Time Travel

The recent news reported that scientists have claimed the discovery of sub-atomic particles apparently traveling faster than light. As such, Einstein’s special theory of relativity is being challenged. That also leads to some people rethinking about the possibility of time travel where the basic premise of which was travelling faster than light. Of course, it is still just talks for the moment as everything about time travel is very much way beyond what current level of science can do. Anyway, I’ve long been fascinated of the whole idea of time travel since I was a kid. Though I’m relatively more matured and rational these days, I still love to read anything about time travel every now and then. For those who are interested, just Google it or searches it on Youtube, there are a lot of materials that are entertaining as well as educational about this topic.

I’m no expert in talking about the scientific side of time travel, so those terms like wormhole, parallel universe, etc are totally beyond me. However, having reading or watching materials that related to time travel myself, I do have some thoughts about this topic myself that I guess nobody would care, but I just wanna talk about them here anyway.

The basic idea is that if time travel is possible and I am given the opportunity to do so, what I would think next?

I guess that the following would be questions that I would ask:

- Is the time travel process itself safe? I.e. would there be any health consequence, such as exposure to radiation or rapid aging?

- How long would it take to travel? Is that proportional to how far back the time that I wanna go? Cuz, let’s say if it take a month to travel back a year of time, I may not wanna go.

- How accurate is the time and destination of the process? Any ‘undo’ button?

- How to determine if the destination is safe in physical sense? Cuz that would basically determine the risk of travel. E.g. if the current place of destination is on land, but it was actually in the middle of ocean back then, I may sink into the ocean once I got there.

- Would I be able to come back? That’s the key question. If the answer is no, then, forget it.

- Given if I can come back, at what point I should/can come back to? Let’s say I begin my trip on Jan 1, 1pm. Should I come back on Jan 1, 1:01pm? Let’s say if I go back to the past and stay there for 24 hours, if I come back at the mentioned time, theoretically, I should age for 1 extra day which is not much. However, if I stay in the past for a longer period of time, then I may be much older suddenly when I come back to current time. That would be an issue.

- Also, can time travel allow me to go to future? Or just in the past?

- Can I bring something from the past to present or bring something from the present back to the past?

Actually, come to think of the above, particularly the last question, it is a very important one. I don’t know about the others, for me, the greatest attraction of time travel is to have a first person view of some historical events and the world in the past. My greatest concern, beside my own safety, is whether my presence in the past would have any butterfly effect to the world that would change history. Then, you may ask what could change history? I guess bringing something from the present or vice versa would do. Just imagine what would happen if I left a handgun 1000 years ago, or left an iPhone for Da Vinci to find. I think that I have the ability to suppress my temptation to bring something from the past to present as souvenirs. However, bring something from present to the past would be hard not to do, especially for keeping my safety sake. Yes, I can bring whatever I brought to the past back with me, but that can’t be for sure. The only way to make sure I will not leave anything in the past is not to bring anything. But, that would be a very tough decision to make, unless it is like in the ‘Terminator’ movie that only our naked body can travel through time and I can’t bring anything with me. But that would be too risky for me and also gives me the great concern on exactly by what mean I would use to travel through time. Is it a machine like a time capsule? Or else. Cuz, if such device exists, I can use it to travel back in time alright, but how can I find it in or carry that with me to the past which allow me to use it to come back? That’s a paradox itself.

Certainly, what I mentioned above are based on certain logical rationale. Actually, if there is such thing as time travel, I would rather be able to do that with my ‘soul’, rather than together with my physical body. Yes, it would be tempting to not just see and hear (assuming our soul can do them given that we don’t have the physical eyes and ears), but also touch and taste something in the past as well. For example, I would like to breathe the air, and taste the food and drink the water in the pre-industrialized world. However, for the sake of not putting my safety at risk, I wouldn’t mind to skip them. Cuz, how would I guarantee my personal safety in the past? The people there in the past may not be nice and naïve as we think, they could capture me out of fear or curiosity, and God knows what they would do to me next. As such, rather than having the chance of being just a passive observer of events, I would become a prisoner or victim myself due to my presence. That would certainly be a ‘no-no’ outcome I would try my best to stay away from. Thus, I think the best way, or I would say my preferred way to time travel must be doing that with my soul only. So, I can see what I wanna see without creating any karma for being in the past events.

Well, if all the concerns that I mentioned above can be properly addressed, then here it comes the exciting part of what I really wanna see in the past. There are some many things that I wanna see for myself that I doubt I would have time to see them all given that I am still a mortal being for God sake. Even if just my soul travels, my body would still age, and even if my body can be frozen somehow to stay young, the current world with people that I know will sail on without me. I guess I don’t wanna miss them. So, I’ve picked the following ten events, not ranked by any means that I wanna see if my soul can do time travel.

1. Jesus was taken up into the heaven 40 days after his resurrection – I really wanna see this, perhaps the most important historical and religious figure in last two millenniums. He did so many miracles, but for give and take, I would choose to see his ‘really’ final act on earth.
2. Roswell UFO crash – enough controversies as a result of this incident, I gotta see this myself for the craft, bodies, and all the other stuffs first hand on site.
3. Last stone being put on top of Giza the Pyramid – I think witnessing how the last stone was being installed should answer how pyramids were built.
4. A few hours tour on Atlantis – just wanna see how advance this mythical continent was.
5. A tour of the tombs of first emperor of China and Genghis Khan – just wanna see if what were written in history books were true or not.
6. See T-rex and other dinosaurs for real – enough said.
7. See Da Vinci drawing Mona Lisa – to see the most intelligent person known to modern civilization to draw the most recognized painting of all time.
8. See the Apollo moon-landing in 1969 – just wanna see if it is the greatest hoax or achievement of modern history.
9. Attend the whole Bilderberg meeting or Bohemian Grove meeting in 2011 – just wanna hear the richest and most powerful to discuss the latest on how they will run our world.
10. See my granddad who I’ve never seen myself, and my parents when they were young – gotta take the chance for something personal.

Would you wanna see something else?