The Time Bending: Hope for the Humans for Time Travel
Stella could not sleep last night because she was mourning her mother's death. She had been just thinking the whole night, how beautiful it would be if she could go back in the past when her mother was alive. Not only Stella, most of us at least once in a lifetime have thought to travel to the past or future whatever the reason behind it. This idea of going backward or forward from our present time is called time travel, which still didn't come into reality. But if someday humankind becomes able to time travel, the time bending theory will probably be the reason behind it.
What is time bending?
The time bending theory could be found in the discussion of time travel as it is a theory related to the moving through time and space. The serious discussion about the time bending, more accurately about the space-time bending, introduced by Albert Einstein for the first time. According to his theory of general relativity, published in 1915, massive objects like planets or stars with enormous gravity bend the fabric of the time-space. The closer you become to these massive objects, the pull of gravity gets more robust, and the time begins to move slower.1 This is the original idea of time bending in short. Let’s make it clear with an example. Imagine, four of your friends are holding the four corner parts of a blanket. The surface of the blanket will remain flat and tight. If you throw a large iron ball on the blanket, its surface will get distorted due to the mass of the ball. Just like this, massive objects can distort the fabric of the space-time, and being closer to the objects will make the time move slower around you. Because of the placement of big objects, the space-time fabric curves and then pulls less massive objects to itself which we know as gravity.2
Need to mention, though, we are focusing here on time bending, but we have to keep in mind that space and time are linked together, according to Einstein. Generally, space includes a three-dimensional arena- length, width, and height. But Einstein identified time as another dimension and described these all four dimensions altogether space-time.3 Space as well as time warp when mass or speed gets increased. So, it is not only time bending individually; it is actually space-time bending.
It has been an essential question for decades that bending the time is really possible or not. But now physicists have agreed, as the space bending is possible, time bending is possible as well.4
Time gets slower or faster because of the space-time bending
Some cynics question the possibility of time getting slower due to the space-time bending. But it has been proved by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Massive objects produce a curving of space and time. The stronger the gravity, the more space-time curves and generates gravitational time dilation that means time runs slower. That's why, on the ground floor, near the surface of the earth, time moves slower compared to the 10th floor of a building. Because the more you go up from the surface, gravity gets weaker. Though small, the time rate difference between different altitudes is real and has been measured experimentally using very accurate atomic clocks.5
Will time travel be possible with the help of the time bending?
Now we know how gravity distorts the fabric of space-time and make time to run slower. But how can this distortion, which means the time-space bending, play a vital role in shaping the time travel a real incident? The hypothesis of the gravitational wormhole can answer this question. A wormhole or Einstein-Rosen Bridge is a structure that links distant points in the space-time. In 1935, Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen proposed the existence of "bridges" (wormhole) that connect two different locations in the space-time fabric, theoretically creating a shortcut that could make possible travel time and distance.6
Actually, through space-time's flexibility, which has been instigated by gravity, this wormhole could link two different points in the space-time fabric. Let's make it clear with a practical instance. Take a piece of paper in your hand. Create two holes in a straight line on the paper's upper and downside. There are, now, enough distance between the holes. But if you fold the paper in the middle, the two wholes will be situated side by side. Here, folding the paper is representing the bending of space-time, and the holes are describing wormholes. However, the theory of wormhole was only speculative once, but in 2015, the Spanish physicists became successful in creating a magnetic tunnel that allowed a magnetic field to disappear at one point and reappear at another.7
Though it's an outstanding invention, unfortunately, that does not mean we are near the time traveling. Because this wormhole was not gravitational, instead, it was magnetic. Creating such wormholes that teleport particles or people across space-time demands creating lots of gravitational energy, which is not feasible with present technology.
Albert Einstein, who gave us the dream of time travel, also said in his special theory of relativity, that time slows down or speeds up depending on how fast you move relative to something else. If you can move faster than the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second, you can overcome time. But unfortunately, according to this theory, nothing can travel faster than light.8 So, thinking about we cannot defeat light, we have the space-time bending as the best alternative for making our dream of time traveling come true.
The concept of time travel is still a thing of science fiction. Though it is a fictional phenomenon, the popularity of time travel can be understood by the numbers of the films like Star Trek, The Terminator, or Interstellar that get released every year on this topic and become big hits. Scientists are working to bring the fiction of time travel into reality by researching industriously. Maybe the research will be successful on the base of the space-time bending, very soon.
Reference:
2. https://www.space.com/17661-theory-general-relativity.html
3. https://www.space.com/21675-time-travel.html
4. https://futurism.com/time-travel-bend-time
6. https://www.space.com/20881-wormholes.html
8. https://www.space.com/15830-light-speed.html
