So I finished the classic H.G. Wells "The Time Machine" today, as an audio book read by Kelsey Grammer . Fair warning this is a lot of science fiction talk, but bear with me: I think the time travel of "The Time Machine" is fundamentally flawed. He says time is the fourth dimension and to prove this he shows 4 photos of a man at different ages, proving that the man is traveling along the plane of time and we are seeing snap shots of that journey through time. Which means we had an idea of what the journey across that dimension looks like. He then says if we had a machine that allows us to control our speed along this plane of time, we can effectively travel through time. But in his example, the man ages as he travels across the plane of time. Which means if a machine could accelerate or even reverse our travel across time, then the man should age or de-age as he travels across the plane of time. It would be natural to assume then that he can only travel within the plane of time that his full lifetime exists in. So for example if his natural course is 87 years, he would simply die quicker with a time machine if he passed 87 years. In my mind then, H.G. Wells time machine could never work as a machine that accelerates time or reverses it, but only if it were a machine that could skip from point to point on the plane of time without travelling across it, otherwise the traveller would change age as he goes. As well, just like we as an object with dimensions are limited to our own height, width, and depth, we would be limited by our own dimension of time. The only way this kind of journey could happen then is if you had a machine to accelerate the universe's time or reverse it, not your own timeline. And how would you insulate the traveler from the effects of aging? We can travel across the other 3 dimensions without it affecting our own height, width, and depth, so I suppose that negates my last point, but across the dimension of time that we all co-journey together, we all do change as we go across that plane, so in that sense I think my last point remains valid. Whatever the case, I think the theory of a time a machine that travels across the dimension of time like a train track in a linear direction, is not as plausible as a time skipping machine which completely disappears in one place and appears in another without any accelerated or reversed journey, makes more sense. I suppose a time skipping machine would require quantum theory or something similar to Star Trek's transporter technology, but that's above my science fiction understanding ha ha. I highly recommend reading the Time Machine by H.G. Wells or listening to the audio book by Kelsey Grammer. Do you think H.G. Wells theory holds up? How do you think time travel could work? Or would it?
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Chris GreenI'm a children/youth minister who loves God and loves people. I'm doing my part to point myself and others to Jesus. Archives
March 2021
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