Planet of the apes/time travel/more

AtlantaWonder · #1 (**permalink**) 12-19-2005

Ok first post . . for reference on my excellent brainpower, i am 13 years old and am in 8th grade science, which of course, totally sucks, and never teaches me enough

. . . SO, excuse the smal vocabulary.

Ok so lets say 10000 million years in the future there are people flying out in space and there is the spaceship with monkies like planet of the apes (the new version) . The monkey escapes and goes into a black hole . . and then this other dude is like ' HEY! thats my munkay! ima go after him!''

Well, in order to get out of a black hole, or to even go through it, you must go FASTER then the speed of light. Thing be said, the monkey is dead by now; and so will the dude trying to play hero goi ng after him.

Right?

Because if you cannot go faster then the speed of light, how do we expect to go through a black hole, or use it for time travel?

Haha well i guess my favorite book 'Sphere' by Michael Chreighton just totally sucks now that i thought of that

Bringing up another point . . say you CAN go faster then the speed of light (assuming einstein is a crackhead) and you are going lets say 100 million miles faster then the speed of light.
NOW . . does time slow down? Does ACTUAL t ime slow down? The Clock itself will not, it will keep ticking forward, but, will time, NOT AS WE PERCIEVE IT (IE: Weeks days months ect ect) slow down? I have read 'the universe in a nutshell'' by steven hawking's a nd his theory suggests that if you do go faster then the speed of light, yourbody itself will remain the same age forever.

But if time slows down, you will not be able to experience the difference, because you will be living it! So how do we know that right now, we are going faster then the speed of light? We dont . . right? and it wouldnt make a difference anyways

And if we cannot go faster then the speed of light, can we not speed light up itself say to twice of its speed, then go the speed of it originally? Would this not require speeding time down in the first place by going faster then it

infamous · #2 (**permalink**) 12-19-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by AtlantaWonder

And if we cannot go faster then the speed of light, can we not speed light up itself say to twice of its speed, then go the speed of it originally? Would this not require speeding time down in the first place by going faster then it

Welcome to Hypography AtlantaWonder; You'll find many related discussions going on as we speak, feel free to join in. If you'll click on the forum index, it will direct you to the discussion of your choice................enjoy.............Infy

kamil · #3 (**permalink**) 12-20-2005

[quote= But if time slows down, you will not be able to experience the difference, because you will be living it! So how do we know that right now, we are going faster then the speed of light?[/QUOTE]

You can never actually know at what speed you are moving at unless you compare the speed to something else. The Earth is orbiting the sun at 30km/s but you dont know it. You can never experience any difference between different inertial frames(including time dilation). No mattter can move at speed of light relative to anything since velocities dont add in a galilean way.
I suggest you study relativity before questioning the conclusions of relativity(trust me I knom from experience lol)

BTW, welcome to hypography and i hope to see more of your posts!

AtlantaWonder · #4 (**permalink**) 12-20-2005

Thanks for your reply . . so i was right?

kamil · #5 (**permalink**) 12-20-2005

Quote:

Originally Posted by AtlantaWonder

Thanks for your reply . . so i was right?

not quite, you were right in syaing that motion is undedectible. But you can never move at speed of light. And if you are not moving at the speed of light in one frame you are still not moving at the speed of light to another frame.
going at the 0.5 speed of light to the left does not make you go at the speed of light according to the frame of refrence to somebody going 0.5 speed of light to the right.

sciencehistoryguru · #6 (**permalink**) 12-29-2005

Atlanta Wonder-- if we are talking about black holes here, we are talking einstein's theory of relativity (and black holes evolved out of the theory). According to the theory, the speed of light is CONSTANT. You cannot go faster than the speed of light. Physicist Paul Davies in his book on time travel and many others, like Kaku have indeed explored this idea of going faster than the speed of light, but it is only theoretical. Davies says time travel might be possible if wormholes exist and if we go through the wormhole we can go back in time. A theoretical physicist from the Israel Institute of Technology recently (check one of the more current Popular Science issues)
said a wormhole would not be needed for a time 'machine' model, instead it may be possible to curve space time drastically in order to go back into the past.

my brain hurts · #7 (**permalink**) 12-29-2005

It's hard to grasp the difficulties of going even a fraction of the speed of light. For example, the kinetic energy of a 1mg particle (picture a cube of water 1mm per side, quite small indeed) travelling at half the speed of light would be the same as that of a compact car travelling 15,000mph. Collisions with the tiniest specks could be catastrophic.