Sunday, August 10, 2003

 

Have you ever wondered about time and time travel?
I have. I wonder about time travel. I hope it is possible. I do not believe it IS possible, yet I still have hope. In a sense, we are time travellers, but we are only able to go one way. It is going the OTHER way which I wonder about. Of course, we may have future visitors right now. After all, how would WE know if in the future sometime, someone invented time travel and then came back here to watch US to see why we did the stupid things we are doing these days? Consider the plight of future historians. With access to the real past, would not they then have a totally accurate history? No rewrites like all of the victors have done in our own past? Is it possible that a future relative of mine could come back and inadvertently modify the past such that he would no longer exist? Or maybe I would cease to exist? And if I ceased to exist, what about my son? I've thought about this paradox, and I have come to the conclusion that a future time traveler going back into the past could not do something which would make him cease to exist, because if he ceased to exist, then he could not have gone back and done whatever it was which caused him to cease to exist, so he can't commit suicide by killing off his blood line from the past. Talk about circular reasoning, it sure gets confusing fast considering the possibilities with events which depend on things in the past. At least it does not appear a time traveler could make himself cease to exist. And then what about traveling into the future? If one were to move ahead in time, the present would have a past which had not happened yet, and then what? Would returning back from the future mean you could win the lottery? No, I don't think so, since someone already DID win that particular lottery in the future time and it wasn't you, so if you went back and then won because you wrote down the winning numbers, would that then change the future history? After all, in the future, that would have a past where someone else won, and it just gets more complicated the more I think on it. One theory says that if one were to go back into the past, that events would still result in the same things happening as the future came about. Another theory says the opposite, that affecting something in the past would change events in the future, but not for the time traveler, which would make things different for him when he returned to his present. I remember reading a story once, about time travel into the past where big game hunters could kill an animal which was going to die anyway. They have to stay on a path which floated above the ground to avoid affecting anything. One of the hunters stumbles, steps off the path and kills a butterfly. He does not tell anyone of this. When they return, their future is completely different as a result. And then there is the whole meeting yourself thing, which would tend to negate the same matter occupying two different places in space and time. But then, maybe there is no paradox with matter since the same matter would be in separate points in time, and obviously it would be in a different space. And what about the motion of the planets and stars and such? Not only would you have to change time, but also the location since everything is moving all the time. The Earth alone, is rotating at about 1000 miles per hour at the equater. If I go back only an hour, I have to also move a 1/24 of a revolution from where I am now to be in that place then. It's not as easy as I thought. Stephen Hawking said that he would not make a bet against time machines because his opponent may have seen the future and know the answer. Secretly, I really DO hope time travel is possible. The thought that future people are walking around obsevring us in what is their part, their history, is interesting to contemplate. Just the thought of time travel boggles my mind. Think about it.

Posted by: Rowlfe - at: 8/10/2003 04:44:00 PM

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