Time Travel and Light Speed
I am not a physicists – and the mathematics of physics gets me lost – I do not understand the math.
I do enjoy physics from an amateur (or lay-person) viewpoint. I enjoy learning about physics ideas that are believed to be true – but do not seem to make sense from my common sense perspective.
One idea is dealing with time; from my personal experience – time travels at the same rate into the future. No matter what you are doing – the time clock is moving into the future at the same rate. You may read about time-travel in the world of fiction; but in the world of reality – time is consistent going at the same rate in the future.
So, when I hear science mentions that time can travel at different rates in the future; this does not fit my common-sense observation of what I actually see – and it is one of the features about physics that I enjoy.
The idea of time and traveling at light speed.
Strange things can happen when a person can travel at light speed.
As I understand it, time can travel at different rates of speed going into the future. You cannot go back in time but can go at different rates of time in the future. If I understand it and if the physics is correct, you can built a time machine going into the future but not the past.
(Not sure of the specifics dealing with the math; just give an example to express an idea)
If you are traveling in a ship at light speed, you may believe that you were traveling for one day; while people on planet Earth would believe that you were traveling for several years. Time travels at a slower speed inside the spacecraft than outside the spacecraft.
Time appears to be a something that can be measured traveling at different rates of speed into the future.
One place on the Internet that gives a good explanation of this is from a science show called Cosmos done by Carl Sagan. (It was a science program done in the 1980’s).
Youtube has a video about this, can find it at:
YouTube Video Address: (link no longer works)
Or you can search under YouTube for the title:
“Time Dilation – Travel at Speed of Light – Special Relativity”
Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction. Hope people enjoy.