Albert Einstein, an American, German and Swiss theoretical physicist and humanist public figure, once predicted that time slows down when a person flies quickly in an airplane. However, to truly experience the effect of time dilation, you need to go into a black hole, noted astrophysicist Chris Lintott.

His favorite science experiment was flying around the world twice in four hours. The experimenters then flew first west and then east around the globe before returning to their laboratory in Washington. When comparing the time on the clocks that traveled and those that remained motionless, scientists noted that the passage of time had changed.

The experiment was a test of the basic principle of Einstein’s theory of relativity, which is that time is not universal. The faster a person travels, the slower time goes for him. True, the effect will be small. For example, you can travel from London to New York. Then the clocks will be ten millionths of a second behind those left on earth.

Another principle of the theory of relativity states that gravity exerts its influence. If you move further away from the Earth’s gravitational field, then time, on the contrary, will speed up. This, for example, affects the human body: the legs turn out to be slightly younger than the head. The effect is also small, but the further from the planet, the more pronounced it is.

Scientists give this example: “Imagine falling into a black hole in a ship protecting you. When you fall, you will not notice any difference in time to yourself or your immediate environment. Looking at your watch or feeling your pulse, you will feel the same steady beat that you feel, second by second, as you approach almost certain death. However, if your spacecraft’s instruments allow you to look back to observe the universe beyond the black hole, you may notice something strange—events there seem to be accelerating.” They also note that if at this moment you pay attention to the Earth, you can see how the movement there has accelerated, as if in a movie.

However, if you watch a person being swallowed by a black hole, and he flaps his arms, then as he falls into the gravity well, the movements will become slower.

When a person crosses the event horizon of a black hole, that is, the boundary beyond which neither light nor anything else can go, he will be forced to move towards the center of the object. In this case, the perception of time will be changed, and the traveler will seem to be moving back and forth in time.

Because of this, many will think that time travel is real, and a black hole is just designed for this. It is possible to travel back in time long before they crossed the event horizon, all the way back to the creation of the black hole itself. “The only catch is that, as far as we can tell, there would be no escape from the black hole, so no time traveler from the future would be able to use this trick to visit us here on the surface of the Earth,” the scientists added.

Perhaps understanding that black holes manipulate the space and time around them could provide physicists with opportunities to more precisely test Einstein’s theories and perhaps lead to an understanding of what time actually is.

Although time travel may still be possible in black holes, it will never be possible on Earth. told scientists.

Anna Morozova