Is Photon a Time Traveler ?
Time Travel is the biggest imagination and dream to the
astrophysicists. Many great scientists like Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla,
Stephen Hawking, believed that time travel in possible by human being. Albert
Einstein, in his Theory of Relativity,
proposed some breakthrough techniques or processes of travel through time. But
those techniques can’t be executed in practical using real life objects. So the
whole concept of time travel remained in the Philosophy and fiction.
The Time Machine is a hypothetical device or a vehicle which
makes time travel possible. The idea of a time machine was popularized by the
writer H.G.Wells in his novel “The
Time Machine” on 1895. And who travel through time he is the time
traveler. The time traveler can be a person
or an object or a particle.
The Theory of Relativity
Albert Einstein,
in his Theory of Relativity,
explained how we or an object or a particle can travel through time. It means
how a particle can go to the past light cone and the future
light cone of its present state.
According to the Theory
of Relativity, there are two basic techniques those provides us a concept
of time travel. The techniques are,
(i)
If a
particle or an object or a person can travel almost in speed of light (3 x 108
m/s) then his or its respective time will be very
less respect to the time in real natural world.
(ii)
If
a particle or an object or a person can travel in a very massive area, then his or its respective time will be very less
compared to the time of natural world.
Here, we will discuss about the first assumption of the theory of relativity.
According to the First assumption, if a particle or an
object or a person can travel almost in speed of light, then according to him
or it, the time will be very less respect to the time in real natural world. It
means, if we can create a machine or a vehicle that can reach almost (approx 90% of) the speed of light, and
if we can travel with the vehicle our respective time will be very less
compared to the real world time. It means by executing this process we can go
to the future (future light cone) of ours real time.
Now, here the problem to execute the whole process is, when
the speed of the vehicle reaches the speed of light or almost the speed of
light, then the mass of the vehicle
increases to infinite. It means that
to run the vehicle we have to provide huge amount of energy to it. But we don’t
have that much of energy or fuel to run a vehicle in almost speeds of light. As
we know that, speed of light is the maximum in vacuum and nothing can travel
faster than light in vacuum. So we can imagine that how big is the speed of
light. And to reach the speed of light, a vehicle needs a very very huge amount
of fuel or energy. But in practical we can’t provide that much of fuel or
energy.
And that is the main reason that we can’t use the process in
reality.
But, if we think in a different perspective, we can get a
thing that can travel in the speed of light. And that is light itself. As we
know that, from the viewpoint of Quantum physics, light has a particle nature.
Means, light is made of many particles, called Photon. Photon is a basic
element of light. Like a cell is the smallest structure and functional unit of
any living body, so cells do the same job that is done by the living body. In
case of a non-living body (object), the structural unit element is the atom, so
the job of a single atom is similar to the job of the whole body or object. Like
all these, photon, being the structural unit element of light, the job of a
single photon is completely similar to the job of light.
It means the speed of light is same as the speed of a single
photon. So from this statement, we can understand that the particle photon is
the only particle that has a speed of light. And also we know that the photon
is mass less, means the mass of a photon is 0 (zero). So in case of travelling
in a speed of light, the mass of photon can’t increase. So we don’t have to
bother about the energy of the photon.
So can we say the
photon a traveler?
As a photon can travel in speed of light, I think the photon
can travel through time, according to the Theory of Relativity. And if photon
can travel through time, of course photon is a time traveler.
But photon being a very mysterious particle it shows very
mysterious behaviors. So we can’t think about a real time machine using a
photon. Hope we can use a photon or the principle of a photon to make a time
machine in future.
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