Is Time Travel Possible?

Happy vacations start! Yeah I know… many of you will be working/studying and what not, but if you have at least a couple of days off take some time to plan something cool to do, I dunno, go out with your friends, read a book, visit some exotic place, get a tan… anyway, there are plenty of things to do and we simply don't have the time to do them all… or do we?

Today's post title (in case you haven't figured it out) is a question I first read in a book wrote by Richard Matheson in 1975 called Bid Time Return that later was adapted to a movie starring Christopher Reeve (Superman) and Jane Seymour (Dr Quinn). Without spoiling a thing this novel deals with something many people don't actually believe it can be done… time traveling.

Note: Since I won't be talking about the movie (can do so in another post) I really encourage you if you have the chance to read the book… it holds a GREAT premise, on my personal favorites, the movie is also great, give it a watch if you can!

What do physicists think about all this? Well… believe it or not they have some really cool questions and many peeps have come up with their own answers. I recently read an article by Josh Rubak (http://www.rubak.com/index.cfm) and he has a pretty cool one about the possibilities of time traveling. It turns out there are four 'modes' in you want to travel through time, two involving the past and other two the future, and in each them we can either be a 'viewer' or to be a 'participant'.

Long story short… we can only 'view' the past and 'participate' in the future. I think it makes sense since if we change the past paradoxes will occur and if we participate in the future (and we can go back in time afterwards) we again find paradoxes in our way. What's a paradox? Well, if you want to think something for a long time a debating with folks here it goes… what happens if you go back in time and kill your dad? As you can image… that's a paradox and there're tons of points of view in regard.

I've always liked thinking about those things (not killing my dad, but in time travel), you know, visiting times and places you've only gotten to know in books and movies, having the first tools in practically all aspects of life (so long internet). Can you picture yourself how would you be in the medieval era or before the birth of Christ? What profession would you have? I guess is nearly impossible to get the whole picture, but is a great exercise. In the other hand… what about going to the future? Will there be any resemble to today's world? Imagine all sort of hi-tech stuff spread out everywhere? The possibilities would be incredible!

As you've thought, many people get their references in this sort of matter from the media, I don't need to recall you the amount of movies/books/stories dealing with time travel… my favorites? Well, besides the Bid Time Return book (again, awesome) I'd say in movies Primer and The Jacket. The first one is an independent film about two dudes who 'accidentally' build a time machine and the second one deals with traveling when people gets isolated wearing some kind of straitjacket. Both are really good films in their own right.

We hear all the time science fiction is surpassed by reality… examples? All around us: TV, internet, moon travels, microchips… bla, bla, bla. The real question here would it be… will we ever be able to travel in time? Are there the means and science to ever put a machine able to do so? If there was a chance, would you jump in? As always, please feel free to leave all your comments in the section below (don't be shy, you know you want to see your comment down there) and in the next entry I will post a shocking surprise… see you mid week!

Meanwhile watch this small vid where Michio Kaku explores the possibilities of time travel in terms 'for the rest of us'. What do you reckon?