For ages I've held the belief that time travel is impossible based solely on the basis that if it were, there would be people from the future all over the place. Being irritating, and buying up all the shares in Miscosoft and 120 Things in 20 years.
And tourists.
Doing exactly what we would do if we could go back in time.
From fire, to the gun, to nukes, it's a given that eventually everyone with a screwdriver will eventually have the tech to make anything that can be made.
That was always my proof for why time travel was impossible. If it was possible, someone from the future would have come back and stolen my teeth or something because of some kind of future shortage of calcium... whatever.
But....
Someone interested in CERN made the comment that, like the telephone, perhaps time travel needs a second handset to be useful.
The first phone wasn't very useful until the second one was made.
"Hello? Saluton? Ahoy hoy'? Nope it simply doesnt work. It must be impossible."
What if people from the future cant come back to the past until a time machine is invented, and we leave a note to the future saying where it is, and when it will be switched on?
I still don't think we will be seeing visitors from the future, but I'm kicking myself for not thinking about the possibility that the only reason we don't see them now is because we haven't got around to building the other end of the connection.
How can I form an argument against something without all the facts?
Let that be a lesson to me.
When trying to learn 120 things in 20 years, and thinking about being annoyed at myself, I sometimes get annoyed at myself.
Hey, check out Primer, the Indie flick. One of the few non-annoying time travel movies out there, and it wrestles with just the musing you've posted here.
ReplyDeleteCool, thanks.
ReplyDeleteAnd...
It's great to see another website as well developed as my future home for 120 things in 20 years
:)
have a look at odolobo.com to see the uncanny similarities :)
LOL - kinda like my http://creuzer.com/
DeleteI've always used the same argument that it's either impossible or too expensive (energy wise [aka need to suck a star dry] or paradox wise) to travel backwards in time.
ReplyDeleteI kinda like the idea that that you need 2 to make it work, so time travel would only possible to go backwards up until the first machine was invented, and no earlier. Makes you wonder what would happen if the first one was destroyed? With no machine available to 'catch', you would have time travel blackout dates.