Zoë Mir '27

Almost everyone has heard about the famous physicist Albert Einstein, but few know more about his work than the equation, e = mc². While this equation was monumental, Einstein’s work included much more. In 1905, he published a paper on his theory of special relativity, and in 1915, he built on this with his theory of general relativity. Through this work, Einstein described time and the possibility to move forward through time at an unusual rate.

A key concept that laid the foundation of this work is spacetime. Spacetime is a combination of four dimensions—three of space and one of time—and describes the fabric of the universe. Another important idea in special relativity is the notion that time is inconsistent. Time can appear to move more slowly for one person relative to another. This is called time dilation.

Time dilation seems paranormal, especially when its effects are almost imperceptible to us in our daily lives. It can also be easy to view time dilation as an illusion, but it is very real. Time dilation occurs when something is traveling quickly through spacetime (at a speed comparative to the speed of light) or when something is close to a massive object (like a large star or black hole). From the perspective of this object, its own time appears to move the same as it always does, but to someone observing this object, the object’s time appears to be moving more slowly than the observer’s own time.

This creates many interesting phenomena that can seem paradoxical. For example, your feet are almost always closer to the earth, a massive object, so time is passing slower for them relative to your head. This means that, in a sense, your head is older than your feet. However, it is important to remember that the effects of time dilation are not apparent except when regarding large quantities, so in reality, the “time travel” experienced by your feet relative to your head is only the tiniest fraction of a second.

Another interesting phenomenon involves the effect of time dilation at high speeds. For example, if an astronaut were to get in a rocket ship, leave Earth, and spend twenty years speeding around at close to the speed of light, when the rocket ship and the astronaut returned to Earth twenty years later, thousands or even millions of years would have passed for the stationary people on Earth. Essentially the astronaut is “time traveling” into the future.

Of course, at the moment, we do not have the technology to get us anywhere near the speed of light or close to a black hole, so there is no way for us to travel thousands of years into the future. We do experience time dilation in our daily lives on Earth, but its effects are so miniscule that we don’t notice. We can observe time dilation on atomic clocks (extremely precise clocks) traveling quickly on planes, and even though the difference is super small, it is still visible. The effects of time dilation are also incorporated into our global positioning system (GPS) satellites; without the adjusting calculations, Google Maps would be off by about 10 kilometers every day.

It is clear that time travel into the future is very possible, but the past is less certain. Physicists are still unsure whether the universe would even allow time travel to the past, as theoretically, it would open up the possibility for confusions like the Grandfather Paradox to become true. There have been proposed solutions to paradoxes like this one and even more efforts to try to explain how traveling to the past would even be possible, but the most convincing argument might be the concept of wormholes. Also known as Einstein-Rosen bridges, these bends in the fabric of spacetime could, if moved through, allow an object or person to travel into the past. However, wormholes themselves are still hypothetical, and they would be rare and so small that even bacteria could not fit through them. They would also likely collapse quite quickly. There are quantum theories that also address time traveling into the past, though there is even more controversy and less evidence regarding those theories. Though many are trying, the problem of traveling into the past has yet to be solved.

To conclude, yes, time traveling into the future is very possible, and developments continue to be made to hopefully allow us to better understand or even to someday try time traveling large periods into the future. In the meantime, try to run as quickly and as frequently as possible. You might live a fraction of a second longer.

Works Cited:

Marshall, Michael. “Is Time Travel Really Possible? Here’s What Physics Says.” BBC News, BBC, 12 Nov. 2023, www.bbc.com/future/article/20231110-doctor-who-is-time-travel-really-possible-heres-what-physics-says.

Thorne, Kip S. Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy. W.W. Norton, 1995.

“Time Dilation.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., www.britannica.com/science/time-dilation. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.