Special relativity and time travel?

<p>So time run more slowly if you travel at a faster speed approaching the speed of light, are we traveling into the future or past?
for example, the time run more slowly in a rocket than on earth (for example sake) 3 times. So if it's 9 AM on earth, it is 3 AM on the rocket, meaning we are traveling into the past?
But this video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2FrgLLfc%C2%85%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2FrgLLfc…&lt;/a> says, we are indeed traveling into the future, so thats why I don't understand this whole thing</p>

<p>You are right somewhat. But think big picture</p>

<p>I didn’t watch the video but i think i can still shed some light on the issue. </p>

<p>The faster you are traveling, or the larger the mass you are close to (i.e. a black hole), the slower your watch ticks. The watch will appear to tick at the same speed to you, but to an outside observer not traveling at that enormous speed will see it slow down substantually. As your time slows, so do your bodily functions, perception, and most importantly aging. So, if you are going lets say 5x the speed of light and that correlates into (1/5) the “regular time” being elapsed, you will come back (1/5) the age of say somebody that stayed on earth. Therefore, if you are by a supermassive black hole or going extremely fast for a long time, you could come back in what would be the future (for you). I hope I didn’t lose you.</p>

<p>So are we traveling into the past or the future, golfer? I’m lost there. How do we travel the other direction?</p>

<p>With a TARDIS.</p>

<p>But really, I liked your logic. Stephen Hawking seemed to suggest that it is impossible for us to travel to OUR past, because of all the paradoxes and stuff, and Einstein suggested that if one travels at a speed exceeding the speed of light, one would be travelling into the past, so I suppose that’s how you would go back to the past. Then again, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light to our knowledge of physics…</p>

<p>Hope I made sense…I’ve never taken any physics classes so I hope I’m not making a fool of myself. :P</p>