Is time travel possible? - Colin Stuart | TED-Ed - 1 views
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anonymous on 27 Apr 14Summary: This is an animation of a lesson narrated by Colin Stuart, educator. Stuart asks the question, "is time travel really possible," and give an example of actual time travel (albeit only .02 seconds) by Sergei Kirkalev. He then goes back to the discovery of the constancy of the speed of light and Einstein's theory of relativity. The animation show how the point of perception changes the experience of time and how we experience this time dilation with trains and planes in miniscule amounts. Thus, the perception that time is universally constant is an illusion. Thus, the closer we can get to the speed of light, the further we could travel into the future. Stuart closes with why this is so difficult to achieve. In addition to the video, this site contains a comprehension quiz, links for further investigation, and discussion questions. Evaluation: As the TED brand is know for, this talk is visually engaging, accessible to a wide audience, and entertaining while also being informative. Thus, it would be a good lesson to use to introduce the idea that time travel into the future is possible (this site, unlike others, does not address travel to the past). The lesson starts off with a real examples of small steps into the future and builds the concept in a way that is easy to follow. The section about special relativity offers animations from the two perspectives and visuals of the equations. Since it is a video, students, like me, may go back and re-watch if the content was not grasped on a first viewing. The comprehension and discussion questions also provide students a chance to review the material and refer back to the video if needed to be sure that all concepts were learned as well to hear the ideas of others through discussion and application.