Time is such a familiar mystery.  We boast ourselves intimately acquainted but with one question we are at a loss, straining to describe the face of a stranger. What is time?  Einstein describes time as, "the reason things don't happen all at once," even though at times it seems that they do.  However, many people are dissatisfied with such a simplified explanation (and frankly so was Einstein) .  Scientifically, time is most often described as a measure of change, in a closed system this net change is always from ordered to disordered.  For a system to go from configuration A to configuration B, it will have to travel a distance through time to allow for change to occur.  A description of this type, explains time as having distances or durations and spawns the idea that time is also a dimension.  Not a dimension like the 3 spacial dimensions we are very familiar with in our physical world, but instead a temporal dimension.  A dimension in time.  However, Einstein also proved with his theory of general relativity that time and space are linked and that our universe can be thought of as a web of space-time.  Einsteins theory also showed that time itself is effected by the warping of space-time by mass (coined time dilation).  The most common example of this effect in real life is the global positioning system satellites (GPS).  These satellites need to be calibrated with atomic clocks regularly or they would be inaccurate by miles a day!  This is because at the high altitudes they are less effected by the mass of the earth and their clocks actually tick faster in orbit.  The remarkable part of this discovery is that it proved that time is not a static, unchanging entity.  Instead, time was proven to be highly malleable and with enough mass or energy it could be sped up, stopped, or possibly even reversed.  And so the topic of time travel has drifted away from fantasy world of science-fiction and into the very real realm of science-fact.

Stephen Hawking explains: Time Dilation

       So according to Einstein, there are two things that effect time, mass and speed.  Time passes slower near more mass or with more speed; and conversely, time moves faster near less mass and with less speed.  Immediately this shows that time travel to the future is possible.  Theoretically, if we had enough energy, we could send a spaceship away from the earth close to the speed of light.  Traveling this fast, time would slow for the space travelers but time would move much quicker back on earth.  When these space travelers returned, they would return to a world much further into the future than their trip should have allowed.  Depending on how fast they traveled, this world could be days,  years, or even centuries into the future.  Einstein imagined two twins, one that shot off into space and the other that stayed on earth.  When the space traveler returned, his twin would be an old man but it would have been only a short trip for the still young rocket brother.  The same slowing of time could be done by closely circling a black hole or any other object with a large mass.  However, this would be a one way trip because while we may be able to slow the rate of time or speed it up comparably, the arrow of time is always pointing in a future direction and travel to the past seems unreachable.  This would explain why we are not frequently visited by future time travelers. However, there are a few hypothesized ways to reverse the arrow of time and travel into the past.
       The most common method suggested for time travel is an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, which is most commonly referred to as a worm hole.  This is essentially a tear in the fabric of space-time, a portal to a different place and time.  This idea spawned from the study of black holes but is strictly theoretical because a portal like this would require an enormous amount of energy (energy on the order of stars and galaxies) and the gravity involved would most likely rip a time traveler apart atom by atom through a process properly coined, spaghettification.  So in order for this backward time travel to work, a person would have to be shielded from the gravitational forces and the portal would also have to be stable enough for it to remain open at a large enough size for a traveler to cross through.

   
      It is not mathematically impossible to travel to the past, so perhaps our understanding is simply too juvenile at this point to accomplish backward time travel.  And just maybe, one day, we will have advanced enough technology to make this dream a reality.  Perhaps we should utilize forward time travel until we reach a civilization that has mastered backward time travel.  But what then?  What precautions must we take before leaping into the past, and what ramifications will this discovery have on our understanding of the world.  We all remember from the movie "Back to the Future"  that most important thing we want to make sure we do not to do is anything that could possibly prevent us from ever being born (like killing your grandfather or preventing your parents from meeting).  However, if you were foolish enough to kill your grandfather you would inevitably create a paradox.  Because by killing your grandfather you cause yourself to not exist.  But then if you do not exist,  who killed your grandfather?  This "grandfather paradox" is the reason that Stephen Hawking, along with many other scientists, do not believe time travel to the past is possible.  This notion is based on two assumptions: that there is only one universe, and that it acts logically.  Most research, barring quantum mechanics, points towards a logical universe.  But as I stated earlier, according to logical math, time travel is possible in both directions.  The way theorists explain away this issue of paradoxes is by suggesting that there is not just one universe but instead that there are many parallel universes and that when you travel back in time you are also traveling into a different universe, or a different timeline.  One can then imagine that there are a infinite amount of these universes and possibly these universes are all branching out and splitting like forks in the river of time or branches on a tree.  Each branch slightly different from another, infinite possibilities and infinite diversity.  (I will speak more about Multiple Universes in my next post)  However, these extra universes are very hard to prove because any experimentation in this universe would not directly effect them.  Because of this, extra dimensions are only spoken about in theory by primarily string theorists who have been scratching their heads for more than 30 years now.

      Possibly we fail to be able to move backward in time because we fail to understand times role biologically because physically time should not have a definite direction.  Our limitation in time travel then might be a biological one.  Perhaps, we are stuck in this one way trip because of our minds.  Like all things in this universe, all information we collect is done through the filter of our minds.  There is still so much we dont understand about how our minds work.  The human brain is truly a complex machine, a machine that is bound by the laws of thermodynamics.  It seems the mind is born a blank slate and then slowly grows and develops memories and functions.  But how does the mind do this when the laws of thermodynamics require order to decrease in the forward direction of time?  It does so by expending energy and doing work to create an ordered network in the mind.  Memories are then formed in the forward direction of time because of this formation of cells that create neural synapses.  So we are slaves to our minds.  Trapped on this journey by their structure.

    So then why does it seem that only events in the past can affect those in the future and never the other way around?  Again this may be a trick of the mind.  We are so sure of free will.  So sure that our choice is our own, that we can change the world.  On a cultural and philosophical level this paradigm is assuring but it does not seem to agree with our physical understanding of the world.  Physically the world is predictable at the scale of humans.  That is to say that with enough understanding an calculation a outcome of a physical interaction is predictable.  The firings of the human mind do not suggest anything different.  Perhaps the future is just as set in stone as our past, just that in this moment our brains lack the structure to know it.

     I love a good UFO conspiracy as much as the next guy.  However, traveling across the universe and through the vacuum of space to probe some humans seems ridiculous.  And while the numbers are clearly on the side of the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligent life, it is hard for me to believe that these same advanced aliens fail to be able to land securely and crash into the the deserts of New Mexico.  Although if these are aliens are crashing into our planet, I have new found confidence that we could successfully defend ourselves against a alien invasion.  Because while they might be extraterrestrial, they clearly are not all that intelligent.

    There are roughly 200 billion stars in the our Milky Way galaxy and there are around 200 billion more galaxies just like it throughout the universe.  It would then make sense that there would be at least one other planet circling one of these 400 billion billion stars that fosters intelligent life.  Especially because extra-solar planets are being discovered on a weekly basis and we have even found planets that fall into the "Goldy Locks Zone," whose orbits are the right distance from their stars to allow for biological life.  Using all this information, a scientist by the name of Frank Drake devised a equation that took into consideration all of the factors that would need to be aligned in order for intelligent life to exist in the universe.  The equation showed that there are likely millions of civilizations throughout the universe and thousands even in our galaxy.  (estimated at: 10,000 radio communicating civilizations in the Milky Way)

    And so we search the skies for some like us.  Organizations like SETI (http://www.seti.org/)  dedicate their resources to listening for radio waves from distant stars.  Our radio waves from early radio broadcasts have now reached out over 100 light years from the earth and the aliens circling our closest star, 4.3 light years away, are now caught up in the drama of the TV series, LOST.
   
     But after all our searching, there is no definite evidence that we have company in the universe.  Some may think that we have looked long enough and that the lack of evidence can be considered proof.  However, we have only been listening to the universe's radio waves for a little over 30 years, and to definitively state that there is no evidence of life is tantamount to scooping a cup of water out of the ocean and concluding that there are no whales in our seas.  It will take time, but why not keep looking?  Are we afraid that we might find we are not unique?

   We are made from the most common chemicals in the universe (H, O, C, N).  So the chemicals that make us are not unique, simply their configuration.  But perhaps life is a eventuality of complex chemistry.  It was very early in the earths history that life arose, in fact, it appeared almost immediately when the earths surface stabilized after the violent period of heavy bombardment.  One would think if it was a unlikely happening that it would take billions of years to arise.  But then again life seems to make logical sense.  On the very basic level, life is simply repeating chemical patterns.  Could we then even apply the evolutionary rules of natural selection to chemicals themselves?  Would it be to far a leap to say that life itself was naturally selected?  That even matter evolves?   Because all evolution is proclaiming is that structures that have attributes that promote their continual existence, continue to exist and to multiply. The second law of thermodynamics (order in a closed system always decreases and "entropy" increases) might suggest otherwise but that law is looking at the universe as a whole. In a non-closed system, physics allows for order to increase.

    With all this said, I am still weary to believe your UFO story.  Well...I believe you saw a UFO, a UNIDENTIFIED flying object, but not a alien.  Lets not jump to any conclusions when we see a object in the sky.  Too often people see a light in the sky and they claim it was a alien craft visiting earth with no proof other than their ignorance of what the object was.  Occum's Razor is a scientific law that states that usually the simplest answer is the correct one, in biology this is called the law of parsimony.  Using this law, I conclude that there was no alien craft because it is more likely that you are simply a idiot.  Sorry but not sorry.  To over throw this law all we need is some sort of concrete evidence that aliens are in fact visiting our planet and a photo-shopped blurry flying saucer does not count.  Instead lets try to get a piece of the craft or maybe even a living or dead alien.  Because if it truly a alien craft, as Neil deGrasse Tyson suggests, the technology would be like nothing we have ever seen and the alien will likely not be DNA based.  Until that time, please stop mistaking weather balloons and low flying planes for aliens.  If we keep doing this, aliens might eventually visit and find the earth to be void of intelligent life.

      But like I said the whole alien conspiracy topic is incredibly interesting and I too find myself often falling into the drama of it all.  The way I see it; either these people are crazy, they are wanting attention and money, or they actually saw aliens.  Any of these three possibilities I find fascinating    With that said, I will leave you with my favorite clip from the "Disclosure Project," a organizational effort to bring together the most reliable sources on the Alien Conspiracy.  Clifford E. Stone was supposedly a government employee who worked on recovering crashed alien ships.

 

 

 

   All men have looked up at the sky in wonder, but a few have looked down at the sky in awe.  Few have been wrapped in the dark arms of the universe.  And even fewer have seen all of mans existence shrink into a pale blue dot as Carl Sagan so eloquently put it.  These men, through the help of our government were the pioneers of a new frontier.  And their efforts have paved the way for hundreds of new space fearing innovations like satellites, orbiting telescopes, and private space flight.  But even though this innovation has redefined the skyline, it still has found a glass ceiling encircling the earth.  This ceiling was once broken by the 12 men of Apollo who once miraculously took a stroll on the lunar surface.   But men have never flown farther or reached beyond our moon, possibly the budget is not there or the risk is too great.  So we satisfy our need for exploration with machines.  We send out probes to our neighboring planets and moons. And our robotic friends have sent back scientific data and shown us images of incredible foreign worlds.  But have they grasped the publics hearts and prodded at the core explorer's spirit of humanity?  No, they have had their 15 minutes of robot fame and they have keep us nerds occupied in this age of exploratory drought.  Apollo changed the world and inspired a whole generation of youth, it gave not only America but the whole world with it a feeling of invincibility.  "If we can put a man on the moon then what else can we do?"  Anything instantly became achievable and, in the decades following giving rise to the modern age, if you had asked a man on the street when we would land a man on Mars he might have responded, "10 maybe 20 years from now...anything is possible."  And he might have been right if we had not lost JFK's vision to, "go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard."
    Our world is crying out for change; we see it in our elections, in our media, and in our daily lives.  But change is not achieved through reorganizing the cards, but instead by reaching out and grabbing a new deck.  Our people need inspiration, man needs a frontier.  And there is one staring at us every night when the sun falls behind the horizon.  Perhaps we miss it in our beds at night under our warm covers. But man will not stay still for long.  Like a rebellious grounded child we will soon sneak out into the night sky.  Even tonight there might be a child dreaming of a stroll on mars, to be the first man or woman to stand on the red Martian soil.  On that day we will once again be reminded of humanity's limitless capability and people on every planet will realize that they have not yet reached a ceiling.  That the universe keeps on going and going.  And so should we.

-by: Brett Vollert


Here is a INCREDIBLY INTERESTING Panel discussing the future of space exploration at TAM convention featuring: Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Pamela Gay, and Lawrence Krauss

***If you want to skip forward past introductions, the core discussion begins at around minute 5:30***