It was fantasy, however, .
and nothing more to many readers of the age. (NOVA).
Twenty years after The Time Machine was published, a scientific breakthrough that would unearth the .
roots of physics came. Albert Einstein finished and published his general theory of relativity. The general concept .
of his theory of relativity is that time, space, and forces in the universe are not constant and uniform everywhere, .
but affect the observer relative to his point of view. According to his theory, if you were traveling at a speed close .
to that of light relative to another observer, the other's time would seem to pass very slowly from your point of .
view. This means that one may be able to travel to distant galaxies thousands of light-years away in (as it would .
appear to the traveler) a week, or months time, for example. Unfortunately, while the traveler's time has really .
slowed down from traveling near the speed of light, our time on earth has not, and when the traveler returns from .
his trip he would find that thousands of years have passed here on earth. (Parker, 33).
The theory of relativity is a base to what we can say may be scientifically possible in the realm of time .
travel. So, although that kind of trip wouldn't be convenient for time travel, the theory of relativity explains that .
universally, time is not a steady, ever-pushing force. Dr. Parker comments in his book, Cosmic Time Travel: A .
Scientific Odyssey, that one human lifetime could pass within the blink of an eye of an alien observer in a distant .
part of the galaxy, traveling near the speed of light. (Parker).
With the idea in mind that time is relative, there is hope that time travel can be accomplished. Traveling .
near the speed of light slows time down significantly, but then what happens at the speed of light? When the .
speed of light (referred to as c) is reached, what happens to time then? The traveler's time slows as a direct result .