2008: A Time Odyssey

Time and travelling through time has been the subject of books, film and theatre for years. The theories are numerous and prophecise trips back in time or sudden total destruction. All of this has been entirely hypothetical, until now.

Two Russian mathematicians have speculated that the Large Hadron Collider being built at the CERN nuclear research centre in Geneva could plausibly develop the correct conditions needed for time travel. Irina Aref'eva and Igor Volovich claim that once the Collider is turned on there is a good chance that tiny wormholes will be created.

This is an important step in the quest for time travel. A wormhole is essentially a shortcut through space and subsequently, time. It is so called due to the nature of the analogy used to describe it. In essence if space is considered in the same way we view the skin on the outside of an apple, for a worm to go from one side to the other it would have to crawl around the outside. A quicker and shorter route would be for the worm to tunnel through the core to the other side. This is a basic and very short analogy, but in the study of Physics, it is a disputed method to transverse long distances in a short time and also time itself. For more on this I would recommend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormholes.

If the comments by Irina Aref'eva and Igor Volovich hold true this would be the first known creation of a time machine in human history. To this extent it has been heralded as the "Point Zero" of time travel, and this is where the next weeks and months become far more interesting. In accordance with the technological advances in the past which changed and modified our existence, this could well be the small discovery which causes a future of technological development in this field. It could be the Archimedes Eureka moment, the start of what could become as common as owning a car or flying by plane. If this is to be true it could also mean something even more exciting.

The unfortunate limitation of the history book is that words can only conjure an image in the mind's eye. For what is a Viking in one persons mind is most likely not the same in another’s. We can glimpse history through archaeology but only in a limited way. This could be about to change.

If the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider does in fact create a backward looping wormhole, even on a molecular scale, this would be the focus point for future generations. Think of it like being given the option to study about John Logie Baird and also being able to go back and actually witness his work. It is for this same reason it is hypothesised that dwellers of the future could theoretically come here to our time to witness the creation of the first time machine. If they are likely to it should realistically happen around the time of the switching on.

This in itself eclipses the use and study for which the Large Hadron Collider was built. The imagined possibilities are causing excitement, the chance to interact with a future time. But there are issues. Firstly the wormhole premise is at present possible on a molecular level, but is widely regarded as incapable of being created (even with enough energy) to transport anything worthwhile. Secondly there is as ever a time conundrum. If upon the creation of this basic time machine there is an almost instantaneous appearance of dwellers from the future, it indicates that now there is an element of pre-destination to the 'appearees' life. It would be apparent that time travel stems from this research and subsequently indicates that even by not trying to create a better method, one would (because it has) occur anyway.

Alternatively the flaw with this theory also indicated that should no appearance occur, does it mean that time travel is impossible or that the experiment was not high up on the scale of "History Tours" for future dwellers? Baffling as the science and theory tries to make this; I sadly have to confess that I believe that when that machine is switched on nothing overly exciting will occur.

This is not to indicate that I am cynical of such technology. I am certainly not narrow-minded by any stretch of the imagination. But to proclaim such a leap in modern existence without any real study leaves this entirely as conjecture. It falls into the same area as Nessie and Bigfoot. Theories which have elements of plausibility, but empirically just aren't there.

So if by any chances you are reading this in 2108 and are using my online blog as reference material trying to find what indeed made me the world's greatest writer, thinker and theologian, why not just come and see me instead?