Time travel - Please help and explain

Hi all, I just watched the time travel show with steven hawkings... in the show it shows a spacecraft that travels for 100 years but the people inside only age by 10 years due to the fact its traveling close to the speed of light and therefore time goes slower

Now just a thought that i got from this and i will try my best to explain

lets say we built a vacuum glass tube that circled a football field, and inside this glass tube we have a glass pod with a person inside of it. In the pod the person has a tv and pc and some other gadgets. Now according to steven hawkings show, if that pod was traveling close to the speed of light then everything inside would only age by 10 years every 100 years due to time been slowed down right

Alright that is all easy, the reason its glass is cause you must be able to see in and out. The reason it only travels round a foot ball field is so that things dont become to complicated "keep it small and simple for the example"

Now the tricky part: Lets say on top of the pod there was a lazer shining out in order to communicate with people outside the tube. Its shining up so it not affected by the speed of the pod, now if this laser was connect to the PC transferring data all the time, well then technically the data that comes out of the pod should be no older than 10 years old... Now if the person inside the pod can see out and its 100years forward, well then surely he would be communicating with the past if the data that he is sending out is no older than 10 years ?

So basically he is looking out and its 100years from when it all started, however everything inside is only 10 years old, so when he sends data out, he should be writing about what he sees in the future.

Any one that could put this to rest so i could stop thinking about it would be great

[edit on 13-5-2010 by bluedrake]

This stuff does my head in but here goes. Surely the information he's sending out via laser is coming into earth time in little packets stretched over a hundred years? So, when he's released after his 10 years, and earth time's 100 years, they've only just got the tail end of what he sent? The info they got started 100 years ago and it just finished before he got out? That is if he's sending stuff the whole time he's there.

When I talk to my friend on the phone, what I'm saying is already back in time isn't it? As soon as it's out, it's said. Whether it's 10 years or 100 years what's done is done. It's passed/past.

I solved the "go back in time and kill your own grandfather before he met gran" thing and now you've got me stumped with a harder one. But I'm not sure it makes sense anyway. ??? lol I tried.




[edit on 13-5-2010 by wigit]

reply to post by bluedrake


Really, you want to look up a group called the Anderson Institute for questions about time travel, but I can answer part of your question at least. A fellow named David Lewis Anderson works there. He's probably in the top 20 in the world as far as time knowledge and application. Guy's even talking about building a "time reactor" to generate energy from time. Infinite free energy, as per usual here.
The communication could not happen because computer languages require only a certain amount of time to pass on the receiving computer between packets. Elsewise the data "packet" will be dropped. Usually just a matter of seconds too. It seems to me that TCP/IPs keep-alive time is about 15 seconds, maybe 20. So any longer than that and the packet will be assumed to be lost, and the computer will take up with you a complaint about the quality of your connection. So first, you'd have to set up a very special kind of networking protocol, and whether or not that protocol worked would depend on how accurately you guessed the way the packets would be coming in.

Well time travel is a science fiction fantasy. Most of it revolves around the speed of light and how "magic" happens when you approach it.

reply to post by IceOwl


I agree with you, my thought was that if you could some how get the data out in relation to the time inside the capsule, well then you would be communicating with the past in a sense while you are viewing the future.

Thats why i was thinking about using light to communicate and pointing the light in a direction, were it would not be affected by the speed that you are traveling.

Thanks for the info though, will be looking up Anderson Institute though i have a feeling its going to get my head working a bit to hard lol