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if i travel faster than speed of light is it possible for me to see back in the past ?

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tbrucenyc says:

No, and if you ever got back home you would be in the future.

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posted on 2010-11-10 14:52:32 | Report abuse


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MikeAdams#367 says:

In fact, everything we see is the past, since it has taken the light a finite amount of time to reach us. However, I assume you mean 'could you get to see something like your own birth'? 

IF you can invent a true FTL system and IF you could invent a viewing device that could resolve the image from that distance (X light years where X is your age) and IF the image had not been degraded by interaction with things along the way, then yes. 

But no.

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posted on 2010-11-10 18:37:05 | Report abuse


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orange_plastic says:

Yes. If you travelled from A to B faster than the speed of light so you arrived x seconds before the photons that left A at the same time as you, you would be able to look back at A and see it as it was x seconds before you left.

However given the speed at which light travels you would have to travel quite a distance to 'beat' light by even a second or two, so you would need a pretty impressive telescope to see anything interesting of where you just travelled from.

Obviously attempting to travel faster than light tends to vapourise the molecules of one's body well before the necessary breaking of Einstein's laws, but it is possible to see into the past just by looking at things far away, the further away the further into the past you are looking - photos have been taken of galaxies on the far side of the universe and the light that is reaching us now started its journey from those galaxies not long after the Big Bang.

If you wish to see into the past don't try faster-than-light travel, it is more cost-effective to order back-issues directly from New Scientist! And no, you can't see into the future by travelling in the opposite direction, so there's still no way of finding out the lottery numbers...

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posted on 2010-11-10 21:29:14 | Report abuse


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Jon-Richfield says:

It isn't possible to see anything except in the past, whether you travel to or from  the event, or sit still. No matter what you do, you see the light corresponding ti the event at the time the light was emitted. And that was before the time that you received the light signal.

If you could travel away at faster than light speed, which you cannot, what you would see, if you could, which you could not, would be things happening backward.

It is cheaper and easier to play a movie backwards.

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posted on 2010-11-17 14:26:05 | Report abuse


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