There’s a world record for time travel, and it’s held by this guy, Sergei Krikalev, who has traveled a full 0.2 seconds into the future. Okay, well, I guess that doesn’t sound as exciting as this woman who claims to have traveled back to 1928. As for Krikalev, his time-traveling exploits are very real, but they’re going to require a super quick explanation of gravitational time dilation and Einstein’s theory of special relativity. Alright, so basically, time and space are interconnected in a giant four-dimensional sheet called space-time. When mass is placed on that sheet, it becomes warped which affects both the gravity and relative rate of time in that part of the sheet. It’s like when you are placed on your sheet, you start to experience time differently. Or maybe that’s just you taking a nap and waking up later. I’m not sure, but analogies aside, it’s also important to note that energy can warp space-time. So objects moving at different velocities can also experience time at different rates relative to one another. It’s sort of like how we stop moving and get into bed. Time seems to accelerate or maybe that’s just you taking a nap again, look, you just need to know that time moves at different rates depending on forces like gravity and velocity and mass and all that other good stuff.
Sergei Krikalev
Let’s meet Sergei. Sergei is a Russian cosmonaut and former Soviet cosmonaut before the Soviet Union dissolved and left him stranded in space for 311 straight days, but in total, Sergei has been in space for exactly 803 days, nine hours and 39 minutes. Now in space two forces are acting on the flow of time around you, low gravity and super high velocity. The low gravity actually makes time move faster in space, which would have Sergey going back in time upon returning to Earth, but this is canceled out by the space station traveling at just under five miles per second, making time move much slower instead. Traveling that fast for that many days means that Sergey technically traveled into his own future, and he’s going to live 0.2 seconds longer relative to everyone else on Earth. Anyway, you’re probably thinking now. Well, I haven’t been to a space station, but I have traveled pretty fast on a plane or in a car. Does that mean I’m time traveled too? And the answer is yes, technically. In fact, you can use this equation to determine just how much time you’ve gained over your sandboarding friend who has been sitting perfectly still at sea level for his entire life. But before you book tickets to live out the rest of your life on a commercial airliner. I should point out that the gravitational time dilation in airplanes usually balances or even overtakes the effects of the velocity. That is to say, if you live the rest of your life on an airplane, it might end up being ever so slightly shortened by the effect of lower gravity on time. If you really wanted to extend your life, you’re much better off living on something like a bullet train. Because of gravitational time dilation, Time moves at different rates on different parts of the earth. And it even moves slightly faster at the top of your head than at the base of your feet. It’s hard to look for the place on Earth, where time goes by the very slowest, because of the earth’s shifting crust, its gravitational field changes. Over time, we never quite know just how fast time is moving around us.
