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Hi,

A friend of mine asked me something about relativistic physics. It's all hypothetical and I told him it's a paradox that cannot be achieved since you cannot go back in time.

Here's his assumption:

Let's say that you pass through a 'wormhole' to a planet near Alpha Centauri (26 lightyears). You send a signal to earth and then you get back into your 'ship' from another worm hole.

From your point of view, it took you about 5 minutes to do all that. You are back on Earth 5 minutes after.

26 years later, you receive the signal you sent from Alpha Centauri. That would mean you are on Earth to receive the signal and also on the planet of Alpha Centauri.

My guess is that it is impossible since when you would get back to Earth, you would be travelling backwards in time.

Am I right ?

Proculation

   

You just beat the signal back to earth by taking the worm hole. you are not still there, it just took the signal 26 years to make it to earth and you got back faster than the signal.

But than again I didn't think to hard about his so I have no idea if you are right or wrong.

   

I understand your response. It's the same as my friend who told me that question.
But in my mind, it's still impossible. Light and time are the same.

That's why I think if he takes a wormhole to Alpha Centauri, he won't be able to get back since he made a 26 years jump in time ahead.

   

Well if he travels in time through the worm hole than he would get the signal as soon as he arrives back on earth which would be 52 years after initially leaving even though to him it seems like 5 minutes.

   

You are close from what I expect. He would get the signal some seconds before he gets back. Since he can't go back in time.

   

You were right the first time Proc..sorta. It would indeed be 26 years until he recieved the signal back on Earth. However he wouldn't be 2 places at once since wormhole travel wouldn't really be time travel. If it took him 5 minutes to travel to the AC system and 5 minutes to travel back, he would only be gone 10 minutes Earth time. He couldn't possibly be in both places at once as he would have had to have "passed" the signal on his way back to Earth.
I believe wormholes affect travel differently as opposed to merely travelling at or near the speed of light.

   

My understanding is that it's impossible to have another worm hole to go back.

You CAN'T go back in time.

   

Anybody ?

   

Give me absolute proof that worm-holes exist and then, MAYBE, I'll answer your question.

   

You would not be in both places at the same time. You are receiving a message from 26 years ago. It would be foolish to think you were still there. It is just like the light you perceive from the star started it's journey 26 years ago.

As the saying goes, "Where ever you go in life, there you are". (Buckaroo Banzai)

Or as raydan would say, "You're lost in space"

   

I'm just lost.

If you throw a baseball 100 yards away, run over before it falls to the ground and catch it, did you really throw it?

   

You can. Or rather, you will. If wormholes exist as we postulate, they not only bridge a distance between points in space, but also points in time. People forget that Space and Time are part of the same thing. If we could open a wormhole in space, it can also open that hole for time.

Your example is easily possible, because the signal received took a longer path to travel back to Earth, where the guy sending the signal simply took a shorter distance through the wormhole. He wouldn't be in two places at once, because he would have been there 26 years previously, not at the moment the signal was received on Earth.

   

   

Understand the food on AlphaC is terrible

   

The time barrier is set by the speed of light (time stands still at the speed of light). So if you find away to travel between two points faster than light can travel, then, yes, you are essentially travelling back in time.

If you accelerated one end of the wormhole to relativistic speeds (such that time dilation effects become significant) and then brought it back again so it was right next to the other end of the wormhole, you could enter the end that had been accelerated, and exit the stationary end, and you'd go back in time.

Since you are essentially in warped space-time, you don't actually need to go faster than the speed of light to do this, though it should be mentioned that wormholed, particularly wormholes that are traversable, are theoretical entities.

   

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