The Reality of Time Travel

            Ever since the late nineteenth century, traveling through time has been a sort of ambiguous fantasy implicated only in stories, songs, and imagination. It was the wish of nostalgic poets, the dream of writers and pensive historians, and only in secret, the delirious vision of realistic scientists. However, as modern day scientists contemplate the Theory of Relativity and the complexity of Quantum Physics, the “whimsical” question of whether time travel would ever be possible outside of science fiction films and books, has never felt less whimsical. Time travel is indeed possible outside of science fiction and with advanced modern technology, as well as knowledge in astrophysics and quantum physics, humankind is not far from the legitimate ability to travel through time.

            Albert Einstein theorized that time is the fourth dimension, and it moves at different rates depending on where it is. Meaning that passing through space close to the speed of light, is essentially, slowing down time. However, in his opposition to time travel, Einstein declared travel at light speed impossible, suggesting that traveling at such speeds would completely stop time, rendering the traveler’s further nonexistence. Overall, the fault in Einstein’s theory against time travel will be become evident because scientists will show that faster than light travel is possible without death. Although the Theory of Relativity is the basis of time travel opposition, many other false oppositions have been made to time travel in addition to the famous Theory of Relativity.

            There are plenty of theories on why time travel would not be possible, for instance, the occurrence of paradoxes, the destruction by black holes, and the instability of wormholes. For example, the most widely cited opposition, one cited by renowned British scientist Stephen Hawking himself, is the famous Grandfather Paradox. The Grandfather paradox is widely suggested as proof for the impossibility of time travel, stating that if a man traveled backward through time in order to kill his grandfather, he would in fact, negate his own existence, because by killing his grandfather, there is no way for his father to be born, meaning there is no way for him to be born, and no way for him to kill his grandfather. This renders him unable to time travel, thwarting the entire situation as a whole. None of it ever happened. In reference to black holes, Stephen Hawking states that travel through black holes is highly impossible due to the fact that every piece of matter that passes through a black hole, shrinks to individuality. To complete his opposition, Hawking also declares that wormholes are extremely impractical for time travel because they are exceedingly unstable, in that they would disintegrate before anyone could even step inside. However, relating to paradoxes, they can be escaped by the suggestion of a parallel universe or the nonexistence of interaction between travelers and history during time travel. Destruction by black holes can be avoided by using their inverted counterparts, white holes. Wormholes could be used for faster than light travel by manual enlargement in which they would be held open for periods of time, making time travel possible. The opposition of time travel however, is also suggested by certain laws of physics.
            Scientists who oppose time travel attempt to prove their theories by physics, specifically theories such as the Chronology Protection Conjecture, as well as the force of gravity on wormholes. In his Chronology Protection Conjecture theory, Hawking exclaims that if time travel were truly possible, we as human beings in this moment, would be bombarded by tourists from the future, as if there would be no way to keep the idea confidential or controlled. The force of gravity has also been popularly referenced in the fact that it would crush the openings of wormholes, therefore vanquishing any travelers within that are trying to get to the other side. In order to steady the opening of the wormhole, scientists would need the opposite force of perhaps the deepest and most profound things in the universe, negative mass and negative energy. However, the Chronology Protection Conjecture can easily be disproved as previously mentioned in the enforcement of non-interaction between travelers and the past. This interaction could potentially take over the world, changing history drastically, so it is patently implied that the lack of human interaction with the past would be enforced in the possibility of time travel. The Chronology Protection Conjecture is essentially, an underestimate of future scientific advancement, and in response to the force of gravity on wormholes, scientists will theorize the legitimate existence of profound anti-matter. Scientists have indeed found ways to dodge these supposedly adamant laws of physics relating to the opposition of time travel.
            More plausible than the opposing theories to time travel, are those supporting time travel, such as the bending of space time, the use of white holes as well as black holes, and the Casimir Effect. Time travel by the bending of space-time was found possible in 1930 by an American mathematician named Kurt Gödel. He proved that when traveling fast enough, time and space essentially become one singular object, and in this intensely fast speed, it is indeed possible to bend that singular object, allowing one realistically to travel through time. A famous astronomer from America named Carl Sagan believed that tiny black hole to white hole tunnels could possibly exist without an individuality. Tunnels such as these could exist, connecting dissimilar segments of the universe. In response to the fact that a wormhole would supposedly spontaneously shut as soon as a traveler were to step into it, there is a possibility of holding it open with such an anti-gravity machine founded upon a quantum effect entitled, the Casimir effect. The support of time travel can also be proved through pure physics.
            Time Travel is proved by physics through the gravitational field of a neutron star, super-massive black holes, and nontraversable wormholes as well as the existence of real time machines. If the existence of wormhole tunnels that allow time to be slowed down at one end, is accepted, and assuming that Einstein was correct in his theory that gravity impedes time, it would possible to impede time by shifting the opening of a wormhole in the gravitational field of a neutron star. Then, the traveler could simply go through time, by going through the wormhole. As these wormholes could quite possibly exist, there are many that wouldn't work in such a way, these are called nontraversable wormholes. These are like black holes in that once a traveler finds himself inside, he can never get out. As if this weren't enough proof of legitimate time travel, time machines do in fact, already exist. For example, the moon is approximately four light minutes away from Earth. This means that as an individual peers through a telescope to see the moon, he essentially finds himself looking back in time to four minutes ago. The moon that he is seeing is not one from the very moment of sight on Earth, but from four seconds earlier, and although the viewer is not able to take his body back to the time sees while gazing at the moon, he is able to send his sense of sight back in time, and witness the past, first hand, with his eyes. This proves the fact that time travel is possible right now, although it is not necessarily, or entirely physical. At the center of most galaxies including our very own, The Milky Way, there is something called a super-massive black hole. Their immense size allows the tidal forces with which they are involved, to sustain human life. One would be literally be able to float above and oversee the situation’s horizon in order to see time stand completely still, to witness the entire successive antiquity of the universe drawn across a cosmological canvas before one’s eyes, as if it were a famous painting.
            To oppose the ability to travel through time is to underestimate the scientific advancement of the future, to belittle the generations forward, and to dismiss humankind’s posterity as nothing more than a fanciful whim. In fact, to say that the idea of travel through time is impossible is to render the science of the future merely quotidian.
            Time travel is indeed possible outside of the mystical, fantasy-filled books and films of science fiction, in fact it is proven so by scientific discoveries of the gravitational field of a neutron star, super-massive black holes, and more. Humankind is not at all far from the legitimate ability to time travel, as sure as progress is inevitable.

Too Soon

   I think there are about five people who know that I've been writing. Even less are the ones who know that I've been writing something particularly long, and that I've kept at it for a while. I'm writing about Judy. And the reason I'm telling you about her is because she is composition of extremities. The secret is, that Judy is a hyperbole of myself.
   The thing about Judy, is that she constantly feels unfinished. Judy can't walk half a mile without stopping somewhere in the middle, just because she doesnt feel like she should go ahead. She definitely can, thats not the situation. The situation is that Judy is continuously worried about the curb at the end of the street and when she should be there. She realizes that there's a difference between where she can be, and where she should be. And as she watches her friend cross the street, and call her over to the other side, she cant help but feel like its too soon to reach the curb, too soon to cross the street. Judy ends up standing in the middle of the sidewalk, breathing slowly, because she simply cannot let go. She can't leave.
   I sometimes feel like I'm the only Judy in the world. It sounds very stupid to say. Someone very special showed me this tape a while ago and I had a dream about that tape. I'm learning to drive now, so it makes a bit of sense that in the dream I was sitting in the front seat of an automobile on this wide open road. In the dream, this very special person gave me the cassette to borrow before I left to get in the car, and after what looked like a million miles of driving, I pulled over into this wide open field of grass that was covered in all these bunches of leaves, red ones, and yellow ones, and orange, and brown. It was very cold too as it seems to me now that I must have been in the Midwestern U.S. or somewhere in New England in the fall.
   I didn't just pull into the field, I drove right through it, all the way to what seemed to be back, or what seemed to be the end. I can't remember now whether it was a cemetary or a haunted forest but I'm not too much of a morbid person so we'll go with the haunted forest. Anway, I stop right before this haunted forest and I leave the key in the ignition, only I open the door and I get out. The car isnt running but the radio is still on, so I lean in through the window, which was rolled down, and I put in that tape I was telling you about. I turn the sound down real low, but not too low, and I just stand there next to the car. And I get these damn binoculars out, and I start looking at the sky. I'm wearing this great big pilot's jacket that belongs to my pop, and I'm just standing there, up against the car, looking at the sky, at the edge of a field in the fall that leads to this forest full of blackness. I'm completely alone, besides that tape.
    The tape is that of a broadway musical, not one that I'm crazy about because after all, it is a broadway musical. But it makes me feel alright because of the person who let me borrow it. As I'm looking up at the sky and I see clouds beginning to form.
    The wind blows extremely hard and I hold the binoculars to my face with fortitude. I'm almost blown away as the wind sweeps millions of leaves off the groud and into the black forest, but I stay. I didnt hold onto the car or the ground, but I held on to myself and I did so with great toil.
   The wind blows even harder now, and the binoculars are swept from my hands and and hang by their tie around my neck. I shove my hands in my pockets as best I can and the binoculars are hanging around my neck by a thread.  I close my eyes and they break from my neck and fly westward into the forest. Leaves are quickly swept across the field. I'm closing my eyes strongly now and hold on to myself even tighter, this is perhaps the most memorable part of the dream. I plant myself so firmly next to the car that I'm not swept away.
   And suddenly, it begins to rain. I open my eyes and I promise myself not to cry although, I cant seem to remember if I did or not. There was water coming down my face anyway. First the rain comes down in drops of water but as time goes on, the water grows less and less and the rain turns into hail. The clouds grow grayer, and the landscape goes from soft orange to dark blue and gray. The clouds begin to hail little metal diamonds. They came down fast and hard and when they hit me, they stuck to my jacket and they were all over my hair. I didn't try to pick them out though. There would've been no point. This is when I begin to breathe slowly.
   The thing is, I didnt move. That was really it. I just stood there, the tape was still playing. I could've gotten in the car and driven back. I could've gone back home, taken off my clothes, I could've been dry under the roof. I could have been somewhere else. But whether good or bad, the thought of being in some place, completely different than where I was then, scared the hell out of me. I didn't want to get in the car, and I didn't want to go home. I wasn't ready. It was just too soon.
   The last thing I remember is a clear picture of myself between the black forest and the car. The rain is coming down harder than ever. The tape is rolling and I'm standing still with metal diamonds stuck in my hair and on my jacket. Immersed in one moment.

16 Forever and Different in Some Way.

I meant to write this about a month ago.
   And the reason I havent done it until now is because I'm not really quite sure how to say exactly what I want to say. I'm pretty sure that it's because my writing isnt fully developed yet. I'm only sixteen and I have alot more I need to experience and until then I guess my writing wont do much justice to the things I see, but there's a part of me that says that its also because there are some things that cant be justified by words.
   It was raining really hard one Sunday, maybe a few months ago. My kid sister, Angie, she's only nine, had a soccer game only it wasnt raining when it started, in fact, it was sunny as hell outside. But it started to rain really hard and it was getting real windy too. All of a sudden it started to get really cold only the thing is, they didnt stop the game. The game kept going and all the kids kept playing and I was shivering and everything but none of the kids were. And especially not Angie.
   There are certian images that get stuck in your mind forever. I remember hearing Billie Joe Armstrong say once that there is one moment in specific, every seven years, that you remember extremely clearly for the rest of your life. I remember Angie, running off the field as the coach was rotating players and my dad ran to warm her up, and that's when everyone started leaving. All the kids left and the coach even left for chrissake but my dad and Angie were still there on the field, in the rain.
   My dad does this thing, when it's really cold, where he jumps up and down to keep warm. It looks pretty funny most of the time, if you really want to know, but it didnt look like that this time. It felt like it was almost freezing and Angie had no coat so my dad gave her his. It was this big pilot's jacket that my dad had since he arrived in Brooklyn from Communist Romania and it went all the way below Angie's knees when she put it on and what they did was, my dad took her hands and they started jumping together. Up and down. In the rain.
   It was really coming down and it got worse as time went on. And by that time, everyone had left. I mean, everyone. We were the only ones there and Angie and my dad just kept on jumping up and down, in the rain.
   You know, it really scares me to think that one day I'll be on my own without my parents. Not that I'll be without them but that as I get older, it will start to become really clear to them that I'm not who they want me to be. I'm not everything they expected their first generation American girl to be. I know it'll be soon when my parents realize that everything I told them I wanted to do, and everything I told them that I am, is actually true. I dont quite know what will happen after that, but it scares me half to death to think about it. And most of all, I know that it's not too far away.
   But in that moment, none of it mattered. It was so cold that I didnt feel like moving and I didnt even feel like taking my hands out of my pockets. So I just stood there. And I watched. It didnt matter that one day I would grow up and my mother would speak to me in broken sentences and monosyllabic dialouge and my father would frown upon the choices I made or wish to God that I woudnt have "wasted my life." None of that mattered because right then, in that moment, all I did was watch. I'm constantly feeling like everyone's watching me, to make sure I'm doing my best, I have to be an example for my sisters and as my father says, I have to be an example for the world. Only in that moment, no one was watching me.

I was the one watching.

I think right then, I saw one the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. I've seen famous paintings and I've seen weddings and diamonds and women with their hair tied up in a bandana with red lipstick and cheeks, but I never saw anything like what I saw then. Because I never saw anything, that made me forget what I feared the most. I never saw anything that made me wish I could be sixteen forever. And in that moment I felt like I could be sixteen forever. I felt like I would never have to tell my mother that what she's been hoping is a joke, is reality, and I would never know what it's like to talk and realize that no one was going to listen anymore. I felt like I could be sixteen forever.
   I knew that even though the next day, I would surely be different in some way, I would always wish that I could keep that moment forever. I knew that if I could wrap that moment up in plastic and keep it safe, that everytime I would open it up, it would be the same. Nobody would move. I know that my life is going to change. I try not to think about it but I know it will. But to have something like that in your mind forever, something that will never ever change, amidst the world of chaos ahead of you, is something that I dont quite know how to explain. It's something that I love immensely.

I know that twenty years from now, whether Im sitting at the foot of my bed, or at the bottom of a bridge, I'll be able to lay my head down, close my eyes, and Angie and my father will still be there, jumping up and down on the soccer field. It'll still be raining and Angie will still be wearing that same pilot's jacket and my hands will still be frozen inside my jacket pocket just the same as they were that day. Only I'll be different in some way. Certain things, they should just stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway.

I went to the Natural History Museum in Manhattan for maybe the fifth time, last month. Only before, I had never read The Catcher in the Rye. This time was different though, because it was my first time going after reading something that changed my life. And although my regards may be deficient, I've attempted to put into words everything that has ever aesthetically edified me about the concept of youth and aspiration. I will always be different in some way. I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.

My English Teacher Rejected My Writing.

   When sitting in class one day, I was given the prompt, "Write an essay arguing for or against the idea that Western women are free or not free." As an aspiring writer in high school this direction evoked an explosive amount of inspiration in my head, inexplainable or rather exceedingly explosive so that I could not respond monosyllabically. This "prompt," evoked a sense of wonder and eventually, a theory of my own. However, this theory, was apparently insufficent.
   If you're anything like me, making a general judgement about a vast group of people doesnt really make sense. How would you respond to the question, "Are blacks free?" "Are hispanics free?" To me, the vagueness of the question makes it almost impossible to answer so that I end up asking, "Which black?" "Which hispanic?" which woman. It depends. To me, it depends on the person, whether woman or man or black or white, it depends, and this is what got me rejected.
   Unless we happen to be writing this at the time of slavery or the holocaust or something along those lines, it's hard, for me at least, to say that one group of people is not free. Obviously, during the time of slavery, blacks were not free but slavery was widespread and largely enforced. As an attempt to ruffle the feathers of the school system, I ended up writing this essay suggesting that freedom is controlled not by the state but by the individual.
    My teacher gave not many further instructions than the ones I've described to you. I opened the work with a the description of a recently fired woman, a victim of prejudice and oppression. A dialouge follows as I explained to her that with hard work she could end up transcending her boss in the work force and even end up firing him. I turn the tables for her and completely reversing her perception of the world. She takes the cruel verbal oppression that has struck her and uses it to fuel her own motivation, in turn freeing herself. (I'm reluctant to attach the raw essay itself as I think it's a bit outdated and childish in style.)
    The point was to say that liberation and freedom could not be printed on paper. It's something you can limit to the minute characters of language, something you can compress onto  a piece of fine script. Liberation is in one's soul. Freedom is spiritual. One may be freed by the affection of her lover, or the embrace of her children, or the feeling of silence on bench somewhere in the middle of the night. One can have all the money in the world, he may parch every ocean and starve every farm in the universe and still not be freed if his heart is not content.
   And when I think about this, the more I do, I start to think about how stupid it must be to try to limit someone's freedom. Once slavery has been abolished, once civil rights are granted on paper, one is set free into the bustling outside world, and is perhaps even more oppressed than she was when enslaved. She is torn from routine life and placed among her liberated constituents. She may be lost, caught within the stares and occasional prejudged slurs and dirty looks and it is up to her to fight back. Or rather, fight through, fight on. It is up to her to walk quickly and strongly through that crowd of dirty looks with her head held high enough to scare them all away. One woman, with her headstrong determination and resilience, can silence all the oppressors and squelch the demons of the world and universe. But if this one woman decides to let her head down, shy away from her goals and slowly comes to a stop, there is nowhere to go but backward. And this woman is enslaved. She is devoured by the snarling pups and abused by the demons. But the choice is as extreme as that.

   As soon as one has been told that they have been freed, I do not think that freedom is truly given to them, at this whim. However this answer is not sufficient. It is not monosyllabic, nor does it fit the 26 lines I am provided with in class. So I receive rejection, a flat out demand to "redo my work" in a more "fitting way." But I didn't stop writing. Because maybe one day they will hear me and if they don't, at least I will live knowing that I followed my own example of liberation and freedom as a western woman, as a human being, and as living creature of the world.