Sergei Krikalev Is the Only Man to Ever Time Travel
The Soviet Union forgot him in space
Today, Russians celebrate Victory Day by flaunting parades, marching bands, and miniature clown cars that resemble something out of a Dead Kennedys album. It's a tribute to our collective victory over Nazi Germany.
27 million Soviets died in WW2.
Might some thugs want to change the history book after this war?
Probably. The American media is already stirring controversy and competing over who can shit on the parade first.
NBC has snarkily dubbed it a celebration “to showcase Russia's weakness instead of its strength” (you have to keep reminding your readers of the old Marine saying of your enemy: “Casualties many; Percentage of dead not known; Combat efficiency; we are winning.") and WaPo is quick to scoff at any notion that Western elites had any involvement in the expansion of NATO.
So why not take a breather from war talk and delve into a uniquely Russian tale about the first dude to ever time travel?
Sergei Krikalev is the only man who has ever time-traveled.
Who is this time-traveling Jedi?
Sergei Krikalev is a Russian cosmonaut and mechanical engineer. He holds the record for the most time spent in orbit around the Earth at 803 days.
Because Krikalev spent so much time in space away from Earth’s center of gravity, time dilation (or the slowing down of clocks) caused him to be 0.02 seconds younger than other people born at the same time as him.
“Time is an illusion.” — Albert Einstein
Being away from Earth’s gravity causes clocks to run a tiny bit faster than they would here. Therefore, every astronaut experiences time dilation and Krikalev experienced it the most.
Speeding up 0.02 seconds isn’t enough to visit Earth 100 years from now and say hello to Skynet and our artificial intelligence overlords, but it's a fantastic discovery nonetheless!
Today Krikalev even holds the title of the world’s most prolific time traveler.
A tiny painless explanation of how time travel works
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is based on two core basic principles.
One is that the laws of physics don’t change, even when objects move at constant speeds to each other. In other words, the speed of light is a fundamental constant.
The other principle is that the speed of light is the same for everyone, no matter how they move in relationship to the light source.
“Without Einstein’s general theory of relativity, our GPS system wouldn’t be working,” said Ron Mallet, an astrophysicist in an interview. “That’s also proof that Einstein’s [theories are] correct.”
To time travel, engineers would have to build a spaceship that could travel at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). Unfortunately, we do not have technology anywhere close to that.
I know, bummer.
Anyway, now you’re an expert physicist. You’re welcome.
Why time travel will happen, someday
Einstein once wrote:
“People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Time, in other words, is an illusion.”
Like in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar you wouldn’t feel a passage of time; everything would feel normal while the rest of the world speeds up around you. Hence the “relativity” of Einstein’s theory.
One popular time travel theory involves black holes.
Essentially you’d move a rocket ship rapidly around a black hole like the Gravitron ride at a carnival. “Around and around they’d go, experiencing just half the time of everyone far away from the black hole. The ship and its crew would be traveling through time,” physicist Stephen Hawking wrote in the Daily Mail in 2010.
Final thought
One of the key reasons Krikalev was able to experience dilation and break records was the Soviet Union forgot him in space for 311 days. The Cold War ended while he was up there, so the country that sent him to space no longer existed.
Comedy. But also cosmic horror. Krikalev stayed in space twice as long as the mission initially called for. Even so, that wouldn’t be enough to deter him from space travel as he wouldn’t retire from space flight until 2007.
“Space can be fun, depending on who you are with” — Sergei Krikalev
It may not have the same panache as Marty McFly and Doc Brown ripping through history at 88mph in a Delorean or Bill and Ted's phonebooth Rufus. But for all the diehard trekkies this phenomenon is nothing short of captivating.
That’s it, back to wading through the murky waters of war propaganda.
Did I just Time Travel 5 minutes it took to read this post? ? succinct, topical and oft amusing ?
Sp0t on!