new time

James Orgill
Rough draft
Time Travel

In 1895, H. G. Wells classic story The Time Machine was first published in book form. Wells
wrote, in The Time Machine, that "there is no difference between Time and any of the three
dimensions of Space, except that our consciousness moves along it". From that point on man
wondered about the possibility of time travel. Is time travel really possible? If it is possible,
how? If we could do it, should we? With only a small amount of research one can answer the
first question. Yes, time travel is possible. We do it every day. Our best understanding of time
comes from Einstein's theories of relativity. Prior to these theories, time was widely regarded
as absolute and universal, the same for everyone no matter what their physical circumstances
were. In his special theory of relativity, Einstein proposed that the measured interval between
two events depends on how the observer is moving. For example suppose that Sally and Sam
are twins. Sally boards a rocket ship and travels at high speed to a nearby star, turns around
and flies back to Earth, while Sam stays at home. For Sally the duration of the journey might be
one year, but when she returns and steps out of the spaceship, she finds that 10 years have
elapsed on Earth. Her brother is now nine years older than she is. Sally and Sam are no longer
the same age, despite the fact that they were born on the same day. This is an example of time
travel into the future. In effect, Sally has leaped nine years into Earth's future. Though this
story is fictional, it is an example of a very real concept. The effect known as time dilation
occurs whenever two observers move relative to each other. In daily life we don't notice these
time warps, because the effects are only noticeable when the motion occurs at close to the
speed of light. Even at aircraft speeds, the time dilation in a normal flight is just a few
nanoseconds. However, atomic clocks are accurate enough to record the shift and confirm that
time really is stretched by motion. So travel into the future is a proved fact, even if it has so far
it has been in small, unexciting amounts.Thus far we can see that time travel into the future is
very real and possible. But, when most of us think about time travel we picture a DeLorian with
a “flux capacitor”, disappearing and then reappearing at any date in time whether it be past or
present. As far as Einstein’s theory of relativity tells us, there is no law that would prevent us
from traveling into the past. But, the first problem is building a machine. In Scientific American
Special Edition, Paul Davies tells us of one possible “machine” to the past. In 1974 Frank J.
Tipler of Tulane University calculated that a massive, infinitely long cylinder spinning on its
axis at near the speed of light could let astronauts visit their own past, again by dragging light
around the cylinder into a loop. With a proposal like this for a time machine, our hopes of
meeting our past self at 2 years old begin to shrink. How can you build an infinitely long
cylinder? But in the mid-1980s the most realistic scenario for a time machine was proposed,
based on the concept of a wormhole. In science fiction, wormholes are sometimes called
stargates; they are a shortcut between two widely separated points in space. Jump through a
wormhole, and you might come out moments later on the other side of the galaxy. Though
mentioned and used in many science fiction novels, wormholes are part of the general theory of
relativity, because gravity warps not only time but also space. With this theory, time travel to
the past could be possible if a stable wormhole could be created and towed to desired spot. To
this day this is the best solution for a time machine to the past. So don’t expect to see one built
any time soon, because right now we are not advanced enough to even begin the engineering
involved in a feat like this. However with technology advancing at the rate it is now, you never
know how what scientific break throughs that the future holds. Which leads me to my next
question. Should time travel to the past be pursued? When the atomic bomb was invented and
first detonated, upon witnessing the explosion, its creators had mixed reactions. Isidor Rabi felt
that the equilibrium in nature had been upset -- as if humankind had become a threat to the
world it inhabited. J. Robert Oppenheimer, quoted a fragment from the Bhagavad Gita. "I am
become Death," he said, "the destroyer of worlds." The atomic bomb was a result of mankind’s
need to know about the atom and its power. How different is our pursuit of time travel? Just
for starters let’s say that somehow one of the previously mentioned devises could be built, this
causes some major paradoxes. For example what if a man where to travel back in time and
meet his grandfather and kill him. That means that the man never would have been born to
begin with so how would he have gone back in time to kill his grandfather if he where never
born? Or lets say a man travels to the future and learns a new mathematical theorem, he then
travels back in time and teaches it to a student who at a future date publishes that theorem,
which is the same one that the man read in that future date. So where did the information come
from?Situations like this have led many scientists to believe that there is some undiscovered
law that would forbid time travel to the past. With our current knowledge we have no idea what
would happen if we were able to return to the past. In my research of time travel I have found
that time travel to the future is real and possible, Time travel to the past is theoretically real,
but not yet possible. But do not despair, Who ever said time travel had to be physical? Wells
wrote, in The Time Machine, that "there is no difference between Time and any of the three
dimensions of Space, except that our consciousness moves along it". There is a movie called
somewhere in time. In this movie the main actor goes back in time buy making himself believe
that he is. At first thought this seems very absurd. But so did Wells book in 1895. What if time
is not at all how we think of it? What if all of our minds are somehow connected to time and
space? If time and the measuring of it is connected to our thoughts. We know so little about the
human brain. Perhaps the key to time travel lies in conqoring the human brain. Thomas
Suddendorf of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, has argued that recollection
of a specific moment, called episodic memory separates people from animals--at least according
to some scientists. With just a thought people can whoosh back to an instant in their memories
or ahead to an imagined event in a process sometimes called mental time travel. Mental time travel comprises the mental reconstruction of personal events from the past (episodic memory)
and the mental construction of possible events in the future. For example, when you hear a
song that reminds you of an event in your life, your mind can actually recreate your exact
feelings and thoughts that you had at that time. Though not the type of time travel I originally
researched, this is one type. So in closing, time travel is theoretically real. Proven to work in
traveling to the future, but as for the past we can only hope to recreate our own life events in
our mind.


Davies, Paul1Source:Scientific American Special Edition; Feb2006 Special Edition, Vol. 16 Issue 1, p14-19, 6p, 1 chart, 1cDocument Type:ArticleWHERE'D I PUT THAT? (cover story) By: Milius, Susan. Science News, 2/14/2004, Vol. 165 Issue 7, p103-105, 3p, 3c; (AN 12261055)Notes: Print Journal Held Locally, Call Number Q1.S76, 1978 to presentGenetic, Social & General Psychology Monographs; May97, Vol. 123 Issue 2, p133, 35p