The idea is that you can go backwards in time by going faster than light. The speed of light is actually the speed of information itself - so if you could go faster than that, you’d be going backwards in time.
However, Einstein showed that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light. You’d need infinite energy to actually reach the speed of light, and infinite energy is assumed to not be possible.
I wonder if there is a meaningful difference between your example, and the technology with which the JWST uses to view light in the past. Rather, if the later is something we can use for time travel ;)
The JWST looks at light which has been travelling for a long time. The only special thing about it, compared to other telescopes (or even your eyes), is the range of frequencies it’s looking at - the longer light travels, the lower the frequency becomes (due to the expansion of the universe).
So it’s the same basic phenomenon - information has a max speed, so you’re always interacting with the past state of any object.
The idea is that you can go backwards in time by going faster than light. The speed of light is actually the speed of information itself - so if you could go faster than that, you’d be going backwards in time.
However, Einstein showed that nothing can accelerate to the speed of light. You’d need infinite energy to actually reach the speed of light, and infinite energy is assumed to not be possible.
I wonder if there is a meaningful difference between your example, and the technology with which the JWST uses to view light in the past. Rather, if the later is something we can use for time travel ;)
The JWST looks at light which has been travelling for a long time. The only special thing about it, compared to other telescopes (or even your eyes), is the range of frequencies it’s looking at - the longer light travels, the lower the frequency becomes (due to the expansion of the universe).
So it’s the same basic phenomenon - information has a max speed, so you’re always interacting with the past state of any object.