Is Time Travel Possible?

Time travel is one of the widely discussed topics in the world. When the term ‘time travel’ comes to the mind, people usually think of a machine which can travel to the past or future within a moment. But this is only possible in fantasies or fictions, not in real life. So, is it theoretically or practically possible to travel into different times?

Basically we all travel with time. Time is running but in a systematic way. Time doesn’t go backward. Time passes by but within a speed limit. The speed limit is practically 1 hour per hour, 1 minute per minute or 1 second per second. We cannot change the limit. If we want to make a time travel, we must change the speed limit of time. What if time travels 1 day per hour?

Travelling To Future

The great scientist Albert Einstein had developed a theory that is Theory of Relativity. This theory describes the possibilities of time travel. It says, when an object travels relative to other objects close to the speed of light, time will be slower for it. The speed of light is approximately 300000 km per second. If any object can reach almost 99.5% of the speed of light, it can travel to the future. To be more specific, a man has left the earth and traveled to the space with the speed of light. He has spent 1 year in the space with the same speed limit. After coming back to earth after 1 year he’ll see the earth has already spent 5 years! His mates, friends have grown older than him. In a gist, he has travelled to the future. So, traveling to the future is theoretically possible. But to make it practically possible, we need to travel close to the speed of light which we haven’t achieved yet.

So, as the man traveled to the future, can he come back to the present or where he did belong? To make it possible, he needs to travel to the past.

Travelling To The Past

There is a popular hindrance of traveling to the past and that is- Grandfather Paradox. For example, a man from present time has travelled to the past and met his young grandfather. He suddenly killed his grandfather. What will happen? His grandfather won’t be able to give birth to his (man) father. So, there will be no existence of his whole family. Likewise there will be no existence of that man too. Then who went to the past to kill the grandfather? This is an impossible fact and this is a hindrance to the fact of traveling to past.

But there also two theories accepting the fact of time travel- Novikovs self consistency theory and parallel universe theory.

Self-consistency theory: According to this theory, if any man goes to the past he cannot get into any kind of activities that will affect his present life. The nature will hinder him from these activities. So, although he can travel to the past, he cannot change anything or affect the past world. Mother Nature will play the role of controlling everything. But this is just a theory.

Parallel universe theory: According to this theory, there are different universes for every chance. For, example, a man just had an accident and lost his eye. There will be another universe where he didn’t have any accident and enjoying his life with both eyes. Both the possibilities will go parallel in different universes. This is like a tree and its branches. As every tree has a lot of branches, every incident can have a lot of results. And there is existence of parallel universes for every possibility. So, according to this theory, a man cannot time travel to the same universe he is living. It justifies the fact of time travel. But this is also just a theory.

So far we have learnt that time travel is theoretically possible with many limitations. There are physical and technical limitations. Our technology is not that much developed to travel at a speed of light and travel in different times. Even if we invent any technology of that speed, we don’t know whether we human body can sustain it. Scientists are working with wormholes (technology for time travel). So, as science is developing our dream of time travel might come true one day.