Of Time Machines and Multiverses

     Multiverse High Resolution Stock Photography and Images - Alamy

            The recent Jaipur Litfest was graced by renowned Indian authors such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Vikram Chandra and Amish Tripathi, ex ambassadors Hussain Haqqani, Robert Blackwell and Shyam Saran and Nobel Laureates Amartya Sen and Harold Varasmus. It made for a fascinating intellectual feast and one was hard pressed to choose which session to attend. Finally, we evolved the tactic of visiting sessions at random and in the process stumbled into   a presentation by Jim Al Khalili, a Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey.

     We learned that Jim Al Khalili has  written the book, ‘Black holes, Worm holes and Time Machines’. His session was infused with his passion for physics so much so that faint memories of physics classes in School were rekindled. Newton postulates  that time and space are constants and are the foundation on which his Laws of Motion rest. Much of the physical world was explained by him and he is credited with being the harbinger of the Industrial Revolution. Khalili explained that Einstein while working as a patents clerk in  Switzerland discovered that when objects move at the speed of light, space and time are no longer constants. Theoretically, therefore it was possible to build a time machine with which one could travel into the future. Mathematically, travelling into the past is also possible but a practical trip into the past can result in events that appear nonsensical. For instance, one could travel into the past and kill one’s own grandmother.

     Expectedly Khalili was bombarded by questions at the end of his presentation. Perhaps the best questions were asked by children, and thereby warming the hearts of all those present. One child asked  a pointed question – what was the point of time travel if one can’t return to warn our generation of the perils that lie ahead. Khalili replied that there was a way out. Quantum physics suggests that when a decision is taken to kill the grandmother the universe splits into multiple universes or multiverses. In one of the Universes the grandmother is dead and a different chain of events occur and in the other universe the grandmother is still alive and hence the time traveler will be born!

    Yet another youngster asked whether the Earth had been visited by time travelers, to which Khalili replied that as far as Science was concerned there were no time travelers around and even if they were around they were maintaining a low profile. For time travel first a machine needs to be built, and to return to the time we started from, it needs to be switched off. Thus far no time machine has been built since the technology involves accelerating up to and sustaining velocities of the order of 300000 metres/second.

   By virtue of being a Physicist and wedded to logic Khalili refused to give credence to the psychological and religious aspects of time travel citing lack of evidence. I couldn’t help wondering though – weren’t Krishna, Christ, Muhammad and Buddha time travelers? Didn’t they come to guide us on how to live? Perhaps, they had refined and purified themselves to such an extent that they could time travel at will using the powers of their mind. And talking of multiverses – hasn’t religion been saying this in many ways all along. You die in one dimension and are reborn in another. It is about complete free will and implacable destiny. Following my train of thought my wife wondered if Zeus ( my beloved dog who died in 2012)  was still alive in some other universe. In my dreams following his death he had often come bounding into my arms only to change into a black dog at the last moment. Sure enough exactly an year later Kiera a fully grown black Labrador came into our lives. How did she fit into the scheme of things?

   As Rumi says ‘Death has nothing to do with going away. The sun sets and the moon sets, but they're not gone. Death is a coming together. The tomb looks like a prison, but it's really release into union….Your mouth closes here and immediately opens with a shout of joy there.'

  Only Science would have us believe that the shout of joy occurs in a multiverse.

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