Is time travel possible? Well, we are all traveling into the future every moment of every day, however, traveling backward in time is not physically possible. Simply stated; once something has occurred in a particular point in space and time, it cannot be revisited for direct observation or physical interaction. Take, for example, a super nova. Let’s say this super nova occurred 2 billion light years away and we are only just now observing the light from it. No amount of speed could be achieved that would allow us to physically interact with that star before it blew up. Even if we could travel from here to there instantly, we would still be arriving there 2 billion years after the star exploded, and there would be nothing there.
The only way we can observe something as it existed in the past is to be far enough away from it that we can look at it before its light reaches us. We could never physically interact with an object that we view in such a way because it is not there as we are viewing it. The light from it isn’t there. The light is here, and it is only light.
Traveling forward in time is at least theoretically possible. In fact, we are always traveling forward in time. To travel faster through time than everyone else so we may see the future before it happens, however, is impossible. Theoretically, there is a way to travel to a distant present and see it as it is actually happening. According to relativity, the closer one is to traveling at the speed of light, the slower the passage of time would occur from that person’s perspective. So one might leave a place traveling near the speed of light for only several moments and find themselves returning to that place many years into its future. What is important to understand is that no amount of activity has actually been skipped over. The traveler could theoretically be observed moving near the speed of light for all of those years.
Many theorists suggest that wormholes may be able to play a part in time travel. It is important to understand that a wormhole has not yet been proved be a traversable object, or even an object at all. A wormhole can be most easily understood as a theoretical object invented by the human brain and used as filler in an incomplete or not fully understood equation. It should be noted that this is basically how we understood and used black holes until their existence as actual objects was recently proved. This is also the function of the higgs-boson (God) particle that many scientists believe exists, but cannot prove. We use the theorized properties of these objects to complete equations that could not otherwise be completed.
It is likely that wormholes exist in some shape or form. It is also likely that a wormhole, much like a black hole, would simply tear anything that approached it into trillions of tiny fundamental particles. Many scientists and philosophers have suggested the theoretical possibility that a wormhole could be used to travel through space and time. As exciting as that may seem, the reality is that there are an infinite number of possible functions of a wormhole. That any of those functions would include inter-galactic travel, inter-dimensional travel or time travel, although theoretically possible, is extremely unlikely.
