For a pulp style short story, which is like A Princess of Mars, I want my astronaut character get sent back through time to a prehistoric age where he helps a tribe battle an evil lizard man kingdom to save a beautiful princess, who is kidnapped from her tribe. He pilots a ship that travels by light speed to reach another planet. Instead, it goes back in time. How can time travel light speed make sense? Also what other time travel methods are there for a space shuttle.
Light Speed Time Travel
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Some people theorize that, if one can travel faster than light, then one could loop around into the past.
Does this make sense?
Almost, but one would have to read the hypotheses. I can't think of any titles or names right now, but if you look for information on "probability cones" (I think that's a term for them), then you might find a trail. There was an Australian physicist who wrote a fair amount along those lines.
This may be a place to start, but I just glanced at it.
http://www.physicsguy.com/ftl/html/FTL_part4.html
MIT Journal
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/419893/quantum-time-machine-solves-grandfather-paradox/
I used "probability cones time travel" as my search terms, and there is plenty more.
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Hi
I don't know if want your ship to travel in time deliberately or by accident . Sadly, time travel is currently impossible so any attempted to explain it often looks like techno babble . The speed of light thing is .... If you could travel faster than the speed of light across a room you might be able to see an event that has not had the time, the light ,to travel to your original position . It may be possible in a quantum world , but a space ship ? . It is probably easier if it happens by accident . A collapsing black hole sends out massive shock waves and knocks your ship into a parallel universe. Or something like that .
I don't know if want your ship to travel in time deliberately or by accident . Sadly, time travel is currently impossible so any attempted to explain it often looks like techno babble . The speed of light thing is .... If you could travel faster than the speed of light across a room you might be able to see an event that has not had the time, the light ,to travel to your original position . It may be possible in a quantum world , but a space ship ? . It is probably easier if it happens by accident . A collapsing black hole sends out massive shock waves and knocks your ship into a parallel universe. Or something like that .
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The interesting thing is that time dilation as one approaches c appears to be asymptotic. Meaning it never quite gets to a value for the exact speed of light.
I suppose one could theorize that the speed of light is a "time singularity." Such a traveler might become disassociated from time, I guess.
That's not accurate with physics as we know it, but I suppose a reader would accept it.
I suppose one could theorize that the speed of light is a "time singularity." Such a traveler might become disassociated from time, I guess.
That's not accurate with physics as we know it, but I suppose a reader would accept it.
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In a pulp story, I wouldn't expect an explanation. I'd expect it to just happen. Maybe with a one-liner handwavium about how they hadn't expected to exceed the speed of light, but they did, and now look when they are!
After all you've got lizards and princess and the ghost of Edgar Rice Burroughs...!!
After all you've got lizards and princess and the ghost of Edgar Rice Burroughs...!!
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I'd echo Reziac. In a pulp short story, I wouldn't worry too much about the mechanics. I'd be thinking more about rescuing a princess from an evil lizard man tribe. That's a bit close to HG Wells "Time Machine". Maybe they could rescue a lizard from a tribe of princesses instead?
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This. Hard SF is one thing, but if it's a pulp fantasy, the time travel is (presumably) just a framing device to get the real story started, so who cares why it works? It just does! If anybody asks too many questions, wave your hands, shout "Quantum!", drop a smoke bomb, and jump out the window. That conversation clearly isn't going anywhere anyway.
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And yet I'll bet my house that he'll still get reviewers saying that it's 'just not believable'.
Agreed. Just have it 'happen'.
Wondering why or how he gets involved at all is already beyond the realms of worrying about realism or credibility.
Wondering why or how he gets involved at all is already beyond the realms of worrying about realism or credibility.
Thank you. I like the time teleportation article. The time travel is suppose to be an accident. The astronaut knows the experiment is risky, but since he was a soldier who faced a lot of death, he just accepts it with bravery. He won't explain how it happens because he isn't a scientist. Just a guy who knows how to fight and fly a shuttle.
Perhaps the shuttle in speed light goes off course between time and space, coming off the present plane and flies into the past plane. Imagine shooting a rocket on a table and it falls off and lands on another table. That could be how it works. It could be a brief theory, but it won't cloud the story. But it will just happen still.
Perhaps the shuttle in speed light goes off course between time and space, coming off the present plane and flies into the past plane. Imagine shooting a rocket on a table and it falls off and lands on another table. That could be how it works. It could be a brief theory, but it won't cloud the story. But it will just happen still.
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That's exactly the sort of brief handwavium I had in mind. It's good enough to explain it for the MC, so it's good enough for us.
Also, I like this "tables" explanation as a variant I hadn't heard before.
Isn't the theory that the closer you to the speed of light, the slower times move for you. So given enough speed and distance, everybody else could age 80 years whereas you will only age one. The closer you go, the slower time moves. Theoretically, time should basically stop once you hit C. And if you could go faster that C, then time should start moving backwards.
That's what some people like to think, but there's a problem at c. in addition to time seeming to pass slower, your mass increases, and at c mass of your ship and contents would become infinite. That's how it works out using the Lorenz transformations, and theory agrees. That's why people think of ways to jump past c, or go around, or something. My favorite is slipping into a different time-space in which dimensions are in different relationships, so that I can walk twenty feet that way and return, and I will have travelled twenty years into the future.
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My first idea is he flies around the Earth as he travels by light speed just like how Super Man goes to the past while flying around the Earth very fast. But I like my new theory.A wormhole can be an option, but they have been used to death.
Neither, A naked singularity is a black hole without an event horizon.
But there is a theory that there is a white hole connected to some (or all) black holes, or some types of black holes, and the connection between the two things is a wormhole.
Don't worry about it, because if you see a naked singularity, then you probably are inside the event horizon of a black hole.
Should the dimension be called a parallel dimension, which the ship blasts through to reach the destination?
If it is a "parallel dimension" then that's what it should be called, but what it this thing through which the ship blasts?