• Question: is it possable to go back in time?

    Asked by valeriecoleman13 to Angela, Gabriele, Karen, Maria, Shane on 12 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Karen McCarthy

      Karen McCarthy answered on 12 Nov 2013:

      Interesting question Valerie! So time and space must exist together in whats known as the time-space continuum. This means that all events in the Universe must happen within this. And time flows differently in different places, so in space orbit, time actually moves slightly faster than on Earth because of gravity pulling on an objects mass. So gravity can affect the time-space continuum. A black hole can affect time flow even more, because of its huge gravitational pull!

      So most time travel ideas are based on this idea of a wormhole in space – similar in idea to a black hole, these would allow the transport of one back through the time-space continuum.

      This is a good article to explain this further http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/time-travel.htm

      And if you’re even more interested, try reading Stephen Hawking’s book “A Short History of Time” – an amazing read!

    • Photo: Shane Mc Guinness

      Shane Mc Guinness answered on 12 Nov 2013:

      The cool thing about space and time is that it bends! And it’s heavy things that make it bend. Think of the space and time as a circular trampoline. Now put a tennis ball (that’s the earth!) in the middle. Nothing happens. Well, it might change our space-time sheet a little bit, but only slightly. Replace the tennis ball with cannon ball, and it bends down quite far. And if you roll the tennis ball it will roll around the edge of the trampoline. And it was not for the friction of the ball and the rubber it would just keep on rolling. You’ve just created a mini solar system! What if you took the heaviest thing in the world? It would pull everything into it!? But where would it go? If there was no ground, nowhere else to go and it was infinity heavy, where would everything go that got sucked in? That’s a black hole, created by an infinitely heavy collapsing star, a bending of the time-space surface by something so incredibly heavy that it changes time itself!
      The problem is, we probably wouldn’t be able to survive travelling through a black hole as we’d get crushed under all that gravity.
      So I’m afraid the answer to time travel may be up to you to discover! Get cracking!

    • Photo: Angela Stevenson

      Angela Stevenson answered on 13 Nov 2013:

      Wow yes, very interesting question Valerie! Great answers guys! I ll add a tiny bit to your answers. Is traveling back in time possible? Well, it depends on who you ask. According to Professor Brian Cox, time travel IS possible, but only if you want to go to the future and not come back … so you could go into the future, but you wouldn’t be able to go back in time 🙁 That’s sad hey. Could you imagine how much we could achieve by traveling back and forwards in time? Great pranks on your family and friends, but also we could come up with a lot of cures for illnesses, predict natural disasters and save a lot of people… there’s infinite possibilities, now we just have to invent a time machine 😉 Great question!

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