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Time travel: explore the secrets of speed, space-time, and wormholes
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It turns out that Han Solo had it right--it's about the speed, baby. Although the Valentine Day's presentation of Somewhere in Time featured going back in time using concentration fueled by love, the reality is that traveling through time could turn into a Bass-o-Matic experience if the science and math aren't right.
Tonight, the National Geographic Channel takes a look at the challenges of time travel. Set against the background of the science of time/space and Einstein's theories about time, "The Fastest" is must-see TV. Airing at 8 p.m. EST, the show examines ideas about how time works in space--and what we'll need in order to change time to travel to distance galaxies.
In space, light and time act differently than here on Earth, and speed is a different concept when time can theoretically be stopped in its tracks.
THE SPEED DEMON OF THE UNIVERSE
- Traveling at 100 miles per hour, it would take 14 weeks to get to the moon, 50 years to get to Mars, and about 3,100 years to reach the outermost planet Neptune
- The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, or approximately 670 million miles per hour.
- No matter how fast you are moving when you observe it, the speed of light will always be 186,000 miles per second.
- Nothing in the universe travels faster than light.
- At the speed of light, time stops.
WHAT IF AN HOUR COULD BE A MINUTE?
- Time is relative to the person observing it and time may change depending on how fast the observer is moving.
- Time passes more slowly for satellites in orbit when compared to time on Earth because those satellites are moving.
- Satellites used for the Global Positioning System are launched with their clocks running faster so that when they reach orbit they mark time the same as Earth-based clocks.
- Because time passes more slowly in orbit around Earth, astronauts arrive home a little younger than if they had spent the same amount of time on Earth.
- If you were to travel near the speed of light for what seems to be 20 years, you would return to Earth thousands of years in the future.
Wow. So, if I go into space and spend enough time, then I can return and be, say, 25 again? Now, that's a great idea for a spa!
Image credit: NatGeo computer simulation of space shuttle in flight
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