Maggie Gaster

Lambda
5/16/08

Research Brief III

(Writing Section)

The idea of traveling through time has always been science fiction. Einstein had

no idea that his theory of special relativity would lead to the actual possibility of time

travel. If we could start traveling through time a world of possibilities would open up. We

could go back in time and see what things were really like instead of speculating based on

documentation that people left behind. Since we haven’t ever had time travel as a

possibility, the world would be the way it is now if we didn’t have it."According to

Einstein's theory of Special Relativity, time slows as an object approaches the speed of

light. This leads many scientists to believe that traveling faster than the speed of light

could open up the possibility of time travel to the past as well as to the future"("How

Time Travel Will Work." Kevin Bonsor).

Currently, scientists are using Einstein's discoveries and research to look in to black

holes and wormholes. Black holes are entry ways to wormholes and they condense matter

to such an extent that not even light can escape. Wormholes are like tunnels through the

curvature of time and space that can get you to the past, future, or other places in the

universe. They think that if they can manipulate the wormholes and black holes they

might be able to traverse them. Although, we don't have the information to do it yet, in

the near future it will be possible. However, if scientists did manage to create a means for

time travel, they might run into some common paradoxes that science fiction writers have

explored in their stories. "One stubborn problem with time travel is that it is riddled with
several types of paradoxes. For example, there is the paradox of the man with no parents:

What happens when you go back in time and kill your parents before you are born? If

your parents died before you were born, then how could you have been born to kill them

in the first place?" "Is Time Travel Possible?" Kaku, Michio

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/mysteries/html/kaku1-1.html.

Diagram #1: Artistic representation of a time paradox. The Man with the strange hat on is

the time traveller.

Diagram#2: Chart of the grandfather paradox.

(Sepia Picture:

http://www.newyorker.com/images/2008/03/24/p465/080324_r17197_p465.jpg)

(Grandfather Paradox Diagram:

http://www.geocities.com/tiylaya/Rift_in_Time/grandfather_paradox3.gif)

It might not be very helpful in the advancement of the human race for people to go back

and alter the future from the past. It could potentially be very detrimental because it could

change the world as we know it today. It's possible that if something changed, like you
told the pilot of a large commercial airline that you were from the future, it could freak

them out and throw off their day causing them to crash their plane. All of the people on

the plane would die, and they wouldn't get to do whatever they did to make the future the

way it was. For example Steve Jobs could be on the plane before he started apple, and

then where would the world be? No ipods, not mac books, how would CAT function?

Time travel is an unexplored territory right now because we haven't experimented with

it at all. We still don't know if we can get caught in paradoxes or not. Michio Kaku

describes the paradox of the man going back in time and killing his parents before he was

even alive. But how could he have killed them in the past, if he wasn't ever born?

However, another theory about paradoxes is that they couldn’t happen because the

universe always corrects itself. "An interesting technical approach to resolving the

paradox is the Novikov self consistency principle proposed by Dr. Igor Novikov. This

essentially says that paradoxes won't happen - it's impossible to create a paradox however

hard you try. In this view the universe is in some way "self righting". If you attempt to

shoot your grandfather then something will go wrong - you'll miss, the gun will jam, etc.

Or, if you succeed, you'll later lean that your father was adopted; so he still gets born and

still marries your mother. This reminds me of the anthropic principle: the universe is this

way because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here" http://www.horology-

stuff.com/time/travel/paradox.html. This proves what Michio Kaku was saying wrong,

but it also proves that none of the scientists know for sure what would happen if we were

able to go back in time. That’s probably why the research is coming together little piece

by little piece, so that we don’t rush into anything and create catastrophic problems. If

this theory is correct about the “self righting” universe, then it will be safer for us to

dapple in time traveling. However, if not, it may be dangerous.

 Another theory to the contrary of Michio Kaku's is that you'd never be able to catch up

with the flow of time. You can't move faster then the flow of time, or at least, we don't

know how to yet. "Let us look more closely at what would happen if you go back in time

and kill your younger self. Would you immediately start to disappear as in the movies?

The answer is no. The flow of time is one second per second. The change that was

initiated in the past would have to move faster than the time flow itself in order to catch

up with your present self. This is why altering the past cannot alter the present " Amaral,

Michael. "ON THE FEASIBILITY OF TIME TRAVEL AND ITS IMPLICATIONS."

(http://www.rosecroixjournal.org/issues/2004_vol_01/articles/vol1_01_09_amaral.pdf).

This quote offers a more scientific reason as to why Michio Kaku's ideas about time

travel paradoxes wouldn't work. It relates more to Einstein’s theories about catching up

with the speed of light. You would have to alter the past faster then the flow of time, or

you wouldn’t be able to catch up with yourself. Most of the ideas for or against time

travel paradoxes and the detrimental side effects of time travel are only speculations.

Time Travel is feasible theoretically, however, we do not know what could come from

messing with time.

In conclusion, Einstein's equations for relativity that allow black holes to be possible,

thanks to Karl Schwarzchild, are the foundation that make time travel possible. Fiction

inspired the scientists who worked to prove that time travel is possible to take the idea

further. So, in theory it is possible to go into a black hole, the entrance to a wormhole,

and travel from one point in the fabric of time to another before the speed of light. This is

possible because time curves in on itself. and there are some points that are close to each

other because of the curvature. However, even though it is possible to travel in time, or

will be once we figure out how to traverse wormholes, there may be some risks if we
alter the past. One little event getting changed in the past, may completely change the

future. Or the universe might correct itself like Novikov proposed. So, although we don't

know how risky it is to travel in time, the science proves that it can be done. We just can't

do it yet, but in the future, we may be able to travel through time.