This is not an assumption. This is a scientific fact. We are able to see the past through looking at the stars. The light from the distant stars takes a lot of light years to reach the Earth. Hence when we are looking at the beautiful starry sky in a clear night we are actually looking at the past of these stars. Astonishingly enough we are looking at a lot of different pasts simultaneously, as these stars are vastly different in regard to their distance from us.

Up

The Paradox

There are many conceivable ways of time travel, and many people who do and do not believe in them (such beliefs do not in fact change any laws of nature).

If time travel were assumed to be possible then many impossibilities would be assumed to appear. For example, if someone were to travel into the past and see himself as a child he could kill himself. Okay, so that would be a pretty dumb thing to do, but the possibility brings up a paradox. If he kills himself, then he could never go back in time and kill himself. The possibility of this situation might lead to believe that time travel into the past is not possible. In fact the only time a paradox could be assumed to happen is when someone travels backward in time, and if this travel proves to be possible it should eliminate the possibility of a paradox (by definition paradoxes never happen). In the above example the man would not be able to kill himself, no matter hard he tried, because he has already got to live into the future without killing himself. Someone who does not agree?

Up

Parallel Universes - A Way To Overcome The Paradox

Many science fiction writers wrote about time travel (as history proves to us, many science fiction writers could in fact foresee a lot of what have been achieved in their future, so we can't ignore them, beside that, many such writers have had a wide knowledge of science).

In order to avoid the paradoxical situations they came up with an idea of parallel universes. A universe is created when a person (lets call him Sack) went back in time. Sack lives in the year 2050 and he travels back in time to 1998. By traveling back in time Sack has unknowingly changed the universe. Whether it was raising the temperature of the earth 0.000000000000012 degrees or changing the wind pattern with a blow of his breath, Sack has made a difference. Sack has changed the universe from what it was. Now that Sack has changed the universe it branches off the other universe and that other universe becomes so it only exists for Sack. It still exists but as what could have been, not as what did. Sack can still travel all that he wants but if he travels into the future he can only travel into the future he has created.

But beside science fiction, multiple universes were suggested by the following scientists:

Physicist Huge Everett, suggested that during the evolution of the universe, it continually "split" in half, like a fork in a road, building an infinit number of universes (Many-Worlds Theory). This theory is mathematically equivalent to the interpretations of quantum theory.

Lucasian Professor of Physics at Cambridge University Stephen Hawking, introduced (The Wave Function of the Universe), which is the application of quantum theory on a cosmological scale. It suggests that there is an infinit number of possible universes that are connected by tunnels (wormholes).

Up

If We Only Could Travel Faster Than Light

An idea is that if we could travel faster than light then we would be traveling back in time. Isaac Newton's theory of the universe included the fact that light speed was constant. This was proven true in several labs. The next logical deduction from this theory would be that light would appear to move slower as the person watching sped up. A test was done and the results showed that that was not true, that no matter how fast a person moved the light would continue to appear to move at light speed. The only explanation was that as a person sped up his time would move slower.

Imagine a person (A) in a spaceship moving at light speed and holding a flashlight. If he were to shine it perpendicular to his course he would see the light take a curved path. Someone (B) outside the ship would see the light take a straight path. The distance that B sees the light travel is shorter than the distance A sees the light travel. If you take the equation D/T = D'/T' where Distance/Time is the velocity of light as seen by B and D'/T' is the speed A sees light moving. The velocity of light is constant. D is less than D' so it must be that T is less than T'. The time for A is greater than the time for B. Once A reaches the speed of light time will not be changing at all for him. If A is able to surpass the speed of light then in order for the velocity of the light to continue to look the same, his time must go backwards. (This is an obsolete assumption, it is mentioned here just for the historical interest, it seems that light speed could not be surpassed).

Up

Time Dilation & The Time Express

Isaac Newton's ideas were widely accepted and could be accurately applied to most of the universal calculations. It wasn't until a slight discrepancy in the observed Mercury orbit and the calculated one that scientists began to wonder if Isaac Newton was entirely correct. The Mercury orbit differed by exactly 42 arc seconds. Later when it was found that light always appeared to move with the same speed despite one's own velocity, combined with many other observations, the Newtonian universe began to crumble.

It was time for new ideas. Albert Einstein was full of them. His theory of relativity assumed that time was the fourth dimension, he introduced the concept of Space-Time. A large mass would bend the space around it and in doing so would create gravity (a Time-Space cartoon). This was a far fetch from original theories, but it predicted the Mercury orbit exactly. Later it was given further support by a test during an eclipse. The light from a star was bent as it came into the curved space created by the sun.

The time travel aspect of this comes from the curved space. When a mass bends the Space-Time it makes distances longer, it stretches the space. A spaceship traveling into the gravity of a large mass, a star, for example Sirus, going 100,000 miles per hour would look like it was traveling quite fast to someone outside the spaceship. Once the ship enters the gravity of Sirus, the ship would seem to slow down. It hasn't though, ship's computer states a constant velocity of 100,000 miles per hour. The person outside is watching the ship and the ship seems to stopp. The space around Sirus which appears to be an inch is actually, once you get there, 100,000 miles. The man inside the ship feels no differens and he continues to travel what seems to be 100,000 miles per hour, so his time must have slowed down. His hour becomes longer than it is to the observer. His clock still runs in a steady motion but it moves slower in comparison to the clock of the observer. This is called Time Dilation. In fact according to the theory of relativity, by moving at speeds close to the speed of the light, even if this happens in a train, the clock would slow down (in relation to the clock of an observer), and one could in this way travel forward in time.

Up

When Mind Travels Faster Than Body

The theory of relativity states : By moving at speeds close to the speed of the light (read energy), the clock would slow down (in relation to the clock of an observer), and one could in this way travel forward in time.

Neurophysiology states : The process of thinking (and all the other functions of the brain) are achieved through the process of depolorization-repolorization of the membranes of the neurons that build the nervous system, thus creating electrical currents (read energy).

By considering the above we can deduce that thinking, which is an energy mediated process, should allow for the processes that govern Breaking Through Time, such as the phenomenon of Precognition.

The above leads to the "qualitative" conclusion that although mass and energy are interchangable according to Einstein's most famous equation E=mc˛, energy is far more "superior" to mass because energy is able to travel very easily with the speed of light. By reflecting this "superiority" on our anatomy and physiology we are able to understand why it is far more "easier" for our mind to "interact" with the time.

Up

Black Hole - A Gateway To A Mirror Universe

A black holes is created by a very massive star. The star burns up all of its fuel and then it loses the forces that were counteracting the gravity. The star collapses into a smaller star that is still just as massive. The star burns what is left of its fuel until it loses all of it. The star collapses into a black hole. It has an incredibly dense mass and the curvature it creates in Space-Time becomes deeper and deeper as it becomes denser. It is called black hole because it has so much gravity that light, in trying to escape it loses all of its energy until the spectrum of light becomes completely red and finally disappears. The light at its vicinity rotates around it. So, a black hole is not visible. The only way to detect it is to detect its effects on other visible objects.

The very deep curvature in the Space-Time around a black hole is postulated to create a path leading to another time-place in the Time-Space Universe. So, at least theoretically, black holes could be regarded as one of the possible ways of achieving time travel. Scientists suggestd that anything that enters their domain will eventually get destroyed. But New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr assumed in 1963 that any collapsing star (which is transforming into a black hole) would be rotating. He found that a collapsing rotating star would be compressed into a ring (not a point). A space probe directed to the side of the ring would be demolished, but a probe entering the ring from the "top" or "bottom" would survive, and would pass through the ring (a wormhole), and emerge into a mirror universe.

Fime Theory suggests that the ring would probably look like a spiral semi-ring (signature of a black hole).

Up

Closed Timelike Curves

Closed Timelike Curves or CTCs have been suggested by mathematician Kurt G?del, in 1949, through his solution of the general relativity. Previously, Newton considered time to be moving like a straight arrow. Einstein, however, showed that time might take a curve. Kurt G?del, in 1949, showed that time can be bent into a circle. He is considered to be the founder of CTCs in general relativity.

In 1963, Erza Newman, Theodore Unti and Louis Tamburino discovered a new solution to Einsteins equations. They showed that the topology of the universe might be compared to living on a spiral staircase, and if we move 360 degrees around the staircase we do not arrive at the same pointat at which we started. (In fact another solution by W.J.van Stockum in 1936 assumed that the universe has the shape of an infinitely long, rotating cylinder).

The above solutions of the general relativity allow for time travel through the CTCs.

It should be mentioned here that CTCs are closely related to what Fime Theory states. A spiral time, which is deduced in a different and simpler way compared to the above models, can be regarded as a "fully expressed CTC".

Up

Traveling Through Time In A Cylinder

In June 1988, three physicists (Kip Thorne and Michael Morris at the California Institute of Technology and Ulvi Yurstsever at the University of Michigan) published the first serious proposal for a time machine in one of the most distinguished publications in the world, Physical Review Letters. One of the two suggestions was to build a cylinder of an "exotic matter" (which, theoretically, can exist). The time traveller stands in the center of the cylinder. The cylinder then warps the space and time surrounding it, thus creating a wormhole that opens into a different Space-Time.The traveller experiences no more than 1 g of gravitational stress during the procedure.

The team makes it clear that the above should in fact violate a simple concept in physics, AWEC (the averaged weak energy condition), which states that objects have positive energy and vacuum has zero enerrgy. In order to achieve time travel we must create negative energy.

The problems associated with achieving the above could possibly be solved by a hyperspace theory (hyperspace=higher dimensional space), such as Superstring Theory, which integrates all the known forces in nature, and which assigns ten dimensions to the universe. The multidimensional concept of the universe and the hyperspace is explained here.

By comparing the above with what Fime Theory states, it becomes obvious that there is a very close relationship between it and the other related concepts in theoretical physics. And though it only presnts five dimensions, not ten, it explains how the fifth one, Fime, operates in detail. It should be also stressed that Superstring Theory presents the rest six dimensions as non-specific dimensions, while Fime Theory states clearly that the fifth dimension, Fime, is closely related to time, it is a temporal or chronological dimension.

Up

Suggested Reading