Faster than light speeds—could you see the past?

I'm quite interested in Astronomy/Space Exploration but admittedly I don't know a whole lot about it. So sorry if this is a really sophomoric question, that's because it is!

Most people are aware that the starlight we see in the night sky is usually very old and is only just now reaching us many years after it was given off by the stars.

I was thinking that if (and I know this might not be possible) but if we found a way to travel faster than the speed of light, could we look back at earth, and see its history? The light coming from earth would light from the past, and possibly from really really long ago depending on how far you travel. Maybe you could even see your own ship taking off...

If somehow we developed instantaneous transport, could we go to a planet 70 million light-years away, and look back at the dinosaurs with super-powered telescopes? By this time our imaging technology should have improved greatly, we could learn about their behaviors and so much more.

If somehow we were able to do this, all of history's mysteries could be revealed. We'd know what really happened at Roswell, who killed JFK, etc.. It'd be like watching a replay..

Is this possible millions of years in the future, if we continue to advance technologically?

if we were able to build a tube that some how multiplied the space between the end so that rather than light going almost instantly in the front and out the back, the light took years to travel the length of the tube then we could actually see back in time yes, but of course that would only work from the time it was made and started to delay the light, also if it delayed say two years, then you wouldnt know if it was working for 2 years

We assume light is the fastest particle/wave, maybe there is somthing that travels the same ratio of sound vs light, faster than light? Then again perhaps there are also some waves that are emitted so slowly that we havnt received anything and therefore dont know of their existence.

The time and distances involved are just so huge and so varied in the universe, really 'strange' things happen compared to what we experience in our scale and perception of time.

a reply to: thesearchfortruth

I think we can see the past. It's the future that we have to guess about.

a reply to: thesearchfortruth

Yeah, that's one of my favorites. The data exists, it is just a matter of catching up to it and gathering it. Perhaps certain objects already exists that are already reflecting it back. (e.g. Devils toy box)

If one knew of a crime or event that occurred you could collect the data and identify a suspect etc.

Once you have the wormhole or whatever apparatus you are using you'd have to find an object in the correct alignment with enough reflections to gather your data.

I like to take it one more step.

If you can capture data out of time, then you can send it too - you just need to develop a known target.

Likely then, the data is already being sent we just need to learn how to capture it or where the target would likely be.

It's development could be justified to send warnings of impending crimes against humanity or very large natural disasters.

What do we want?
TIME TRAVEL

When do we want it?
IRRELEVANT

You can theoretically go back in time if you can get past that whole "infinite mass" thing.

And then other theoretical things happen. You just can't know. As of now, at least.

a reply to: thesearchfortruth



Simple answer if you could make a trip faster than light yes. Lets say i travelled out 120 light years id be listening to the start of radio listening to their commercials and radio shows. In effect i went back in time to listen to the broadcasts. With relativity time is relative to your position everything around you happens at different times. Even the concept of past present and future. suppose i zoomed back to earth faster than light. guess what time for me would be standing still time for earth would not. Id find i jumped into the future when i returned to the earth.

a reply to: thesearchfortruth

In theory, yeah, I think that's possible.

Mabey you can look at it this way, something moving at the speed of light is moving away from us at the speed of light. So the stationary point is moving away from the moving object at the speed of light. Now can we see the future?

if you were travelling in "normal" space at the speed of light looking back you would see nothing.

as the light behind you cannot keep up so behind you would be totally black.

what you would see is a cone of starlight coming toward you in your direction of travel
becoming more distorted (streaked think speed blur) the further away from straight ahead you look
and this cone would become narrower the faster you go until all you would have is a point of light
directly ahead.

assuming you were in a tube shaped rocket type craft in a module in the nose at light speed you couldn't
even see the back end of the rocket looking along it would just fade into blackness until you slow back sub C.

in fact the sight of the enterprise D going to warp as seen from on board is not a bad analogy of what you would see
at least from the view ahead.

ETA as time is relative for you nothing would change as the light from the front is travelling your way anyhow
you could say as you are moving toward the light in front you are seeing the future as its arriving at your eyes sooner then it would have
if you were stationary.

a reply to: thesearchfortruth

Never seen the movie Pay Check? The premise of which is that if you could build a sufficiently convex mirror, it could bend light enough to somehow allow us to see into the future. I dont know about the science involved or even if it is in anyway practical but if so i imagine a sufficiently concave mirror would achieve the opposite effect allowing us to stare into our past.

If your ship had headlights on and you were travelling at the speed of light, you wouldn't see any light emitted by those headlights. If your speed would be even slightly slower than speed of light, you would see the lights, but it takes forever to see the actual light.

And if you teleported on planet that is 50 light years from us, you would see Earth as it was 50 years ago. If you teleport far enough, you would see the dinosaurs.

Interesting concept. Say we had wormhole tech, open a wormhole next to earth with the exit say 100 million light years away. Send a telescope through and have it look at our solar system while instantly sending info back through the wormhole. Voila! Front seat tickets on the creation of the earth.

a reply to: thesearchfortruth

a reply to: TheMadTitan

Possibly such technology would allow us to do the opposite and journey to the end of the universe/big crunch/or whatever comes next?

Traveling faster than the speed of light means you get somewhere faster than light, not a reverse in time.

a reply to: frostie

Actually most forms of pro-possessed FTL travel involve some kind of time dilation effect, that's simply relativity at play. End of the day its all about perspective.

a reply to: andy06shake

I Understand both points of view. If you traveled 100 FTL light years youd see 100 year old light from our sun, but that doesnt make the sun any younger.

Imagine we just traveled 100 FTL years away from a distant Star. We are seeing 100 year old light from some stars that have already exploded... but just because we traveled the distance doesnt make the star re appear where it actually is.

a reply to: frostie

Again thats perspective rearing it head. Light takes around 4+ years to travel from our sun to the nearest star. So if you were located in the Alpha Centauri system any observations you made of our own Star(Sol) world indeed be 4+ years old, perspective.

originally posted by: ShayneJUK
if you were travelling in "normal" space at the speed of light looking back you would see nothing.

as the light behind you cannot keep up so behind you would be totally black.

what you would see is a cone of starlight coming toward you in your direction of travel
becoming more distorted (streaked think speed blur) the further away from straight ahead you look
and this cone would become narrower the faster you go until all you would have is a point of light
directly ahead.

assuming you were in a tube shaped rocket type craft in a module in the nose at light speed you couldn't
even see the back end of the rocket looking along it would just fade into blackness until you slow back sub C.

in fact the sight of the enterprise D going to warp as seen from on board is not a bad analogy of what you would see
at least from the view ahead.

ETA as time is relative for you nothing would change as the light from the front is travelling your way anyhow
you could say as you are moving toward the light in front you are seeing the future as its arriving at your eyes sooner then it would have
if you were stationary.

Actually it wouldn't be black you indeed would see objects basically on relativity everything depends on the observer, a receding object would appear contracted, an approaching object would appear elongated (even under special relativity) and the geometry of a passing object would appear skewed, as if rotated. So it would look forward you would see things stretched look behind you you just see things smaller than they are. Probably the best direction to look actually the least distortion.

a reply to: andy06shake

Right, but the perceptions would have to be purely light based then. So if I set off a Super Huge Firework able to be seen from Centauri in the situation you just provided by the time you viewed my firework Humans have already advanced 4 years.

So another example of that would be If you went back far enough away with FTL travel to view "dinosaur" light by the time you see the light humans have already evolved to present day 2015.

I think were at a stalemate
Hopefully my tunnel vision isnt showing! Pun intended

a reply to: frostie

Well you know we are indeed designed to process part of the electromagnetic spectrum simply down to the way our eyes function. Just about all our observations based on the observable universe use the very same spectrum combined with our understanding of mathematics. We simply work with what we have.

Super huge fire works or Supernova have been observed to go of in our universe before, the light and radiation they emit still take time to reach our location.

Think on it this way, if indeed we were somehow able to launch a probe capable of reaching another star with in say 50-100 years(journey time). From our perspective here on Earth the probe would seem to take rather more than 50-100 years to reach its intended target.