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Operating under the assumption that it is possible to use a black hole or wormhole to travel forward in time by a relatively small amount of time (e.g. 2,000 years) without travelling a significant distance or any distance at all from the hole. The idea is that the passengers could deliberately leap forward in time (they wouldn't necessarily need to be able to travel back) without ageing and arrive in the same/a similar place hundreds or thousands of years in the future. Let's say the black hole is preexisting whereas the wormhole is manufactured and both are within range of the space-faring civilisation.

How could the travellers survive spaghettification and then return safely? Using a spaceship or some other device entirely?

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, Little Pickle. Really useful in helping me flesh out my question :) $\endgroup$
    – Heathendom
    May 5, 2022 at 23:19
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    $\begingroup$ I just want to point out that cryonics probably presents a vastly simpler solution to the problem of traveling forward in time. Or mind uploading for that matter. Possibly even biological immortality. Why try auch a black hole scheme? (It's your world, and the rule of cool is a thing. However I still feel obliged to point out this potential plot hole.) $\endgroup$
    – TheDyingOfLight
    May 6, 2022 at 3:45
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    $\begingroup$ They could use time dilation at the surface of ultra massive blackholes but this would need ship speeds of 99.999..% speed of light to escape the gravity well, if they have ships with that speed they might as well use time dilation on the ship to achieve the time travel effect. $\endgroup$
    – Alan Davies
    May 6, 2022 at 11:05
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    $\begingroup$ @AlanDavies, Yes, from the perspective of general relativity, the acceleration from the black hole's gravity well and the acceleration of the spacecraft are the same thing. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Rapplean
    May 6, 2022 at 19:51

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If you talk about someone being able to walk into a black hole, then you've already left the laws of physics, so you can use the same logic to allow the person to survive.

Really, though, time dilation near a black hole is so severe that they wouldn't have to walk into it, they could just go near it. For a supermassive black hole, the tidal forces wouldn't even be as severe. You couldn't instantly jump through time, but you could move forward at super-speed just by passing near it.

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