Back To The Future?

As a science fiction fan, I was always a big fan of time travel. I used to (still do!) read up or listen to each and every lecture on time travel. There has been no dearth of such movies coming in as well. I recently saw Looper, which was based on the concept of time travel. A well made movie, I must say, regardless of all the loopholes and paradoxes involved. Anyway, coming back to the eternal questions- Is time travel possible? If so, how? Can we travel to our past or into the future? In this post, with ample assistance from Messrs. Einstein and Hawking, I will attempt to tackle a few of those queries.

Believe it or not, the concept of time travel was first introduced by Einstein back in 1905. In his superhit 'General Theory of Relativity', he introduced the concept of the fourth dimension. We all know any point can be measured in three dimensions (x, y, z). Einstein proposed that there is yet another dimension, which along with the other three, will determine the exact position of the point. Yes folks, that quantity is 'time'. He said that since time itself is a variable (not constant as we all thought), there exists four dimensions - space (x, y, z) and time (t). Together, he called it space-time (t, x, y, z). He also proposed that space-time is a curved, or warped fabric. To understand this, consider a thin rubber sheet suspended in mid-air. Let us suppose this sheet is the space-time fabric. Now, when we place a ball on top of this sheet, the sheet will bend downwards (curve) under the mass of the ball. The ball here is equivalent to a star, or any other heavenly body. Hence, a star causes the space-time fabric to curve. Higher the mass of the star, higher the curve in space-time. This was later proved by numerous experiments. So, according to Einstein, if we can curve space-time sufficiently, we can travel through time.

Okay, hold on now! How is that even possible? Enter Prof. Stephen Hawking. In one of his hugely popular lectures, he touched on the topic of 'wormholes'. A wormhole is a point in the space-time fabric, which theoretically is a gateway to another dimension, a parallel universe. It is basically a gap in space-time, which can transport us through time. Hawking proposed that wormholes are all around us (there may be one right next to where you are sitting!). However, they are too tiny to have any significant impact. Any thing, if looked under the microscope, will have small holes or gaps, or a crack. Same is true of space-time. It has tiny cracks all over, which are all potential wormholes. Hawking said that if we can somehow enlarge those wormholes sufficiently, we can use them to travel to the past!

So let us dwell a bit on the topic of traveling to the past. As mentioned earlier, if we can enlarge those gaps in space-time, we can travel to the past. However, according to Hawking, there would be so much radiation and electromagnetic waves going in and out of the wormhole, that the wormhole will collapse within a few milliseconds of its formation. Bad luck folks! It seems like wormholes are highly unstable, and cannot be used for time travel. Well, at least not today. Okay, so let us suppose in the future, we do build a device that can stabilize a wormhole. This would make time travel to the past possible. However, if that is true, why don't we have visitors from the future coming in, and sharing that knowledge? It is human nature to show off, so surely travelers from the future would have come here to boast!

Also, there are many paradoxes involved in traveling to the past. Let us take a simple one. Suppose a scientist successfully creates a wormhole that takes him one minute into the past. He comes out and notices his old self standing. He then shoots down his old self. How, then, can he justify himself being there?

Let us take another interesting one. Let us say a scientist wants to build a time machine which will take him into the future. He tries a lot, but remains unsuccessful. Suddenly, there appears an old visitor from the future. He teaches the young scientist how to build the machine. Thrilled, the scientist travels to the future, and spends several years there, enjoying himself. He then realizes that he should share this knowledge with the people in the past. So, he uses his machine to travel to the past. On reaching there, he finds his younger self, sitting and wondering how to build the machine! This would mean that he has taught himself how to build the machine. If that is so, where did the original idea of building the machine come from?

According to Hawking, this is against the laws of nature. The 'effect' can never precede the 'cause'. That is not how nature works. Considering all these points, time travel to the past seems impossible, or at most, highly unlikely.

What about the future then? We can at least go there, right? Yes, we can! All we need to do, is go fast. Really, really fast. Einstein proved that mass is directly related to time. Time tends to move faster when we are closer to a massive object. This means that if a few of us decided to live in space, we would age slower than those living on earth (since we would be further away from the earth's mass). If we come back from space after a few years, we would notice that all others have aged more than us. In fact, the clocks on the satellites orbiting earth need to be corrected everyday to account for the time lag on earth. However, the difference is actually negligible.

Now, let us get to the moving fast part (who doesn't like speed!). Hawking says that all we need to do to travel into the future, is to move close to the speed of light (easier said than done, professor!). In his lecture, he gave the following hypothetical scenario - Let us say we build a train line, for a superfast train. This line goes all around the earth in a circle. A few brave souls decide to board this train. The train starts its journey around the earth, and slowly starts gathering speed. After some time, it almost reaches the speed of light. This would mean that it is making seven revolutions around the earth per second! At this scary speed, time would slow down considerably inside the train. Let us suppose the train keeps going around the earth for 100 years (who will bear the ever-rising fuel expenses?). For the people inside the train, only one week would have passed! That is the extent to which time would have slowed down! When they finally come out from the train, they would be effectively transported 100 years into the future. Awesome, right? Yes, surely, but the practicality is questionable at this point, or is it?

We already have a similar structure in place underground, which is accelerating particles at the speed of light! The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is emulating time travel as we speak! And what's more, the particles inside the LHC which are traveling at the speed of light, are decaying slower then they would have normally done!  Importantly, it shows us that Einstein was correct all along. Time is not constant for everyone as we previously thought. It is a variable which depends on a number of factors, including mass and speed. This makes time travel possible (Yay!).

The brilliant mind of Stephen Hawking deduced another interesting theory. Our universe is filled with dark beasts, creatures that swallow up everything in their path. They are called black holes. Black holes are super-massive points in space with infinite gravity. Such is the strength of its pull, that even light cannot escape from it. More importantly, due to the fact that it is super massive (normally a million times the mass of our sun), it curves space-time so much that standard laws of physics fail there. As Einstein, had pointed out, since it curves the space-time fabric considerably, this makes a black hole a natural time machine.

If we think along similar lines and someday are able to create a sustainable mini black hole on earth, we would effectively create a portal to travel through time. Of course, to create such a mini black hole is no easy task, not to mention putting our entire existence at risk! Moreover, it would be a one-way ticket into the future, with no way back to the present. Nevertheless, it provides yet another possibility of time travel.

I am sure you have noticed that I have always questioned the practicality of each scenario. You may think that all the above scenarios are impossible to create. However, science is constantly evolving. We have passed through the phase when the earth was thought to be flat, when the universe was thought be to stationery, when the earth was thought to be the center of the universe, so on and so forth. Hence, it is safe to think that at some point down the line, we may be able to put these theories into practice.

The bottom-line, though, is that time travel is theoretically possible. We are now poised at the threshold of the unknown, with infinite possibilities ahead of us. Hopefully one day, we would be able to book our tickets to the future. For now, let us keep using the only method of time travel available - sleep! Close your eyes, and when you open them after a nap, whoosh, you are transported a few hours into the future!

The following limerick does justice to everything we discussed in this post:

There was a young lady of Wight,
Who traveled much faster than light,
She departed one day,
In a relative way,
And arrived on the previous night.

Cheers!

Understanding The Human Mind...

It has always been our staunch belief, that there is a clear separation between our mind and the physical world. It is always taken for granted, that in order to influence the physical world, we need to make physical contact with the object in question. But over the last few decades, a new question has come up - Is the human mind powerful enough to affect the physical world? Most of us would wave this question off with a sympathetic smirk and disbelieving eyes. But recent scientific experiments have shed a new light. We have begun to see, or rather, we have just begun to comprehend the awesome power of the human mind.

Welcome to the world of Noetic Science, a branch of science dedicated in providing scientific proof for psychic phenomena.  According to Dean Radin, senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Science, and the author of The Noetic Universe- the human mind is not only a collection of millions of neurons and cells, but it is clearly distinct from the physical body.

Have we not felt the tingling sensation that something bad is about to happen just before it actually happens (intuition) ? Have we never felt the sensation of being stared at, even though there is nobody around (evil-eye) ? Has it never happened, that the moment you think of a person who is close to you, the phone rings and it is the same person on the line (telepathy or ESP) ? These are just a few of many such experiences felt by millions of people around the world. There are reports that people see things before they actually happen, for example, the assassination of President Kennedy had flashed before the eyes of his good friend just a minute before it actually happened. Then there is the incident where a couple was watching a baseball game on television. Suddenly, scenes from a famous Hollywood movie flashed before the wife's eyes, and she had a feeling her husband was thinking the same thing. When she asked her husband, he told her that he was thinking about scenes from the exact same movie! Another incident is where a woman woke up suddenly from sleep, as if from a bad dream. She felt a sharp pain on her upper lip, as if there was a cut with blood oozing out. She dabbed her lips gently with her hands and was surprised to find no blood. It was ten minutes later that her husband came home. He had gone out fishing and in the process he had hurt his upper lip, a huge gash had formed there with blood oozing out! There are many reports of distant healing, or healing by touch. A man had a malignant tumor in his brain and he was due for a very risky operation the next day. At night, he asked his friend to pray for him. The friend prayed all night for the man and his well-being. The next day, when the man went for his operation, the doctor was surprised to find that the brain tumor had disappeared and there was no trace of it whatsoever!

Noetic scientists have performed numerous experiments and tried to replicate the above and related cases in their lab. They have come to the astounding conclusion that such psychic phenomena are indeed a reality, and can even be proved scientifically. They have experimented on telepathy (putting thoughts in someone else's mind), clairvoyance (visions of things happening thousands of miles away), intuition (seeing the future instinctively), mind over matter (influencing the physical world through our mind), distant healing (the power of positive energy), and many such psychic phenomena; and have gathered enough evidence to prove that they truly exist. According to Dean Radin - Our mind operates mainly on a filtering mechanism. When we perceive the physical world, our senses dominate our mind and such psychic phenomena are filtered out from our mind. When, we put ourselves in sensory deprivation state, similar to sages and monks, our mind is unable to filter out the subtle phenomena and we have greater control over our psychic abilities.  It has indeed been shown in controlled scientific experiments, that when people are placed in a state of sensory deprivation, the ability to perform telepathy, etc increases by a thousand times in comparison to when they are placed in a normal environment.

Of course, skeptics are always there who deny the existence of such phenomena. But we should remember, that a few centuries ago, even gravity was considered an impossibility until Sir Isaac Newton proved otherwise. Before every scientific breakthrough, there has always been skepticism and disbelief about the said event. We are now venturing into a new world of science, which nullifies the distinction between the human mind and the physical world. We are only just starting to understand the human mind and its true nature. We have proved the existence of things which were believed to be folklore. In the words of Albert Einstein :

"All of us, who understand Physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future, is nothing but a stubbornly persistent illusion..."

Divine Intervention...

It is quite amazing how much impact one person can have on your life. Such an impact that it becomes hard to differentiate them as two different lives and two different souls. It is a seldom felt phenomenon and I am among the lucky ones to have the honour of feeling its true warmth.

Let me re-phrase my first sentence. I meant to say, that person not only impacts your life in a big way, but also becomes your life. Sounds strange? Then maybe you haven't felt it yet.

You truly start to believe that your life started the day that person came into your life. Before that day, there remains only a faint recollection of a meaningless existence. She came into my life like an angel sent from above, like divine intervention. I realized that heaven is not really a separate place, outside this world. I realized the meaning of my existence in this world. I realized that the sole meaning of my existence in this world was to bask in the warmth of love and care which she showered over me, to be with her forever till eternity.

Her voice is enough to eradicate all the tiredness of the day. Saying goodnight and hanging up the phone becomes the hardest and the most impossible thing to do each night! If I find myself in a tough situation, I know I can overcome it just because she believes I can. No matter how dark the tunnel, she is always there to hold my hand and lead the way into brightness.

English language fails miserably to find enough words to describe her. She is like the first rays of sunlight after a week of snowfall. She is like the cool wind blowing across the seashore at night. She is like a candle when the power goes out. She is like the first sip of water after fasting for a day. She is like an oasis in a vast desert. She is my life, my soulmate, my heart, my everything...

My sweet angel, I will be lost without you. Just stay with me forever. I need you at each and every step of my life, in each and every moment of my life. Thanks for blessing my life with infinite happiness and love. I am there for you...forever...n ever...n ever....

The Enigma Called 'Time'...

Let's face it. If we are sitting for an examination, and the next question says 'Define time', almost all of us would stare blankly at the paper for some time, chew the end of the pen in thought, utter a perplexed sigh, put the paper down and go home!

What is time? This is something even the greatest minds have scratched their heads over.  Did time have a beginning? It is said time began when the universe was born. How do we know that? Was there anyone present there to verify this fact? Okay, to be on the safer side, let us say time was born when we felt the need to keep track of things, to create memories. We needed something to remind us about the occurrence of certain events and our age in this world. This train of thought leads to the conclusion that time was man-made. Now, they say - 'Time and tide wait for none.' Does it mean that man created something he didn't have control over?  I cannot fathom the logic of such a creation. Reminds me of Dr. Frankenstein creating his monster, and then losing all control over it! Quite intriguing...

Let us now explore other possibilities. It is also said by some, that time neither has a beginning, nor an end. It is us who are perishable, not time. Well, that justifies the 'no control over time' theory. Time has a mind of its own. Time is the most punctual thing there ever existed. Time is equal for everything that exists in this universe. I find it fascinating. Nothing in this universe can escape the grasps of time. Why is it then that when I ask my friend to watch a movie with me, he replies 'I don't have time'? Quite fascinating...

We have accepted time as an important part of our lives without fully understanding its meaning. We have used it to instill order and method in our lives, to induce discipline among chaos. In recent times, we have challenged time as well. We have attempted to freeze time, by taking photographs and forever stopping that moment in time. We now know we can slow down time by traveling at the speed of light. We are trying to build time machines, to try and reverse the monotonous course of time ( though I wonder what would happen if I go back in time and kill one of my ancestors. How would I justify my existence there to kill him in the first place?). Wait, did I refer to time as monotonous? I wonder, then, what people mean when they say 'Time has changed now.' Quite interesting...

But, are we any closer to finding out the true meaning of time? I think not. It has become such a part and parcel of our lives now that we no longer care about its definition. Well, with all these thoughts, I bid adieu for now and say 'time out!!'... :)

Initiation...

Imagine trying to locate the Earth while having the whole universe in front of you. It is worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack! The Earth is but a speck of dust in the vastness know as the universe.
Imagine now, that you are on Earth. Doesn't seem like a speck of dust now, does it?

Well, I felt something along the same lines when I signed up here. Millions of people spread across like stars in the seemingly infinite vastness of Blogsphere. Would I end up as insignificant as a speck of dust in this overwhelming and limitless world? But, when i finally had my own space after signing up, I sat back and admired the genius of Albert Einstein. Ah! the theory of relativity. All my fears of getting trampled as a speck of dust vanished when I saw the enormity of my own space, my own Earth. It is amazing how much difference the observation point can make!

It was in utter awe and incredulity that I was initiated into this magical world. Here's to a new start.....