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The Yamato is sent on a trip to Iskendar, 183,000 light years away. Their goal
is to reach Iskendar and return to Earth before a year has elapsed. Due to the
distance from earth, this will require faster-than-light travel to make it
back in time. However, taking into consideration of how fast they are
travelling [time dilation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation) would
cause their return to be thousands of years later, after the invasion has
already completed and earth has been terraformed.

How can they make it to their destination and back within their one year
deadline?


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2016-01-03T07:57:00.580
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2016-01-03T07:57:00.580
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yamato-2199
How could the Yamato make it back in time?


Time dilation is not an issue here because the Yamato is travelling using
warps.

[Krazer explained in
chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/26566058#26566058) that
the Yamato warps work by [_folding
space_](http://www.space.com/20881-wormholes.html).

The theory of time dilation applies if you travel at faster-than-light speeds.
However, in this case the Yamato is making short jumps or warps through space.
The idea is similar to if you had a piece of paper with two points on it.
Normally, the shortest path from Point A to Point B is to draw a straight line
between the two points. However, one can cheat and fold the piece of paper to
make the distance between these two points shorter in 3D space.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QkfoU.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QkfoU.jpg)

This is the same thing the Yamato is doing when it is warping. Since they are
not actually travelling at a faster speed, just getting to the destination
faster, they can attempt to make it back in time without worrying about time
delation.


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