Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 1

Time Travelling, by means of

Time Dilation, Black Holes, and Wormholes

Volume 1

of the ‘Questions and Concepts of Time Travel’ Series.

Sayed Belal Mudassar

Written between November 2018 - October 2022

Author Note

President-Founder of the Saudi Students’ Rocketry Association

2021 International Astronomy and Astrophysics Competition; National Awardee

Conrad Innovator
Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 2

Thank You, God,

And My Family,

Who Made It Possible For Me To Reach Here.

Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 3

About the Author

I, the author of this book, am Sayed Belal Mudassar, an Indian by origin residing in Saudi

Arabia. I first started taking interest in Time Travel and Time Dilation when I was about 11 years

old, in 2018. I started writing a ‘booklet’ on the topic at the end of the same year, inspired by

Stephen Hawking’s ‘My Brief History’. While it certainly has been a long wait since then, I had

to finally publish my 4-year-old works, after my interest in the field re-ignited.

In the past nearly-half-a-decade, I have founded a nationwide space association, topped the

International Astronomy and Astrophysics Competition Nationwide, developed my own

sub-orbital payload, and of course, learnt much more since I last wrote in this ‘booklet’ in

January of 2019. After the first month of 2019, I abruptly had to stop writing in this series due to

inevitable circumstances. But here I am back after understanding a bit more than what I

understood back then. And because of the vastness of this topic, I aim to publish several volumes

in this series. This is the first volume where we would get an introduction to what exactly is time

travel, how time-dilation work, how black holes distort space-time… and much more!
Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 4

Introduction to Time-Travel

In 1990, Kip Thorne suggested that it might be possible to travel into the past or future.

This could very well be possible by travelling into a black hole, or maybe a wormhole. But the

question remains- is time travel allowed by the laws of Physics?

Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (1915)

A wide variety of possible universes is possible under general relativity, including ones

with truly bizarre characteristics of time. As an example, in some universes, the possible

trajectory of an observer can loop back upon itself in time, forming a closed timelike curve

(CTC). Time travel is possible in these universes since an observer traversing such a curve would

return to the same point in spacetime at the "end" of her journey. Spacetime properties can be

described by such curves and other similarly exotic structures that demonstrate the remarkable

flexibility of general relativity (GR).

These trajectories are paths through space-time that always move forward in local time

(i.e. an observer's watch always runs forward), but eventually, end up back where and when they

started. The concept of a time machine can be applied to space-times that contain closed curves

that resemble time and are localized within a particular region.

In analytical solutions to Einstein's equation of general relativity, closed time-like curves

appear. In the past, such solutions were considered unphysical because they contained closed

time-like curves. The solutions should not be rejected out of hand, however, due to their
Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 5

compliance with the field equations. Indeed, interest in closed time-like curves has increased in

the past decade. The reasons for this are varied, ranging from the practical (if time machines can

be built, they would have a lot of potential uses), to the theoretical (perhaps quantum gravity can

say something about the existence of closed time-like curves, or vice versa) to the philosophical

(do the laws of physics allow or prohibit closed time-like curves?).

Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 6

Time Dilation: Time is Relative

Velocity Time Dilation:

Travelling forward in time is easy and does not require much new physics. In Newtonian

physics, with its absolute background time, we all travel forward in time at the rate of one second

per second. We can travel forward in time at a faster rate thanks to special relativity. An excellent

example is the twin paradox. As one twin remains at home, the other travels into the Universe at

relativistic speeds, with time being dilated by 1/(1 - v²/c²) each way, where v is the travelling

twin's speed and c is the speed of light. Since the travelling twin has experienced much less

passage of time than the stationary twin, he has "gone into the future" with respect to the first

twin. Although that experiment hasn't been performed in real life, there is evidence that it is real.

A clock that was launched into space and returned - while keeping an identical clock on Earth -

was slightly behind the earthbound clock when it returned. It happens all the time that people

travel forward in time in this way.

This phenomenon is called "relative velocity time dilation" where time moves slower

as you move faster. This means you essentially travel into the future when you travel at

higher velocities compared to a stationary object.

The cosmic rays that form high-energy particle showers in the upper atmosphere contain

particles that last for a much shorter time than it takes for them to reach ground level, but whose

speeds are very close to the speed of light. The very fact that we observe these particles at

ground level means that their rate of time passage has dilated or, equivalently, that they have

travelled into their future.

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When objects travel near the speed of light, time slows substantially. For example, if you

travelled for ten years on a starship that could move at 95% the speed of light, it would have

taken 32 years for those who remained on Earth. What is 10 years for you at the speed of light, is

32 years for people on Earth.

In that way, you might claim you travelled into the future. However, we lack the

capability of accelerating our space shuttles to speeds even near that. The space shuttle flies at

approximately 17,500 miles per hour, or 40,000 times slower than the speed of light. To jump

one year in the future, an astronaut would have to travel a billion years in his spaceship at such

speed!

So depending on our position and speed, time can appear to move faster or slower to us

relative to others in a different part of space-time.

Remember, time= (distance/speed). If you change any of the variables on the RHS, your

value can be vastly different.

Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 8

Gravitational Time Dilation:

Time appears to move slower near massive objects because the object's gravitational

force bends space-time.

The phenomenon is called "gravitational time dilation." In a nutshell, it just means

time moves slower as gravity increases.

That's why time passes slower for objects closer to the centre of the Earth where the

gravity is stronger.
Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 9

That doesn't imply you should spend your life in a basement merely to outlive the rest of

us. On such a tiny scale, the effect is negligible. If you become a basement hermit, you'd only

age a fraction of a second slower than everyone else above ground during your whole life.

But when you think about it, this thought seems somewhat bizarre:

● A watch worn on your ankle will gradually lag behind one worn on your wrist.

● Technically, your head ages faster than your feet.

● People who live on a mountain pass time faster than those who live at sea level.
Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 10

Time becomes considerably more convoluted when gravitational time dilation and

relative velocity time dilation occurs at the same time.

Consider the astronauts who live on the International Space Station as an example.

They're 418 kilometres above the ground, where the Earth's gravitational pull is less than at the

surface. That implies time should pass more quickly for them than for humans on the ground.

However, the space station is also travelling at a speed of 7.6 kilometres per second around the

Earth. That means time should move more slowly for them.

So how do these contradictions keep up with them?

You'd think that might even out, but actually, their velocity time dilation has a

bigger effect than their gravitational time dilation, so astronauts end up ageing slower than

people on Earth.

Time passes slower for the astronauts onboard the ISS, due to the velocity time

dilation phenomenon.

The difference isn't noticeable though — after spending six months on the ISS, astronauts have
aged about 0.005 seconds less than the rest of us. That means when astronaut Scott Kelly gets back
from his year-long stay on the ISS, he'll technically be 0.01 seconds younger than his twin brother Mark
Kelly who stayed on Earth.

So yes, humans do time travel very often. Even when we look at the Moon or the stars, we are
looking in the past. The light from the Moon takes about 1.3 seconds to reach us, which means we are
looking 1 second into the Moon’s past. This might not be a big dilation to be noticed. Let us take a
bigger example.
When we look at the North Star, Polaris, we are looking 323 years back into the star’s past…!
This is because Polaris is located 323 light years away from Earth.
Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 11

Black Holes and Wormholes

Wormholes, which are bipolar black holes that connect different parts of the universe,

may allow for teleportation and time travel. This is the conclusion of a model built by CERN's

Kyriakos Papadodimas and Rik van Breukelen of the University of Geneva. Travelling through a

wormhole would allow for instantaneous travel and travel into the future, and this is completely

free of the time dilation predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity. Van Breukelen, on the other

hand, adds that it is "a completely theoretical model that would only apply to an elementary

particle, such as a photon."

The researchers' concept creates a new type of wormhole and describes in theoretical terms how
information held on a particle (e.g., utilizing its electrical charge) might transfer instantly to another
Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 12

portion of space-time. "Wormholes are still hypotheses today," adds van Breukelen. "However, it would
be theoretically conceivable to generate an artificial black hole, for example, using a particle
accelerator, however, it would have to be a billion kilometres long, the same distance the Earth goes
around the sun in a year." So it's a theoretically viable notion, but it's also millennia ahead of its time."

Another way of time travelling is going through a black hole.

A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing – no particles or
even electromagnetic radiation such as light – can escape from it.
And as stated above, time moves slower near stronger gravitational fields, due to the
Gravitational Time Dilation Phenomenon.
And as the gravitation field near a black hole is intense, the slowing of time is extreme too. From
the viewpoint of an observer outside the black hole, time stops. For example, an object falling into the
hole would appear frozen in time at the edge of the hole.
In principle, by maintaining this “safe” distance you could travel centuries into the future relative
to outside observers, although for you just a few hours or days would seem to have elapsed.

About a trip through the black hole, Physicist Stephen Hawking wrote ‘Around and around
they’d go, experiencing just half the time for everyone far away from the black hole. The ship and its
crew will be travelling through time’, in the Daily Mail in 2010.
Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 13

Conclusions

● Time travel into the future is easy and is done on several occasions.
● Theoretically, we travel into the past every time we look at the Moon or the stars, whose light
takes a second, or light-years to reach us.
● In everyday life, we're used to speed being relative — so, for example, a car travelling at 60 mph
(97 km/h) relative to a stationary observer would be seen as moving at 120 mph (193 km/h) by a
driver going in the opposite direction at the same speed. This same phenomenon also impacts
time. Depending on an observer’s relative motion or position within a gravitational field, that
observer would experience time passing at a different rate than that of another observer. This
effect, known as time dilation, becomes detectable only under certain conditions, although at a
low level, we're subject to it all the time.
● Time passes by slower when travelling at high speeds. Imagine a spaceship travelling at 95%
of the speed of light to a planet 9.5 light-years away. A stationary observer on Earth would
measure the journey time as distance divided by speed, or 9.5/0.95 = 10 years. The spaceship
crewmembers, on the other hand, experience time dilation and thus perceive the trip as taking
only 3.12 years. (The math here is a little more complicated, but we'll get to it later.) In other
words, between leaving Earth and reaching their destination, the crewmembers age a little over
three years, while 10 years have passed for people back on Earth.
● Another example of time dilation due to velocity is that a regular flier who crosses the Atlantic
every week would have experienced about a thousandth of a second less time than a
non-traveller after 40 years, according to "How to Build a Time Machine" (St. Martin's Griffin,
2013).
● Time goes faster the farther away you are from a gravitational force, such as the Earth's
surface. To put this in assumption, NASA has considered what would happen if a clock were put
in orbit 6 miles (10 kilometres) from a black hole having the same mass as the sun. It turns out
that when viewed through a telescope from a safe distance, the clock would take around an hour
and 10 minutes to show a difference of 1 hour. While to us, 70 minutes passed by, only 60
minutes had passed by for the clock near the black hole.
● To understand how gravitational and velocity time dilations keep up with each other, let us take
the example of the astronauts onboard the ISS. They are 418 kilometres above the ground, where
Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 14

the Earth's gravitational pull is less than at the surface. That implies time should pass more
quickly for them than for humans on the ground.
● However, the space station is also travelling at a speed of 7.6 kilometres per second around the
Earth. That means time should move more slowly for them.
● Here, their velocity time dilation has a bigger effect than their gravitational time dilation, so
astronauts end up ageing slower than people on Earth. Time passes slower for the astronauts
onboard the ISS, due to the velocity time dilation phenomenon.
● To understand more about how time-dilation works in Earth's orbit, let us take another example.
Astronaut Scott Kelly was born after his twin brother, and fellow astronaut, Mark Kelly. Scott
Kelly spent 520 days in orbit, while Mark spent 54 days in space. The difference in the speed at
which they experienced time over the course of their lifetimes has actually widened the age gap
between the two men. "So, where[as] I used to be just 6 minutes older, now I am 6 minutes and 5
milliseconds older," Mark Kelly said in a panel discussion on July 12, 2020, Space.com reported.

In the end, yes, time travel to the future is possible, even today (though marginally). You
just need to travel really fast.

Time travel to the future is what the real challenge is, as it involves a lot of maths,
gravity, and technology that we don’t have yet.
But, we don’t know what the future holds for us…
Time Travelling, by the means of Time Dilation, Black Holes and Wormholes 15

References

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/143-physics/the-theory-of-relativity/time-travel/

47-is-time-travel-possible-beginner

https://www.businessinsider.com/do-astronauts-age-slower-than-people-on-earth-2015-

https://www.horizons-mag.ch/2017/12/18/black-holes-may-make-time-travel-possible/

https://www.astronomytrek.com/black-holes-relativity-and-time-travel/

https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/bh_whatare.htm#

https://www.livescience.com/what-is-time-dilation

https://www.space.com

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/

Simon, J. (1994). The physics of time travel. Retrieved from The Computational Sensorimotor

Systems Laboratory.

Smeenk, C., & W¨uthrich, C. Time Travel and Time Machines. Retrieved from Oxford

Handbook of Time, Oxford University Press.