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area51newmexico
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 1:12 pm    Post subject: Time & Space Travel Reply with quote

One of the problems with space travel is the huge distances involved. Even if we travel at the speed of light, it can take years and years to get to places. You would be years late for your date which wouldn't be good at all! So I've been thinking.......

What if time & space travel were combined? So when you travel 500 light years in distance, you also travel 500 years into the past. Therefore you would arrive 500 light-years away at the same time you left!

Just need to get the flux-capacitor and hyper drives to work and we're winning.....

Do you reckon that would work?
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 1:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'll let others volunteer for working out the bugs of vaporization at high speeds.

Even though there's no atmosphere you still have to have a mother of a radar/navigation system to dodge objects.

One of our space shuttles hit the atmosphere at about 17,000 or 24,000mph with improper heat shielding and debris was found in 7 or 10 states. Embarassed Embarassed
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Lamiaceae
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 1:36 pm    Post subject: Re: Time & Space Travel Reply with quote

area51newmexico wrote:

One of the problems with space travel is the huge distances involved. Even if we travel at the speed of light, it can take years and years to get to places.


But you wouldn't really know that, because of time dilation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation


area51newmexico wrote:

You would be years late for your date which wouldn't be good at all!


And here is where I perhaps show my ignorance, but...

I know that it takes me 45minutes to 1 hour to get to work ( and about that as well to get to Hull )

So I leave with that amount of time before I need to be there, and I generally arive more or less around the time I was planning on arriving Very Happy

area51newmexico wrote:

What if time & space travel were combined? So when you travel 500 light years in distance, you also travel 500 years into the past. Therefore you would arrive 500 light-years away at the same time you left!


Again, showing my ignorance, but theory says that if you were to exceed light speed ( which we know to be impossible, but stay with me ) time would actually go into reverse. So what you've said in effect would theorectically happen Smile

There's a book who's name I can't fully remember at the moment ( but i'm sure it will come to me and no doubt form a part of your birthday / christmas / impromptu present ) that explains things like this... It's something like Professor $SomethingOrOther in Wonderland - which i'll track down when I get home Smile


( EDIT - for purposes of future reference, it was 'The New World of Mr Tompkins: George Gamow's Classic Mr Tompkins in Paperback'. http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-World-Mr-Tompkins-Paperback/dp/0521639921/ref=pd_ys_iyr14 )


Horseraddish wrote:

Do you reckon that would work?


Yes.

One of the biggest 'theories' I remember when I was a child and far more interested in this than I am now was the Daedalus project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daedalus_Project

Being able to reach the nearest star in 50 years ( a human lifetime ) was something that interested and excited me.

It didn't stop, when I heard about the theorectical concept of the Alcubierre drive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive


Also, other ideas such as ion drives which rely on the 'push' from other forms of energy. Although smaller amounts of thrust, it 'pushes' for longer.

When I used to play Orbiter ( orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ ) far more than what I do now ( Helen's fault ) I remember reading about things such as ISP ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_impulse ) which is in effect the MPG of a rocket engine.

By being able to stretch out the 'push' for longer you get a greater speed ( though I am now quite 'rusty' on all of this, so may be wrong ) less 'effort' but it can run for longer.



Here's where NASA feel they are at the moment with 'warp drive'

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/warpstat.html


With the explanations of what each stage means here

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/inspinv.html



Though as famously quoted in Spaceballs...

Light speed is too slow. We need to go to ludicrous speed!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuFAFPjbdy4


I used to also enjoy using Celestia ( http://www.shatters.net/celestia/ )

I remember once starting at Earth, setting my course for Mars, hitting 'light speed' and realising just how long it would take to reach Mars at light speed.

Yeah, that kinda flattened my interest quickly. And we've not even left our own solar system yet!
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Last edited by Lamiaceae on Sat Feb 05, 2011 6:22 pm; edited 4 times in total
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 6:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yaay, I love that scene from Spaceballs!


Although in relation to the discussion: I would rather have a TARDIS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TARDIS Now if someone could make me one of those, I would be majorly happy! (On a slight detour from the topic - how awesome is it that it automatically translates languages for you, meaning if you spend some time in the TARDIS you can automatically understand every language in the whole of time and space!)
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Vagilik
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 24, 2010 8:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

well it seems like a good idea? but who lives 500 years?
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 3:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was looking for this thread for something completely different, but felt I had to comment on Vaglik's comment.

Helen's opening post was suggesting that to travel vast distances amongst the stars, hitting light speed would still take a long time, so would it be possible to travel back in time to counteract this.

Distances in space are measured in light years ( there are other forms of measurement, but for now lets use light years )

1 light year is how far light travels in 1 earth year.

Here is Nasa's take on that if you need me to back up what i'm saying
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980211a.html

Thereby, if you were to climb aboard a spaceship and disappear off at light speed, in 1 Earth year's time you would be 1 light year away from your point of origin ( which probably is Earth )

Given that despite time slowing down aboard the spaceship you were on ( time dilation ) time would still pass at its normal rate back on Earth.

Again, NASA's take on this
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/070416a.html

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/050225a.html

There were other articles on this, but if you were that interested i'm sure you can use the website's search function Smile

So although you were able to travel 500 light years with hardly any aging on your part, Earth ( which you left behind ) would now be 500 years further on than when you left.

When you were coming back ( another 500 years ) you'd perhaps not of aged much at all, however on Earth time passed still and is now 1,000 years on.

Planet Of The Apes? - perhaps...

So Helen continued in her thoughts how to neutralise the passing of time on Earth as well, eg travelling the 500 light years but travelling back in time at the same time ( and in her own words ) 'you would arrive 500 light-years away at the same time you left! '

Yes, no one has lived for 500 years, but you are thinking about 'earth time', not relative to a moving object.

As Einstein theorised that both time and space were linked, Helen's idea that travelling at light speed and time travel together are perhaps theorectically possible.

As quoted from this article http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970612b.html

Quote:

You could travel faster than light if you could turn yourself (and your starship) into a tachyon. However, special relativity indicates that if you did this, you could travel back in time and violate causality - the idea that causes must precede their effects.


While it mentions tachyons ( which are yet to be detected if they exist ) the point remains about special relativity saying you would travel back in time.

Of course, time travel brings about all sorts of other problems, namely the most famous of all the 'Grandfather paradox' ( mentioned also in the link above also).

In closing, Helen's theory is very possible. But no one knows for sure. Hence why this is all just theory, even to the astrophysicists in the employ of NASA.

( Though if one weighed in here, I would bow to their superior knowledge on the topic )



The book I mention earlier is :-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-World-Mr-Tompkins-Paperback/dp/0521639921/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275491866&sr=8-4

The new world of Mr Tompkins.

Now, while I have not read the book myself, it has been recomended to me multiple times as a good way of explaining both theories of relativity.

I managed to track that book down and bought it for Helen off the back of this thread, i'm sure once she has read it, she will be able to comment more on the book and what she thought to it.
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area51newmexico
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 11:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
In closing, Helen's theory is very possible.


I rule:D
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 4:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

sorry to revive an old post but wouldn't it be easier to compess space instead?
we know that light travels the fastest route to it's destination and because of that we know that objects distort space
so space compression is possible in theory.
also the closer you get to the speed of light the slower time becomes,
so if you travel at 0.00001 mph under the speed of light you would look (to an onlooker) very stretched out, there is a physics video we were forced to watch which explains this (I believe Time Dilation was mentioned before I will try to find for those interrested)




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHjpBjgIMVk
Time Dilation
not the one I was thinking of and will continue to look for it but meh




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wteiuxyqtoM&feature=related

Time Frame: theory of special relativity

this is roughly what I watched just more adult and in pieces it seems




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7vpw4AH8QQ&feature=related

screwed your head yet?
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