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Time traveling


Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically using a hypothetical device known as a time machine, in the form of a vehicle or of a portal connecting distant points in spacetime, either to an earlier time or to a later time, without the need for the time-traveling body to experience the intervening period in the usual sense. Time travel is a widely-recognized concept in philosophy and fiction. It was popularized by H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine, which moved the concept of time travel into the public imagination. However, it is uncertain if time travel to the past is physically possible. Forward time travel, outside the usual sense of the perception of time, is possible according to special relativity and general relativity, although making one body advance or delay more than a few milliseconds compared to another body is not feasible with current technology. As for backwards time travel, it is possible to find solutions in general relativity that allow for it, but the solutions require conditions that may not be physically possible. Traveling to an arbitrary point in spacetime has a very limited support in theoretical physics, and usually only connected with quantum mechanics or wormholes, also known as Einstein-Rosen bridges.

Some ancient myths depict a character skipping forward in time. In Hindu mythology, the Mahabharata mentions the story of King Raivata Kakudmi, who travels to heaven to meet the creator Brahma and is surprised to learn when he returns to Earth that many ages have passed. The Buddhist Pāli Canon mentions the relativity of time. The Payasi Sutta tells of one of the Buddha's chief disciples, Kumara Kassapa, who explains to the skeptic Payasi that time in the Heavens passes differently than on Earth. The Japanese tale of "Urashima Tarō", first described in the Nihongi (720) tells of a young fisherman named Urashima Taro who visits an undersea palace. After three days, he returns home to his village and finds himself 300 years in the future, where he has been forgotten, his house is in ruins, and his family has died. In Jewish tradition, the 1st-century BC scholar Honi ha-M'agel is said to have fallen asleep and slept for seventy years. When waking up he returned home but found none of the people he knew, and no one believed he is who he claims to be.


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