I have a theory that would blow your mind.?

Question

push all logic to the side for a moment and bare with me. say you are in outer space (it doesn't matter if you have a space suit on or not) and you begin to travel directly away from the earth at more than 186,282.397 miles per second (the speed of light). so this would mean that you would be traveling faster than the speed of light, and that light itself would be lagging behind you. so now this is my theory that I was wondering if it were true (I thought it up in a dream and wasn't sure) if you were to stop and turn around at this incredible speed, would you see yourself seconds coming towards yourself? would this be time travel? let me know someone.

Answer 1

My mind is in one piece.

Answer 2

No. Because you are not in 2 places. You are only one object. Going the speed of light is not the same as going many times faster than the speed of light. Traveling at the speed of light is slower than "jumping" through space or folding space, and a second or two later, arriving somewhere 30 light years away. An object travelling at the speed of light cannot blur or enter another dimension... So you would look backwards, and see blank open space.

Its possible an image of yourself might be visible if you looked back, within some kind of particle cloud, nebula or something gaseous. Maybe then a slight blur would be visible. On the canvas of open space, there is nothing to mirror your movement. Who knows what you'd see in a nebula or other gaseous body. Thats why sci fi series and books do so well.. they can make it all up as they go and it wont contradict any data. For now.

Answer 3

if your going faster than light at a constant velocity, you would see time going in reverse. If you had a large pond, and dropped a stone in it, and had a boat in the same spot the rock dropped, let the waves go outward for a while, and then start driving the boat outards, you will see the waves as they were formed but in reverse, starting with waves made last, all the way to the start of the waves.

the other question is, can energy atract light. if so you would have infinte energy in real space, and thus would cause light to bend towards you, allowing you to see many things at once. You would see things occuring faster and faster, until there is no light left around to see, so you would then see all of time eventually.

Answer 4

I think that you have to shed logic to comprehend quantum physics -- and I think that that is where your dream was heading.

If you are traveling faster than the speed of light... would not the image of yourself be unseen as the light has not been able to keep up with you? Further, think of the relativistic implications. So, if you are traveling at that speed, assume that you are enveloped in a micro-bubble, so that all of your "self" is traveling with you. Should you turn to look would the "approaching image" of yourself actually be visible, relative to your "new location" of faster than light speed travel?

I think that you would not see the "image" of yourself coming at you. But, I think that you wouldn't see your-second-self not because of the light but because your-physical-self, having been traveling faster than light, was not visible with "light" as you interpret it. I still think that You-faster-than-light will sense 'no movement' in the sense that your micro-bubble will appear to "not move" however, to an external witness, you'd speed on by.

I do not think that this theory is adequate for time travel, per se. With physics of this nature, I think that the "time travel" is relative -- for the Faster-Than-the-Speed-of-Light You, very little time will have elapsed. For the witness who waits or watches you zoom on by, much more time has elapsed. I understand your theory, that if you go superfast as you described, can you then "look back" to travel through time. But, I think that the time travel that you seek will only be accomplished by either increasing your velocity to a point that could affect the space-time continuum or by a superheating/supercooling method to achieve a large-scale particle theory (see, Richard P. Feynman).

Interesting dream, though. And, as quantum and sub-particle physics are so steeped in theory -- dreams are a great place to start!!!

Answer 5

Your theory reminds me a little bit to a greek philosph called Zenon of Elea; especially his philosophy about the "Achilles and the Tortoise". Read it if you havnt read already. A good example that theory and praxis are two different shoes. First of all you cant be faster than light. Cause light is the fastest thing in universe. And even if you can (modern physics theories for example with the aid of a parallel-universe) you cant outrun yourself. You will implode. But your theory isn bad. One of Einsteins theories are quite similar too. Considered as your own theorie its not a bad one, compliment. But its not a new one; sorry to say.
Read Zenon of Elea, he had the same problem. Your theorie sounds mathematically locig. But there is no point of outrunning yourself. You can outdistance an obeject but not yourself wihout going to implode or die. Zenons tortoise will (mathematically thought) never be outdistanced by Archilles. Mathematically the advance of the tortoise will be devided indefinetely but not being reached. We all know the praxis is often different. But if you want to prove your theory your first problem in reality will be to move faster than the fastest thing in universe the light itself. If you find out please inform me. I will be interested.

Thanks for your interesting question

Answer 6

OK...take a worm hole that you can see both enterance and exit portals. For you to escape the gravitational pull of the worm hole you would have to travel faster then the speed of light. Your eyes only see at the speed of light, when you exit the worm hole and turn around you'll see yourself entering the worm hole at the same time. The questions is: Are there two of you in that momemt of time.

Answer 7

No, you wouldn't see yourself.

You are only going the same speed as light that is emitted from the earth since that's the item you're travelling away from. That light won't reach you and won't illuminate you.

There are many other light sources in the universe and you can't be travelling away form them all, so you will get illuminated.

Any light bouncing off you will be going at least the same speed as you and so turning around suddenly you won't be able to see yourself as the light that emitted form you before has already travelled away from you.

Answer 8

You would be existing in frames that could not exist.
But for the fun of it,if you barreled away then turned around you would see yourself approaching at the speed of light!

Answer 9

yes It would of course be a time travel!
But when you'll travel with speed of light your mass will be equal to infinity and that you'll affect all your the universe in the space-time curve and whole of the universe will be destroyed in a movement.
But the fact is how will you attain the speed of light?it is nearly impossible.

Answer 10

Good question. The answer would depend upon the assumption that all of the conditions were possible.

I assume that although you are F.T.L., a streak of your appearance would trail behind you, hence, there would not be a break-or pause-between yourself and your trail. I imagine that once you are facing the direction from where you came, the light from your trail would be immediately visible.

Answer 11

Well, your question does say to push all logic aside.
So, you are going faster than light, suddenly stop (and somehow survive the stop) and immediately turn around, only to see the light from yourself arriving at your stopped position.

Let us say, for the sake of calculations, that you were going at 2 c. One second before stopping, you were at 2 light-seconds from your stopped position. The light (going at speed c) that left your body at that time takes 2 seconds to reach your stopped position. You took one second (going at 2 c). Therefore, the light you emitted one second before stopping will reach you one second after stopping.

Two seconds before stopping, you were at 4 light-seconds from your stopped position. The light emitted then takes 4 seconds, but you only took 2. Therefore, the light emitted 2 seconds before you stop will arrive two seconds after you stop.

Conclusion, you will not see yourself arriving. Rather, you will see yourself going backwards, back to Earth. One second after stopping, you see yourself as you were one second before stopping. Two seconds after stopping you see yourself as you were two seconds before stopping, and so on.

Of course, I am staying away from trying to explain how you went so fast. If Einstein's theory is correct, you could not have gone that fast by accelerating up to that speed.

Willl you have travelled in time? Probably not. As far as the universe is concerned, you would still have used up some length of time to go from A to B. From your point of view, the Lorentz (time) compression factor would not apply in a way we would understand:

SQRT(1- v^2/c^2 ) = SQRT (-3)

And the square root of minus three is?

Therefore, the flow of time is not negative, it is "complex" (and there are scientists trying to make sense of this concept -- but it is way beyond me)