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Posted: 8/4/2013 9:03:31 PM EDT
Ok, So I was thinking about this today and I got kind of stuck. Lets say humanity had the possibility to create wormholes and travel at .99c. Both are possible even though we do not currently have the technology.

Step 1) Create a permanent wormhole between 2 "doors"
step 2) Place one door on a space craft traveling at .99c. (according to my calculations using the lorentz factor 1 year at .99c equals ~7.1 years)
step 3) Spaceship travels half year out, then half year back (ignoring time to turn around)
step 4) A wormhole that travel 7 years into the past????

So step 4 is where my question arises. Everything on the ship including the wormhole will have aged only 1 year while earth will have aged 7 years. My theory is that since the space craft is now at rest in earth orbit, the wormhole would not cause any sort of time travel effect since its at rest compared to earth. However, the wormhole can act as a portal to some place that has aged at a different rate so in effect, traveling through the portal would be traveling to a place that has aged less and in effect a window to the past.

Anyone else have any input?
Link Posted: 8/9/2013 11:25:27 AM EDT
[#1]
I dont have an answer for you but i do know your scenario breaks down during step 3. For the ship to turn around acceleration has to happen (ie.  slow down, instantaneously stop, speed up opposite direction) (or fly in a radius where a=v^2 / r, since velocity is a vector a change in direction = acceleration). When acceleration occurs special relativity is no longer applicable and the much more difficult general relativity has to be used.

Its like the classic twins on earth where one gets on a rocket at the speed of light and zooms off for some time and then turns around and comes back. Since everything is about frame of reference, from the twin thats on earths perspective he is stationary and the rocket speeds off and comes back, but from the twin on the rockets perspective the rocket is stationary and the earth zoomed away and then came back. So which twin has experienced “more time”?
Link Posted: 8/9/2013 11:28:49 AM EDT
[#2]
It doesn't matter which direction the ship is traveling the time dilation is the same.  That's the crazy thing about relativity...
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