Photons And Time Travel

Photons and time travel have been mentioned on the internet a lot lately. There is a lot of scientific talk about both subjects along with general talk. I mention both things together, because there is a relationship between the two and it could lead to either some advanced devices, better understanding of time travel or both. Before I start, it is important for people to know exactly what a photon is. If you are a Trekkie, that is a fan of Star Trek, you have heard the crew talk about photon torpedoes many times. Actually after hearing the definition you will probably wonder how a photon torpedo could ever do any damage. There are a couple of definitions for a photon and here they are. The physics definition is it is a tiny particle of light or electromagnetic radiation. There is also a broader definition such as a unit of intensity of light at the retina equal to the illumination received per square millimeter of a pupillary area from a surface having a brightness of one candle per square meter. It is also important to know, scientists say photons have no mass.

When a camera takes a photo, it is receiving the image from the photons which bounce off the object and go back into the camera through the lens. Scientists are now claiming they received amazing results in a new experiment. They are saying they can take a picture and record images from photons which were never involved in receiving the photo information. You are probably wondering how this can be, I know I was. It has to do with the theory of entanglement which states an atom or in this case a photon can transfer its information instantly across any distance to another atom which it is entangled with. Not to get off the track, but this could someday lead to instant communication across any distance in space and not be limited by the speed of light.

While this is very interesting, it is even more interesting to note scientists are now saying they can send a photon through time. They are saying they were able to simulate sending photons back into the past. While scientists have believed for years they could send people into the future. Since we age less the faster we travel this would be the future for us and the proof is if we went back to earth after a fast trip through space the people on earth would have aged substantially while we didn’t and science says this is because we went into the future. Β While we may not notice this now, if we travel at near light speed this would become obvious. Clocks which have been sent into orbit have also proven this as they orbited the earth at about 17,500 per hour. I always wondered if we could consider this true time travel, because to me it was more like all systems slowing down and it didn’t seem to allow for time travel into the past. The more I have thought about it though, I think I have to say it is one part of true time travel. Right now all that has been learned is that we can simulate two massless particles traveling back through time through a wormhole. Here is what has been said about the two photon test. “For the first, ‘photon one’ would travel through a wormhole into the past and interact with its older version. In the second, ‘photon two’ travels through normal space-time, but interacts with a photon that is stuck in a time-travelling loop through a wormhole, known as a closed time-like curve (CTC).”

There are different theories about time and time travel. One specific theory states the past, present and future all exist at the same time. To travel through time it is only a matter of moving from one to the other. Sounds simple doesn’t it. Currently we have no way of knowing if this is true. Most of us believe the past is finished and the future is yet to be formed. It is only natural for us to think this way, we are programmed for it.

As I have said motion affects time and time is different for someone in motion. Yes it might be miniscule for someone traveling in a car, but the difference increases the faster we go. If we could somehow remain in a stationary place and yet bend space around us at a very high speed we might be able to see everything around us aging and changing. A very good example of this was in the George Pal movie “The Time Machine”. I am talking about the original not the remake. While the professor sat in his time machine he could see the world around him aging and changing and this is what we would supposedly see if we could build a time machine. The trick will be creating speed for traveling into the future. How to travel into the past by a body with mass is yet to be determined. Many scientists believe wormholes, or points connecting two places in space, might also act as time machines, but this is yet to be proven for us even though it seems to show up in simulations for photons.

Some people believe time travelers have already been here from the future. They cite things like a watch supposedly found in 2008 in a sealed 400 years old Chinese tomb. The watch was a hundred years old at most. Sorry not much proof there as it could have been put there by the people opening the tomb. People also talk about others who had glimpses into the future by what they believed happened because of accidental time travel, as happened to Sir Robert Victor Goddard who was a high ranking officer in World War II. He was flying over a disused airfield when he saw yellow RAF planes lined up on it and mechanics wearing blue uniforms. Four years later the RAF painted its planes yellow and changed the uniforms for mechanics to blue and began to use this airfield. Does this necessarily mean he traveled through time or could it mean he had a premonition?

Some people try and prove the case for time travel by talking about others who had claimed to be time travelers or by using old photos which seem to show people using current devices which were not yet invented. I ask you this, if someone is said to be using a cell phone in the 1920s, and this is what is alleged, if they were from the future wouldn’t they be using something far more advanced for communication? If not this would be we already have time travel. Even scenes in movies are being used by some people to prove time travel exists. One of the most ridiculous is from the movie Fort Apache. It is claimed that Henry Fonda is looking at a cell phone in a scene where he is riding in a stagecoach with Shirley Temple in this 1948 movie. Give me a break. What is supposed to have happened, did the director tell Henry we are now going to film a scene with you using a cell phone from the future. You have to admit this sounds crazy.

If we can invent a time travel machine, then it is already here since travelers from the future would be here using it. Maybe that is why the world is so messed up.