Time Traveling with James Gleick

In October, 2016, best-selling author and science historian James Gleick discussed his career, the state of science journalism, and his newest book Time Travel: A History, which delves into the evolution of time travel in literature and science and the thin line between pulp fiction and modern physics. Author and physicist Alan Lightman, the first professor at MIT to receive a joint appointment in the sciences and the humanities, moderated.

[emmabradford]

His question asking people if they want to go forwards or backwards in time is interesting: virtually all time travelers are depicted as arriving from the future (except the huckster in Star Trek TNG who found himself in a time-travel vessel).

[PASHKULI]

The three laws of Time travel
1. The traveller must recognise they have travelled in Time (past and future)
· recognition and proof
2. Once you start travelling in time, there is no point of Present time
· you can have only memory of a reference point for the "original present time"
3. Regardless of travelling in Time or not, the traveller is always in the "Present" time of their own self
· until you are dead

[mmcc]

I was hoping that someone would ask about Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, but sure enough, James Gleick mentioned it!

[jeremyjeffreys]

Why do you try to think about things which are impossible? It's obvious. How far have we come?
Time travel will never be possible. Why? Because time is not a dimension.
Time is like capacity. Coffee in cup, wine in a glass. Hours in the day. All of these are finite.
We say that we’ve run out of such quantities. Run out of petrol. Run out of time. Time’s up. When you’ve finished your beer you get another one or go home.

[connorgahan]

a man claims to have travelled from a deserted future because of this research