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Imagine a room in your basement with a very special property: The time inside this room runs 60 times faster compared to the outside world. That means when you enter the room and spend there 1 day with working, reading, etc., only 24 minutes are gone in the outside world. Wouldn't such a place be wonderful:

  • You would be done with all your university exercises in just a few hours.
  • You could read so many books and become one of the most educated people.
  • You could practice many skills... you could become a great musician and learn any instruments in just a week (1 week = 14 month), or become expert in any other skill...
  • You could run your simulations on a computer in this room and they would be done in little time.
  • You could maybe even grow some food in such a room.

The concept of such a room sparked my imagination, so my first question is:

For what would You use such a room? What great possibilities are there?

However, I study physics and I am very curious for the (theoretical) ways to actually build such a room. Of course this room is more like a thought experiment, but: Is it possible to build such a place in accordance with the laws of physics? Or:

How to build such a room?

Thank you for your answers.

Note: Before I asked this question I checked if it matches the physics category, but according to Is non-mainstream physics appropriate for this site? it should be fine: "For example, a question that proposes a new concept or paradigm, but asks for evaluation of that concept within the framework of current (mainstream) physics is OK."

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    $\begingroup$ People outside would see you grow old very fast if you spent too much time in that room... $\endgroup$
    – Stéphane Rollandin
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 17:28
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    $\begingroup$ Well, yes, thanks. However, you would still have advantages as running simulations, growing food, etc... $\endgroup$
    – Fabian Schn.
    Commented Dec 19, 2017 at 17:36

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Unfortunately the longest elapsed time along a world line happens on a geodesic, that is when a body is at rest. So you cannot have time "accelerate", you can only "slow it down" relatively to a reference frame by accelerating in a very strong manner (leaving a place very fast and coming back there would work, as made famous by the so-called "twins paradox").

So to make your room, you would have to send the whole outside world away for a close-to-lightspeed trip (and back) whenever you feel like "entering" it. That "room" cannot be a place...

You would have to actually leave the "room", the place where your food grows or your computer simulation run, go on a relativistic round trip yourself and then indeed upon return observe that your 10000-years simulation is over while for you a few days passed. But then the situation would have been "you in a forward time travel room".

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  • $\begingroup$ Rollandin But if you have to send the whole outside world in a speed, then why isn't it possible the other way? I mean I am also seeing that I am speeding and the world is still. $\endgroup$
    – Theoretical
    Commented Apr 1, 2018 at 4:23
  • $\begingroup$ @AsifIqubal. Because acceleration is not symmetrical: physics.stackexchange.com/q/13767/109928 $\endgroup$
    – Stéphane Rollandin
    Commented Apr 1, 2018 at 13:57

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