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Abstract

he last fifty years, waiting inherently; such simplicity.For whatever reason, the switch in my brain clicked at that moment, and I finally realized that at least based on our present understanding of reality and logic, time travel to the future is impossible. Why? Doris Day told us in that song all those many years ago. It’s simply “not ours to see.” It hasn’t happened yet. Nothing exists there; nothing for us to see.When I refer to the future, I am referring to tomorrow, next week, next century. That’s the future that I am proposing to be unavailable for travel at this time.There is, though, another version of time travel that is possibly available to us but only to the past and it requires just a bit more work.<h2 id="44eb">A reference to Terrance McKenna</h2>There’s an episode of Coast to Coast AM that I have listened to several times. Coast to Coast AM is a late-night talk-radio show that specializes in topics like Space, Time, Secret Societies, Climate Change, and basically anything to do with the Paranormal. The episode I have referenced originally aired on May 22, 1997, and was the first of several interviews with Terrance McKenna, a person that Art Bell (host and founder of Coast to Coast) described as . . .<blockquote id="58ad">“a very interesting fellow.”</blockquote>Art Bell and Terrance McKenna (both deceased now) developed a friendship that probably started on the night of that interview. It is an amazing four-hour interview and can be found in several podcast formats (some are available for free download). The interview featured McKenna’s interesting, self-titled theory, Time Wave Zero.The part of the interview that relates to this article is his reference to the acceptance that time travel to the past was already possible. When responding to a caller’s question on time machines, McKenna says . . .“It's been known since 1948, there was a paper by Kurt Gödel with a scheme for time travel that would work. It simply requires that you spin a cylinder half the size of the solar system at the speed of light. But everybody agreed that if you could do that, and then travel along its transverse axis, that you would be moved backward into time.”Of course, McKenna recognized the complexity and near impossibility of achieving such a thing. He went on to reference the breakthroughs in technology, comparing the jump from the vacuum tube to the more modern Pentium (modern for 1997). He went on to call anything based on Gödel’s pape

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r a . . .<blockquote id="83af">“very Rube Goldberg approach to time travel.”</blockquote><h2 id="ff47">Not quite the time machine I was looking for</h2>Nice to know, however, that travel to the past may still be possible. That’s what I’ve been after all along, anyway. My mom passed when I was nine years old. There’s a few times before she got sick that I’d love to revisit. There’s a couple with my father, as well. He died when I was twenty-seven. One scene in particular with him I’d love to see.I’d been asleep that day, working nights. At that time, we lived about sixty miles away. He was in town and had stopped by to see his grandson (who’d just turned two). He wouldn’t let my wife wake me because he knew too well the rigors of the midnight shift. I talked to him on the phone a few days later and he told me about sitting on the floor with my son, playing catch with a small red and white ball. He was so proud. That’s a scene I wouldn’t mind seeing. He passed away a couple of weeks after.That’s the time machine I’ve always been after, one you can step inside of and instantly be in the past of your choosing. I would even want to see an earlier time than my own life.Here in the U.S., the fifties were always known as that decade after the war when everything was starting to come together, idyllic scenes of family and sun-filled days in neighborhoods where streets were lined with maple and elm trees. It’s the decade that my parents attended high school, the decade that my grandfather rose to prominence as a state senator; several scenes I’d like to visit.<h2 id="5bbf">In closing</h2>When I first thought about writing this article, I never imagined it would take me back to the past, back to times when I would ride with my mother on her errands through town . . . those long-ago weekday mornings. That’s the beauty of writing. We would routinely visit a small grocery store. I remember the lingering smell of bacon that was sliced there each morning, the black and white tiles of the floor.That song did much more than revelate me on the possibilities of time travel. In itself, it brought me to this point in time, a point where I try to peer into my own memories, try to picture myself and my mother in a time so far gone from today, a totally different world that remains frozen only in memory.I think that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s the best thing time travel can offer me, and I think I can be happy with that . . . for now, anyway..</article></body>

Time Travel: A Personal Revelation on My Favorite Curiosity

Based on our present understanding of reality and logic

Recently, an old song got caught in my mind. I began whistling it, humming it, even singing it under my breath. You know how it goes: you try to forget it, that works for a few minutes, and bam . . . there it is again.

This time the tune led to a revelation on time travel. Sure, deep down everyone knows it’s just a fleeting idea filled with crazy thoughts and wild paradoxes.

Paradoxes are what make time travel impossible. For instance, the well-known grandfather paradox would enable you to erase your own existence by simply going back into time and killing your grandfather before he fathers one of your parents.

The catchy tune

I can remember it like yesterday, Doris Day and her sweet lilting voice, rich with vibrato coming through the speakers of our car’s radio as I tagged along with my mother on her errands. It’s hard for me to remember things from that far back, but for some reason, that song stayed with me, and sometimes it will make an unannounced airing at the most uninteresting of moments.

It happened one day at work: Doris Day, her voice alive in my head as I’m driving my clamp truck, picking up rolls of paper, stacking them in various places, picking up other rolls, loading them onto a truck, driving back to pick up more rolls, finding a place to stack them; just an average day at work, my body stuck in robot-mode, a random song stuck in my head . . . and it happened.

The revelation

I literally stopped in the middle of the warehouse, the chaos of the paper industry continuing around me: other clamp trucks zooming by, tractor-trailers leaving and entering the dock area, fresh rolls of paper popping off the elevator and rolling across the warehouse floor, waiting on me. Yet, I sit and listen to Doris . . .

“Whatever will be, will be . . . The future’s not ours to see . . . Que sera, sera.”

It was right there, embedded in those lyrics for the last fifty years, waiting inherently; such simplicity.

For whatever reason, the switch in my brain clicked at that moment, and I finally realized that at least based on our present understanding of reality and logic, time travel to the future is impossible. Why? Doris Day told us in that song all those many years ago. It’s simply “not ours to see.” It hasn’t happened yet. Nothing exists there; nothing for us to see.

When I refer to the future, I am referring to tomorrow, next week, next century. That’s the future that I am proposing to be unavailable for travel at this time.

There is, though, another version of time travel that is possibly available to us but only to the past and it requires just a bit more work.

A reference to Terrance McKenna

There’s an episode of Coast to Coast AM that I have listened to several times. Coast to Coast AM is a late-night talk-radio show that specializes in topics like Space, Time, Secret Societies, Climate Change, and basically anything to do with the Paranormal. The episode I have referenced originally aired on May 22, 1997, and was the first of several interviews with Terrance McKenna, a person that Art Bell (host and founder of Coast to Coast) described as . . .

“a very interesting fellow.”

Art Bell and Terrance McKenna (both deceased now) developed a friendship that probably started on the night of that interview. It is an amazing four-hour interview and can be found in several podcast formats (some are available for free download). The interview featured McKenna’s interesting, self-titled theory, Time Wave Zero.

The part of the interview that relates to this article is his reference to the acceptance that time travel to the past was already possible. When responding to a caller’s question on time machines, McKenna says . . .

“It's been known since 1948, there was a paper by Kurt Gödel with a scheme for time travel that would work. It simply requires that you spin a cylinder half the size of the solar system at the speed of light. But everybody agreed that if you could do that, and then travel along its transverse axis, that you would be moved backward into time.”

Of course, McKenna recognized the complexity and near impossibility of achieving such a thing. He went on to reference the breakthroughs in technology, comparing the jump from the vacuum tube to the more modern Pentium (modern for 1997). He went on to call anything based on Gödel’s paper a . . .

“very Rube Goldberg approach to time travel.”

Not quite the time machine I was looking for

Nice to know, however, that travel to the past may still be possible. That’s what I’ve been after all along, anyway. My mom passed when I was nine years old. There’s a few times before she got sick that I’d love to revisit. There’s a couple with my father, as well. He died when I was twenty-seven. One scene in particular with him I’d love to see.

I’d been asleep that day, working nights. At that time, we lived about sixty miles away. He was in town and had stopped by to see his grandson (who’d just turned two). He wouldn’t let my wife wake me because he knew too well the rigors of the midnight shift. I talked to him on the phone a few days later and he told me about sitting on the floor with my son, playing catch with a small red and white ball. He was so proud. That’s a scene I wouldn’t mind seeing. He passed away a couple of weeks after.

That’s the time machine I’ve always been after, one you can step inside of and instantly be in the past of your choosing. I would even want to see an earlier time than my own life.

Here in the U.S., the fifties were always known as that decade after the war when everything was starting to come together, idyllic scenes of family and sun-filled days in neighborhoods where streets were lined with maple and elm trees. It’s the decade that my parents attended high school, the decade that my grandfather rose to prominence as a state senator; several scenes I’d like to visit.

In closing

When I first thought about writing this article, I never imagined it would take me back to the past, back to times when I would ride with my mother on her errands through town . . . those long-ago weekday mornings. That’s the beauty of writing. We would routinely visit a small grocery store. I remember the lingering smell of bacon that was sliced there each morning, the black and white tiles of the floor.

That song did much more than revelate me on the possibilities of time travel. In itself, it brought me to this point in time, a point where I try to peer into my own memories, try to picture myself and my mother in a time so far gone from today, a totally different world that remains frozen only in memory.

I think that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s the best thing time travel can offer me, and I think I can be happy with that . . . for now, anyway.