TIME AND TIME MACHINE

DEBANGAN MAJUMDER
TCS,HYDERABAD

"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes.
When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours; that's
relativity." -- Albert Einstein

On January 27th, 1995 a group of American and British Scientists were

carrying out some experiments in Antarctica. During its course they made an
awesome discovery. They spotted some spinning gray fogs over the pole
which looked like a sand storm. Due to curiosity the researchers launched a
weather balloon capable of measuring wind speed, air moisture, temperature
and other information. Surprisingly as the balloon soared up it disappeared
into the thin air. In a little while the researchers brought down the balloon
with the help of the rope which was tied to it. They were extremely surprised
to see the chronometer set in the balloon which displayed the date January
27th, 1965, the same as 30 years ago! This is only one of the bizarre incidents
that have left scientists and physicists around the planet racking their brains
on a puzzle known as “Time and Time Machine”.

Time or “fourth dimension” is an intriguing concept. It doesn’t have a

clear, compact definition and is merely a hypothetical concept which is an
indispensable element to explain numerous physical phenomenons. Our best
understanding of time comes from Einstein’s theory of relativity. Prior to
this time was considered to be absolute and universal. But according to
Einstein’s theory of relativity two persons moving at different speeds will
experience different durations between the same two events. In short the
person who is moving faster will experience time to elapse slowly than his
slower counterpart. This phenomenon is widely described as the “Twin
Paradox”. Suppose Sally and Sam are twins. Sally boards a high speed
rocket and sets out to travel around the universe. She returns to earth after
one year and finds her brother Sam is now nine years older than she is! That
is to say Sally has leaped nine years into earth’s future! Mind boggling isn’t
it? This unusual phenomenon is caused due to an effect called “Time
Dilation” which occurs when two observers move relative to each other
close to the speed of light. Even given the fastest of spacecrafts our present
technology can provide we cannot observe time dilations above a few
nanoseconds.
 The concept of time machine came into existence after H.G Wells
wrote his celebrated sci-fi novel, “The Time Machine” in 1895. In simple
terms a time machine is a device which can take us from present to past or
future. Since its inception the concept of time machine have been subject to
numerous speculations and scientific paradoxes. Even the very existence of
time is somewhat perplexing.But scientists believe that under suitable
circumstances “time travel” is not impossible. The easiest way to
conceptualize time travel is through a Black hole. A Black Hole is a dead
star with infinite density which can curb both space and time. It represents
the ultimate time warp, and at the surface of the hole time stands still
relative to the earth. This means if an astronaut falls into the black hole and
comes out unscathed (though this is impossible) he will jump ahead into the
future. Now the question that arises in our mind is how can we create a Time
Machine?

Time travel can be made possible in two ways, one is through speed
and the other one is through gravity. Achieving speed even nearer to that of
light is a daunting challenge in itself. Unfortunately we are still miles away
from achieving such height in speed. Gravity may be a relatively usable raw
material. In his general theory of relativity, Einstein predicted that gravity
slows time. Clocks run a bit faster in higher floors of a building than in the
basement, which is closer to the center of the earth.

Traveling forward in time is not that impossible though theoretically.

But what about moving back in time? There are some skeptics who strongly
condemn the possibility traveling back in time since that would mean one
can go back in time and kill his or her own grandfather. That would question
his own existence! But strangely or rather hopefully Einstein confessed that
his theory might permit time travel under some circumstances. In 1974
Frank J. Tipler of Tulane University suggested that a massive, infinitely long
cylinder spinning on it’s axis at near the speed of light can admit anyone
visit his or her past. In mid 1980’s a more realistic scenario for time travel
emerged which could allow astronauts to travel both in past as well as future
through same interface. This radical concept was known as “Worm Hole”.

Worm Hole is basically a hypothetical gateway or shortcut tunnel

between two widely separated points in space. Its concept was investigated
by Kip S Thorne and his co-workers of California Institute of Technology to
verify whether they comply with laws of Physics. He then developed the
much talked about “Thornian Time Machine”. To generate a practical worm
hole one of it’s mouth should be placed near the surface of a Neutron Star(At
the surface of a neutron star, gravity is so strong that time is slowed by about
30 percent relative to Earth time). This creates a difference in gravitational
force between the ends which ultimately slows up the time at the neutron
star end, creating a time difference. But there is a small problem. An
Astronaut cannot return back to a time before the worm hole was first built.
This could provide an alternative explanation for Hawking's (of the
University of Cambridge) observation: a time machine will be built
someday, but has not yet been built, so the tourists from the future cannot
reach this far back in time.

Presentism holds that neither the future nor the past exists, the
universe only exists in the present and time is merely a concept to describe
what is going around us. The formidable obstacle lies in the practical
creation of the time machine. For example creating a worm hole of
practicable size, keeping it stable, moving one end around would require
energy greater than that of Sun can produce in its entire lifetime.

Well, everything is not lost. Better explanations and theories are

throwing light into the matter. For example Daniel Greenberger and Karl
Svozil have proposed that Quantum Theory model amalgamated with
general relativity can explain time travel without any paradoxes. Advanced
areas of science like the “String Theory” may hold the key to solve the
riddle. Scientists and physicists around the globe are working to make this
near impossible thing possible. It may take more than our life time to make a
time travel a reality, but once this breakthrough is accomplished the world
around us would never be the same. By that time Science would reach at the
very edge of the Universe and movies like “the time machine” or “back to
the future” would be history.