• Question: Do you think that it will ever be possible to turn back time?

    Asked by ruddockawh to David, Helen, Ian, rhysphillips, Sarah on 14 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by koonertwh, webbtwh, opolotjwh.
    • Photo: Ian van der Linde

      Ian van der Linde answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      It is possible to slow down time by moving very quickly! If you went aboard a spaceship travelling very fast (approaching the speed of light) for a period of time, when you came back to earth, more time would have passed here than for anybody aboard the ship. This actually happens on aeroplanes – if we put a very accurate clock on board and fly for a distance as fast as possible, the clock will have lost time compared to the clocks on the ground! Einstein came up with this idea in his theory of special relativity!

    • Photo: Helen Fletcher

      Helen Fletcher answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      At an individual cell level maybe it may become possible. We might be able to take an old heart muscle cell and make it “younger” so it works better. A lot of scientists work on ageing cells to see if they can slow down or reverse the ageing process.

    • Photo: Rhys Phillips

      Rhys Phillips answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Not in the foreseable future. It is possible to slow time down (Einstein said so).

    • Photo: David Corne

      David Corne answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      I think this goes against all our current understanding. We can go forward more slowly, but we can’t go backward. However, I think there is a technical possibility that, with enough energy, we could nip a very long way back in time, and a very long way away, far and long enough away that it wouldn’t lead to a paradox. It worked for me (I come from billions of light years away, trillions of years in the future).

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