• Question: Basically, use this scenario, for example in 2009 two people were playing in the garden and say one of them stepped on a thorn. If we are in 2014 and time travel is possible and the other person decided to travel back into time, how would they be able to go through those same events again if the person who pricked their foot with the thorn has grown up with them in 2014? Wouldn't that suggest or support my theory of a possible 'other dimension'...? -Natasha

    Asked by Natasha to Helen on 16 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Helen Johnson

      Helen Johnson answered on 16 Nov 2014:

      Great question – who knows! Currently we don’t think time travel is possible. We know that because of relativity time can run at different speeds in different places, but it always moves forwards. If you’re in a really strong gravitational field, or you’re moving close to the speed of light, then time will run more slowly compared to someone back on Earth who’s sat still. This is, in general, a really tiny effect though.

      Even if time travel WAS possible, there’s definitely a lot to get your head around. What if you changed something in the past, that meant you would have never been born, or that meant you wouldn’t go back in the past in the first place? We get what are called paradoxes, lots of seemingly impossible situations.

      Have you ever watched ‘Back to the Future’? It’s a really old movie but one of my favourites about time travel. 🙂

Comments