Time Travel: Fact or Fiction

When I think of space and time travel, I always think of my grandfather. Not because he was a scientist or because he made any contributions to the world in the area of space or time travel, but because I think he was a man before his time. Not that I actually remember him, mind you, as his passing came shortly after my birth. But I know of him through my mother. She adored her father and never in all her years uttered one word against him.

The interesting bit that she shared with me was his theory about how someday we would travel in space and that we would discover pathways to travel through. As a child, I often envisioned these pathways winding their way from planet to planet in our solar system.

I'm not sure if that is what he envisioned.

I discovered some interesting theories in my search for information regarding time travel; not that I'm really ready to travel any where any time soon, mind you. Simply because the thought intrigues me and I'd rather like to know if and when it might be an option.

Did you know that according to Einstein's theories, time itself might be a pathway through the universe that speeds up and slows down as it passes large masses; and that time itself varies from one point to another in the universe? And you thought it was all in your mind when those boring lectures you had sit through dragged on forever. According to Einstein, time warped back upon itself making time travel impossible.

However, even before Einstein's death, Kurt Godel who "was probably the most strikingly original and important logician of the twentieth century." (United States Navel Academy Bios) discovered that with a new solution to Einstein's own equations time travel may indeed be possible.

Godel's theory is that the universe is a more like a flowing river that had whirlpools. Time could wrap around these whirlpools and anyone who entered the whirlpool could theoretically find themselves going back in time.