correct its natural trajectory that I believe would cause the universe to begin to break down. These constants are basic facts about the universe that we've discovered. On This Day in Space: Oct. 27, 1961: NASA launches 1st Saturn rocket test flight. Well, to understand this, [look at this image.] When you get up and get a coke, you divert a tiny, tiny bit of that speed (say, two miles an hour?) Like i would back to the making of king kong 1933 and show the directors and writers real gorilla behavior and biology also what we learned of dinosaurs. Is time travel possible ( self.defectorgalaxy) submitted just now by defectorgalaxy. Please deactivate your ad blocker in order to see our subscription offer. If the speed of light is constant, what happens when one thing (let's say a photon) is moving at the speed of light in one direction while another is moving at the speed of light the other direction, the two moving towards each other? When you got up and walked to the kitchen though, you diverted some of the speed at which you were moving through time to your movement through space. This sounds funky, but the basic meaning is this. The most important concept you'll need is the concept of a space-time manifold. That's the easy answer. I don't think one is superior to the other. Time may only be chronological in our perceptions, but if this were so, wouldn't we also be everywhere we've ever been simultaneously? Traveling at the Speed of Light.

The inevitable progression of time from the past to the future resembles another indomitable law of nature: entropy. You weren't moving through space at all. it bothers me that attention seekers and story tellers have overrun a place that could've been used to discuss theories or for other scientific discussions about the possibility of time travel. I love your response. The long, more satisfying answer is contained in a thorough understanding of relativity theory. Get breaking space news and the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!