According to a new study, time travel is—mathematically speaking—possible. A researcher has concluded that space should NOT be divided into three dimensions—where time is separated. Instead, four dimensions need to be imagined simultaneously as a space-time continuum in which the different directions are connected.

While time travel has only been possible in popular movies and books, a scientist has found that in reality, there’s more to time travel than what we previously believed.

A researcher has created a new, revolutionary model that reveals—mathematically—time travel is in fact possible. While it seems to work mathematically, experts have yet to come up with the ‘right’ materials to create a working ‘time machine’.

The study was recently published in the IOPscience Journal Classical and Quantum Gravityand argues that mathematically speaking we can travel in time:

In this paper, we present geometry which has been designed to fit a layperson’s description of a ‘time machine’. It is a box which allows those within it to travel backwards and forwards through time and space, as interpreted by an external observer. Timelike observers travel within the interior of a ‘bubble’ of geometry which moves along a circular, acausal trajectory through spacetime. If certain timelike observers inside the bubble maintain a persistent acceleration, their worldlines will close.

Our analysis includes a description of the causal structure of our spacetime, as well as a discussion of its physicality. The inclusion of such a bubble in a spacetime will render the background spacetime non-orientable, generating additional consistency constraints for formulations of the initial value problem. The spacetime geometry is geodesically incomplete, contains naked singularities, and requires exotic matter. (Source)

Ben Tippett, a mathematics and physics instructor at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus has revealed that time travel is at least mathematically possible.

According to a newly published study, Tippet concludes that space should NOT be divided into three dimensions—where time is separated. Instead, Tippett says four dimensions need to be imagined simultaneously as a space-time continuum in which the different directions are connected. Time travel.

Based on Einstein’s theory—the researchers argues that the curvature of space-time is responsible for the curved orbits of the planets in the universe.

The researcher argues that if space-time was not ‘curved’ planets in the universe would travel in a straight line.

Imagine yourself standing next to a MASSIVE STAR. There, space-time geometry becomes curved making all straight trajectories of nearby cosmic bodies to bend, following a curved path around the star.

For the study, Tippett came up with a mathematical model called Traversable Acausal Retrograde Domain in Space-time or more charismatically called TARDIS.  Tippett describes it as a bubble of space-time geometry which is able to carry contents back and forth through space. This ‘bubble’ moves through space-time at a speed greater than the speed of light times 8, which consequently allows it to move backward in time.

However, while the researcher says its mathematically possible to travel in time, he doubts that anyone will ever build a working time machine in the near future.

Source: Traversable acausal retrograde domains in spacetime

Reference: UBC instructor uses math to investigate possibility of time travel

If you have a whole lot of free time, you might be able to type out the largest known prime number. The newly found number has 23,249,425 digits, nearly one million digits more than the previous record holder, discovered a year ago. Here comes the math: the new prime number is calculated by multiplying together 77,232,917 twos, and then subtracting one.

Because no one, not even a mathematician, has the time to recite 23 million digits, the number was given the not-so-catchy name of M77232917. (But its friends call it 2 to the power of 77,232,917 minus 1.)

A collaborative computer project called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, which has been going on for years, found the number in late December, on a computer volunteered by Tennessee electrical engineer Jonathan Pace. Pace had been hunting for primes for 14 years. Merseene primes are a special class of rare prime numbers named for Jesuit scholar Marin Mersenne, who studied them in the 17th century.

The computer search site tried to explain the giant size of the number for those of us (honestly, all of us) who can't count that high.

“Just how big is a 23,249,425 digit number?” the site asks. “It's huge!! Big enough to fill an entire shelf of books totaling 9,000 pages! If every second you were to write five digits to an inch then 54 days later you'd have a number stretching over 73 miles (118 kilometers) -- almost 3 miles (5 kilometers) longer than the previous record prime.”

In case you've blocked out your math classes, a prime number is a number divisible only by 1 and itself.

“I don’t need math.”

This is one of the most utterly false statements that I have ever heard. Just as humans use verbal sounds in order to communicate ideas and exchange information, numbers (more specifically, math) is system of language – the language of nature. Every day, every person on Earth participates in nature’s beautiful song of numbers without even knowing it.

Because of math, we can understand the basic construction of our home in the cosmos and the physics that govern is. With this in mind, learn about the most important numbers in history:

As being a physicist people ask about relationship between mathematics and physics. People ask why they are linked. Physics beautifully explains laws and rules of universe but when a physicist try it to explain in detail with equations most of people get bored and lose their interest in particular topic. So question here is what is the relationship between physics and mathematics?


If you look briefly into the history of physics and mathematics and evolution of science you may find that sometimes physics leads, sometimes mathematics and sometimes they come together. Let me take you back in 1600s when Isaac newton asked a question that if the apple falls than does the moon also fall? This question at that time, was the greatest question ever asked by man. Answer by newton was “yes it does”. Gravity of earth pulls an apple and moon towards its center. So when he tried to explain the falling moon than he didn’t find any mathematics to solve this problem. Isaac newton then invented Calculus in order to explain the falling moon. Even now when you study calculus you first study the motion of falling body with the help of calculus and which is exactly how newton calculated motion of falling moon. Mathematics helped to calculate the motion of celestial bodies, so in a way we can say that mathematics and physics acted like twins in order to explain a practical question.

Einstein’s view of gravity was amazing and he explained it in a different way. Einstein’s question was “what’s the nature of origin of gravity?” Einstein explained gravity as a byproduct of curved space. So you are right now sitting on a chair and reading this article “why sitting on this chair?” Your answer might be that gravity of earth is pulling you down towards chair. If your answer is the same as I mentioned then Einstein must doubt about your answer. Because the reality is, earth has curved the space around you and curved space all around you is pushing you down on the chair. Pushing of space and time requires differential calculus. Differential calculus is a language of curved surfaces. The theory of curved surfaces that is differential equations came first and Einstein using differential equations explained physics of curved space-time.

In 1905 when Einstein proposed special relativity, mathematicians were working on topologies of higher dimension.  It was about 100 years ago and mathematics and physics parted different ways. Mathematics went into hyper space and that area of mathematics had nothing to do with physics of that time.  Physics plotted along for decades and we worked on atomic bombs, stars and laser beams but recently physicists discovered string theory. String theory can live in tenth and even eleventh dimension of hyper space. String theory evolved new kind of numbers that mathematicians never talked about and that’s why scientists call it super string theory. So we can say that now suddenly a new form of mathematics has evolved out of physics.

Goal of physics is to find a small equation which allows us to unify all the forces in the universe. Using mathematics and physics together we someday may be able of doing that, but so far it looks impossible. Both physics and mathematics can help us to reach our goals. Physics is useless without mathematics and without physics you cannot explain mathematics. So if you want to study physics and you are afraid of complex mathematics then keep one thing in mind, both physics and mathematics are the only keys towards an ultimate understanding of the entire physical universe.