Reflection Part 1/2 - The fable of time travel.

The late Stephen Hawking (1942°-2018+) came to the conclusion that time travel is possible, but for the time being only in theory. And yet it doesn’t let anyone go.

First possibility: Stay in a static orbit around a black hole.

According to general relativity, time stands still on the edge of a black hole. Einstein’s general theory of relativity states that the higher gravity, the slower time passes. Nowhere is gravity as great as in a black hole, even the light could not escape from it and therefore we see nothing there.

It’s extremely complicated to circle close enough around a black hole, assuming we get there already. If you go over the edge, you’re lost. Astronauts and spaceships would be pulled apart by it. The annual energy output of our sun is insufficient to escape back from that orbit. So what good is that?

We leave this possibility for what she is and don’t go into it any more deeply.

Second option: Travel at 98% of the speed of light.

Some scientists believe that sooner or later humanity will be able to build a “relativistic spaceship.” Einstein discovered that as objects accelerate in space, the speed at which time passes for them slows down. That effect is negligible in, for example, the aircraft we have today, but for spacecraft that fly at 98% of the speed of light, it is particularly strong. The cern particle accelerator in Switzerland has already shown measurable time lag. In this device, elementary charged particles are brought to high energy levels by accelerating them to speeds near the speed of light. This acceleration is done using strong electric fields. So for those elementary particles it seems to work, but what about humans?

Such a spacecraft would have to fly about one billion kilometers per hour, which corresponds to 98% of the speed of light. It is estimated that it would take six years to reach that speed in a spaceship. Six miserable years when we will be exposed to enormous G-forces. Fighter pilots sometimes lose consciousness at large G-forces after only two minutes.

During those six years, everything happens:

• After two years, the ship would fly at half the speed of light and be far beyond our solar system.
• After another two years it flies then to 90% of the light speed.
• Another two years later it has accelerated to 98% of the speed of light. At that point, every day aboard that ship corresponds to a year on Earth.

The astronauts would have seen a tiny piece of our Milky Way in 80 years. At that time, 29 200 years passed on Earth. Approximately, this corresponds to the total length of time that modern Homo sapiens sapiens orbit this globe. During that time has now passed, it could have already become extinct or evolved further into another species.

Of course, it will take our space travelers another 80 years to return. In that case (after 160 years in hibernation) about 60 000 years passed on Earth. This is the time to be told to colonize the earth again if necessary. The disastrous consequences of a possible asteroid impact would have all but disappeared and our sun is still young enough to enjoy it for thousands of years to come. In fact, this is the only reason why this article is included in this series!

So basically this is a plan to save humanity from any destruction. If we want to prepare for the bad news that an asteroid is on its way to Earth to hit it in full, then there may be the following possibilities:

• Send a missile with a few warheads and shoot the asteroid to shreds. This seems to be the most viable solution at the moment. If we get enough time for the impact, i’m sure it’s worth a try.
• Colonization on Mars started, it still seems like distant future music but this is already being done. I certainly wouldn’t wait for the time pressure to become so great that too many things could go wrong.
• And then there is time travel, perhaps the most unrealistic solution that may never exceed the paper version.

Animation on Giphy.

Problems remaining with time travel.

There are unrealistic obstacles. None of them have been solved, they are not even working on it:

• Build the spaceship: how big should it be and how many people should be in it? Should we also provide a place for animals and plants? In this case, the image of a modern Ark of Noa emerges.
• Which engine and inexhaustible fuel should be used? Will we ever manage to mimic our sun and weigh a fusion of hydrogen atoms, that solves the problem of that inexhaustible fuel.
• What do we do with those deadly G-forces that will last six years? Are huge pressure suits (which we are actually already using) going to solve that problem?
• Always flying straight ahead is once heading straight for a star. Are there any other price corrections possible? Who is going to calculate it, after all, the universe has not yet been mapped?
• Is a human still capable of reproduction (or general to life) after 160 years of hibernation? For plants, this possibility already seems to exist.
• Still silent about food, drink and there must be a doctor on board? The bottom line is, can we be self-sufficient all this time?

Animation on Mashable.

What about time travel in the past?

As travel into the future might already be, the reverse travel to the past is not possible. Travelling into the past would mean flot hailing a fundamental rule of “cause for effect.” In our expanding universe, time is an irreversible vector with a sense of the future and therefore away from the past.

The infrared shift always indicates a expanding universe. So in a distant past, there must have been the Big Bang, the universe came from a very small point. According to the late Stephen Hawking, that’s the singularity. A one-off exceptional state, from then on all physical laws began to apply. It is a time with an infinitesimally small volume and an infinitely large density. Spacetime is so curved here that space and time actually cease to exist. The processes that put an end to that singularity and in fact start the laws of nature are not yet known.

At this point of singularity, we must seek our Creator.