I read in todays paper that if you travelled into space at the speed of light,you would come back before you went....
2007-03-30 05:45:55 · 16 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
The newspaper didn't quite get it right. What they should have written is that if you travel *near* the speed of light away from Earth, when you return you'll be younger relative to everyone left behind. If you want to learn more about all this, do a Google search on keywords "twin paradox."
2007-03-30 06:32:10 · answer #1 · answered by Chug-a-Lug 7 · 1⤊ 3⤋
You'd have to travel faster than that. And it shouldn't work. The other theory is that you'll turn into energy at that point.
Though it's the only way to meet aliens. If we got a message today from an alien culture say 2000 light years away, and it was a message traveling at light speed, that means the message is 2000 years old, so if you went there at light speed, 4000 years total would've passed. So you'd have to travel -2000 years basically in order to get to them.
Anyhow, back to your thing, basically you can't travel at negative time, at least not with regular physics. I think the only way to do it would be to somehow travel through a dimension that has negative time, don't ask me how you'd start though.
2007-03-30 16:31:56 · answer #2 · answered by Luis 6 · 0⤊ 3⤋
no....it's simple....no matter where you go....there you are. wrap your head around that...lol....think about this one....the universe, as we "see" it, is millions of years old. this is because the distance is so vast that the light traveling to us takes that long to get here, and that's traveling at the speed of light. big place, huh? stared your question. (and yes, i guess it might be possible to get back before you left, but i don't think you would find yourself there when you return.)....unless you are a hyper-intelligent beam of blue light....then i have a different answer completely. are you?
2007-03-31 18:23:23 · answer #3 · answered by cookie 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not sure about that one. There seems no point in travelling in the first place, it would just be like ground hog day. But I do believe you would have to travel faster, than light for that to happen, as you would never over take, the speed time continuum (Got that one from Back To The Future).
2007-03-31 05:53:49 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
Either you need to find a better paper or you read it wrong. As objects approach the speed of light (requiring imponderable amounts of energy to do so), time slows down. If it were possible (it isn't) to travel AT the speed of light, time would stop, for the traveller. It's as much an effect on you as it is on time itself, since everyone else is in normal time and would be moving impossible fast from your point of view.
Perhaps the article was talking about "wormholes", warps in the space-time continuum that shortcut causality and can put things out of sequence. Of course no one has been able to demonstrate such a thing but theoretically they could exist.
2007-03-30 17:22:22 · answer #5 · answered by skepsis 7 · 0⤊ 4⤋
Which paper was that?
According to the Theory of Relativity, the speed of light is unreachable for anything made of ordinary matter. To accelerate even a single human being to 90% of the speed of light would require the energy of about 3,000 Megatons of nuclear bombs.
Particle accelerators can spin individual atomic particles to very close indeed to the speed of light, but only photons themselves can actually travel at light speed.
Coming back before you went implies time travel back into the past, which many physicists believe violates fundamental principles such as causality - best illustrated by the idea of going back in time to shoot your own father, so you never exist - so you therefore were not around to shoot your father, so he went on living and was able to sire you, which means you were in fact able to go back in time.... see what I mean.
2007-03-30 13:02:42 · answer #6 · answered by sillustani 1 · 2⤊ 3⤋
Absolutely not; your time can slow down but not reverse, and anyway no massive object can travel at the speed of light
2007-03-30 12:49:49 · answer #7 · answered by MadScientist 2 · 1⤊ 3⤋
Sounds similar to Einstein's curved universe theory, but you cannot go forward at any speed and end up going back into time.
2007-03-30 12:49:22 · answer #8 · answered by Micah 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
no if u traveled at the speed of light and had a telescope powerful enough u would be able to see your self leaving
2007-03-30 12:50:39 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 3⤋
A. You can't go the speed of light
B. If you somehow could, you could possibly come back at the same instant you left, but not before.
2007-03-30 13:47:25 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 3⤋