Re:What Movies Get Wrong About Time Travel
by ars on Friday August 14, 2009 @07:50PM
(#764108)
You don't travel through time. Time is not a physical thing that you can move through. Time is not a river, or a place on a map.
What is time on an atomic level? It's the speed at which interaction occur, transfer of energy mainly.
When you move at relativistic speeds those interactions occur "slower" (which is a self referential statement, but nothing I can do about that).
But you do not travel though time - you don't travel at all. The various forces that affect you work slower. It's like slowing down the motor of an assembly line robot. You are not moving through time just that things that you are made of do their thing less often.
Since you are moving slower, the rest of the word seems to move faster.
Which is why time travel is impossible - there is no place to travel to.
What is time on an atomic level? It's the speed at which interaction occur, transfer of energy mainly.
When you move at relativistic speeds those interactions occur "slower" (which is a self referential statement, but nothing I can do about that).
But you do not travel though time - you don't travel at all. The various forces that affect you work slower. It's like slowing down the motor of an assembly line robot. You are not moving through time just that things that you are made of do their thing less often.
Since you are moving slower, the rest of the word seems to move faster.
Which is why time travel is impossible - there is no place to travel to.