![]() First, you can only travel into the black hole’s past. So, you’ve found a black hole and you want to use your trusty spaceship to go back and visit the dinosaurs. Things that are in the past cause things to happen in the future, which in turn cause things to happen in the past! The catch Inside the loop, you would also find that cause and effect get hard to untangle. If you could somehow get onto the loop, which physicists call a closed timelike curve, you would find yourself on a trajectory through space that starts in the future and ends in the past. That’s what a black hole seems to do to time. Imagine taking a sheet of paper and joining the two ends to form a loop. A black hole bends time so much that it can wrap back on itself. ![]() What about the past? This is where things get truly interesting. If you get close enough to the centre of the black hole, your clock will tick slower, but you should still be able to escape so long as you don’t cross the event horizon. If you want to jump into the future of Earth, simply fly near a black hole and then return to Earth. In this way, black holes can be used to travel to the future. Interstellar gives a spectacular view of hard science One year near a black hole could mean 80 years on Earth, as you may have seen illustrated in the movie Interstellar. A clock that is near a massive object will tick slower than one that is near a much less massive object.Ī clock near a black hole will tick very slowly compared to one on Earth. The point at which it gets so steep that light can’t escape is called the event horizon.Įvent horizons aren’t just interesting for would-be time travellers: they’re also interesting for philosophers, because they have implications for how we understand the nature of time. The valley created by a black hole gets steeper and steeper as you approach it from a distance. It’s also why light can’t escape a black hole: the sides of the valley are so steep that light isn’t going fast enough to climb out. That’s why, when you get close enough to any massive object, including a black hole, you fall towards it. Massive objects (like planets, stars and black holes) create ‘valleys’ in space.
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