Countless fiction like H.G Wells’, The Time Machine and the iconic Hollywood movie ‘Back to the Future’ have done nothing but aggravate the hype surrounding time travel. Now, bringing the fictional concept closer to reality, a US scientist has developed a mathematical model for a viable time machine.
“People think of time travel as something as fiction. And we tend to think it’s not possible because we don’t actually do it. But, mathematically, it is possible,” said Ben Tippett, from University of British Columbia in Canada, who used Math and Physics to create the brilliant formula.
In 1915, German scientist Albert Einstein announced his theory of general relativity, stating that gravitational fields are caused by distortions in the fabric of space and time. And more than 100 years later, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration – an international team of physics institutes and research groups – announced the detection of gravitational waves generated by colliding black holes billions of lightyears away, confirming Einstein’s theory.
“The division of space into three dimensions, with time in a separate dimension by itself, is incorrect,” said Tippett.
Using Einstein’s theory, Tippett said that the curvature of spacetime accounts for the curved orbits of the planets. The four dimensions should be imagined simultaneously, where different directions are connected, as a space-time continuum.
In “flat” spacetime, planets and stars would move in straight lines. In the vicinity of a massive star, space-time geometry becomes curved and the straight trajectories of nearby planets will follow the curvature and bend around star.
“The time direction of the space-time surface also shows curvature. There is evidence showing the closer to a black hole we get, time moves slower,” said Tippett. “My model of a time machine uses the curved space-time to bend time into a circle for the passengers, not in a straight line. That circle takes us back in time.”
Now, for the question of actually making this model a reality- “HG Wells popularised the term ‘time machine’ and he left people with the thought that an explorer would need a ‘machine or special box’ to actually accomplish time travel,” Tippett said.
“While is it mathematically feasible, it is not yet possible to build a space-time machine because we need materials – which we call exotic matter – to bend space-time in these impossible ways, but they have yet to be discovered.”
As a technology lover you may like our daily important technology news series. It’s a playlist and you can retrieve the total day-wise videos. Please consider subscribing our YouTube channel:
Author: Technology Vista
