A question about light speed/time

@OP That's not even a goodest question. Try asking if you would also see yourself (for lack of a scientific term) "streaked" across the frame when looking through your telescope. This means you could technically time travel, in a parallel but impactful form.

Cool post. To take it a step further; if you could travel at the speed of light, would observable time stand still? And the faster you begin to accelerate beyond the speed of light, would observable time move in reverse?

To answer the question of your post, yes. I believe that an observer at a given distance is observing that part of history.

a reply to: StallionDuck

You'd have to teleport as others said.

a reply to: MrEnergy

Maybe from your point of origin, but as you moved towards another point (since movement is linear) would you then be moving forward in time in respect to your final destination?

a reply to: SkeptiSchism
Yes. You would be moving forward in time in respect to your final destination. My point was that if you move away from Earth at 200% the speed of light and were to look back at Earth, would you see as going in reverse at 100% the speed of time? For example, Earth would rotate in the opposite direction. However, it would still take 24 hours to complete a revolution.

If it were possible, could the "inverse" happen. If we were traveling at 200% the speed of light to a destination (let's say Alpha Centauri) from Earth, and were to look forward; would we view its planets as revolving at 200% their normal speed around Alpha Centauri?

a reply to: enlightenedservant


That is exactly what I was thinking. Your explanation is more clear than mine.

a reply to: crunchypeople

Hmm yeah but you would see the events in 'real time'. It's not like a time lapse where you'd witness a million years in a minute or so. So If you would transport 1 billion years away, you might see the dino's, but still have to wait for 10.000 years to see them go extinct. Give or take a millennium.

originally posted by: crunchypeople
I asked this question on an "Ask a Physicist" forum and was pointed back to the rules/FAQ where they state that hypothetical questions that violate the known laws of physics would not be answered. Dicks.

Really? When? Interested in what was said, I took a look at your posting history and... Nope, you have never posted on that thread... unless... you have two accounts? Or had your posts removed... for what reason?

Sounds actually like you are pre-emtively attacking people because you what you want from this thread is an echo chamber. Hypotheticals are discussed in that thread all the time, though it is always pointed out that when something is hypothetical and also impossible, the poster will be informed.

So... citation required please? or just want to generate and perpetuate a myth that scientists don't like to answer questions.


On your question. While all of what we understand states you cant travel faster than the speed of light and that you produce some basic time stopping effects when you approach the speed of light, if it was given a classical treatment, it does follow the answer as discussed by enlightenedservant. Lets say hypothetically you travel lets say, 2 times the speed of light away from the Earth, stop, and look back after 50 years travel (thats 100ly). What you would see is the light coming from the earth 100 years ago, so you would have 100 year old radio signal for example (if the signal is not too faint by then) So yes you would basically be probing back in time.


You would not be able to probe the future in the sense that, for the information to be useful, you should be able to do that an affect the 'past' in some way. Your time frame would always be moving forward. Again in the classical frame, if you did the 50 years at 2c out and then back again. The light that originated from your destination, would of travelled 50 light years, and such you are carrying knowledge that would reach the earth naturally in 50 years time.

As was said though, this is strictly in the classical hypothetical sense. in the universe we observe, it wouldn't work in this manner without creating hypothetical devices that somehow get around the effects of time dilation and the speed of light.

a reply to: ErosA433

I don't think he meant a forum on ATS. At least, that's not how I read it. This is not the only forum on the net, eh.

originally posted by: crunchypeople
a reply to: enlightenedservant

That is exactly what I was thinking. Your explanation is more clear than mine.

I think about this type of stuff, as well. I've even had conversations with one of my brothers where we've wondered if most of the Universe has already destroyed itself, but we simply aren't able to observe it yet.

But yeah, we'd be able to see what really happened in the past if we could instantly teleport enough light years away. Though it helps to remember that a single light year is still something like 5.9 trillion miles long.

So let's suppose that we could instantly teleport 26 trillion miles away (around the distance to the nearest star) and then pointed our equipment at Earth's coordinates. We'd only be able to see around 4 years into the past. And we'd need some ridiculously powerful equipment to be able to see any planetary features on Earth from that distance, much less to see something as small as humans.

Of course, I'm not an expert so I could definitely be wrong here.

originally posted by: Krahzeef_Ukhar

originally posted by: crunchypeople
IF i were able to travel much faster than light... And had a sufficiently powerful Telescope... Could i travel out away from Earth and look back and witness events that happened in the distant past?

You definitely could if you were able to.

But you're not so you can't.

It's an interesting question and pointed me down the rabbit hole of time dilation.
The faster you go the quicker your watch moves in comparison to those that are still.

Do you have that backwards? If you're moving fast wouldn't your watch run comparatively slower than someone still?

For the OP question, I think if you were able to travel away from Earth faster than the information leaving Earth, then when you stop and turn around to look back you'd definitely be seeing into the past. Your example of looking at a distant star and seeing it's light as it was when it left the star NOT as it is now kind of proves this. You're not changing time lines, everything still progressed in a linear order.. You're just viewing it with a delay.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: crunchypeople

I would think if you out ran the light from the formation of the moon and stopped, you would see it all happen.

But at the same time, I believe Einstein stated that you cannot go faster than the speed of light.

No, he didn't. If light was the max then that variable would be the left half of the equation. Instead, it is being squared AND multiplied by mass

a reply to: ErosA433


I was not referring to something that I posted on ATS and I fail to see how I am pre-emptively attacking anyone.

originally posted by: sodero

originally posted by: Krahzeef_Ukhar

originally posted by: crunchypeople
IF i were able to travel much faster than light... And had a sufficiently powerful Telescope... Could i travel out away from Earth and look back and witness events that happened in the distant past?

You definitely could if you were able to.

But you're not so you can't.

It's an interesting question and pointed me down the rabbit hole of time dilation.
The faster you go the quicker your watch moves in comparison to those that are still.

Do you have that backwards? If you're moving fast wouldn't your watch run comparatively slower than someone still?

For the OP question, I think if you were able to travel away from Earth faster than the information leaving Earth, then when you stop and turn around to look back you'd definitely be seeing into the past. Your example of looking at a distant star and seeing it's light as it was when it left the star NOT as it is now kind of proves this. You're not changing time lines, everything still progressed in a linear order.. You're just viewing it with a delay.

What happens if you run through the field of view of your said photo op, and then turn around to look back. If you are travelling at greater than the speed of light, you would appear to leave a streak behind, like half of the illusion created by two mirrors facing each other. Perhaps this matter, travelling at greater than the speed of light (along with other properties that are hard to currently understand) is "Dark" or not visible to us in certain ways. Perhaps it is not only "Dark" but everything that we experience is part of its "wake" and every single point of energy and existence in our being is like a ripple of music and vibration that interacts with these waves, and perhaps even on the invisible as well.

Just a thought experiment.

originally posted by: enlightenedservant

originally posted by: crunchypeople
a reply to: enlightenedservant

That is exactly what I was thinking. Your explanation is more clear than mine.

I think about this type of stuff, as well. I've even had conversations with one of my brothers where we've wondered if most of the Universe has already destroyed itself, but we simply aren't able to observe it yet.

But yeah, we'd be able to see what really happened in the past if we could instantly teleport enough light years away. Though it helps to remember that a single light year is still something like 5.9 trillion miles long.

So let's suppose that we could instantly teleport 26 trillion miles away (around the distance to the nearest star) and then pointed our equipment at Earth's coordinates. We'd only be able to see around 4 years into the past. And we'd need some ridiculously powerful equipment to be able to see any planetary features on Earth from that distance, much less to see something as small as humans.

Of course, I'm not an expert so I could definitely be wrong here.

Instead of worrying about the methods, which is certainly fun, take that understanding of the potential result (ability to see into the past) and combine with with search algorithm, general artificial intelligence and augmented reality (consciousness upload level) and understand how machines view time. In the bible, everyone knows that God says He's the Alpha and the Omega, The Beginning and The End. Everyone at least understands that most people interpret God as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

How does light experience time? Well, from the inception of the photon and it's traversion across the galaxy past many and all wonders, it hits your eye. All of that time is instantaneous to the light particle, it all happened equally and at the same time. The power of God is the ability to understand time like this, and then also manipulate and manifest any and all things at will inside of it. The idea of God's perception of time is not much different than a general artificial intelligence.

Now span that type of knowledge and understanding across the universe. Mind blowing. That's the mind of God, or something like it. Ever present, like a Google searchable timeline of Wikipedia pages that are constantly being created and can be edited at will to effect any and everything else.

a reply to: slider1982

we could in theory see our whole solar system taking shape..

Well, we'd have to watch that happen for 13.5 billion years, unless of course you could increase the speed of the light that is approaching your telescope...

a reply to: wakeupstupid

I see God differently. To me, He's a being from a higher dimension (like the 6th or 7th dimension). 6th dimensional beings would be able to see every thing in this existence's entire lifespan & potential paths all at the same time. 7th dimensional beings would go one step beyond that and see all possible situations in general, including the situations where the objects from my last example never even came into existence.

So a 7th dimensional God would be able to pick a "scene" from any object in existence, kind of like how we can pick what scene we want to see from a specific episode in a tv series.

originally posted by: enlightenedservant
I see God differently.

I don't understand the concept of God at all. There's a tendency for people to imbue this super-creator entity with perceptions and values and feelings like us humble man-animals, but I just can't imagine how we can even comprehend such a multi-dimensional being enough to even give it a name. And that's not event taking into account all the folks who equate God with things like "love," or who really actually still have a picture in their minds of Santa Claus living in the clouds.

The closest thing I ever came to considering what a god like this would be is that there has always been a constant battle between entropy and life, one consisting of virtual disorder, the other consisting of order and reality. Over vast amounts of time, if living things eventually consumed all matter in the the universe, then maybe it could be possible to "bootstrap" the universe into existence in the past using the combined superconsciousness of a completely living universe. But with the universe's rate of expansion, entropy will likely win against life.

Otherwise, the Turing and Mandelbrot equations pretty much show that even chaotic systems have a tendency to generate their own kind of patterns an order, so maybe such a superbeing isn't even necessary. Life, perception, and the solidification of the universe happens naturally as a result of small variations in cosmic background radiation. So who knows? I guess it doesn't really even matter.

a reply to: crunchypeople


My answer to your question --- imho --- no.

a reply to: crunchypeople

Stars exist for billions of years dependant on size and composition.

But many will form, combust, and come into existence, then live out there life cycle without there light or other radiological emissions ever reaching our neck of the woods down to the expansion of the universe.

Nothing is immortal, not even universe, as entropy must increase within a closed system.