In Star Trek, they travel FTL a lot. Would they be younger than their peers on earth?

Question

They travel at warp speed for long periods of time, especially in Voyager. Would travelling FTL decrease their age as opposed to their peers on earth?

Answer 1

but i bet that in the future they could do it. worm holes maybe? since the rate of technological improvement (yeah, thats not a good term) is growing exponetially, yeah, i think ftl travel cant be ruled out.

ok, im a stupid person, but i wanted to express my dumb thought.

Answer 2

Umm i it depends on the methods of travel ur using. If u travel as a tachyons u will not experiance time dilation. A tachyon tachyon travels by bending space time in a peculiar way in which space propells the craft. It compresses spacetime  in front of the vehicle, expands it behind which propels the craft faster than light.So when travelling like a tachyon time dilation wouldnt be a factor so u would be younger than ur peers on earth. If u travel through a wormhole which would make u go faster than light. So in a wormhole u dont travel at light or faster than light speed. If u travel any other way that gets u light speed or more than light u will experiance a huge amount of time dilation. If u travelled faster than light and came back to earth u would find that all of ur peers are dead and it will probably be 100s of years in the future whereas u only experianced maybe a decade. So im guessing in star trek the vehicle travelled like a tachyon at light speed cuz all the other ways arent effeciant or practical.  Generating a worm hole would take and incredible amount of energy centered in a small point. U would also have some way to stabilize it because a normal wormhole doesnt last longer than 1/100 of a second or less. (this is all theoretical and nothing has been proven)

Answer 3

to previous answer what do you mean faster than light travel is no possible

there Can be a worm whole or another spacial anomaly that we might not know about.

remember that not being able to travel faster than light is only a theory

as to answer your question i dont think that it would impact their age

to denoter:

a worm hole would just be conecting to points in space that could be a great distance apart

i agree that a worm hole is not the same thing as ftl travel

further more how could we even detect things that travel faster than light, what evidence woudl there be for these things that travel ftl

Answer 4

To qazz ... going through a worm hole is not the same thing as faster than light travel.

It may *only* be a theory.. but so is gravity, and I dont see anyone floating off into space at this current moment...

Regardless, to answer the question, it would not happen, for if you can travel faster than light the equations involving time dilation result in imaginary values, not negatives. We cannot describe such a situation in realistic terms in our realm of travel, because here FTL would mean breaking causality etc... Interesting enough situation though, since this has been brought up..

What happens at the boundary of time like events and space like events (i.e time cone) if one were to invoke the uncertainty principle for two "events" whose seperation is small. (For example, particles in a boosted frame).

Answer 5

No, because they're not traveling faster than light, which is impossible.  Starship engines in Star Trek warp space - compress space in front of the vehicle, expand it behind, hence the term 'warp drive'.

Answer 6

Since faster-than-light travel is not allowed at all, it is idle speculation to wonder how time dilation would impact them.