Time Travel Possibility and Paradoxes
Insightful Quotes on Time Travel
Before I discuss the concept of time travel at relative length, a few quotes on the subject may serve as a minor literature review, and cause to initiate one into and prepare one for a study of the fascinating possibility of travel in the mysterious realm of time. Today, we know that time travel need not be confined to myths, science fiction, Hollywood movies, or even speculation by theoretical physicists. Time travel is possible. For example, an object traveling at high speeds ages more slowly than a stationary object. This means that if you were to travel into outer space and return, moving close to light speed, you could travel thousands of years into the Earths future. (Pickover, 1999a). If we could travel into the past, its mind-boggling what would be possible. For one thing, history would become an experimental science, which it certainly isnt today. The possible insights into our own past and nature and origins would be dazzling. For another, we would be facing the deep paradoxes of interfering with the scheme of causality that has led to our own time and ourselves. I have no idea whether its possible, but its certainly worth exploring. (Sagan, 1999). Man ... can go up against gravitation in a balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turn about and travel the other way. (Wells, 1895). Once confined to fantasy and science fiction, time travel is now simply an engineering problem. (Kaku, 2003a).
It would take a civilization far more advanced than ours, unbelievably advanced, to begin to manipulate negative energy to create gateways to the past. But if you could obtain large quantities of negative energy -- and thats a big if -- then you could create a time machine that apparently obeys Einsteins equation and perhaps the laws of quantum theory. (Kaku, 2003b). About 10 years ago, if you were a serious physicist talking about time travel, youd be laughed out of the scientific establishment. People would snicker behind your back, your scientific career would be ruined, and you wouldnt get tenure. In the last decade or so, theres been a sea change with regards to the scientific attitude toward time travel, Originally, the burden of proof was on physicists to prove that time travel was possible. Now, the burden of proof is on physicists to prove there must be a law forbidding time travel. (Kaku, 2003c). Time travel, I maintain, is possible. The paradoxes of time travel are oddities, not impossibilities. (Lewis, 1976). Our heirs, whatever or whoever they may be, will explore space and time to degrees we cannot currently fathom. They will create new melodies in the music of time. There are infinite harmonies to be explored. (Pickover, 1999b).
Is Time Travel Hypothetically Possible
The first question that we need to answer is whether time travel, meaning travel by a person to either the past or the future time might be at all possible, based on our limited but verifiable understanding of the nature of the universe, and the laws of physics. There can be no simple answer to this, and different people may hazard various interpretations of this fantastic possibility. Philosophers might provide a certain answer, science fiction enthusiasts might be more optimistic, the conservative scientist may be averse to considering it, while the quantum physicist may conclude that it would appear that time travel may be hypothetically possible under certain specified circumstances of an extreme nature. A brief review of the vast literature available on this exciting topic has served to convince me that the subject definitely merits further research, and perhaps time travel might one day be as simple as defying the natural laws of gravity by means of air flights and spaceships is today.
Works of science fiction have inspired much scientific research in the area of time travel. (Gott, 2001, p. 4). In the most famous modern novel, a man employs a sophisticated device to hurtle 30 million years into the future I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both my hands and went off with a thud. The night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came tomorrow. (H. G. Wells, The Time Machine, 2009). This graphic fictional description may have a tinge of truth or prophecy to it, but only future research and developments can validate this. However, the famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov had asserted To my way of thinking, it is precisely because time travel involves such paradoxes that we can conclude, even in the absence of other evidence, that time travel is impossible. (Smith, 1995).
Watson differentiates between time travel by the human mind, by means of our imagination and the notion of physical transport from one time to another, by means of some sort of unimaginable time machine. (Watson, 2010). The humans imaginative flights to other eras are of course very possible and easy, as everyone who has ever daydreamt can affirm. However, the latter question of physical transport from one time to another has two main difficulties, one being whether or not the speed of light can be exceeded and the other being whether or not the same matter can exist in two places at once. (Watson, 2010).
Simultaneous Existence in Multiple Locations
The idea of time travel would require the same particulate matter to be existent in two places at the same time. Thus, A-2 may time-travel to in the past to encounter his A-1 self, or into the future to meet his A-3 self. There would then be two A-n persons existing at the same time. Do the known laws of physics permit this I may add that teleportation refers to the transfer of matter from one place to another, almost instantaneously a term coined in 1931 by the American writer Charles Fort. Mostly in this book I shall specialize upon indications that there exists a transportory force that I shall call Teleportation. I shall be accused of having assembled lies, yarns, hoaxes, and superstitions. To some degree I think so, myself. To some degree I do not. I offer the data. (Fort, 1931, p. 553). Time travel apparently involves teleportation of a kind, perhaps by means of a time machine. There are logically derived difficulties for matter in two places at the same time. If it came into contact with itself what would happen Time travel to a time when the same matter exists would involve the destruction of one or other or both of the subjects of travel. For time travel to be permitted by the laws of physics, therefore, matter can only travel to a time when it did not or will not exist. (Watson, 2010).
However, time travel need not be viewed only as A procession of the damned. By the damned, I mean the excluded. a procession of data that Science has excluded. (Fort, 2008). Matter can change its form, energy and properties. Likewise, living creatures invariably grow older with time, and the cells within their bodies die, and are replaced by newer ones. However, time travel of a person entails continuity, simultaneity of two forms in existence, and a teleportation that modern science has no means of enabling, at least as yet. Hence, it is conceivable that in a distant future, when time itself is under threat, there may be a need for a species to be selected which is capable of time travel in order to survive. Such a scenario is the likeliest route by which time travel could be achieved, but even then, the confining effects of the Universal constant, identified by Einstein as the speed of light, would have to be overcome in some currently inconceivable way. (Watson, 2010). The idea of breaking the speed-of-light barrier, and the possibility of FTL or faster-than-light particles or entities and time travel has evoked much analysis. Several interesting excerpts have been added as Appendix I (please refer to pages 9-24). Besides, maybe the current lack of time travelers from our future is proof that we dont have a future (Watson, 2010), or that time travel is not likely to be achieved, whichever way one wants to conclude. The discussion on FTL and Einsteins theories of relativity have been variously interpreted by several scientists to indicate the possibility that time travel does seem to be theoretically at least possible.
Paradoxes Innate to Time Travel
There are several paradoxes that seem to be intrinsic to the possibility of time travel. The most obvious one, which has been repeatedly discussed by scholars in this regard, is the matricide paradox. This refers to the possibility that if one could time-travel into the past, one might hypothetically kill ones own mother, or father, or grandfather, or what have you. If time travel were really possible, such a scenario can be envisaged. However, this would appear to constitute literally rewriting history. More importantly, it would stand the known principles of causation on their head.
Various theories have been propounded to circumvent the matricide paradox. A popular theory contemplates the simultaneous existence of numerous parallel universes. Hence, someone might apparently be walking in one universe, and at the same time sleeping in a second universe, and dying in a third. Even something as minute as a leaf blowing in the wind would result in the creation of a parallel universe. (Gott, 2001, p. 13). Yet another theory assumes consistency in the universe, implying that matricide during time travel would be somehow rendered impossible. That may be neat, but no compelling explanations or evidences for such conjectures have been offered by anyone so far. However, another view holds that I think inconsistencies might be very well consistent with the universe. (Sagan, 1999).
Time Travel into the Future
Travel into the future does not run against as many paradoxes as travel into the past does. Time travel to the future is much more plausible and might very well occur in some form within the next hundred years. (Goren, 2003). There would be many serious engineering problems. It wouldnt be easy, but it is scientifically possible for a person to indeed visit the future. (Gott, 2001, p. 36). It can, therefore, be safely concluded that time travel represents a tantalizing possibility. Einsteins theories and various interpretations drawn from them have enthused umpteen scientists that under certain unusual circumstances, the laws of physics might enable time travel. One ought to await further breakthroughs made by scientists in this exciting field with eagerness and perhaps a degree of trepidation. The concept of time travel evokes mind-boggling possibilities, ramifications and repercussions.
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