Marty McFly Had To Be Rich

By Staff
article image

From a physics standpoint, time travel is entirely possible, according to an article in Cosmos Magazine. All you need is a really fast space ship and knowledge of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity.  Financially, however, it’s still totally unviable.

Theoretically, if a person were to orbit the Earth at 161,556 miles per second for one full year, during the same time, two years would have passed on Earth. That would mean the person would have traveled a year into the future. The problem is that to travel that fast for that long would require about 30 trillion gigajoules (GJ) of kinetic energy. At over $9 per GJ, the bill would total around $27 trillion. So for Back to the Future to become a reality, Marty McFly would have to be a very rich man.

Erik Helin

Image by Valerie Everett, licensed under Creative Commons.

Correction: The speed was originally identified in miles per hour. It has been corrected to read miles per second.

UTNE
UTNE
In-depth coverage of eye-opening issues that affect your life.