What will happen to time when we travel in the speed of light?

Question

Will time come backward?

Answer 1

Perhaps this was just merely a poor choice of words, but nothing happens "to" time, just the way we experience it.
We do not travel "in" the speed of light, but at the speed of light.

That said, it is impossible for anything with mass to travel at, or faster than, the speed of light.
However, we can still speculate on what effects would occur by doing so.

As one approaches the speed of light, time appears to slow down for us as viewed by an outside observer.
When we reach the speed of light, time appears to have stopped for us as seen by an outside observer.
When we exceed the speed of light, we are essentially traveling into the past, time is running backward as seen from an outside observer.

By 'outside observer', I mean the person who is measuring our speed....all speeds are relative to the observing.
In our own reference frame, we observe our own speed to be zero and everything else is moving around us, so we would sense nothing is unusual.

Answer 2

Like all scientific questions, it will help to be a bit rigorous when we formulate the question.

When you say "we travel", do you mean the whole human body? Or do you mean a massive (point) particle?

Now coming back to the question, massive particles cannot travel at the speed of light, though they can approach that speed and get as close as they can afford to ( it costs more and more energy ) without quite reaching that speed -- the reason is that at higher speed, it will become more and more massive and will eventually require infinite energy to actually touch the speed of light.

Massless particle, on the other hand, ALWAYS travel at the speed of light -- examples are light itself which are massless particles known as photons, and the graviton, the massless particle of gravitational force which also travels at the speed of light.

So, all the massive ingredients in us ( as in human beings ) can never travel at the speed of light , while the electromagnetic signals in the body - in the brain for example - do travel at the speed of light ( very short distances though ).

Wonder if this satisfies your hopes about traveling at the speed of light!

Answer 3

Relative Time Speed at point of origin Significantly slows down.

As we travel at the speed of light....TIME to reach destinations appears to go by really fast..... as in... it takes no time to get from here to there...

You cannot go backward........ unless...I'm thinking... you bent space like a U and then traveled through the U... or would that put you in another dimension?

Hmmm.

Answer 4

Einstein actually proved that you cannot accelerate to the speed of light due to the infinite amount of energy required to propel the infinite mass to c.

However he did not say anything about particle travelling at the speed of light already. In special relativity there are particle such as the Tachyon (none found yet but are constantly searched for). Tachyon are particles that travel faster than the speed of light (as seen by us).

Anyhoo to answer your questions - Time would appear to us (travellers at c) to be normal but we would observed all other time to appear to be standing still or moving very slowly. but time will still continue to run, so time would not stop only decrease fractionally and only appear to stop and therefore time will never run backwards.

The theory of relativity start to break down or are not as accurate when you are talking about light speed and faster than light speed travel.

Answer 5

You're trying to find an answer to a question that is an impossibility. You can't reach the speed of light. Ever.


The answer though, is:

It would simply continue to pass normally since you wouldn't exist as anything other than pure energy.

But again this is impossible for us. An object of mass cannot reach the speed of light ...or atleast, not in a straight line ;)

Answer 6

Time stops for you and you can get anywhere instantly. No, time will not come backward, you will travel to the future (you can travel through infinite amount of time in infinitesimal amount of time). It's difficult to explain or imagine it, because it can't happen. Actually it makes no sense. It's the same to ask - "What's north of north pole?"

Answer 7

actually if u want to go to the future then u hav to go backward ie opposite to earths rotation & that too so fast that u hav to complete more than one rotation of the earth backwards in less than one sec if the speed of lite meets that critiera then travelling at that speed u may actually go into the future!!!!!

Answer 8

It will to literally no time to get from place to place. The time it takes to get anywhere is 0.

(But as previous posts have said, nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light, only approach that speed.)

D=delta
Y = gamma

Dt = improper time
DT = proper time (you're measuring proper time when measuring time it takes you to get from A to B)
v = relative speed

Dt = YDT
( where Y = 1 / [1- (v^2/c^2)]^0.5 )
DT = Dt/Y
= Dt * [1- (v^2/c^2)]^0.5
(v = c)
= Dt * [1- (c^2/c^2)]^0.5
= Dt * [1-1]^0.5
= Dt * [0]^0.5
= Dt * 0
= 0

Answer 9

you cannot travel at the velocity of light
it is against the theory of relativity
but if you travel at a velocity closer to that of light then the value of time increases(lorentz transformations)
i.e time acting on you will increase
for eg: if you are travelling at 99% of velocity of light then by the time you spend one minute,the world outside would have spent half an hour

Answer 10

We cant hit the speed of light, according to the theory of relativity we can only approach the speed of light. I mean if you were moving faster than the speed of light, you would be moving faster than you are able to see...