STEPHEN HAWKING: How to build a time machine

Daily Mail ^ | 05/05/2010 | Stephen Hawking

[SeekAndFind]

Hello. My name is Stephen Hawking. Physicist, cosmologist and something of a dreamer. Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free. Free to explore the universe and ask the big questions, such as: is time travel possible? Can we open a portal to the past or find a shortcut to the future? Can we ultimately use the laws of nature to become masters of time itself?

Time travel was once considered scientific heresy. I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a crank. But these days I'm not so cautious. In fact, I'm more like the people who built Stonehenge. I'm obsessed by time. If I had a time machine I'd visit Marilyn Monroe in her prime or drop in on Galileo as he turned his telescope to the heavens. Perhaps I'd even travel to the end of the universe to find out how our whole cosmic story ends.

To see how this might be possible, we need to look at time as physicists do - at the fourth dimension. It's not as hard as it sounds. Every attentive schoolchild knows that all physical objects, even me in my chair, exist in three dimensions. Everything has a width and a height and a length.

But there is another kind of length, a length in time. While a human may survive for 80 years, the stones at Stonehenge, for instance, have stood around for thousands of years. And the solar system will last for billions of years. Everything has a length in time as well as space. Travelling in time means travelling through this fourth dimension.

[MarkL]

The concept that time moves at varying speeds was almost heretical back in Einstein's day. But, there it is, proven completely accurate. Just because science is unable to prove a particular theory accurate do to technological limitation, doesn't necessarily mean the theory is flawed, even though it may contradict well-accepted scientific and philosophical principles.

Exactly! And it even hits us with "real world" issues. For instance, when GPS was first implemented, there were problems with the coordinates shifting dramatically, all the time. It turned out that the clocks on the GPS satellites and on the earth actually run at slightly different speeds, due to the difference in gravitational force on the earth's surface, vs in orbit at about 12,500 miles.

Mark

[Carl LaFong]

“All you need to time travel is an Infinite Improbability Drive.”
And lots of duct tape.

[Caipirabob]

The time machine concept is very interesting, however I'd hesitate to assume too many constants in the universe, such as the position of the planet. Sure, maybe you get it to work and it takes you from your present location and places you in the exact same position 100 years ago. Not accounting for the expansion of the universe, you suddenly find yourself in the empty vacuum of space.

And I assure you, that would suck.

[MarkL]

TIME TRAVEL QUOTES:

"Time is natures way of keeping everything from happening at once."

Mark

[DJ Frisat]

"It’s official: he is a crank."

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to agree with you.

Looks like Obama's teleprompter programmers have hijacked Hawking's text-to-voice machine...

[nevergiveup]

Once again, Hawkins delivers a big pile of nothing.

This article is virtually plagerized from Gamov's Mr. Tompkins in Wonderland which was written in the 1930s or 1940s. (recently updated a decade or so ago)

P.S. Its a great little book for kids.

P.P.S. Heck, I once needed to urgently solve a problem with an ongoing experiment and the only reference I had at the moment was this little story book. It saved the day.

[Retired Greyhound]

Amen.

[El Sordo]

Innerestin’.

[HushTX]

[i]Looks like Obama’s teleprompter programmers have hijacked Hawking’s text-to-voice machine...[/i]

A sign of things to come:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bueZoYhUlg

[HushTX]

I always forget which websites use which input style for html.... <> [] ugh. Pretend I got that right, ok?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

“All you need to time travel is an Infinite Improbability Drive.”

Actually, the IID allows you to pass through all points in the universe simultaneously...a highly improbable event. It's not a time travel device, as such.

BTW...how many people understand (or have expressed understanding) of the meaning of your screen name?

[TexasFreeper2009]

I have a really simple reason for believing that time travel (at least to the past) will ever be possible....

If it were EVER possible, then people from the future would be visiting the past constantly. There is no way the technology could be contained, anymore than the secret to the atomic bomb could be.

[KoRn]

/mark

[GreenOgre]

Yes. He forgot to give his thanks and praise to Odin.

[Starstruck]

Maybe everything is happening at once.

[USMCPOP]

If I had a time machine, I’d sell it on Craigslist. I might test it out by going back in time and buying a cheap tank of gas, but them I’d have to remember when unleaded gas came out so I wouldn’t screw up my catalytic converter.

[SuperLuminal]

Hmmm...I just read this same post 16 years from now...

Living here in MD near the most massive black a_hole in the universe has really screwed things up...

Unfortunately for Hawking's mind experiment, driving around the beltway always accelerates (not slows) time for those in a vehicle. Every 5-10 minutes during rush hour your life flashes before your eyes in an instant...

[Andonius_99]

...and a towel...

[reagan_fanatic]

"It's a decroded piece of crap!!"

[Jim W N]

Perhaps I'd even travel to the end of the universe to find out how our whole cosmic story ends.

Variation on the same theme. No need to invent a time machine and go the end of the universe to see how our story ends. Just go to end of the Bible. It's all there.