Temporally Higher...
Introduction:
If you had a time machine, where would you go? Ok ok ok, – when would you go?What would you do when you got there – and more importantly, what would be the consequences of your actions?
Are you picturing a battered Police Box…. a Delorian car which does 88 miles per hour, or an elaborate Victorian fadookey made from brass with little pressure dials and a big mechanical read-out that might say "Tuesday 15th May, 1066 – 5.04 pm"
Microsoft Windows 3000 has just been released with the power to transport you through time. "When would you like to go today?"
Yes I know – that's how almost every book on time travel starts!
Be careful though, don't go too far! Stray more than a few billion years into the future and the Sun expands roasting the atmosphere off from the long-dead Earth. Keep going, and the universe expands and cools so much that life in any form is no longer possible. Complex molecules and atoms themselves fly apart in an instant.
Head in the other direction and you run the risk of landing at a time when Earth's acidic atmosphere of 400 degrees burns you to an uncomfortable crisp. Back further still - way before our sun was born - and as you head towards the big bang atoms stop obeying the laws of common sense, never mind physics. The universe is a place of unbelievable heat and density and as big as a football. Not a nice place for a day trip.
This is by no means the first (or should one say "lowest temporal") work to try and address the issues and theories behind time travel, but to the best of my knowledge it is the first work that could be viewed as a practical guide for the man in the street.
The purpose of this book is to answer the question:
"OK, how do I do it? I want to see a dinosaur. I don't have a space-ship and there are no wormholes* in my back garden - what do I do?". |
 * Other than the ones created by worms... |
People have always gone to extraordinary lengths to gain insight into the past and the future. Archaeologists will spend a lifetime digging holes and historians will spend a lifetime trying to make sense of what they find in them, the same archaeologists and historians who will part with hard earned cash for Madame Rose the gypsy to give them an advantage by knowing the future.
I will attempt to explain in a non-technical language the basic concepts that are required understanding for the potential time traveller and explore alternative methods by which one might hope to achieve the sci-fi holy grail that is "time travel".
One does not require an in-depth knowledge of quantum mechanics or to have written a 76 volume thesis on General Relativity to understand the ideas explained within this book. One merely needs an I.Q. higher than that of a bowl of rice pudding. Rather soggy, old and probably quite mouldy rice pudding at that.
Although it does expand to some degree on theoretical physics, it is not a work of pure science and by its very nature (as you will no doubt quickly realise) it cannot be. Physics meets philosophy, who both careen headlong into theology. They have a curry, then pop out to a night club with common sense, perception and probability. They all have far too much to drink and wake up the next morning on Reality's kitchen floor with one heck of a quantum headache.
There are dozens, if not hundreds of documents and works exploring in almost mind-melting detail the theories which are presented herein, so I will not attempt to re-invent the wheel, but merely describe it as round-ish, and generally coming in sets of two. If you want a detailed understanding of why black holes behave the way they do, then there are theoretical physicists who have spent 30 years researching that very subject and have published entire encyclopaedias of knowledge on it. People spend years analysing and explaining Relativity to a level of detail that is certainly neither required nor provided here. Such study, it has to be said, often results in an unintentional personality-ectomy.
Accountants often suffer a similar fate.
Most of theses theories are ones I have arrived at independently and in doing further research have found that other people have arrived at them too – which is reassuring.
I should also point out that although I am not a scientist and have nothing even knocking on the door of a degree in theoretical physics, I am as sure as one can be about the scientific accuracy of my arguments. I challenge anyone to find flaw in the thinking.
It is of course perfectly and sadly possible that Steven Hawking (or you) could point out an error of logic which is considered to render irrelevant an entire line of reasoning. I hope not, but it is a possibility never the less.
One should always bear in mind though, that no single one person has all the answers. Just because Steven Hawking says not, does not necessarily mean it is not. No one can claim to know "the truth" behind the universe. Newton, Einstein, Hawking, the Pope, L. Ron Hubbard… nobody. Currently accepted theories such as Relativity may one day be derided in much the same way as comments like "The Earth is definitely flat…see that line there? That horizon? Flat. This bit of land? Flat. Earth? FLAT." now is.
One of the arguments currently on-going in modern science is about whether it actually is, or is not possible to develop a "grand unified theory" of everything which successfully marries quantum theory, Newtonian physics, Relativity, and the plethora of other theories which all work perfectly well when looked at in isolation, but somehow loose their cohesion when looked at from the other end of the telescope.
The late Carl Sagan was a firm believer in the possibility of time travel, a possibility that Steven Hawking is reluctant to admit.
Einstein's theories of Special and General Relativity form the core of modern physics but as his famous insistence on the existence of a "cosmological constant" which he later admitted was "one of his greatest mistakes" shows, even the best and most respected thinkers can get it spectacularly and embarrassingly wrong.
Unfounded conjecture and assumption which are taken as fact are the nemesis of clear logical thought and progress.
Never believe anyone who says "It can't be done, it is impossible." We know the merest fraction of frighteningly little about the universe in which we live, therefore it is absurd to dictate what is or is not possible, what might or might not be in 100 years time, never mind 500 years, a thousand years, or (thank you Herbert George) the year 802701.
Whilst at the Convention of the World Future Society in 1977, Kenneth H. Olson, then President of DEC said, rather unfortunately, "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home".
Gates, Jobs, did you catch that? This statement was made in very recent history. 30 odd years later, and one is hard pressed to find someone who does not have a computer at home, and two for the kids, one at work, a PDA for the dog, one in the car, three in the living room and a laptop under the bed - just in case.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Charles H Duell, US Commissioner of Patents in 1899, proving in the most infamous way that arrogance about the scope of man's knowledge is thoroughly laughed at by history. The statement was followed a mere four years later by the magnificent Messrs Wright and their new-fangled flying flamarky, and subsequently by e=mc2, manned spaceflight, television, petrol engines, radar, uPVC windows and monosodium glutamate etc.
Mr. Duell may however have been thinking four-dimensionally in which case his statement is entirely correct as we shall see. Everything has indeed been invented, just not yet.
Many people who write on the subject of time and time travel cite the authors H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov et al as their inspiration along with the likes of "Back To The Future" and "Dr. Who".
I do not.
My inspiration was a particularly boring, uncomfortable and ludicrously delayed G.N.E.R. train journey from York to London King's Cross. Faced with the very real possibility spending the rest of my natural life stuck between the buffet car and coach G, some 400 yards south of Doncaster, it occurred to me that to get home in time to get up for work the next day would require me to have left London some 3 hours before I was now due to arrive – which to be fair was a frequent enough requirement for all G.N.E.R. passengers.
I remembered a quote attributed to Einstein; "Young man, what time does the station arrive at this train?" and out of sheer desperation, started pondering on the pure and simple logic which lead to the premises detailed in the next section.
A wise man once said: "If there is a god, there can be only one."
When one tries to understand the reasoning behind this statement, it seems an obvious assertion to make, although it has not by any means led to the extinguishing of polytheistic religions.
Using the same type of reasoning, I propose the premises which follow, always remembering one of the first rules of science in any field whatsoever:-
Absence of evidence is not, nor ever shall be, evidence of absence.