h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Remember, Robbie's on the radio today with Douglas Adams in the series 'Unforgettable'. Here's the link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07pj826#play

It's a kind of magical time-travel act in which Robbie has a conversation with DNA via recordings in the BBC archives. I am in awe, and a little sad that the two friends can't have that conversation, right now, for real.

Since we watched the movie 'Dimensions' last night, I've been thinking of time travel a lot... That movie's a must-watch, by the way. A different (and philosophically intriguing) take on the idea of time travel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bht1CueH1mE

Warning: the 'time machine' probably didn't break the budget.)

If you have any time travel experiences this week, let us know. (And take pics, like FWR's doing. He's already done two crazy things with a hat I knitted.)

I'm no physicist, but I have a strong hunch that time travel can never be possible, because time doesn't exist as a dimension in the sense we would like it to. It's a convenient model to satisfy our limits of comprehension, but it would need a serious rethink in the future.

The only way we could have time travel as such would be if we discovered time as an elementary particle (for want of a better word). We'd need to be able to store it in bottles.

Which leads to another song tie-in...

You may be right, but it's still an interesting film, as a thought experiment.

Do catch the BBC Radio 4 broadcast, too - you'll enjoy it, and it's not really about time travel.

but... we all travel in time... just useually in the single direction though... Though I've visited a few towns and small citys, wehre I'm pretty sure we travlled back in time, anything from 35 years to about 350 years

Hawking once invited all time travellers to a meet - nobody showed up

Although a friend of mine claimed he was reporting from the meet - in hiding behind a curtain

time travel is an impossible possible possibility
as soon as "you" appear in, say the past, you automatically displace all the air in that space you'd occupy and all that the air contains
Therefore, any living organism would be diverted from it's original path, changing the future. You'd never be able to return to your starting point as the timeline has been altered.

and on the humour side, time travel IS impossible co's no future relative of mine would allow me to live with an empty wallet and bank account for years (winning national lottery numbers on a bit of paper appear in letterbox)

goes to check again

though, oddly, I get to ... psychiologicallly speaking, time travel all the time now... = no concept of time at all since recent medical things with absolutely no medical explination at al pah... there's not a medical explination to explain me... the gap between last orders and time seems to shorten though

This one of my favourite time travel stories, excuse for using a Wiki link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_on_the_Edge_of_Forever – at least they are not trying to sell DVDs

It goes to show that any change in the past could have enormous impact on the future, even giving someone who is homeless a meal.

The argument I like is that if time travel were possible thousand, even millions of people will have visited the past. At least one of them will have screwed up and given themselves away – that would have to make headlines all over the world. If it is possible the entire human race must have been wiped out shortly after it was discovered.

On the other hand, if you hold a party for time travelers and invite them a week later, how can you be sure they did not show up unless you can time travel back yourself? Maybe you left before they showed up on time?

Then again Lister on Red Dwarf managed to travel three million yeas into the future

Fun to speculate all the same

F S