Ever since HG Wells published his book Time Machine in 1885, people have been interesting
in the topic of time travel.
Many have attempted to explain it, but most attempts led to failures.
But recently, a university professor (and avid reader of everything related to black
holes and science fiction) has supposedly proved time travel to be mathematically possible.
According to a new study revealed by Ben Tippett, a math and physics instructor at University
of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus, math is able to prove the existence and possibility
of time travel.
“People think of time travel as something of fiction, and we tend to think it’s not
possible because we don’t actually do it.
But mathematically, it is possible.”
Tippett’s study was released in the IPOScience Journal CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM GRAVITY and
the description of his study states:
“In this paper, we present geometry which has been designed to fit a layperson’s description
of a ‘time machine’.
It is a box which allows those within it to travel backwards and forwards through time
and space, as interpreted by an external observer.
Timelike observers travel within the interior of a ‘bubble’ of geometry which moves
along a circular, acausal trajectory through spacetime.
If certain timelike observers inside the bubble maintain a persistent acceleration, their
worldlines will close.”
Tippett said in his study that we can’t look at a three-dimensional space but instead
a four-dimensional one where different directions are connected.
Basing his research off einstein’s theory, he explains that space-time is curved, which
results in planets in the universe having curved orbits.
To picture this in your head, think of yourself standing next to a huge star.
At the place where you’re standing, the geometry in space-time is curved, which means
everything near the star (and you) is going to have a curved trajectory and create a curved
path around the star.
From another point of view, in a flat or uncurved space-time, planets and stars would move in
straight lines rather than curved lines.
In Tippett’s words: “The time direction of the space-time surface also shows curvature.
There is evidence showing the closer to a black hole we get, time moves slower,” says
Tippett.
“My model of a time machine uses the curved space-time — to bend time into a circle
for the passengers, not in a straight line.
That circle takes us back in time.”
In the study, Tippett showcased his mathematical model called the Traversable Acausal Retrograde
Domain in Space-time or TARDIS.
His model basically showcases a ‘bubble’ of space-time geometry that moves 8 times
faster than the speed of light, allowing it to move backward in time.
In other words, he wants to use the curvature of space-time in the universe to bend time
into a circle for “passengers” sitting in the time machine, and that circle allows
them to travel into the future and past.
He says: "It is a box which travels 'forwards' and then 'backwards' in time along a circular
path through spacetime...Delighted external observers would be able to watch the time
travellers within the box evolving backwards in time: un-breaking eggs and separating cream
from their coffee."
If you look at this picture, you’ll get a better idea of what i’m talking about.
Person A is the time machine passenger and person B is the observer.
Both person A and person B will experience time in dramatically different ways.
"Within the bubble, A will see the B's events periodically evolve, and then reverse.
Outside the bubble, observer B will see two versions of A emerge from the same location:
one's clock hands will turn clockwise, the other counterclockwise."
Of course, if something sounds too good to be true it’s probably not true.
Although tippett has done a great amount of research and possibly proven the existence
of time travel, he doubts that anyone will actually build a workable machine anytime
soon.
He says: “HG Wells popularized the term ‘time machine’ and he left people with
the thought that an explorer would need a ‘machine or special box’ to actually accomplish
time travel,” ..“While it is mathematically feasible, it is not yet possible to build
a space-time machine because we need materials – which we call exotic matter – to bend
space-time in these impossible ways, but they have yet to be discovered,”.
To put it simply, Tippett came up with a model of a possible time traveling machine, but
we don’t have the necessary materials to build the machine with our current technological
advancements.