The applications of physics generally do not interest me in terms of engineering or practicality. They function well and are definitely necessary and provide infinite cool feats that show what the human mind, with the aid of some technology, can accomplish; however, these ultimately are not something I find worth reading about, thinking about, or really delving into. The world of application in terms of space and the more abstract features, such as time travel, quantum mechanics, and space travel all interest me greatly, though.
Particularly, if we look at time travel, the ideas that science fiction provide give us a fairly inaccurate picture about how the world works and are a fascination as to how we want it to work – science becomes something we can control for our own benefit, or as in many time travel movies, for ill-guided ideas that inevitably lead to our own destruction. Time travel in particular, as it’s described with wormholes and the bending of the time-space continuum, provide infinite layers of fascination at something that could be possible but manages to elude us in our approach to light speed. Many physicists have exclaimed and discussed its theoretical possibility, particularly into the future as we approach light speed that time begins to slow down, but in terms of development of the energy sources required for approaching this speed and ensuring some sort of safety, time scales estimate even 6 years just to approach the speed, with no specified energy source nor money source.
This summer, I attended a conference called Icarus Interstellar Conference mostly focused on interstellar travel, with many discussions and panels on the theoretical possibility of not just short-range interstellar flights, but long-term flights as well as flights that allowed for such forward motion by utilizing planetary gravity, black hole gravity, and a variety of sources to generate the gravitational force and relativity speed necessary to allow us to jump forward in time. Most often, it seems that for the time being, this is the more plausible ability that we have rather than the ability to travel backwards in time through wormholes, which changes the plausibility for scenarios where we can change history, but is inspiring to the idea that we may be able to accelerate towards the future with life being entirely different from how we left it. Wormholes also have never been observed, with modifies the perspective of the possibility of time travel backwards, and many scientists seem to reject it on principle.
The possibility of these ideas pose much interest, and, as the first article in the article so eloquently puts, “for many scientists, it is the principle that counts, not the practical engineering.” So ultimately, it rests in the known possibility to travel to the future and the ramifications of what it means and how it affects us as a human, global civilization as well as individuals. The question does remain to be asked about the possibility towards going backwards in time, but for the time being, I think there are enough discussions and thoughts to have to the current state of forward travel that will keep us questioning further and further.
Sources:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/13/opinion/opinion-time-travel-paul-davies/
