Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-5303512-20190723183726/@comment-24729606-20190905223100

Time Travel. Perhaps one of mankind’s most long-standing quests along with immortality and achieving a utopia (whatever that means to the party or parties in question). Over the years many methods have been proposed on how to achieve. Most of these methods are either based in science fiction or straddle the line between real and “fictional science”. For example one such method is faster than light (FTL for short) travel which also involves a phenomenon many have experienced albeit on only a VERY small scale. The faster one goes relative to a stationary observer the more distorted the first party appears relative to the second party (and vice versa). These distortions occur not just in space (i.e. fast-moving objects traveling towards or away from oneself appear to be smaller than they actually are) but time as. That is the faster one goes the slower time flows relative to a stationary observer. The closer to the speed of light one gets the greater this phenomenon becomes until eventually the subject becomes little more than a blur in space and (to the stationary observer) the traveler will be barely be visible at all. At speeds of light or more time be acting in a way that it doesn’t under any other circumstances. However while there are many problems with FTL travel the main one is propulsion. Propulsion requires energy to initiate and perpetuate. The more acceleration a task requires and the longer the duration of acceleration required the more energy that is required and subsequently expended. In energy is bound up in matter which has a tremendous amount of energy contained in it (see Einstein's famous e=mc squared where e stands for energy, m for mass, and c squared for the speed of light times itself). But thus far fuel efficiency has been both seemingly improving but still only releasing only an infinitesimal amount of the energy potential of fuel. While I don’t know the number off hand I do know that it would easily require all the fuel resources of our entire planet (and probably far more) to a vessel of reasonable size anywhere near the speed of light. Another method is not quite as far into the realm of science fiction but nonetheless is still a LONG way from being anywhere near realistic. That method would be taking advantage of regions of space where gravity (thank you very much Dr. Isaac Newton) is strong enough to distort both space and time enough that one could travel in one or both. Such a regions include black holes and other objects of extraordinary density (mass per unit volume). Now to travel in time using such objects one needs to get very very close to them. In the case of a black hole there exists a point or boundary called the event horizon. Basically nothing can pass that boundary (except perhaps for the as far as I know still theoretical phenomenon of virtual particles which while fascinating are a topic for another discussion) not even light (or photons if you prefer). If you can weather the black holes EXTRAORDINARY gravity and remain just outside the event horizon then provided you don’t get obliterated by the egression disk (which is an amorphous collection of matter orbiting the black hole that will eventually get devoured) then you will be a special pocket of space where time (thanks to the black holes own gravity) flows much slower than elsewhere. These are just two methods but hopefully I’ve made as clear as I can that time travel however appealing it might seem is ultimately far more trouble than its worth. But to leave things on an admittedly rather pessimistic note. Even if one does achieve time travel than one would have virtually no real control over where or when one would up.