Time Travel Trivia Quiz

Answer: Special Relativity Theory

According to the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), Einstein's Special Relativity Theory can be summed up with two major points: "the speed of light is the same for all observers" and "physics is the same for all inertial observers". Many scientists use Einstein's theory to argue that time travel is possible, if not probable, based upon the laws of physics.

Answer: How Time Travel Will Work

The speed of light "is believed to be the highest speed at which something can travel" (Kevin Bonsor, "How Time Travel Will Work," October 2000). Based on the theory of relativity, if a person traveled close to the speed of light, time would slow down for the person relative to that of others on Earth.

Answer: No object can escape their gravitational pull.

Black holes are areas in space that possess tremendous amounts of mass concentration. They are created when very large stars die--stars that are over ten times larger than the sun.

Answer: They have not actually been found.

Cosmic strings are hypothetically skinny threads of early matter that exude immense energy. They would have a unique effect on time/space, and their two-dimensional singularity would be a benefit to the time traveler. The problem is that while quantum mechanics allow for the existence of cosmic strings, no one has actually proved that they exist!

Answer: True

Wormholes are tunnels that could theoretically connect two different points in space, and act as a type of "shortcut" for those points. Wormholes are hypothetically preferred over black holes for time traveling, because "wormholes have no event horizons, things are free to leave without first being converted into Hawking radiation, so there is no problem with lost information". (David Shiga, New Scientist Space, April 2007).

Answer: If you went back in time and killed your grandfather, then you could not exist, so you could not have killed your grandfather, etc.

The idea of traveling back in time and killing your grandfather is dubbed "The Grandfather Paradox". Any aspect of past time travel could result in travelers accidentally killing their ancestors or changing events so that they could not have ever been born.

These changes would seemingly make it impossible for them to exist, and thus impossible for them to kill anyone or alter any event.

Answer: False

The "Twins Paradox" states that if you traveled in space-time, you could return to the current time much younger than your own twin. However, time travel is not hampered by the idea that one could age more slowly than one's twin, due to a space journey.

Answer: Time travelers are likely exploring other planets.

States Sagan: "...it might be that time travel into the past is possible, but they haven't gotten to our time yet, they're very far in the future ... maybe backward time travel is possible, but only up to the moment that time travel is invented. We haven't invented it yet, so they can't come to us...Then there's the possibility that they're here alright, but we don't see them.

They have perfect invisibility cloaks or something. If they have such highly developed technology, then why not?" (NOVA: www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/time/sagan.html )

Answer: Parallel universes

Many researchers believe that the universe will shield itself from the paradoxes created by time travel by naturally obliterating the creation of time machines (chronology protection). Others believe in predestination--what will be, will be. Thus, no matter how people manipulate time, events will end up being the way they were "meant" to be.

The concept of parallel universes, however, allows astronomers to conjecture that one could go back and forth in time, even altering events. The changed events, then, might be part of another universe--one that is parallel to the original one.

Answer: All of these

It does not seem possible that the criteria needed for successful time travel will be tangible any time in the near future. However, astrophysicist Kip Thorne believes that there may be more advanced societies that will create the technology needed to make time travel an eventual reality.