You are currently traveling through time at this very moment
In short: Time travel isn't just for science fiction. While we usually think of it as jumping to the distant past or future, you are already moving through time right now. By simply standing up or taking a walk, you can technically shift your position in time relative to everyone else.
The physics of time travel relies on the fact that space and time are not separate entities but components of a single fabric called spacetime. Because of this connection, motion and gravity directly influence how we experience the passage of time. According to the principles of relativity, moving faster causes time to pass more slowly for the traveler compared to those remaining stationary.
You can perform 'simple' time travel without any advanced technology. For instance, walking around a block makes you roughly three femtoseconds younger than someone who stayed home because of your velocity. Similarly, simply standing up moves you further from Earth’s center; since gravity slows time down, the weaker gravity at your head means it ages slightly less than your feet—specifically by about 10 femtoseconds over a minute. This effect is significant enough that GPS satellites must have their clocks calibrated to run slow because they experience much weaker gravity in orbit.
To achieve more dramatic results, theories suggest 'complicated' methods like spinning the entire universe or constructing an infinite cylinder of super-dense material. If the universe spun fast enough, general relativity predicts it would create time loops where one could move forward locally but return to their own past globally. However, building a finite version of such a cylinder is currently impossible because it would require 'negative energy'—a substance nobody knows how to create—otherwise, the structure would simply collapse into a black hole. A wormhole remains another theoretical alternative for traversing these temporal gaps.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: 3 Simple Ways to Time Travel (& 3 Complicated Ones)
- Also: Time travel through simple and complex ways | Britannica
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