No, You Don’t Want to Time Travel

What’s forgotten when imagining time travel

The idea of time travel has long captured the human imagination. How many times in novels, movies, and TV shows have the plots involved characters traveling back in time? What an exciting thought to be able to witness events in the past or see what will happen in the future!

Time travel has been a staple of science fiction since its modern inception with H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine. It is overused now as a plot device, but the dramatic possibilities of time travel intrigue both writers and audiences.

Physicists debate whether it is possible to travel through time. Some say it is possible. Others say it is not possible. The physicists’ conjectures are based on discussions of relativity, spacetime, the massive energy required, and whether time exists as something real outside of human perception.

These conjectures and discussions grapple with deep and meaningful issues but ignore one simple fact: time travel is a very bad idea.

Time to Think about What Really Would Happen

So, let’s say that you, being the genius you are, have solved the physics problems of traveling through time. You have invented and built a time machine and are eager to use it. Before you start your career as a chronic argonaut, you should remember one very important fact. Even if time is the fourth dimension, you cannot forget about the first three…