Is it Finally Time for Time Travel?

By Christine Garvin On May 10, 2010 · 10 Comments

Tweet

Thoughts on time travel ain’t just for suckas anymore.

Yep, it looks like time travel might just be on the horizon.

If Stephen Hawking says it’s so, how can we believe otherwise?

Though I’m not sure why he chose the Daily Mail to say it, Hawking chatted up the idea of hanging out with Marilyn Monroe via the fourth dimension:

Time travel was once considered scientific heresy. I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labeled a crank. But these days I’m not so cautious. In fact, I’m more like the people who built Stonehenge. I’m obsessed by time. If I had a time machine I’d visit Marilyn Monroe in her prime or drop in on Galileo as he turned his telescope to the heavens.

How is time travel going to happen exactly? Hawking says it won’t be via time-machines like in science-fiction movies, but rather through wormholes, which hang out in the quantum foam that is smaller than molecules and atoms.

Wait, wait – I guess the wormholes will have to be enlarged trillions of times, and then we might actually use a time-machine to cruise on back to say, Charles Dickens’ London. Alright, maybe that wouldn’t the time or place most people would choose, but what can I say? I dig soot.

Lest you think it’s just Hawking talking a lot of jibba-jabba, he is but one of the current innovative minds who think time travel is possible. According to James Knutila over on Motherboard, the likes of Carl Sagan, Physicists Neil deGrasse Tyson, Paul Davies, Michio Kaku, and John Gribbin have all kicked around the idea of time travel, though they contend it’s not as easy as throwing some wormholes and a machine together.

Tyson said in an interview:

We don’t know yet how to go into the past. There’s some peculiar solutions of Einstein’s equations that allow past travel, but then you can’t interact with your life — you’re in another place. Because imagine if you could interact with your own life. Prevent your parents from meeting. Then you were never conceived. Then you could have never been sent back in time to prevent your parents from meeting.

Yeah, but then we could smack around the person who decided pegged jeans and tall bangs were a look worth passing along in the 80s. The world would certainly be a better place.

Do you think time travel will ever be possible, or is it just a physicist’s dream? Share your thoughts below.

About The Author

Christine Garvin

Christine Garvin is a certified Nutrition Educator and holds a MA in Holistic Health Education. She is the founder/editor of Living Holistically...with a sense of humor and co-founder of Confronting Love. When she is not out traveling the world, she is busy writing, doing yoga, and performing hip-hop and bhangra. She also likes to pretend living in her hippie town of Fairfax, CA is like being on vacation.

More By This Author

You can't escape yourself at Burning Man (9 comments)
How people plan to change the world in 2011 (23 comments)
Notes on not dealing with death (32 comments)

view all → Christine Garvin

http://www.spiritualmind.com Alex Andrei

I remember reading something that time travel might be possible in the future, but would only allow us to go back as far as when the time machine was built. Hence, why we have not seen anyone from the future… yet!!!
http://www.wildflowerhikesmontana.com Carolyn

Have you read “The Light of Other Days” by Arthur C. Clark?
Better watch out what you do today according to him – someone might be able to see you from tomorrow

http://onceatraveler.com Turner

Great book. We’re actually not far off from human behavior when it comes to privacy; today we can see nearly everything about a person’s past online. Tomorrow, will we be able to observe them minute by minute?

http://itchyfoot.tumblr.com Sara C.

The main problem, for me, is that if time travel into the past could exist, why don’t we ever run into time tourists? I can tell at 50 paces whether someone is a native of my city or a visitor; one would think blending in as a time traveler would be much harder than remembering to leave behind the white sneakers.
http://www.thejetpacker.com The Jetpacker

I think time travel is possible only in different timelines or parallel universes. I don’t think we can travel back in time in the same timeline we’re already in without adversely affecting. Once you pass through a wormhole, I don’t believe it’s like Back To The Future where you simply put in a specific date and coordinates and arrive there; I think you can wind up anywhere, on any planet, at any time, in any alternate universe.

Time travel is the last frontier for travel and it would be amazing to be alive when humans finally harness the ability to go back in time… or even the future.
http://carlo-alcos.com Carlo

I got the Delorian rigged up, just waiting on funding for my flux capacitor. You can come for a ride!

I read some Paul Davies back in the day, I can’t remember if it was Mind of God or The Last Three Minutes, but he talked about time travel, how you could conceivably have a vehicle that warped time-space around it. Or something like that. I’ll admit, I didn’t understand much of it, but at the time of reading he makes it seem so understandable. I should re-read those books.
http://abbiemood.com Abbie

If Steven Hawking thinks it’s possible, I’m a believer. That man is incredible.
http://travelerahoy.wordpress.com Alouise

Time travel would be pretty cool, although the calculations and science behind it just kinda boggles my mind. But I’m with Abbie, if Stephen Hawkings thinks it’s possible then there’s got to be a way.

I’m curious to find out if there’d be a butterfly effect with time travel, the idea of if you change or tamper something in the past it can alter the future. Because I’d like to do time travel from an observant pov, but if going back can alter the present/future then it seems a little more uncertain.
http://onceatraveler.com Turner

Alright, you guys want a way to see if there’s a time traveler in your future? Write down a note with a place and time in the not-too-distant future, and hand that note down from generation to generation. Hopefully, eventually, someone with the ability to time travel will read it and come to talk to you. Hey, worked in BTTF2, anyway.
Sarah

The whole idea of time travel is totally crazy, because the tiniest things we do have a huge impact on the outcome of the world. If you went back in time, the future that you left wouldn’t exist, because a chain reaction stemming from the things you changed would create an entirely different future. You would essentially kill off yourself, and replace it with an entirely different you, not to mention doing the same thing to everything around you. Does that make any sense?

Is it Finally Time for Time Travel?

Related Posts

Christine Garvin

More By This Author

Subscribe to Matador

The best travel articles each week. No spam.

Breaking stories, announcements, events, and more.

In partnership with Matador

Quick-Read

Feature

Feature

Quick-Read

Quick-Read

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Matador Network © 2006-2011

About Matador

Sections

Become a Contributor

New Media School