Time Machine?

Question

My 8 year old son would like to know if there ever could be a thing that could transport people through time?

Answer 1

time travel into the future is very real. for example, if one were to sit just outside a black whole where there is extreme gravity, time would move much slower to you than everyone else (its call gravity time dilation, and is a proven fact). In fact if you were close enough to the black hole, time could move 10,000; 100,000; or even 1,000,000 faster for everyone else. If you waited just outside the blackhole (in your specially made craft) for 1 year and then returned to earth, 1,000,000 years would have passed! If you ask me, that's time travel.

But, into the past is trickier. its not ruled out by so called "paradoxes" because (according to Einstein's rigorously proven theories of relativity) all of space and time exist at once. even though people think the past is set and stone and the future hasn't happened yet, they're wrong. Einsteins theories say that all the past and the future exist at once, so if one were to go back and time to kill their grandparents, then nothing they do could work. they had already tried to kill their parents before they were born and obviously failed because they were born! however, actually traveling into the past is iffy. But still quit open for speculation and I would encourage your son to maybe look it up if he is really interested. The world could always use more great minds.

Answer 2

Your 8 year old son has an inquiring mind - and that's a good thing.

Tell him that time travel is a very interesting subject that has been the plot to many science fiction books and movies. But, unfortunately, it isn't real, and all indications are, it will never be real. Be sure also to tell him that he will learn all of the scientific and physical reasons this is so in school.

But that doesn't mean you can't have a good time imagining about how interesting it might be to travel into the future to see what it will be like or back into the past to see things in history that we can now only read about.

Just because it isn't real doesn't mean we can't imagine it.

Answer 3

So far, the imagination of authors and people in general believes that there can be time travel. Very often that is the starting point. Believe that something is possible and somebody will find a way to do it.

However I don't know of any proof either scientific or mathematical that proves that we can travel backwards in time.

Traveling forward is already proven. If you travel in a spaceship at close to the speed of light,you move much faster than people on earth would. Such a spaceship might take 50 years to travel to the center of our galaxy and back. In that time the earth would have aged millions of years.

So, I feel that within the next 50 years , people will be traveling forward. Backwards - I am not sure, but it will make for amazing learning.

Answer 4

If he can imagine it, then it can be done.

Men want to travel through space and time but do not yet fully understand what time is. Point out to him that we are already in a moving time machine traveling at nearly 67,000 miles per hour and rotating at 1,000 miles per hour.

Our system is likewise traveling through time in a galaxy that is also traveling through time and space. So in fact the entire universe is a time machine.

And how did he get here? He was present in his first ancestor who was made up from the dust of the earth which in turn was made out of molten products from distant and ancient stars. when they all sang together.

He was present with all his grand fathers and present with his dad --- and You were the time machine that brought him here to travel in yet another dimension!

If he can imagine it, it is possible.

There are plenty of examples to choose from including cloning which produces an interesting time differential. The new clone is actually older than the original. Can this be pushed?

There is the interesting story of Phillip in the New Testament who was moved about 30 miles instantly twice in one day. If one considers the story true then what is our concept of time, space and reality and do we really need a machine or "are we the machine?"

Answer 5

My 12 year old son says that it is up to future scientific theories. In other words, we have no idea how to do it today, but in the future, perhaps a way will be discovered.
It isn't likely, however, because time travel would cause things in the past to be changed, which would cause the future from that point to change.

Answer 6

Strikes me as possible, but unlikely. Right now, we don't know anything about time from a manipulative perspective, but if it is a dimension, there may be a way to move along it besides the usual direction. And as for the past being set in stone, or the future being undone, we really don't know that, we're stuck here, in the present, moving along the only way we can without interference.

Answer 7

I don't think so. The future hasn't happened yet, so you can't go there. The past is already set in stone; it's already happened, so even if you could go there, you wouldn't be able to change anything. Anyway, time is more of a unit of measurment people invented to help organize their lives, memories, and the world around them. I don't think it's an actual 'thing.'

Answer 8

Tell him it is HIS destiny to design the first time machine. Maybe he'll be so compelled to earn a Ph.D. in physics.

Personally, I don't believe it's possible (I have a cyclical notion of time, as opposed to a linear perspective). Then again anything is possible...

Answer 9

well actually i've heard a lot about it who are dorks and tried to research it. it seems when i talk to them the general conclusion is that you can go forward, but not back. don't know why.

Answer 10

NO... not very likely.