Often overlooked problems of time travel to consider before you go
Hey, before you dash off and jump into the shiny, new time machine parked over there enticing you with fantasies of seeing dinosaurs and solving major historical mysteries, consider a few possibilities. Much was written in recent weeks in regards to possibly the most dangerous place in Earth’s history, the Kem Kem beds of the prehistoric Sahara rain forest. A concentration of dinosaur superpredators lived there some 100 million years ago or so during the Cretaceous Period where they clustered around waters rich in gigantic fish. Those dinosaurs inhabited and dominated three domains: land, air, and aquatic/marine. Apparently there was so much prey these carnivores didn’t waste vital energy eating each other.
A frequent observation of the palaeontologists and those who wrote of their discoveries is any time travelers visiting the Cretaceous Kem Kem beds wouldn’t last long. They would die quickly. Packs of dinosaurs wielding giant jaws spiked with huge, sharp teeth would converge on our time travelers within moments and devour them. So, yes, before you zip away anywhere in any time machine, consider a variety of safeguards. OK?
Is your time machine robust enough to travel thru outer space, thru different atmospheres, and thru deep oceans with differing chemical compositions. Is it shielded from radiation? The latter is of significant concern not just because of space travel but also encountering areas polluted with uranium mining, nuclear waste, and atomic and thermonuclear explosions. Don’t journey in a time machine unable to move around in spatial dimensions from place to place, silly. Otherwise make certain your time machine, if more of a stationary mothership, has at least one if not more smaller transmedium machines to travel thru the atmosphere, overland, and by sea as well as thru water. I’ll pass on having tunneling and boring properties and just hope and pray our time machine won’t materialize underground, inside of solid rock, or within a magma chamber.
Fuel sources, quantity of supply, and possible resupply? Not just fuel for traveling thru time and also space, including smaller, transmedium rovers, aircraft, and submarine combos, but enough fuel to power up whatever electrical-based forcefields or shields projected to protect the ship? Energy is vital to survival and getting back home.
Is your time machine rugged enough to withstand being tumbled around by gigantic beasts, toppled off a cliff, crash into whatever, being shot at by arrows, cannon fire, catapults, or tanks, or withstand being pummeled by rocks, tornados, tsunamis, and meteorites?
Bodysuits to handle a range of deadly microbes and toxic gases and liquids? As well as stinging critters? Consider a pissed off giant Asian hornet can sting thru the material of a typical bee suit today.
Consider possible navigation challenges, too. Constellations would appear quite differently than from today and may be unrecognizable. The distance between Earth and Sol as well as between Earth and Luna may be varied just enough from now to throw off precise measurements. Planet Earth’s magnetosphere as well as location of magnetic poles and the nature of the inner and outer core also play a role. There won’t be any artificial satellites in orbit for any global navigation assistance at all. Well, not any human built satellites, anyway.
Besides, one must have the capacity to return to their original time of departure with new knowledge and be able to verify their experiences. One could choose not to do so, of course, but such isn’t the point.
Perhaps the Kem Kem beds may indeed be the most dangerous place on the planet from the perspective of large, numerous, hyperaggressive life forms. What about numerous, teeny tiny lifeforms? Such as viruses, fungi, protists, bacteria, and so forth? Swarms of hungry giant spiders and huge prehistoric ticks? Dangerous plants?
There are also dangerous atmospheric conditions such those frequent, prehistoric mega lightning storms. What of volcanos, earthquakes, tsunamis, and asteroid bombardments? Or the time before oxygen? One must be able to dial in precise measurements so one doesn’t materialize in a lake of molten lava, or an Ice Age lake’s ice dam collapse megaflood, or inside Medieval castles and Modern buildings. What weapons would one consider arming themselves with? Aye, train with them and know how to repair and maintain them, too. Medical and first aid supplies? Weird and unexpected skin issues? Eye issues from the light? Communication devices?
Seriously, tho, while time travel currently seems possible with subatomic particle-waves within the realm of quantum physics, it remains so far away from being a reality as far as most of us know as to be more in the realm of magical fantasy than science fiction. Sure, there are claims of reverse engineering alien craft constructed of unrecognizable metamaterials, craft that may be extraterrestrial and/or extradimensional and/or extratemporal in origin. Until hard tangible evidence is made available for the public to contemplate and recreate, these allegations remain a mystery.
If time machines were possible, however, would time travel be only one way? For to return to the present would mean traveling into the future from wherever one landed in the past, yes? Would we be able to travel from the present moments of now into futures yet to come? If there are indeed parallel and multiple universes in space and place, are there also parallel times with multiple time lines? And what effect would gravity have on any of this? And what effects may occur in matter itself as well as mass if one were to travel in time?
As language creates reality or at least our interpretations and perceptions of reality, exactly how would one actually move with or within time? Does one move across time? Thru time? Along so-called Arrows of Time? In and out of time? Or, with gravity, we must move within time-space and space-time. Space itself, remember, is not a sheet of space fabric with space rocks in it. Space extends everywhere in all directions, and we use units of time such as light years and parsecs to measure physical movement of matter thru space. Photons are massless, so if a physical object of large scale size, such as any starship from Star Trek and Star Wars reaches or exceeds the speed of light and perhaps time, would the spaceship spaghettify?
What of portals? Are portals a better way to travel thru time as well as space? Would portals utilize more efficient use of energy? One can still send a rugged craft thru a portal as it may not be wise to simply walk thru a portal to “stargate” yourself back in time to tour the Kem Kem beds or materialize in front of Inquisitors preparing to burn people at the stake. Of course, keeping in mind Stephen Hawking’s invitation to future time travelers to join him back on 28 June 2009 at coordinates are 52° 12’ 21” N, 0° 7’ 4.7” E remains unattended by anyone other than himself, where are all the time machines and portal travelers?
Imagine, for example, if an advanced supercivilization from our future went back in time and established a system of navigation and communications satellites during the Triassic period to assist their explorers. Would any of these machines last for millions of years? Would any parts of them remain on the planet alongside fossilized biological organisms, or would all evidence be destroyed over time by asteroids, comets, and planetary tectonic activity? What about time colonization? Does it make sense groups of humans would seek to colonize different places in time? Even, horror of horrors, conquer different regions in time and exploit these places by transporting raw materials from Earth’s ancient past into elsewhere in time and place? If so, wouldn’t we know of such efforts in our present time? Then again if even an advanced, nonhuman cryptoterrestrial civilization rose and fell back in Earth’s dim past, geological and celestial cataclysms would most likely eradicate all trace of their artifacts. Yet, assuming any advanced civilization, human, reptilian, or otherwise, equals dense population, where are their fossils?
Even if there are legal regulations and financial limits to time travel, wouldn’t we at least know of illegal time travelers and illegal time machines? Ahoy, time pirates! Well, there was a popular movie back in 1981 called, Time Bandits.
Time bandits aside, perhaps we have been visited many times and continue to be visited. For whatever reason, however, are we simply unable to perceive and recognize such travelers and their machines? Or we are indeed more aware than we realize, oxymorons and all, and what we label these days as UFOs and UAPs are time machines traveling across space as well as thru time. Is it true one cannot change events or the timeline will self-correct attempts to do so, or are multiple timelines generated constantly but unbeknown to the generator?
Finally, what, if any, would the role of consciousness play in time travel?
So many questions. Debunkers scoff, visionaries dream, and controversies abound. All would agree, however, if and maybe when time travel on scales vaster than flying around Earth with clocks in a plane ever becomes possible, everything we know changes.
William Dudley Bass
Wednesday 6 May 2020
Seattle, Washington
USA
Cascadia
Sol
Sources:
Primary Source Citation with numerous fotos, illustrations, maps, analyses, and references:
Ibrahim N, Sereno PC, Varricchio DJ, Martill DM, Dutheil DB, Unwin DM, Baidder L, Larsson HCE, Zouhri S, Kaoukaya A. “Geology and paleontology of the Upper Cretaceous Kem Kem Group of eastern Morocco.” ZooKeys Journal, ZooKeys 928: 1-216. 2020. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.928.47517.
Two different types of secondary sources:
Giulani-Hoffman, Francesca. “This was the most dangerous place in our planet’s history,” CNN Science + Space, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/01/us/most-dangerous-place-earth-history-trnd-scn/index.html.
Science Staff. “Palaeontologists reveal ‘the most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth,” Science News, Science Daily. Rockville, MD. 2020. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200424132617.htm.
Copyright © 2020 by William Dudley Bass. All Rights Reserved by the Author & his Descendants until we Humans establish Wise Stewardship over and for our Earth and Solarian Commons. Thank you.