This is a question I have been pondering for a little while. How would time warp if one was to be moving near the speed that light travels, or one was posititoned near a black hole. I have come up with a small theory for both; however, they are most likely incorrect . I would appreciate any feedback on my thoughts.

Gravity warping time
Some scientists believe the time slows down the closer you are to the event horizon of a black hole; however, I don't believe the time can be warped by a black hole, but rather it gives the illusion that time is being warped. Let's say the observer A is watching Observer B moving nearer to the event horizon of a black hole (assuming of course the gravity does not wrench either observers into a billion pieces). Both observers are watching each other, now according to theory Observer B will start to move slower and may eventually freeze in place from the viewpoint of observer A. While observer B will look at observer A and see him moving insanely fast. I believe what is actually happening here is that the gravitational force of the black hole is not affecting space, but rather the light that is being bounced off of both observers (visual perception of an object is only possible when light hits your eye. to see an object light must first bounce off of the object then hit your eye, kinda like sonar only with colors and stuff). Well, the light bouncing off of observer B towards observer A is being slowed down by the black hole's gravitational pull and therfore slowing down how fast observer B seems to be moving. When the light can no longer escape it will appear that observer B has in fact been frozen; however, over time the remaining light particles that can still escape, but haven't will eventually get free and you will no longer be able to see observer B. Observer B sees observer A moving much faster because the light is coming at him much faster. Observer B will be able to see observer A moving faster and faster until his eyes cannot see the intense movement of observer A.

Those are my thought on gravitational time warping

Time warping by speed

My thoughts on how time is warped by moving faster are closely related to my ideas about how gravity warps time. The only difference is that instead of having gravity bring the light faster to you, or slower away from you, you are actually moving towards the light or away from the light depending on which way you look. So if you look behind you while moving close to the speed of light, everthing behind you will look like it has slowed to a very slow pace; likewise, if you look in front of you everything will seem to have sped up.

Read up specifically on Time Dilation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation)



So basically, it theoretically "could" be possible, but it's called a theory for a reason. It's impossible to reach the speed of light, but reaching near the speed of light is possible based on these theories. Can it be applied any time soon? Probably not. We first need a method of gaining these speeds first.

Interesting theory. To understand the natures of time, the speed of light, black holes, time dilations, and event horizons with respect to gravity one must understand Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity and of Special Relativity.

In essensce, his theory of General Relativity says Gravity effects time. His equations prove a now observable fact that a clock at the bottom of a skyscraper runs slower than a clock at the top of the skyscraper with all conditions the same except heigth from the earth. There are other evidences that gravity affects time.

According to your theory, it sounds like you have gravity increasing the speed of light. Did i misunderstand?

Gravity does not change the speed of light. The speed of light is a constant. When light approaches a black hole, the black hole absorbs it and light cannot 'escape' the dense gravitational field because gravity 'bends' light back on itself. This doesn't change the speed of light, only it's direction.

I guess i'd like more clarification on your theory because I don't quite get what you're trying to say. I'm currently researching a similar topic; why we can see light from stars billions of light years away in a universe that I believe is only thousands of years old. But I think that discussion belongs in a separate topic and I won't go into the details of the theories surrounding that issue.

However I will make this point about you're theory. Observer A and Observer B are both correct in their perceptions of the other. How? Well, if a person in China called a person in America, both would think it was a different time due to time zones. But both would be correct. Gravity does the same thing to time. To two different observers they both 'see' different times, yet both are correct. This is an unusual phenomenon and difficult to grasp since human nature latches onto time as being constant.

Just my thoughts,
<Legacy2007>

I thought time was man made......

Now if you had said *it just slows everything down big time*.... well that would make more sense, or atleast to me, as it would appear that time is moving slowly, seen as we measure so much in time I guess.

All things having said and done, about how the eye can be deceived, I feel the quantity time is independent of anything else (although you can't say that the other way around).

What I mean to say is that time travel, especially to the past or future is certainly not feasible, at least not from my point of view. I have not equated the complex equations and formulae nor have I sent sleepless nights thinking about it, but there's something within one's own self, that sometimes may seem to defy logic but still turn up/hold true, and its telling me that time travel is not possible.

I would say it is not a possibility to for the following reasons.

1. It is not possible to travel 186,000 mi/sec or 669,600 an hour (base on some calculations. Because nothing is faster then later. If you could pull that kind of speed light will still be just as fast, considering a time between launching a craft like that.

2. I do believe Black Hole prevent reflection of light so you won't even know if that object is there or not.

3. No source of energy is powerful enough to launch that, correctly a stable source of energy powerful enough to launch a craft.

4. The craft would be have to be small enough that you have no room whatsoever, to lower any drag to the craft to obtain optimal speed. Which would drive a sane person mad. On top of that the craft would have to handle that kind of pressure and force put on it as well.

6. Then a Final question would how will our bodies handle that kind of speed. Reminds me of a episode of Star Trek Voyager, in which Tom Paris hit warp ten and then started mutating into a new life form. Now that's all speculation that would happen. Of course that still raises the possibility that are bodies could change form that or just blow up form the pressure.

Now if that's all figure which I doubt in the next 1000 years then maybe space travel will be possible. Time travel would be on another plane of theory and thought on how it should be done.



This post has been edited by saint-michael: Jan 12 2007, 05:51 PM

The speed of light is generally a limit equation involving mass... As you approach the speed of light, your mass approaches 0... (this is of course theory, but widely accepted...)

borrowing from the same concept, einstein puts it this way:

"Einstein showed that the rocket power needed to accelerate a space ship, got
greater and greater, the nearer it got to the speed of light. So it would take an infinite amount
of power, to accelerate past the speed of light." - from Stephen Hawking's "Space and Time Warps" lecture...

also... about the constancy of the speed of light... it differs from the way most people describe relative velocity....

in other words, when you go 60 mph, everyone seems to travel 60 in the opposite direction (if they are standing still...) - if they go the same speed they appear motionless (like a car beside you on the highway...)

HOWEVER, if you travel at the speed of light - light still appears to travel at the speed of light... harder to explain...


However, it would be more practical to warp spacetime to travel large distances, which under the ordinary curvature of spacetime would predict your new position in a way that puts you faster than the speed of light...

and here's another excerpt just for fun:

"One can show that to create a
wormhole, one needs to warp space-time in the opposite
way, to that in which normal matter warps it. Ordinary
matter curves space-time back on itself, like the surface of
the Earth.
However, to create a wormhole, one needs matter that
warps space-time in the opposite way, like the surface of a
saddle. The same is true of any other way of warping
space-time to allow travel to the past, if the universe didn't begin so warped, that it allowed
time travel. What one would need, would be matter with negative mass, and negative energy
density, to make space-time warp in the way required.
Energy is rather like money. If you have a positive bank balance, you can distribute it in
various ways. But according to the classical laws that were believed until quite recently, you
weren't allowed to have an energy overdraft. So these classical laws would have ruled out us
being able to warp the universe, in the way required to allow time travel. However, the
classical laws were overthrown by Quantum Theory, which is the other great revolution in our
picture of the universe, apart from General Relativity. Quantum Theory is more relaxed, and
allows you to have an overdraft on one or two accounts. If only the banks were as
accommodating. In other words, Quantum Theory allows the energy density to be negative in
some places, provided it is positive in others." - same lecture....

Still, time is generally man made.

We can't really go back to the year 2000 without completely reverse engieneering everything that happened, I don't see how the planet can live in so many states at the same time, now that would be unstable lol.

If you want to argue about a paralel universe in the year 2000..... well I can't argue that lol but it technically wouldn't be time travel .

In Einsteinian physics, the space-time continuum is often compared to a sheet of rubber. Mass creates a gravitational “dimple” in that space-time sheet. But a rotating object — like a spinning black hole — adds an extra twist to the dimple. Matter caught in that twist would appear to wobble in orbit around the object, like a toy top wobbling on its axis.

Therefore,travelers passing close to a black hole would feel as if “nothing happened.” But a distant observer would see the travelers being dragged around the black hole.

Therefore the more the spin and mass the more faster the other matters will revolve round.Well but relative to the blackhole the mattaer will be stationery.So if matter be me, I wouldn't feel anything but my actual speed will vary with the mass and spin og the thing that creates blackhole.So my actual speed will obviously change my timely movement.

What do you think? I may be wrong, so please lets discuss more of it to get in greater depth

I dunno but everything up until now seems to be more human perception of sight.

Regarding a man in chine and a man somewhere else speaking over the phone, of course neither are wrong because time zones are completely and utterly irrelevant.

We have a big round planet, that as far as I know revolves around the sun (or the other way around but I doubt it), time is just a way to measure this effect, so is distance, but it isn't absolute.

If one chinese man takes a step at 6am and one american man takes a step at the same time relative to our time zones, do they not step at the same time? I would assume so, so time is not relevant, the real difference is merely the position of our planet to the sun at that point.

But yeah all you guys would probably know this eh lol.

I don't know much beyond this.