Looking for advice on studying real time travel

[Naniwise222]

Hello! I'm newish. In a month I'll be 24 and ever since i was 18 i dreamed of studying time travel. some time has passed but i still want to do it but i feel like i'm doing it wrong. I'm going to study at university with the hopes of studying physics for as long as they will allow. either i'll get expelled or I'll get a phd. The problem is that I dont know which degree or profession to aim for. The other problem is that although I love movies, I really want to learn about the actual science of it without Star Trek as a frame of reference. The only problem is that no one takes time travel seriously. Any advice?

 

[Cosmo]

Welcome to TTI!

If I were pursuing college to delve into time travel, I'd begin with a Bachelor's degree in Physics for a solid foundation. Following that, a Masters or Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics, with a focus on relativity and quantum mechanics, would be my guess. Suggested reads include "Black Holes and Time Warps" by Kip Thorne and "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking.

Some might disagree, but I believe that while college provides structure, true learning and discovery aren't confined to campuses, especially in 2024. Genuine understanding and knowledge can be sought independently if you're driven and curious.

Have you experimented with physics or electromagnetism? I would definitely encourage hands-on exploration over listening to someone else talk; after all, many groundbreaking discoveries have stemmed from solo passion and tinkering in personal labs.

Let your curiosity lead the way!

 

[Naniwise222]

Welcome to TTI!

If I were pursuing college to delve into time travel, I'd begin with a Bachelor's degree in Physics for a solid foundation. Following that, a Masters or Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics, with a focus on relativity and quantum mechanics, would be my guess. Suggested reads include "Black Holes and Time Warps" by Kip Thorne and "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking.

Some might disagree, but I believe that while college provides structure, true learning and discovery aren't confined to campuses, especially in 2024. Genuine understanding and knowledge can be sought independently if you're driven and curious.

Have you experimented with physics or electromagnetism? I would definitely encourage hands-on exploration over listening to someone else talk; after all, many groundbreaking discoveries have stemmed from solo passion and tinkering in personal labs.

Let your curiosity lead the way!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR ADVICE I APPRECIATE IT! I've never personally experimented but I've constructed some theories!

 

[PaulLev]

Some might disagree, but I believe that while college provides structure, true learning and discovery aren't confined to campuses, especially in 2024. Genuine understanding and knowledge can be sought independently if you're driven and curious.

I completely agree -- and I'm a university professor.

 

[Chris Cosmain]

Hi
I agree that a basic degree in mathematics or physics (quantum mechanics or dynamics) is a good way to go. There are academics who have built careers in this area. For example, there is a physicist in Australia who has published academic papers on time travel:

https://experts.griffith.edu.au/9846-david-pegg

Your other option is a bachelors degree in philosophy. Time travel is linked to very serious philosophy topics such as causality, fatalism and free will. If you have the capacity, some universities will even allow you to do a double major or a double degree.

I agree with Cosmo and Paul regarding independent learning/study, but tread this path warily, as there is a lot of information on the internet that is not scientifically based and may lead to confusion. There are excellent works for the lay reader (Hawking's books, Kleinberg, S. (Ed.). (2019). Time and Causality Across the Sciences. Cambridge University Press and Wasserman, R. (2018). Paradoxes of time travel. Oxford University Press come to mind).

For a good starting list check out: https://bigthink.com/hard-science/books-on-time/

Google scholar is an excellent resource of peer-reviewed scientific papers. I would recommend the work of David Deutsch, Kip Thorne, Igor Novikov and David Pegg, to name a few.

A final, pragmatic comment: I'm not sure if this is a passion pursuit and what your circumstances are, but if you are truly going to invest substantial time and resources in your studies, keep one eye firmly upon the concept of your employability/work-readiness resulting from this pursuit.

I wish you the very best on your journey!

 

[Darby]

I'm going to study at university with the hopes of studying physics for as long as they will allow. either i'll get expelled or I'll get a phd. Any advice?

As said above you will need an undergrad degree in physics just to get a feel for university level physics. There's no getting around the fact that you will be taking advanced math - lots and lots of math every quarter or semester. If you start university right now at age 24 plan to be a student until you are in your late 30's if you're going for a PhD. You won't be studying general relativity until you are well into your post-graduate studies. Basically, as an undergrad you'll learn to crawl, take baby steps and walk. Through the masters level you will learn to trot and run. In the PhD level you'll learn to sprint and run the marathon and teach undergrads and masters how to do the same.

It bears saying again - you will have to really love studying advanced mathematics if you're going for the physics major. You won't actually start studying general relativity until you are in grad school. There won't be a post graduate field of study called "Time Travel" at any university. That will have to be your PhD dissertation which you will have to defend in a rigorous oral examination. Fail to defend, fail to receive a PhD. You'll have to very carefully choose your graduate school. It's very unlikely that you'll get to simply pick a dissertation topic on your own and move on. You'll likely have to submit your proposed topic to the physics department doctoral committee and have them approve the topic. That's why you have to carefully choose which grad school to attend; you want a school that has professors that have shown an interest in the topic.

Now why does "no one" take time travel seriously? Time travel to the past is contained in a set of solutions to general relativity - in universes where certain conditions exist. Unfortunately in our particular universe there is no current evidence that those conditions exist. That would be your goal in the PhD program - prove that the conditions exist.

The next problem is causality. Time travel to the past violates what we believe are hard and fast physical laws regarding the nature of causality. Cause comes before effect - always. Time travel to the past allows effect to come prior to cause. Your dissertation would have to explain how effect and come prior to cause in terms of physical laws.

In your studies you will discover that you have to seriously alter your definition of "theory". In science a theory is not a simple opinion or something that someone has wondered about. A theory is the result of running a hypothesis completely through all the steps of the Scientific Method, running experiments, documenting and analyzing the data and coming to a conclusion. That is submitted to a proper peer reviewed journal, e.g. Physics Letters A, Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical. Once peer reviewed and generally accepted by the vast majority of the [physics] community it becomes a Theory.

Last is cost: For Cal-Tech plan for $250,000++ for your undergrad degree. Thereafter plan on at least $50k for the first year of grad school and $30k each year thereafter. Total will be about $400,00. This will not be cheap. Regardless of what school you apply to go for every scholarship you can find.