IS time travel now possible after all?
As part of school visits I do to talk about my sci fi adventure novel, Tomorrow's Guardian, I ask the children a question. I ask them if they THINK time travel is possible. The classes vary in their response. Some are practical minded and just say "no!" but in some classes we have a lively debate between those who think it is not possible, those they think it might be and some … like me … who perhaps wish it was.
The science
I go on to cover (in a light hearted way) the science behind the question. I get the children to take part in a couple of experiments to cover the real world knowledge.
I start with this man – Albert Einstein. Even 10 or 11 year olds usually know who he is (even if the odd child confuses him with the man who created a monster from dead people!). Some even know the words "theory of relativity." I do two activities to teach them the basics of this theory.
Firstly I have two children come out and pretend to be twins. One goes on a space voyage to the other side of the classroom whilst and the other stays on earth (usually popping behind my screen and gaining my grandads flat cap and walking stick and then emerging). The cards are "atomic clocks" which show the year for both of them
This "experiment" shows what happens if one man goes very fast and the other stays on earth. If you approach light speed time SLOWS down. One man ages whilst the other stays the same age.
I do another experiment having one child sit on the floor with a cloth and the other stand on a chair and we discuss what happens to clocks if one is at the bottom of a valley (in high gravity) and the other at the top of a mountain (in low gravity).
So by doing these I explain how Einstein tells us that Time Travel FORWARD in time is possible – travel fast in a high gravity environment and just like in the Planet of the Apes an astronaut would find himself in the future.
I then go on to discuss whether you can travel BACK in time. We discuss worm holes and the work of Professor Mallet in America who is actually experimenting with rotating laser beams to warp space-time.
In the end I usually conclude that sadly according to Einstein time travel backwards is NOT possible.
Then, ignoring the fact that time travel is not possible, we go onto have fun about paradoxes and adventures in time travel and to say what time period they would visit if they could go.
Game to demonstrate the grandfather paradox
But then, only a week ago, came some starting news:
Suddenly the scientists are saying they particles they are experimenting with SEEM to be going faster than light. Now because this is impossible, they frankly dont believe it themselves and have asked other scientists to tell them what they have done wrong.
HOWEVER IF and only IF something can go faster than light then suddenly the rules about time travel change. Einstein's theories show that something travelling faster than light would actually go backwards in time.
Not only that BUT suddenly Star Trek like exploration of the galaxy might JUST be possible.
I am a realist and feel that in the end some boring and mundane explanation will be found for all this that returns us to the status quo. But right now, for a brief time, we can dream about the possibilities that Time Travel might JUST be possible after all.
He had hardly settled back in his bed before he sat bolt upright again. Someone was moving about in his room. The light from the street lamp outside his bedroom window was now blocked by a tall, dark shape.
"Dad? Is that you?" Tom asked sleepily.
The figure moved closer but did not speak.
Tom yawned. "What's going on, Dad? What time is it?"
"Time?" came a man's deep voice, with an almost mocking tone.
Before Tom had registered that it was not his dad, the man leant over him.
"Time?" he repeated. "Why, Tom, it's any time you want it to be!"
