The idea of time and space travel seems magical, but currently it still remains in the realm of science fiction and fantasy. Scientists who published their work in the journal "Classical and Quantum Gravity" say that such travel is possible from the point of view of mathematical calculations.
Our vision of traveling to the future
The research carried out by the scientists was designed in accordance with the geometric calculations of the alleged "time machine". It is a window that allows those who fall into it to move forward or backward in time, if we speak from the point of view of an external observer.
For us, this, of course, sounds like a typical time machine as imagined by science fiction writers. Fans of Doctor Who, for example, may notice that the title of the study, Traversable acausal retrograde domains in spacetime, may sound like an acronym for a similar machine called the TARDIS, which in the film belongs to The owner of the time.
Mathematical model
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So what do mathematicians from the universities of British Columbia and Maryland offer? As stated earlier, such a machine would be required to be able to deform the fabric of space-time. In this sense, it is better to think of spacetime as a unifying point for all three physical dimensions (width, height, depth) and time.
Time, according to the second law of thermodynamics, can only go forward. Nevertheless, the warping of space-time is supposed to be able to influence time in a rather curious way. If you place a huge mass on this fabric, it will form a gravity hole around which time will slow down significantly.
However, it will still continue to move forward as time cannot go backwards. In order for this to happen, it is necessary to apply several provisions of the special and general theory of relativity.
What happens when traveling to the future
Let's say you are in a zone that has TARDIS characteristics and you want to travel to the future. Outside of this zone, time will continue to move forward, and it will become our "frame of reference" from which we can measure our travel through time and space.
Now, even if you are constantly accelerating, inside this zone, time will still seem normal to you, but outside the time machine something strange will start happening. As the waves of light bounce off the watch and hit your eyes get longer, the duration of each second will also increase for you.
Thus, time will slow down for you, but speed up outside the zone that acts as a time machine. As a result, your aging process will slow down, and when you stop the movement of the time machine and leave it, the world around you will look different. This means that you will find yourself in the future. This "slowing down" is described by the special theory of relativity.
What happens when the future and the past meet
New research by scientists adds some claims to general relativity. Moving faster than light in a bubble of space-time, you will find yourself in a vicious circle, and eventually catch up with your own TARDIS. When the time machine, being in the future, meets the one that remained in the past, you will have the opportunity to see the past and the future at the same time, and you can choose where you want to stop.
The space-time category can be fully described from a mathematical point of view, which means that this type of time machine is quite real. Nevertheless, the researchers note that so far we can only create its mathematical model. In order to actually create such a machine, scientists will have to invent some very "exotic" materials, but they are not yet discovered or they cannot be produced at this stage of the development of science.
