Is there a way to keep time normal when going far into space

If we are able to ever go deep into space to other planets by the speed of light, or by a worm hole, is there any way to keep time the same from where you left? So lets say your on earth, and you travel 100 light years into space, stay there for a few seconds, then come back to earth. It wouldn't be a few seconds it would be months. Is there any way in the future to prevent this and go by the time on earth?

I don't understand what you are asking. Once you reach the remote destination time will elapse at the same rate as it does on earth. If you stay there a few seconds, then it would also be a few seconds on earth.

Of course, if you are traveling close to the speed of light to get there and back, your travel time will seem very short depending on how close to the speed of light you travel. However, by the time you get back to earth it will be over 200 years in the future and the planet will be controlled by intelligent apes.

I think I remember hearing that the amount of gravity where you are can affect time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitatio ... e_dilation

I was interested enough to remember it but not to read the info hahaha

Might be something in there

I think he's referring to special relativity, and time dilation due to traveling at relativistic speeds relative to Earth. One thing you could do theoretically, is rather than turning around and going back after you arrive, staying there and move the Earth to your new location at the same acceleration profile. Then when Earth reaches you, you'll be in sync again...

Lourens, by special relativity, that would be the same as heading back to earth.


Auri45, by general relativity, if you accelerated up to, and then travelled at the speed of light, and then decelerated to a stop at your destination, your clock would appear to have moved slower than one on Earth.
Which is to say that less time would have passed for you than for someone on Earth.

A 'wormhole' would hypothetically counter this, as you aren't travelling at such a high velocity. You are bypassing the distance by creating a 'shortcut'.
However, I don't think that there are any stable theoretical wormholes above quantum level.

Aargh, quantum level is enough for a Mk.I ansible.


Apparantly not - acceleration makes a difference.

My favoured solution is to simply not travel as the higher end of relativistic speeds - cruising at 0.6c gets you a time dilation (Lorenz) factor of 1.25, and with near term medical technology we can deal with the slight aging alteration one gets (going to pace to trade for 5 years means you'll be a year younger than someone who was the same age as you when you left; hardly noticeable, unless you were dragged there by your parents on a decade long voyage when you were 5, only to find your playmates are 15, and further developed than your paltry 13... ). When you're raching those velocities, going faster doesn't really net you many gains...

Which is why I said 'special relativity' not general relativity. Gen rel takes gravity and such into account.
What I should have been addressing is how one would go about accelerating Earth? Particularly since you'd also have to move the entire solar system, seeing as the other planets have such an influence on Earth's orbit, and lower numbers of large meteor impacts. (And we kind of need the sun.)

Special relativity does not take gravity into account, but it definitely does include acceleration. The twin paradox only involves special relativity, not general relativity, but does create an asymmetric situation. The trick is that the twin that left turns around, which is an acceleration, which is not relative, and thus the symmetry is broken and he is younger upon return.