Science Fiction

898 readers

1 users here now

This magazine is aimed at fans and creators of sci-fi and related media of all kinds. It includes all content related to the sci-fi genre and only content related to the sci-fi genre. The goal is to build a community for everyone who enjoys science fiction and related topics. This includes the obvious books, movies, and TV shows, but also original writing, the discussion of writing SF, futuristic art and designs, and the science and technologies that inspire the sci-fi genre. **Team Top 20**

founded 1 year ago

Astrophysicist believes he's cracked the code for time travel (www.earth.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

After years of research, Professor Mallett claims to have finally developed the revolutionary equation for time travel.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

How do we know how much energy time travel would take?

[–] FooBarrington 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The idea is that you can go backwards in time by going faster than light. The speed of light is actually the speed of information itself - so if you could go faster than that, you'd be going backwards in time.

However, Einstein showed that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light. You'd need infinite energy to actually reach the speed of light, and infinite energy is assumed to not be possible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if there is a meaningful difference between your example, and the technology with which the JWST uses to view light in the past. Rather, if the later is something we can use for time travel ;)

[–] FooBarrington 1 points 7 months ago

The JWST looks at light which has been travelling for a long time. The only special thing about it, compared to other telescopes (or even your eyes), is the range of frequencies it's looking at - the longer light travels, the lower the frequency becomes (due to the expansion of the universe).

So it's the same basic phenomenon - information has a max speed, so you're always interacting with the past state of any object.