According to a team of
scientists, there is no mathematical reason why travel to a different time is
impossible. The only problem is our limit is engineering. In a recent research paper titled “Traversable acausal retrograde domains in spacetime”, or TARDIS for short, scientists show
how a machine could control the spacetime continuum to travel backwards through
time.
According to many scientists,
this particular paper was much needed for further steps towards achieving time
travel.
In the paper, issued in
the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, the researchers from the University
of British Columbia and the University of Maryland wrote: “In this paper we
present geometry which has been designed to fit a layperson's description of a
‘time machine’. It is a box which allows those within it to travel backwards
and forwards through time and space, as interpreted by an external observer.”
Researcher Ben Tippett
said: “People think of time travel as something fictional and we tend to think
it’s not possible because we don’t actually do it. But, mathematically, it is
possible.”
To accomplish time travel,
especially backwards, the machine would need to have the capability to warp
spacetime – which is the linking of time and the physical universe.
Strong gravitational
forces – such as black holes – may be the key to time travel as research has
shown that intense gravity can slow down the passage of time.
As a result, a strong
force could disrupt spacetime and “bend time into a circle for passengers”
providing the traveller is exceeding the speed of light.
However, while time
travelling is possible, Mr Tippett believes that no one will be able to build a
machine capable of doing it in any time soon.
He added: “While is it
mathematically feasible, it is not yet possible to build a space-time machine
because we need materials — which we call exotic matter — to bend space-time in
these impossible ways, but they have yet to be discovered.”