![]() ![]() Einstein proposed that time travel into the past could be achieved through an Einstein-Rosen bridge, a type of wormhole. If we can’t use time dilation to return to the past, does this mean that the past is forever inaccessible? Perhaps not. Jaymie Matthews, professor of astrophysics at the University of British Columbia, “ this voyage is one way – into the future, not back to the past.” With our current technology, jumping a few microseconds into the future is all humans can manage.īut if technology one day allows us to send a human into the future by travelling close to the speed of light, would there be any way for the traveller to use time dilation to return to the past and report her findings? “Interstellar travel reaching close to the speed of light might be possible,” says Dr. In order for humanity to send a traveller years into the future, we would either have to take advantage of the intense gravitational acceleration caused by black holes or send the traveller rocketing into space at close to the speed of light (about 1 billion km/h). So why hasn’t humanity succeeded in making such drastic leaps forward in time? The answer to this question comes down to velocity. This is why, when the crew returns to Earth, Matthew McConaughey’s daughter is an old woman while he appears to be the same age as when he left. Because of the black hole’s intense gravitational influence, time slows dramatically for the crew on the planet, making one hour on the surface equal to seven years on Earth. Running 38 microseconds fast would result in a positioning error of nearly 10 kilometres, an error that would increase daily if the time difference were not constantly corrected.Ī more dramatic example of time dilation can be seen in the movie Interstellar when Matthew McConaughey and his crew land on a planet with an extreme gravitational field caused by a nearby black hole. While this time gain seems insignificant, GPS satellites rely on their onboard clocks to maintain precise global positioning. These satellites have highly precise clocks onboard that gain an average of 38 microseconds per day due to time dilation. This effect can be seen in GPS satellites, which orbit 20,200 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. According to Einstein’s theory, because time moves more slowly as you move faster through space, the closer an object is to the centre of the Earth, the slower time moves for that object. ![]() The centre of the Earth’s gravitational dip is located at the Earth’s core, where gravitational acceleration is strongest. The closer an object gets to the centre of the dip, the faster it accelerates. The Earth creates a gravitational dip in the fabric of spacetime which is deepest at its core. Instead of treating space as a flat and rigid place that holds all the objects in the universe, Einstein thought of it as curved and malleable, able to form gravitational dips around masses that pull other objects in, just as a bowling ball placed in the centre of a trampoline would cause any smaller object placed on the trampoline to slide towards the centre.Ī computer-generated representation of Einstein’s curved spacetime. He coined the phrase “spacetime,” fusing the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time into a single term. Einstein was the first to realize that time is not constant, as previously believed, but instead slows down as you move faster through space.Īs part of his theory, Einstein re-envisioned space itself. ![]() Real-life time travel occurs through time dilation, a property of Einstein’s special relativity. And you don’t need a wormhole or a DeLorean to do it. While the debate continues over whether travelling into the past is possible, physicists have determined that travelling to the future most certainly is. ![]() The ability to travel through time, whether it is to fix a mistake in the past or gain insight into the future, has long been embraced by science fiction and debated by theoretical physicists. Chenoa van den Boogaard, Physics and Astronomy editor ![]()
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