Sort of yes, but not completely.
Einstein and his special theory of relativity gave birth to the concept of “Special Relativistic Time Dilation” or sometimes called “Relative Velocity Time Dilation". Briefly said, it shows how relative movement affect time. When one move, the time will tick at a slower rate than if one would stand relatively still. This means effectively, that by simply taking a stroll in the park your time will tick a tiny bit slower than if you decide to just sit and enjoy a peach on the porch. The faster one travels the slower one’s time will tick relativistically. This has been proven many times over in e.g. jet planes or the international space station, where atomic clocks on board have ticked at a slower rate than its synchronized sisters on earth. And so, by travelling very fast one would effectively travel to the future.
If one would travel at the speed of light (which is impossible for many other reasons) the time rate will at this speed completely stop and so the experience of the traveler is that he can travel to any future instantly; billions of years may pass for us, but for him it will be but an instant. In a sense he is frozen in time…. Not his time, but our time. This has been proven beyond any doubt.
In other words; the time Traveler will see you drawing the pencil line very fast, where you will see him standing still or moving very slowly inside his super fast traveling spaceship... the effect; he travels to your future. From his point of view; perhaps one minute passed. From your point of view; 10 minutes passed. Who is right? Both are. Time is relative.
So your rational is actually correct; the future needs to unfold in its usual way and speed before it can be visited by travelers from its past. And I think this is actually your argument.
A Side note 1:Einstein’s equations can take us even further... the mathematically consequence of his special theory of relativity is that time will slow so much down that if one would break the speed limit of the universe and travel faster than the speed of light, time will slow so much down that it will become negative. In other words, the mathematical consequence of special time dilation permits time travel to the future and also to the past. Now it is important to understand that Einstein too says it is impossible to break the speed limit of light, but mathematically the consequences on time can be calculated.
Anyway, as it stands now. We can only travel to the future. Albeit, very slowly…. yet.
A Side note 2:Einstein also formulated his General Theory of Relativity in 1916 which introduces yet another time dilation phenomena often called “Gravitational Time Dilation": It says time will slow as a function on how close one is to a force of gravity, and how big this force is (this is the predominant time travel principle used in e.g. the movie INTERSTELLAR (2014)). Effectively it means that we on Earth will have slightly slower clocks than those e.g. floating in empty space. Sometimes referred to as “acceleration time dilation” because Einstein famously equated acceleration to gravitation. This time dilation phenomena has also been proven to be correct.
To travel to the past is another question. Hawking used to agree with you and perhaps he still does. But provided super-string theory will be proved right some day, then this offers a solution… or sort of a solution. We would be able to travel back to a past identical to the one you have already experienced. However, factually it will be to a separate and parallel timeline, and so one could argue that it is not the actual past, it is the perfect recreation of the past. Atlas, this remains to be scientifically proven.
TL:DR - you are correct in the way that the future needs to unfold before it can be visited. Relatively time can be "frozen" and so be unfrozen once you have drawn the pencil line. Regarding the past, here we have only unproven ideas.
Until then, lets continue to travel forward and observe the past via telescopes, old reruns and undeleted browser history.
- forgive my rant.
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** I am normally not a praying man, but if you are up there, please save me Superman **
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