On Time Travel

“’[Time Travel] is against reason,’ said Filiby. ‘What Reason?’ said the Time Traveler” (Wells 5). Time travel is to venture to places far gone in history, or into unthought-of distances of the future. Long has it been a theme in fiction literature. However, recent developments in the scientific study of physics have lead researchers to take a serious whack at time travel as a plausible endeavour. Theoretical physicists and cosmetologists alike have been asking questions about the possibility and effects of time travel, and have been expecting answers.

Michio Kaku, an American physicist known for study of superstring theory, asks what problems a time traveler might encounter—should such an adventure be possible. Physics of the Impossible introduces common situations of turmoil that fiction authors have been speculating about for decades. Alternate time lines, historical anachronisms, and time paradoxes are among a few. The grandfather effect is quite an interesting predicament; could someone travel back in time, meet their distant relative and fall in love? Their offspring would be destined to parent the travelers’ parents or grandparents. Or perhaps someone from the future could get a sex change operation, then travel into the past to meet themselves and have a child. This child could venture into the future and become the original time traveler who set out on the first journey. In essence, is it possible to become your own mother, and father, and brother  (216)?

Cosmologist Stephen Hawking has often spoke on the possibility of time travel. Believing such feats to be nonsense, Hawking set out to prove time travel impossible. He proposed that an equation should exist that prevents the alteration of a timeline, or a Chronology Protection Conjecture. Since this is somewhat contradictory to relativistic physics, Hawking ultimately failed to prove time travel impossible—then revising his view to accepting that time travel may be possible, but it isn’t pretty (Hawking  160-170).

Albert Einstein is one of the most well-known physicists in modern history. In 1905, he published his ground-breaking work on the special theory of relativity. Going against Sir Isaac Newton, Einstein proposed that light had a fixed speed and nothing could overcome it. Furthermore the theories of relativity claimed that the faster an object moves, the more mass it has, the slower it perceives the passage of time. One might suppose that a rocket ship in space traveling near the speed of light could cover massively lengthy passages without the crew growing old and dying; such is the principle in many science fiction novels and films (Kaku Physics of the Impossible 200). This is the case for Charlton Heston and his crew in the 1968 epic saga Planet of the Apes (Kaku 156).

The force of gravity effecting time can be much more drastic than a plane trip. Theoretically, the singularity at the center of a black hole has an infinite mass—and likewise an infinite gravitational force. If one were able to survive existence here, time itself would hold still. Following a minor disagreement, the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland finds himself on the outs with Time. The resulting vengeance carried out by Time forces the Hatter to experience six o’clock forever—incidentally the Hatter’s tea time (Carroll 70).

In Hyperspace Kaku presents the fabric of existence: hyperspace. Like a map on a table, space and time can be contoured to fit one’s needs. Space and time, which are essentially the same thing, may be shaped into the form of an apple. Like flatworms on a real apple, a time traveler may tunnel through the surface of their world to break open on the other side much quicker than traditional travel. These tunnels are called wormholes, or more technically, Einstein-Rosen bridges. These wormholes, if in the same universe, may transport someone to another location light-years away in no time at all. Similarly, such a worm hole may lead to the opposite side of the map sheet, or perhaps a whole piece of paper all together. In this way, one might not only move in time, but end up in another universe, like their own in almost every way, but slightly altered. Altered Timelines are the focus of Back to the Future, parts I, II, and III. Michael J. Fox, with the help of Doc Brown, gets transported to alternate timelines of his past in a customized DeLorean running on weapons grade plutonium. In his travels Fox’s character, Marty, is subject to all sorts or paradoxes that threaten his very existence (Kaku Hyperspace 19).

In a 1988 science fiction classic, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter play aspiring rock musicians who are failing out of their high school history course. To pass their exam, and save the future of San Dimas, futurist George Carlin who presents them with a time traversing phone booth. As they travel through time to rendezvous with a combat ready Napoleon Bonaparte, Rufus explains the out-of-this-world sights. “These are the circuits of history, gentlemen” In viewing the exposed wormholes, Bill and Ted respond with the only suitable expression, “Whoa” (Herek). Maintaining and creating such a wormhole would require vast energy, and might even not stay open long enough to safely pass through. However, if this singularity were to be spinning the centrifugal force might allow for plausible travel (Kaku Physics of the Impossible 217).

If the world of Newtonian and Einstienian physics seems somewhat confounding, the magical qualities of quantum mechanics leave the mind mystified. Physicist Niels Bohr once said “Anyone who is not shocked by the quantum theory does not understand it.” In a classroom, a book placed on a desk is not necessarily expected to pass through the solid table and land on the floor without provocation. However, sub atomic particles seem to do just that. Popping in and out of existence is something electrons enjoy on a regular basis; they also have a nasty little habit of being in two or more places at the same time. This all is governed by the statistics of chance, documented by quantum theory. It is possible for a person to lean against a wall, and pass completely through it—it would just take the time far greater than a millennia of lifetimes to encounter the lottery of that probability (Kaku Hyperspace 111). Fiction writer Douglas Adams uses this theory to a humorous end in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series of novels. A super powered space ship, powered by an Infinite Probability Generator, can make the probability of any outcome be infinite—thus allowing it to occur. Using this method of travel, popping in and out of different places throughout the universe is effortless, even into the past and future (Adams 31).

Kaku defines time travel as a class II impossibility, in Physics of the Impossible. This means that time travel breaks no known laws of physics, and is completely plausible to the minds of contemporary science—however, such travel would require advances in technology to become commonplace. Furthermore, the energy required to create and maintain a wormhole in space would be equivalent to the mass of the planet Jupiter in negative energy.  Such manipulation of force would not be possible for civilizations who have not already mastered inter-galactic travel, or as Kaku describes: a type III civilization (Kaku Physics of the Impossible 234).

Traveling into the future does not necessarily require a wormhole. Paul Davies describes such time travel in his book, How to Build a Time Machine. Two very accurate, synchronized, and hypothetical clocks on Earth can demonstrate Albert Einstein’s relativity theory. One clock may be placed onboard a jet liner, the other remaining on the surface—the clock flying through the air at supersonic speeds, 30,000 feet above earth will actually experience less flight time than the clock on the ground. Time is relative, which means both clocks would tick the same, just that the surface clock would see the air clock moving faster. Alternately, the clock inside the jumbo jet would view the surface clock as slowing down. This is because gravity effects time and movement creates mass which in turn creates gravity that slows time. This effect is known as Time Dilation (Davies 19).

Davies describes a time journey of two twins: One twin lives on earth, the other travels in a super space ship which can move at the speed of light, or very close to it. The space twin zooms to a planet five light-years away from Earth and back again. Although the astronaut twin has only been gone from Earth for ten years of his life, his twin sister is now elderly and in her late eighties. They are still twins, yet twins of different times (Davies 5).

 

As Stephen Hawking found out, time travel is indeed possible. In fact, humans already are traveling into the future. We are all traveling at one second, per second—however the world record for time travel is currently held by Russian cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev. Avdeyev circled the globe in space for 748 days and was projected a grand total of 0.02 seconds into the future (Kaku Physics of the Impossible 219).

Adams, Douglas. The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide. New York:
     Random House,2005. Print.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Dir. Stephen Herek
     Keanu Reeves, 1988. Pioneer,1989. Laserdisk.

Carroll, Lewis. The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll. New York:
     Barnes & Noble Inc,1994. Print.

Davies, Paul. How to Build a Time Machine. New York:
     Viking Penguin,2002. Print.

Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time. New York:
     Bantam Books,1998. Print.

Kaku, Michio. Hyperspace. New York:
     Anchor Books,1995. Print.

Kaku, Michio. Physics of the Impossible. New York:
     Anchor Books,2008. Print.

Wells, H.G. Seven Novels. New York:
     Barnes & Noble Inc,2009. Print.