Time Travel: Could It Happen?

FEBRUARY 24th, 2016

By LANA CARBON

Being a comic book nerd my entire life, I have long been interested in the subjects of time traveling and multiple dimensions. Ever since the iconic DC comics story of Crisis on Infinite Earths and Marvel’s entire What If…? line of comics, I have wondered about what lies beyond what we know of our lives as we are living them currently. The new show DC’s Legends of Tomorrow takes us through a temporal adventure which feeds my curiosity of timelines and the effect little changes can make.

I’m sure I’m not the only one. Who else hasn’t wanted to see their future, meet someone from the distant past or wondered what would have happened had you only made a different decision at some point in your life? I have been reading quite a few interesting articles lately about the topic and this started making me think deeply about the concept; when I began discussing it with John, we thought it would make an interesting blog post.

Now please keep in mind that we are in no means scientists and don’t claim to fully understand the processes of quantum physics, string theory or science in general. As such, we would greatly appreciate comments, corrections and clarifications to any topics we include in our thoughts here. Our only request is to keep any comments understandable to us non-scientific types. 

Time Travel - Is It Possible?

Putting aside the fact that we are constantly traveling into the future at the rate of an amazing one hour every hour (boring) or that we can technically see into the past every night while we are looking at the stars (e.g. the light we see from the North Star today originally shone 323 years ago), will it ever be possible to physically make jumps through time? This topic has been studied by the greatest minds of all time including Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

I don’t pretend to understand the effects that gravity and speed have on altering the rate in which time passes but according to my limited readings, it has something to do with Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity (that has recently hit the world wide news again with the gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes of which we now have physical evidence). What I did pick up from reading about this is that the closer to the speed of light we achieve, the slower time passes. The same can be said for proximity to sources of massive gravitational pull…like black holes. The downfalls here are that the faster something travels, the more mass it gains and the more energy necessary to maintain its speed (maintaining light speed would take the equivalence of half a galaxy’s energy) and the singularity of a black hole would merely crush us in its gravitational pull. Don’t lose hope yet though…enter Kerr Rings and the Einstein-Rosen Bridge (better known as wormholes). While both are theoretically possible, they are highly unstable and even if we could travel through them, the portal may close and never re-open1.While being stranded in time makes for a great story, I would argue that the reality of it would be nowhere nearly as entertaining.

(Above photo courtesy of Pearson Education Inc via Google.)

The Problems with Traveling to the Past 

One theory that stands out to me is from Stephen Hawking, who does believe in the existence of wormholes and the ability to travel through time to the future… but not into the past.

“This kind of time machine would violate a fundamental rule that governs the entire universe - that causes happen before effects, and never the other way around. I believe things can’t make themselves impossible. If they could then there’d be nothing to stop the whole universe from descending into chaos. So I think something will always happen that prevents the paradox.”

"In the end, I think a wormhole like this one can’t exist. And the reason for that is feedback. If you’ve ever been to a rock gig, you’ll probably recognise this screeching noise. It’s feedback. What causes it is simple. Sound enters the microphone. It’s transmitted along the wires, made louder by the amplifier, and comes out at the speakers. But if too much of the sound from the speakers goes back into the mic it goes around and around in a loop getting louder each time. If no one stops it, feedback can destroy the sound system.”

“The same thing will happen with a wormhole, only with radiation instead of sound. As soon as the wormhole expands, natural radiation will enter it, and end up in a loop. The feedback will become so strong it destroys the wormhole. So although tiny wormholes do exist, and it may be possible to inflate one someday, it won’t last long enough to be of use as a time machine.”

“Any kind of time travel to the past through wormholes or any other method is probably impossible, otherwise paradoxes would occur. So sadly, it looks like time travel to the past is never going to happen. A disappointment for dinosaur hunters and a relief for historians" 

                                                                           - Quotes by Stephen Hawking2

If this is indeed the case and travel to the future is possible, would we ever be able to verify the truth? Considering it would be a one-way trip because once in the future, it would become the present and the present would then be the past and if we can’t travel to the past, we couldn’t return to the present to let people know we went to the future.

I think I just confused myself.

…That being said, let’s forget about traveling forward in time for now.

Potential Outcomes of Successful Time Travel to the Past

Let’s put aside the ‘how’ for the time being (no pun intended) and assume that time travel is possible. What would the ramifications be of messing with the space-time continuum? This is where we pull off impressive terms like the Law of Causality. This is also known as Albert Einstein’s Theory of Cause and Effect. What if we were to create a scenario and imagine what might happen? The most obvious result of time travel is causing a time paradox.

One example of such a theory is known as the Hitler Paradox. By going back in time and killing Hitler before he could commit all of his atrocious acts, you would be erasing these deeds from history and hence the entire reason in which you traveled back to stop him in the first place. Therefore Hitler still continues on his familiar path because you didn’t go back to kill him. A secondary theory exists in relation to this one where the assassination is successful but the resulting changes actually make things worse (i.e. a more ruthless leader takes over and, through different choices, wins the war or without anyone invading, Stalin goes on the offensive and is the reason for World War II, etc.)

A more personal way to see the potential impact revolves around the time travel itself being somehow responsible for the death of one of your ancestors. While this is known as the Grandfather Paradox, I have changed it up just slightly to keep it original. For our purposes here let us use the example of accidentally hitting your grandmother with a car when she was still just a child.

Scenario 1 - Inconsistent Causal Loop (Similar to the Hitler Paradox)

With the woman who was to be your grandmother, dying before ever giving birth to your parent (the cause), her child (your parent) would never exist to give birth to you (the effect); meaning you would not have existed to travel back in time to hit this particular child (your grandmother) with a car. Events would occur as they always had.

Scenario 2 - Consistent Causal Loop AKA The Bootstrap Paradox

Before traveling back in time, your grandmother tells you the story of how she was nearly killed when she was hit by a car as a child. When you do make your temporal journey, you hit a girl with your car but the collision is only minor because you have your grandmother’s story fresh in your mind and are driving more slowly than usual. Your grandmother lives through the accident to not only become your ancestor but also to warn you time and again to slow down, therefore saving her life.

Scenario 3 - Post Selected Model AKA The Predestination Paradox

In this theory, potentially paradoxical events are avoided through probability fluctuations. What does this mean? Through highly unlikely circumstances, your grandmother would never be hit by the car. How this comes about could be nearly anything. Perhaps your car ran out of gas, or was hit by another vehicle, or even something less fantastical like someone calling her name causing her to turn back before the fatal moment. This theory leads into thoughts of predestined lives.

Scenario 4 - Parallel Universes

This time, when the girl is hit by the car, the timeline simply continues on from this point creating a completely divergent universe where a "you” will never exist. However, the person who ran over this child (you) were born in an alternate reality and hence carry on to live out your life. The rest of the world will maintain a similar (or parallel) course with only minor differences. However, if your grandmother or any of her descendants were famous, a world leader or important person in your own timeline, the changes in this new timeline could be quite substantial.

If anyone ever does figure out the science behind traveling through time, these paradoxes make me wonder if it would even be worth the trip. The majority of these scenarios lead to absolutely nothing happening any differently than it has already occurred. The last possibility that I mentioned would indeed change your own personal history but not that for any of your family and friends from your original timeline. At least this option provides a hint of hope while producing many more questions that would require equally elusive answers.

I must say, on a personal note, the last potential scenario of traveling into the past is my favourite theory. I like the idea of multiple versions of us all running around, living out our dreams. Of course, that probably means other versions of us might be exactly like us and then a few may even live in a nightmare world. The possibilities are seemingly endless. I do believe in multiple dimensions and wonder if time travelers are the ones responsible for them. Who knows…I like to imagine that maybe, just maybe, in some fantastic world out there we might even be super heroes.

Sources

1How Stuff Works: How Time Travel Works

2Stephen Hawking “Time Travel to the Future is Possible”

For an Interesting Read

The Big Séance Blog by Patrick Keller: Be the Spirit Guide to Your Younger Self

Magical Mushrooms

FEBRUARY 17th, 2016

By LANA CARBON

Take a trip with me (I’d ask you to close your eyes but that might make reading a little difficult). Imagine that you are lying in bed in the middle of the night. You are sleeping soundly until you hear a commotion outside. Your dogs, which are exceptionally well behaved, begin barking incessantly. You rise from your bed to see why but there appears to be nothing at all. The dogs have stopped just as suddenly as they began so you decide to return to your bed. You no more than let your head hit the pillow when the dogs go crazy again but this time it is different…they are whining. You spring from under the covers and rush outside. The dogs are visibly shaken but again there was no hint as to the cause. You spend a few moments calming the animals down before returning to bed. The remainder of the night is uneventful.

The morning comes too soon but there are tasks to be accomplished. You get ready for a day of chores around the house. You go outside and prepare to mow your lawn. As you are riding your lawn tractor, it stalls out and won’t restart. You push it towards your workshop. Trying to turn the engine again, it roars to life as though nothing had ever happened. Baffled but excited that it is working; you try to finish cutting the grass. As you return to the spot where you left off, the tractor sputters and dies once more. This time something catches your eye. Some wild mushrooms have grown in a circular pattern in the middle of the yard where none had been before and the lawn tractor was right in the centre of them. Is this a coincidence? You push the mower outside the circle and it starts right up. What is going on?

The ring of mushrooms that appeared overnight.

This is the situation that my friend, Micah Leythe* (*pseudonym) brought to me that day in the summer of the early 2000’s. He took a few pictures but was unable to show them to me as his battery had died. I told him that I would come over as soon as I possibly could since I was working at the moment and couldn’t leave with customers in the store. He left to return home telling me that he was going to recharge the camera battery so that I could see the pictures when I arrived.

The advantage of owning your own business is that you can sometimes slip away in the slow times and that is exactly what I did. Since my friend lived just down the road, I grabbed my camera and drove over to his house. I pulled into the driveway and noticed the circle of mushrooms right away. I was in awe at the size of them. They were huge considering the short period of time since they had first been seen. The circle was easily 9-10 feet in diameter.

Micah Leythe, at 6’2”, lying in the circle showing the size of the ring.

I started taking photos right away. Micah had heard me pull in (side note: his dogs only barked once when I arrived to inform their owners someone was present, showing exactly how well-behaved and well-trained they were) and he came out to join me with his camera. In comparing his photos from earlier in the day to this moment when I’d arrived, the mushrooms had grown exponentially. His pictures showed them approximately the size of a golf ball whereas they were now larger than a softball. The other big change from earlier was that the grass between each mushroom was dying off. It was creating a burnt-looking circle around the perimeter. In fact, it almost seemed like this “burn mark” was an invisible physical barrier when it came to the growth of the mushrooms.

Micah, who had just finished charging his camera, apparently got too close as he totally lost power after only 5 photos. I took a number of photos before I wanted to experiment with my power source as well. Just to be safe, I removed the memory card so I wouldn’t lose anything I had already taken. I watched the bars rapidly fall away as I reached my hands inside the ring. Once it was completely drained, I packed my stuff away, thanked my friend for sharing the experience and hopped back into my car.

Just before pulling out of the driveway, I was flagged down. Micah told me one piece of information that he had forgotten to mention. The dogs were avoiding the ring like the plague. They would always run right to their master’s side but they simply refused if he was anywhere near those mushrooms.

This was the size of a loaf of bread, showing the rapid growth of the mushrooms within a few days.

Over the next few days we continued to monitor the circle. The mushrooms were growing and growing. The softball-sized fungi were now the size of a loaf of homemade bread and still growing. Something of interest to note… anywhere that a mushroom would have crossed that burnt line of grass, it appeared to have been cut off as if sliced by a laser. It basically looked as though it had been cauterized by some high heat source (which is why we likened it to a laser).

The mushroom seems to be cut off at the outer-edge of the circle.

So what were these things? According to European folklore, they are called fairy rings (also known as a fairy circle, elf circle, elf ring or pixie ring) which are said to be caused by fairies dancing in a circle. Warnings abound about entering the circle lest you be taken to fairyland or be forced to join their dance until dying of exhaustion, unless someone from outside the ring can pull you to safety and freedom. This isn’t as easy as it sounds however, as the individual inside the ring is invisible to those outside it. Even if you can manage to save the person (who will not remember their experiences inside), their life is believed to be cursed.

There are a couple ways to investigate one of these rings whilst guaranteeing your safety. The first is circling the ring exactly 9 times clockwise. This allows you a chance to hear the fairies dancing underground and the opportunity to escape. If you accidentally go counter-clockwise, you will fall under their control. The second method (and coincidentally the one which both my friend and I happened to unknowingly manage) is to wear your hat backwards thereby confusing the sprites.

So what does science have to say?

There are soil-inhabiting fungi of the class Basidiomycetes that depletes the nutrients in the soil for grass, causing it to die out and create that burnt appearance. At the same time, the fungi release nitrogen ahead of the growth path so the grass outside the ring looks green and lush. These fungi originate from organic matter that is buried under the ground such as roots, stumps or lumber. In this particular case, the local heritage centre informed us that this property formerly belonged to the carriage maker and it was quite possible that wagon wheels could have been buried on the premises.

The curator informed us during our research that there had been reports of strange lights in the sky the night that the dogs were acting up (something else to add a little mystery to the situation).

What do you believe? The scientific answer of a naturally growing fungus is the most logical answer but nowhere in my reading did it mention the power-draining abilities of these mushrooms or the apprehension that the dogs had of the area. I have never heard of a 10 foot diameter wagon wheel either which is what the local historian believed was the buried organic material in question. I wish I had some answers.

Send us your thoughts. Have any of you wonderful readers had a similar experience or done any research on your own? We would love for you to share your thoughts so leave a comment below. Alternatively you can reach us on Twitter (@carbonlilies), Facebook or email us directly at carbonlilies@hotmail.com.