Tag: stephen hawking

  • Let’s do the time warp again

    Hot Nerd Girl circa 1930

    I attended a friend’s birthday party over the weekend that had a 1930’s theme.  Next thing I know, I’m in a room full of gorgeously dressed gorgeous people in authentic 1930’s formal attire.

    Naturally that got me thinking about time travel.

    Time travel via giant donut

    Because, really, what nerd brain wouldn’t go straight to Captain Kirk in City on the Edge of Forever or Captain Picard on the holodeck in The Big Goodbye or Vic Fontaine crooning to the crew on any given episode of Deep Space Nine?  It’s only natural.

    Time travel is a common theme in science fiction.  It’s a convenient story line that can take up an entire episode or movie and be self-contained or expanded into a multiple episode story arc.  The possibilities are endless and the hardest part is making up some kind of space-time fluctuation to get our heroes to the time period needed.

    Back when Gene Roddenberry first envisioned his “wagon train to the stars,” he got together with some of the greatest scientific minds of the time to hash out all things science-based on his show.  He wanted to know exactly what could be done and how it could be done that was accurate and feasible.  In other words, he asked these scientists to look into the future and dish the dirt.

    The result has been the precursor to the cell phone, the hypospray, the modern computer, and so on and so forth.  Their predictions were so accurate that NASA named one of its space shuttles Enterprise to acknowledge the fact that Roddenberry and his cohorts were far ahead of their time and deserved to be recognized for it.  Every time I read an interview with an astronaut they claim to have been inspired by Star Trek.

    Fake astronaut, meet real astronaut. Real astronaut, meet fake astronaut.

    But what about their ideas on time travel?  Some of the earliest evidence of exploration on the topic comes from the 700’s BCE with the Sanskrit Epic Mahabharata.  In it, King Revaita travels to the heavens, meets God, and returns to discover that many years have gone by on Earth since he left and everyone he knows is long dead.  The Japanese tale Urashima Taro and Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle contain the same basic storyline of a lone traveler leaving and returning to find themselves in the future.  Even A Christmas Carol is a study of time travel. 

    Time travel in science fiction is often a paradox, a confusing mess of “what if’s.”  If I step on a butterfly in the past, will I alter human life in the future?  If I altered human life in the future, how could I have stepped on the butterfly in the past?  It’s a classic chaos theory or “butterfly effect.”  I’ve seen wormholes, time dilations, subspace temporal distortions, a transwarp corridor and a temporal casualty loop all used in the name of story telling.  But is time travel real?

    That'll do Scott Bakula, that'll do.

    Time travel does exist, just not in a way that is convenient for us to go back and tell our 20-year-old selves not to get drunk and sleep with so-and-so.  According to the theory of relativity, if I board a spaceship and start traveling away from Earth at a relativistic speed and then turn around and come back after a few years, more time would have passed on Earth than did for me on the spaceship.  Therefore, technically, I would be traveling into the future.  Einstein also theorized that it would be possible to travel into the past using specific types of motion in space. Folds in space time are another popular theory.  If space folds in on itself, then why can’t we skip from one fold to another?  One of my favorite books, The Last Legends of Earth by A.A. Attanasio goes into this in depth.  Ancient magic has been the inspiration for many time travel stories as well.  From Claire Randall going through ancient Druid standing stones in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, to Hermione’s Time Turner in Harry Potter, the possibilities are endless.

    It's true.

    Physicists all tend to have their own theories of what is and isn’t possible.  Stephen Hawking has been one of the biggest naysayers of most time travel theories.  Ironic, since science fiction writers like to use black holes as a time travel source and Hawking is the world’s leading expert on the phenomenon.

    If I could go back in time and attempt to change something, I’m not sure that I would.  I would love to have prevented some deaths I feel were unnecessary, but who am I to make that decision and change the course of history ala Quantum Leap?  Is it even possible to change it?  Maybe it would simply result in fate finding a way like in Final Destination.  Given the choice, I would much rather travel to the future.  I would love to see what the human race is able to accomplish 100, 200, 300 years from now.

    I promise I won’t step on any butterflies.

    Credit to ewallpapers.biz
  • Hello? Is there anybody out there?

    I’m inspired by last week’s news of the “Goldilock Planet” to write about extraterrestrial life and my absolute certainty that we are not alone in this universe.  If you haven’t read about it you can find it here: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/09/29/5202633-alien-planet-looks-just-right-for-life

    In another news story out this week, more than 120 ex-Air Force personnel claim to have seen UFO’s around their base in Montana. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/28/national/main6907702.shtml

    During these sightings their nuclear weapons would become deactivated.  A co-worker of mine who lived in the same area has testified to the existence of these mysterious lights and objects and claims to have seen them on multiple occasions.  Now, I don’t know if you know many people in the military.  My family happens to be full of them.  The ones I know are very by the book and honest to a fault.  They would never dream of saying something like this unless they believed it to be true.  Shit, they won’t even tell me most of what they did while in the service period.  The point being that these are most likely trustworthy fellows.  We’ll just ignore that whole Roswell debacle, shall we?

    My argument has been echoed by many over the years and is not nearly as original or revolutionary as I would like it to be, but here it is anyways:

    With a universe so vast, so filled with countless stars and planets, how is it possible that we would be all alone in it?

    What a terrible and lonely idea.

    There are many who believe that life on other planets is possible but is most likely microscopic.  If a planet can sustain water (even if frozen), it can sustain life, even if that life is smaller than the eye can see.

    There are others, like Stephen Hawking, who believe that other sentient beings are out there and will most likely destroy us when we come in contact with them.  Much as the settlers of the new world destroyed the indigenous peoples already living there.  As he so pointedly puts it, that “didn’t turn out very well” for them.  I think HG Wells and President Whitmore would agree.

    Professor Hawking soon learned his fears of aliens was unfounded once he met the women from Planet Amazonia…

    If we get lucky our first visitors will be like the Vulcans in Star Trek: First Contact.  Indifferently interested and willing to hook a brutha up with a tidbit of technology or two.  Some cosmic rims, if you will.  They will hold their superiority over us but that’s ok, we’ll form the United Federation of Planets and show them who’s boss.

    Who photobombed first contact with an alien race? Hot Nerd Girl photobombed first contact with an alien race.

    Of course, there’s always the option that we’ll destroy them.  Or at least persecute them a la The 9th District.  Or to a lesser degree, Alien Nation (hey, we let him become a cop, didn’t we?)

    So what are we humans to do when and if alien visitors arrive? Hide, welcome, or destroy?

    I’m in the “let’s hope they’re friendly and welcome them but kick their asses if they’re mean” camp.  But mostly, I’m in the “of course they’re out there” camp, whether we ever come in contact with them or not.  I just can’t bring myself to believe that we’re alone and if you do, that’s your egotistical and close-minded opinion and you have every right to believe it.

    Just don’t look at me when Mars Attacks! And you weren’t prepared bee-yatch.