01. Can space tunnels take us back in time? (A K2S Question)

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Space and time are actually related just like up and down or left and right are related. Space-time and space tunnels—also called worm holes—are actually places where space-time has been compressed. When traveling in a place where space-time is squished, things can happen that seem very weird. Imagine traveling across the United States. Now imagine how it would be to make the same trip if the middle of the country were crumpled, as if someone had folded up the map. You might be able to jump from Chicago to Kansas City in an instant! This is how it might be to travel near or in a worm hole, but remember that space and time are linked, so that near a worm hole you could make jumps in space and time. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately!) it is not possible to travel through such a hole or tunnel in space-time and survive the trip. Although it is possible in principle to make such a trip, it would require you and your spaceship to be compressed along with space-time. You would be stretched like a spaghetti noodle and squished smaller than an atom for part of the trip—not very comfortable! So, for now anyway, it seems that we cannot use worm holes for time travel either forward or backwards.

Answer provided by Luke Keller, Ph.D.


Image:K2S logosmall.jpg Question and Answer extracted from the book Kids to Space - by Lonnie Schorer


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