Wonders of a Teenager’s Mind: Time Travel
February 9, 2022
Time travel in simple words is basically traveling from one point in time to another. It has been shown in movies, television shows, and works of literature for a very long time but no solid evidence has ever been found to prove time travel is possible. As of right now, it may be unknown if the ability to travel through time does exist but scientists have looked into theories to see if it could ever be possible. Many physicists, including Albert Einstein and Carlo Revelli, have basically stated that time is an illusion.
Carlon Revelli stated that time is an illusion because our reality is really just a sequence of events, the past, the present, and the future and we just add the concept of time to that sequence. Basically, our perception of the flow of time does not align with our physical reality. According to him, there is no such thing as the past or the future, and “time travel is just what we do every day”.
Albert Einstein also had a similar theory in his theory of special relativity. He basically states that time is an illusion and moves relative to an observer. Using these theories and many others, scientists have come up with many other theories on time travel and the paradoxes that go along with them. A paradox is a figure of speech where a statement contradicts itself. For example, one theory of time travel is that if you were to go back in time when your grandfather was a kid and kill him, one of your parents would have never been born which means you would have never been born. So if you were never born you would have never been able to go back in time and kill your grandfather. This means he would have lived, had your mother/father who would then have you, thus making you able to go back in time and kill your grandfather and so on and so forth. This is known as the “Grandfather Paradox” of time travel, it is a contradiction that scientists believe is the reason why time travel could never exist.
Another time paradox would be the predestination paradox. This is when a time traveler goes back in time to prevent an event from occurring but inadvertently causes the event to happen and becomes part of the past events. This is believed to occur because history is “predestined” no matter what anyone does to alter the past, the events that have transpired will still transpire because that is what is destined to happen.
The next theory of time travel is the bootstrap paradox. This is a loop where one event causes another event but that second event was actually the cause of the first event. For example, if a famous author in the present decided to go back in time and give their past self all the novels they have written then they go on to become a successful author, the novels would have no true creation or point of origin. There would just be an endless loop and the books would have no physical origin and they would just exist without ever truly being created. All these theories and paradoxes are what make scientists and researchers question whether or not we could ever time travel but someday soon, traveling to the past could actually be possible without any worries. It seems to be the best way to time travel without the fear of running into time paradoxes would be to only travel to the future. In the future, there really is no way to prevent your own existence or inadvertently cause something horrific to happen.
Nevertheless, there still has not been a time machine invented that will allow time travel to different points in time. Even without a time machine, time travel is still possible and anyone can do it. In fact, we utilize time travel all time, every second of every day. Except we are doing it at a rate of 1 second per second and not any fast but we are still advancing through time which counts as time travel. Currently, it is not possible to go years, months, days, or even hours into the future or past but as we advance our technology and discover new things, one day we may be able to actually time travel.