Is it possible to travel in time: what does science tell us?

Interest in time travel, which arose after the publication of HG Wells’ novel “The Time Machine” in 1895, continues to fascinate both ordinary people and the academic scientific community.

At the same time, the number of scientists who claim that time travel is absolutely impossible increases every year. But are they right?

Clark’s Laws

British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke formulated three sayings known as Clarke’s Three Laws, of which the third law is the best known and most quoted. They are part of his ideas in his many writings on the future. The first of these laws says:

“When a prominent but elderly scientist says something is possible, he’s almost certainly right. When he says something is impossible, he is most likely wrong. »

Based on this rule, many scientists are beginning to doubt that time travel is actually impossible. Thus, Professor Brian Green argues that the possibility of intertemporal tourism is simply beyond our understanding of physics.

According to him, the frontiers of knowledge are widening almost daily as a result of the next scientific discoveries, and we cannot even imagine what new data about the nature of the Universe will be available to us tomorrow.

“The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to venture a little beyond, into the impossible,” quotes the second of Clark Green’s laws.

And the third law is:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. »

Time travel from the perspective of physicists

Very often the opinion is expressed that in order to open the same “time portal” through which the passage will take place at another time, a huge amount of energy will be required. But no one can explain why this process should take place this way and not otherwise.

Scientists have not been able to prove the presence or absence of time particles – chronotons, the existence of which some physicists are trying to indirectly confirm using the general theory of relativity.

Hypothetically, chronotons have negative mass and velocity, that is, they are likely to move against the flow of time. But no reliable physical model of this process has been proposed.

Hope is placed in “general theory” or “quantum string theory”. It should unify all subsections of physics, explaining the processes that occur in the Universe, using a single set of concepts. Albert Einstein devoted decades of his life to researching this theory, but neither he nor his followers achieved results.

String theory remains an interesting scientific concept, but proof of this hypothesis and its subsequent application in real science is not expected in the coming years.

The scientific community has no data on the potential tachyon particle, the existence of which is customary to explain all the incomprehensible and fantastic events in the world. While all particles in the world (tardions) move slower than the speed of light, the tachyon is believed to exceed this threshold and be the vacuum ground state.

A tachyon particle is a hypothetical particle that always travels faster than light. Physicists believe that particles faster than light cannot exist because they are not compatible with the known laws of physics. If such particles existed, they could be used to send faster-than-light signals.

It can be assumed that in the field of knowledge known to modern science, there is not a single physical process that could prove or disprove the possibility of time travel.

Which, according to Clarke’s laws, can be interpreted quite simply: we have not yet reached a level of understanding of the world around us sufficient to make predictions about travel in the past and in the future.

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