What more exciting possibility does physics raise
than time travel? We all dreamed of an opportunity to visit the Triassic or
repeat an exam in “the DeLorean.” Of all the paradoxes that our interpretation
of physical phenomena brings us, probably the most perplexing is the concept of
time. Is there a mechanism that allows a trip to an earlier period? At least,
mathematically speaking, it seems “yes.”
Traveling to the future is possible, although
nothing is simple. According to Einstein’s Relativity, any observer moving at a
certain speed is, in some way, traveling into the future for a static observer.
It is because, for the observer, rest time passes more slowly.
Astronauts living on the International Space Station
move considerably faster than we do on the Earth’s surface, so their biological
clocks are slightly ahead. Of course, this effect is negligible in astronauts.
But if we could move at speeds closer to that of light, the consequences would
be noticeable. An illustrious example is what happens to the character Matthew
McConaughey, who returns home after orbiting a black hole to find that his
daughter is several decades older than him.
But traveling back is prohibited by the known laws
of physics, as it violates causality, an unbreakable relationship between a
cause and an effect. The grandfather paradox is the most concrete example of
this prohibited violation. A grandson travels back in time and kills his
grandfather so his father cannot be born, and consequently, neither can he. So
he couldn’t have traveled back in time, and his grandfather would still be
alive, resulting in the grandson being born and being able to travel back in
time to kill his grandfather. And so infinitely.
Germain Tobar is a fourth-year science student at
the University of Queensland in Australia. Tobar and his supervisor, Dr. Fabio
Costa, explored the mathematical (not physical) possibilities of providing a
model to prove that a trip to the past is possible. They found a way to make
the numbers square so that the journey is plausible and avoid the emergence of
paradoxes like the grandfather.
“It would mean you can time travel, but you can’t do
anything to cause a paradox,” Dr. Costa said in an official press release for
the University of Queensland.
Establishing an accurate description of the
mathematically possible phenomena is the first step to physical
experimentation, even reinforcing or reformulating the postulates of
Relativity. In this sense, all the explored possibilities have enormous scientific
value.
“The range of mathematical processes we discovered
shows that free will time travel is logically possible in our universe without
any paradox,” Costa concludes.
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1 Comments
Physics is science that deals with the structure of matter and the interactions between the fundamental constituents of the observable universe. It studies all objects ranging from the very small to the entire universe. Mathematics is the quantitative aspect of physics. Time is neither matter nor interaction. It is not observable except sequence of events involving matter. We can have a quantitative analysis of events, but not that of time. Travelling is a sequence of events of objects over space in any direction. Hence time travel is not possible to be explained mathematically. In fact there is nothing as time travel. We all evolve in time in one direction. That doesn’t mean time travel. Dreaming about something is not science.
ReplyDeleteThere is really no paradox. The so-called paradoxes arise because of our insufficient knowledge about some missing parameters or manipulations. Time is NOT a paradox. It is a non-physical abstract concept that arises from our notions of sequence and interval. The intervals between infinite sequence of events are described as time, just like the sequential intervals between objects is called space. Since intervals have no markers to describe them, time and space are described through alternative symbolism of their boundary events and objects. During the last few hundred years, it has been a fashion to describe the events and objects as time, which is a totally wrong concept.
We can’t go into past like we go back in space. This is because going is an event in forward time. A bull enters a china shop and shatters it. If the shop is restored to its original shape, it will be an event in forward time – and not backwards in time. Like space, which is stationary, we can’t travel backwards to the same position again, since everything is moving ahead in time and we can’t isolate an event like we can isolate a position. There is nothing like a static observer. Every observer is moving ahead in time continuously.
The intervals between events may increase or decrease. But that neither speeds up nor slows down time. Astronauts living on the International Space Station move considerably faster in space than we do on the Earth’s surface, but not in time. Their biological clocks are slightly modified, which are reactions to the environmental effect – not due to time speeding up. Even if we could move at speeds closer to that of light, the consequences would be noticeable in the system, not in time. What happens to a character Matthew McConaughey, who returns home after orbiting a black hole to find that his daughter is several decades older than him, can be found only in fiction and not in reality.
Events are governed by causality - an unbreakable relationship between a cause and an effect.
There can’t be mathematics without physical objects, because mathematics deals with numbers and only physical objects have numbers. Number is the characteristics of all objects that differentiates between similars. If there are no similars, it is one. If there are similars, it is many, which can be 2, 3, 4, …. n, depending upon the perceptions of one’s over and over again.
Establishing an accurate description of the mathematically possible phenomena is not the first step to physical experimentation. If you purchase a bike for $3000, with $1000, you can purchase 1/3 of a bike. This is mathematically correct, but physically meaningless. There can be physics without mathematics. But there can’t be meaningful mathematics without physics. There is no equation for the observer, yet it has an important position in physics. The smile in the lips of the beloved is not the curvature of lips.
Time to switch over from mathematical physics to physical mathematics.