time machine

Time travel is the concept of movement (often by a human) between different points in time in a manner to moving between different points in space, typically using a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a recognized concept in philosophy and fiction, but travel to an arbitrary point in time has a very limited support in theoretical physics, usually only in conjunction with quantum mechanics or Einstein–Rosen bridges. Sometimes the above narrow meaning of time travel is used, sometimes a broader meaning. For example, travel into the future (not the past) via time dilation is a well-proven phenomenon in physics (relativity) and is routinely experienced by astronauts, but only by several milliseconds, as they can verify by checking a precise watch against a clock that remained on Earth. Time dilation by years into the future could be done by taking a round trip during which motion occurs at speeds comparable to the speed of light, but this is not currently technologically feasible for vehicles.