From Here to There: The Physics of Time Travel by Brad Stone

Summary: This article touches upon the debate of whether time travel is possible , and if so, could one go back in time and do something to alter the future

Characters:

  • Author - Brad Stone

Article Notes:

  • According to author, it may be fun to go back in time and right the wrongs but "time travel" may also allow for a paradox caused by an "accident" such as killing someone in your line of history (Mr. Stone uses the example of great-great-grandfather being killed accidentally)
  • Paul Nahin at the University of New Hampshire points out that the physics as it pertains to time travel is inclusive and that "anything that physics doesn't forbid must be considered"
  • The author mentions that time travel has its roots embedded in the work of relativity by Albert Einstein
  • Other work in the possibility of time travel comes from Kurt Gödel, a mathematician, Carl Sagan, author and scientist, and researchers from Caltech of which the latter two sources suggest the existence of wormholes
  • Work done in the improbability of time travel comes from Stephen Hawking, a British scientist who theorizes that if there was an attempt to time travel it would result in what he calls a "back reaction" which would "rip space apart"
  • The author also says that Stephen Hawking names this theory with the "back reaction" Chronology Protection Conjecture because it would protect historical events from people who would wish to mess with them
  • The author says there are four other improbable ways to possibly do some time traveling due to unrealistic resource requirements
  • The author concludes with Nahin saying that paradoxes are "manifestations of imperfect understanding" and that in all probability one's "great-great grandpa is safe"

Other Notes:

  • Like the sound barrier, the probability of traveling through time will always have the theories that support and rise against it until somehow it is done
  • Physicists have been debating this issue for many years
  • See "A Sound Of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury, also on this site, for notes about a story inspired by the cause and effect of time travel

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