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What is a plausible way for a planet to have time pass 10× faster than another? Seen the movie Interstellar? That one planet that time ran slower on? It the same idea but the other way around. Is there a way of making a planet's time (not rotation) move 10 times faster than Earth's?

So I am making an alien world where time travels 10 times faster than earth's. The people landed there 100 years ago earth time, but to them 1000 Earth years have past and several generations have been born. I know that if a planet is in a gravity well that time can move slower on a planet compared to someone not on said planet but can it work the other way too? What if the planet rotated really fast?

I'm not looking for a hard scientific answer since it is science fiction but I would like to make it somewhat believable.

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  • $\begingroup$ +1 don't think it's possible but would love to see it happen. $\endgroup$
    – Mołot
    Jun 24, 2017 at 8:15
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    $\begingroup$ You have used the time-travel flag here. This would be one possible answer. The planet travels back in time again and again. I don't know what non-fantasy thing would cause it because it isn't possible, but if you are ok with very soft science: "Rift in space" "wormhole" "ancient alien device". Pretty established sci-fi stuff. I don't know what else to say so this isn't an answer. $\endgroup$
    – Raditz_35
    Jun 24, 2017 at 8:33
  • $\begingroup$ I dont understand the question. You've explained it perfectly already; just have 2 planets which are under different levels of gravitational forces. The closer to the gravity source, the less time passes relative to the planet that's farther away. $\endgroup$
    – Aify
    Jun 24, 2017 at 8:45
  • $\begingroup$ Well see the thing is Earth and 5 other planets exist besides this one. On these other planets time is relative to earth's time meaning not a lot changes. On this other planet time is 10times faster than these 6. If gravity was really heavy on this one planet, time would go slower here and the rest of the universe would speed up. I want it to go the other way and have this planet's time speed up. As far as I know. the gravity well effect would only work in this scenario if 6 of these planets were on a tip of a black hole and the one I wanted to go faster was not. like the movie interstellar. $\endgroup$
    – supersaiyanscooby
    Jun 24, 2017 at 10:09
  • $\begingroup$ I do not believe that there is a reversal of this effect that would instead speed up time on a planet where the rest of the universe moves slowly compared to it. $\endgroup$
    – supersaiyanscooby
    Jun 24, 2017 at 10:09

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This concept is at the limits of speculative science. There two mechanisms that would have the effect of speeding-up time tenfold.

The first was proposed by physicist Robert Forward in that negative mass has the effect of speeding up time relative to everything that outside the region dominated by negative mass.

To quote myself from an earlier answer at Speeding up time?:

Robert L Forward described a negative matter time machine thus: "Suppose we had a negative matter which is very dense. Time would run faster near or in the negative mass and we could make a hollow sphere of dense negative mass to speed up time." (in Robert L Forward, "Far Out Physics", Analog, August 1975, pages 161 and 163).

This doesn't speed up time in an unlimited way,the speed-up factor is only square of two faster. This is roughly only forty percent faster. Forward proves this from basic gravitation equations which look like they're adapted from equations about the mass of black holes (my guess!). Forward's article isn't detailed like a scientific paper, alas.

The main drawback to this technique in speeding-up time on a planet is that the planet would have to be surrounded by a shell of ultradense negative matter. The other drawback is that time is only speeded-up a factor of forty percent (40%). This falls well short of tenfold faster.

In the same answer another mechanism for speeding-up time was proposed, based on the work of the physicist R T Jones.

There is another way of creating speeded-up time. It involves special relativity and travelling at superluminal velocities. R T Jones published in the American Journal of Physics the possibility that travel faster than light results in time passing at the rate of the distance traversed. Basically for every light year a spacecraft travels one year passes shiptime.

So a FTL spacecraft only has to choose a suitable superluminal velocity to ensure enough speed-up time can pass. Since this is plausible science fiction, we can assume there is a chronology protection principle in this fictional universe to take care of any causality problems, Namely, there won't be any to worry about.

This superluminal model isn't exactly what the OP had in mind. The planet would have to be moving at a constant velocity of ten times lightspeed (c) to achieve a tenfold rate of time passing.

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  • $\begingroup$ A 10c speed would, in effect, reverse time. At 1c, an instant of your time would correspond to an infinite amount of your surroundings' time. You can (hopefully) calculate time dilation through the formulae found on Wikipedia, so long as the formulae are correct. $\endgroup$
    – rytan451
    Jun 27, 2017 at 6:11
  • $\begingroup$ @rytan451 Whether time is reversed depends on how the frames of reference are chosen. If this occurs within a preferred frame of reference, say, like the cosmic microwave background, then perhaps not. This is the reason why I suggested inserting a chronology protection principle into the model. To keep out problems with time travel. $\endgroup$
    – a4android
    Jun 27, 2017 at 6:26
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I'm not sure what you want is entirely possible (certainly not with Earth being one of the 'normal' planets) but how about this:

Time doesn't move any faster on the other planet, but to reach it you have to pass through the gravity well of a black hole (multiple black holes may be required to cover all approaches to the planet). During this journey time is slowed and what feels like a few moments is actually years, so when you reach the planet it appears to be moving through time at a faster rate. Similarly on the return journey you pass through the gravity well again and lose another few years so more time has passed when you return home.

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  • $\begingroup$ You know, this could work. Granted in this scenario it would be much safer and easier to just move to a new planet but you did come up with a somewhat believable scenario to how a planet could seem to have speed up time. $\endgroup$
    – supersaiyanscooby
    Jun 27, 2017 at 12:02
  • $\begingroup$ @supersaiyanscooby Oh yeah, you'd really have to stretch to find a reason why that planet in particular would be colonised when it's not going to be the safest to get to, but if it was particularly rich in natural resources (or habitable planets are very rare) then I think you could explain it. I think the bigger issue is making it only reachable by passing the black hole, being 3D (and huge) there should be another route through space to reach it, but you can possibly explain that through other hazards or the nature of your ships propulsion systems $\endgroup$
    – adaliabooks
    Jun 27, 2017 at 12:06
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So a "Narnia" type situation?

This doesn't exactly answer but gives another way of looking at it which could help you: The travellers' brains and bodies have somehow sped up the reaction and aging process by a factor of 10 due to high concentrations of phlebotinium. Think of what's experienced by a fly.

Now there are still some factors to explain away - like any clocks or computers that they may have brought with them... Maybe they crashed landed and all chronometers were destroyed. There is other stuff like the length of a day and a year, etc. of course...

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  • $\begingroup$ Can I show you a link? it can explain it better than I can. $\endgroup$
    – supersaiyanscooby
    Jun 27, 2017 at 6:51

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