The depiction of time travel comes in many shapes and forms. From Back To the
Future's DeLorean time travel machine to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure's
telephone booth, imagination can run wild when time travel methods are explored.
But maybe the true answer to the time travel enigma lies within something much simpler.
A Mirror..
Scientists agree that mass bends light and time. Actually, this has been
proven without a doubt by scientists from studying stellar objects and black
holes. But just because we know this principle exists does not mean we learned
how to master the technology. One of the main problems is; the mass of an object
would have to be extremely huge to cause any noticeable effect. So huge infact,
that the object would need to outweigh the earth itself (many times over).
Another possible way to travel backwards in time is with great speed. It is a
fact that time does not pass at the same rate in space as it does on earth.
Actually, NASA has to recalibrate instruments and clocks on the space station
every day to keep it's time in-sync with earths. The difference of time is a
direct result from the gravity difference between space and earth. Theory has
it, that if a machine could travel faster than the speed of light it would be
able to travel back in time. But examining this theory is pointless at this time
because exceeding the speed of light is a violation to the laws of physics.
But lets take a moment to look at something much more simple. A common
mirror. It can be argues that every time you glance in a mirror you are time
traveling. This is because time is only perceived in the human brain and it's
response time. When you look in a mirror, you aren't seeing yourself as you look
that very instant, you are seeing yourself as you appeared 2 nanoseconds ago. It
takes a very small amount of time for your mind to recognize and process the
reflection which means you are actually glancing at yourself in the past.
A similar situation is when you look up at the stars. If you are actually
viewing a celestial body that is light years away, you are seeing something that
actually occurred years ago. For all you know, the celestial body you are
looking at could be long gone and you just may be looking at a star that once
was.
This all sounds unrealistic and strange but the human brain wasn't made to
break apart time. But if we can take the most simple examples (like a mirrors
reflection) and learn from it, we just may be able to figure out how to extend
the time from 2 nanoseconds to 2 minutes then to 2 years.
