Continuum

DEDICATION

It is appropriate to celebrate family ties by dedicating this book to my family. At its inception this included my parents, Sam and Mary, my wife, Judy, and her parents, Israel and Sally, and our sons, Josh and Bram. Sadly the writing took so long our parents did not survive to its conclusion but along the way our family was joined by Michel and two grandsons, Micah and Isaac. These individuals constitute one fragment of a family tree with roots stretching far back into the past as well as branches extending forward into the future. I dedicate this book to everyone with a part in that continuous story.

FOREWORD

A long car trip listening to a science fiction audiobook convinced me that despite my enjoyment of time travel stories, they left me unfulfilled. Continuum was born over the next few hundred miles spent in quiet contemplation. That original concept imagined a college physics course interspersing lectures with related adventure episodes, an interweaving of physics fact, the Science, with an exciting story, the Fiction. I vowed to steer clear of mathematics, eschewing the equations for mental images. I conjured a beginning populated by a small cast of characters with no idea of a direction or conclusion.

Inspirations came to me from wherever ideas are born until a firm grasp on a conclusion became apparent. Many times I had to study topics hunting for a satisfying method of illumination. I violated my vow by including some mathematics especially in the discussion of Special Relativity. I found the description to be worthy of inclusion because it greatly enhanced my comfort level with the subject even if many readers may find it overly complicated. I was able to avoid anything beyond glorified arithmetic, nothing fancy, no calculus Any reader finding it tedious can skip over those short segments.

Many of the lectures demanded research and study. I remember being told in college (Unfortunately I can’t remember the source.) that plagiarism is when you copy from one source; research is when you copy from many sources. I endeavored to use my own ideas for the lectures although some of them are standard physical or mathematical mind images I picked up over decades of interest in the subject. The sources are lost somewhere in my long ago.

My biggest concern is the inherent ambiguity when scientific subjects are intertwined with a fictional story. I leave it to the reader to discriminate the line between the science and the fiction. Obviously this is a fictional story and any relationship with reality is purely coincidental..

But then you never know.

ROBERT PADGUG

bpadgug@gmail.com

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Department: Physics

Number: PH501

Title: Selected Topics in Modern Physics

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: PH101, PH102, PH202

Schedule: M, W, F 8:00 AM - 8:50 AM

Location: Room 122 Quentin

Instructor: Hanley, Dr. Paul

Text: Reshal, Dr. P.H. Physics of Our Century

Modern viewpoints and new directions in physics. Suitable for majors and non-majors. Topics include Special and General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Perspectives on the Space-Time Continuum and Time Travel.

CLASS 1 WEDNESDAY WEEK 1

PH501

Hanley bubbled with enthusiasm on the first day of class. Unbridled optimism reigned at the christening of any new venture—before the staleness set in and reality dampened his delusional idealism—but this term was destined to be different. He knew it now with a deeply anchored religious conviction. Dr. Paul Hanley, that eccentric physics anachronism, known by legend across campus as the aspiring time traveler, had done it. He had contacted some shadowy intelligence hidden one thousand years in the deep future and it had answered. This new, naïve and unsuspecting class was in for the time of its life.

Selected Topics in Modern Physics, PH501, had been his for nine years. He loved it. It was his creation from the beginning. He had nurtured it over the years, honed it, kept the lectures that grabbed students and dropped those that induced drowsiness. Hanley watched their eyes as he lectured, looking deep within for a warm understanding glow. No glow—throw it out. But if warmth radiated back to him, then he faithfully recorded the words and movements and inflections to be revisited each year at the proper time. Each replayed cycle soared to a religious experience for Hanley and hopefully for his latest student crop. After all, it was their first venture into a magical realm, a physical fantasy mind game land, away from the standard college text drabness into a universe of conceptual delights. Here they left the humdrum world of ordinary human experience to scratch at the hidden fabric of the universe. Most loved it and the cream of the technical student crop flocked to him often joined by their not-so-technical peers. Their lust had been infectious.

He nervously surveyed the drab classroom as his still sleepy class straggled in. From his perch on the oak desk stationed in the front of the room, Hanley fixated on the wall clock catching it jerk another minute closer to eight o'clock. Morning sun blazed through glistening windows in bright shafts to his right bursting into odd shadow patterns on the facing wall, bouncing as the door thrust open announcing the arrival of two more budding physicists. Hanley rose for his final preparations with a minute left, moving the large oak chair away from the massive desk into the corner where it would not interfere with his freedom of movement across the front of the room. His space had to be uncramped, open and free. Soon he would be pacing back and forth through this void filling it with his standard spiel. No problem tripping over students in the front row. There were no students in the front row. A smattering in the second row building to a higher density in the third with the bulk of the bodies back in four and five. His mind silently began to analyze the problem.

A classroom holds C chairs arranged in R rows and is occupied by S students. What is the probability of no student sitting in the front row if the students are randomly dispersed? What is the irresistible force compressing their immovable bodies into the back of the room? His mouth curled slightly into a pleasant quarter smile.

The chalk supply appeared adequate as the board glistened with that slick, newly washed luster reserved for first days. Hefting one good size shaft of chalk to satisfy a craving in his nervous fingers, Dr. Paul Hanley, Ph. D., turned back toward a classroom filled with new faces, unfamiliar faces, just as he had done nine times before. The minute hand jerked straight up, eight o’clock. Poised to raise the curtain on his tenth performance, he full-smiled into the classroom and thought, Rewind the tape. Queue up jokes 1 and 2. Ready. Set. Liftoff.

Thirty-three faces turned to him in anticipation as a sixth sense woke them from their own private reveries warning the lecture was to begin. He stepped forward then leaned against the corner of the desk as the hum of voices faded out in anticipation of his opening remarks. Hanley began in his friendliest tone.

Good morning and welcome to Physics 501. I am Dr. Paul Hanley. I will briefly review some of the logistics before we begin. I like to run my lectures informally. I think of this more as a discussion group than a lecturer-lecturee relationship.

A silent inner voice, recognizing the futility, laughed within him for suggesting the sacred pattern could be altered. The classes were always lectures. Nobody, not the instructor nor the students wanted them to be lectures, but as sure as Newton’s Laws they would be lectures.

He slouched to a more leisurely pose on the desk as he spoke, trying to drop closer to their seated level. The smile never diminished, his tone remained calm and congenial, droning into his standard course policy discussion as he automatically began to scan the faces.

There will be two tests and a major project. You may select your own topic for the project, subject to my approval. Working in groups is permitted if desired. Grades will be based only on the project and the tests. I will occasionally give some assignments from the textbook which will be evaluated but will not count toward your grade.

He held up the course text, forgot his smile temporarily and continued blandly, The book covers many of the topics we'll get into and has some interesting problems at the ends of the chapters. It should be a useful reference.

The book was a vividly illustrated $99 sleep inducing drug written by the infamous Dr. Reshal, Chairman of the Physics Department, smooth, well-published, politically astute and totally self-serving, Dr. Philip Reshal. That man had not spoken to an undergraduate in five years while lacking the intellectual capacity to teach graduate students. His success was an enigma, but successful he was. Hanley knew instinctively that Reshal would never cancel his course as long as that abominable book, now in its second edition, was retained. He fancied himself apolitical but not stupid.

He droned on about the same policies, same textbook, same assignments. Hard to imagine how very different this term would be. He continued his scan of the faces. There was no trouble finding her. There were after all only two women in the class. Strangely, they had violated the usual herding instinct and were not seated together but rather she was flanked by two young men both looking very studious and mature.

That's them, he thought. No way to miss them. Prettier than her picture. He continued studying the trio cautiously to be absolutely sure. There could be no doubt.

His opening remarks reached their rehearsed conclusion. He considered his customary warning to keep up with the material during the term but decided to drop it rather than take the time from an already hectic lecture. This term would be special anyway so there was little reason to harp on it.

Why do we expend so much effort conceiving the unimaginable? he sighed to himself.

Students studied according to an innate cosmic plan. They could no more control it than float through the air. Not that it was a pressing problem in this course as it had been in his others. This one had always attracted a bright array of shining, young faces from diverse technical and non-technical disciplines on campus. Most were in their junior or senior year. Having left the drudgery of the basics behind them, they were receptive to radical ideas but had enough of the basics to discern the jewels from the garbage. They were from varied backgrounds, some physics majors, but many from the brethren professions—math, computer science and engineering—with even a few brave souls from economics, political science, psychology. The diversity swayed him away from endless mathematical ramblings toward more non-symbolic explanations. Mathematics consoled him through those long evening hours alone in his office or even lonelier at home. There he could hide away in the deep recesses of one endless derivation or another. Here he restricted himself to the vernacular, communicating with these young nouveau academics in their native language.

They flocked to him from every nook and cranny of the great university. Professionally diverse but temporally homogeneous, united with each other by age — all young — separated from him by that impenetrable gulf of years. They were all creatures of the last decade climbing out of infancy as he sank toward middle age. He could not enter their world but he could shout across that temporal chasm, sharing great insights with them. They played their part as students supporting his starring role as professor just as he had trained decades earlier, paying his dues under a bygone professorial generation. A lost tribe who by now had slipped into retirement or entered eternity, known to this class as faceless names referenced in textbooks and technical journals, historical footnotes instead of breathing beings.

That was the way of this world. Hanley’s generation had flowed into the void leaving a vacuum behind to be filled by an endless cycle of new faces. These students were now at the stage of their young lives when there was just the right balance of scientist and philosopher as he had been back then. They would feast on his discourse after this droning logistical discussion. He changed to a more animated persona, plowing ahead into his standard prologue.

Many people consider themselves coldly rational, very scientific, very technical. They shy away from mysticism certain it to be no more than ancient foolishness. Religion may hold a psychological purpose for the emotionally weak but has little basis in fact. We’re scientists or engineers. We deal in reality, not superstition. Leave all that hocus-pocus to those strange guys over in the Department of Philosophy.

Science did in fact go through a long and very productive period explaining everything in terms of a few intuitive rules. The future could be predicted from the present if you knew where everything was and where it was going merely by applying those intuitive concepts. Almost everything was known; the rest would be found in short order through structured scientific observation under the spell of commonsense. We resided in a clockwork universe peeking into the works to see how all those little gears were interconnected, leaving no room for any unseen powers operating in the shadowy background. Philosophers, mystics, all those religious folks had better forget their foolishness.

That is the essence of the pre-20th Century physics; what we term classical physics. The 1900’s spawned a revolution in the physical sciences as we will discuss over the course of this term. As we learned more, we understood less. We were blown into the Land of Oz grasping to pull back the curtain, expose the wizard. Maybe we need those other thinkers around for a while.

His rhythmic pacing had been carrying him from one end of the shiny board then back to the other. He stopped as his right hand rose to grasp the imaginary gold cord. He brought it smoothly down as if sliding a curtain open before them, revealing some magical essence.

Most eyes shot up to meet his. He had taken a broadside shot at their secure youthful minds. They knew the world to be an orderly machine. They were here to learn about the order. All their other classes were about order. Professors did not teach magic, superstition, supernatural, paranormal or any other taboo subjects, especially professors of physics. This man spoke blasphemy and they recoiled in doubt and fear.

I’m here to expose the lie. Hanley peeked toward the door with the corners of his eyes searching for a hidden informant eavesdropping on his sacrilege, his voice dropping to a whisper. It’s all a lie you know. You have been fooled. That which you see is not what is.

Some smiled. Some scowled. Of course it’s an act…or maybe he is crazy. Who knew?

Philosophers ask questions that scientists never attempt to answer. In my view, scientists attempt to describe that which they perceive around them. They look for ordered patterns in their observations. They build mental models.

Models, models, models. Kids build models, model planes, boats. I did. I built model planes. I swooshed them through the air imagining the real thing. Or here I have a map.

Hanley fumbled in the top desk drawer unfolding a frayed campus map. Holding it up, he explained, This is a model of the campus. You can look at it to learn the spatial relationships between different buildings on the campus. Here we are…right here.

His finger slid to a line drawing depiction of the old physics building, the building holding this drab classroom where they now sat as nine previous audiences had done.

Then over here is the new physics building, his voice mocking respect as he slid over to another line drawing, his head rising, eyes clearly focusing out the window on a larger, ultramodern edifice looming across a neatly mowed field.

My model plane was made of wood, later on plastic…it was a replica in miniature of the real thing…or at least the external appearance of the real thing. This map is a 2-dimensional depiction on paper of a 3-dimensional reality. We stay away from wood and paper and plastic here in physics classes. We use mental models, mathematical models instead…we may write them on paper…but our models are a different beast. Those others are visual models…you see them…you feel them…they conjure up mental images of a larger reality. Our physics models are all in our heads. Let me give you an example of a physicist’s model.

Again fumbling in the desk, he removed a pure white balloon tethered to a small metal tank which thudded on the desk as the balloon floated up to the end of a yard long length of plastic tubing. He turned a small valve on the tank initiating a quiet, almost subliminal hiss. The balloon swayed gently on the end of its leash.

Here’s my pet ant, Emma…Emma the Ant.

Hanley cautiously removed a tiny object from a small box freeing it on the balloon. The minute creature staggered erratically then as if harkening to some silent command, scurried across the balloon surface following the equator of the sphere. It soon disappeared behind the balloon reappearing on the other side a few seconds later. Hanley continued as it again went out of sight.

Gas is slowly flowing from this tank here into the balloon, very slowly, almost imperceptibly. The balloon is slowly inflating beneath her feet.

Imagine the world of our tiny friend here, Emma, living on the surface of this giant balloon, so humongous relative to her that the surface appears flat to her beady little ant-eyes. She believes herself to be living on a flat surface. Her home is over here in a smear of sticky sugar goo…right here.

He pointed to a smudge on the balloon, took a deep breath and exhaled. Emma spends her time walking endlessly around the circumference of her world searching for whatever ants spend their time searching for, passing her sugar blob home each time around.

Now Emma is a particularly intelligent ant so she does a lot of thinking as she walks. She senses her world to be perfectly flat but this leads her to an inconsistency since she walks in a perfectly straight line, leaving her blob from one side always returning to the same spot from the other. She finally develops an idea in her head. She imagines her world to be a giant sphere. It’s the only way to make any sense of her observations.

Now mind you, she has never seen the balloon from far away. I don’t know if ants can see anyway. She makes scientific observations in her world – that is, she observes herself to walk in a straight line constantly returning to a set place – she then has drawn a logical conclusion from her data, the giant sphere conclusion. Emma has formed a model, a mental model, of a reality she has never seen.

Now imagine this. As time goes on, she perceives each orbit of her world takes longer and longer. She checks her watch as she passes her home smear, checking again each time around. Sure enough, every trip around takes longer than the last.

One face smiled, stuttered, An ant with a watch! then muffled it conceding to the parable.

Hanley was at the board writing a list of numbers smiling internally, echoing the numbers as he worked.

10000.000 seconds

10100.000 seconds

10201.000 seconds

10303.010 seconds

10406.040 seconds

10510.101 seconds

10615.202 seconds

10721.354 seconds

10828.567 seconds

He had done it. He had broken the sanctity of that freshly washed board scribbling his imaginary data, fouling the perfect sheen. The green expanse could not return to its virginal state until next term. His lecture may have started ten minutes prior but the embryonic term was not consummated until this instant. He felt the power returning to his body, coursing through his veins. He loved to teach this course.

Emma ponders this data as she walks soon recognizing the mathematical relationship of the numbers, each orbit takes 1% longer than the last. She wrestles with this for a while. Perhaps she is walking more slowly each time around or maybe her watch is speeding up or maybe…that’s it…in a flash of intuition she imagines the sphere growing in size as time goes on. Emma has stumbled onto her expanding world theory. She now has an image of her world as a slowly inflating sphere.

Her mind now races to understand the implications of her revelation. If she is right, then her next trip around will take 10936.853 seconds. Sure enough…she’s exactly right. She can now predict the future. And another thought comes to her. The trip before she started her timekeeping must have taken 1% less time, only 9901 seconds and the one before that only 9803 seconds. She whips out her trusty calculator and calculates back and further back in time. Soon she has projected back 1000 trips around, back to the time of her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother. She’s projected back a million seconds to an era in which an orbit of the world took only half a second. The curvature of the sphere must have been quite noticeable back then in a very different world. Walking would have been difficult. Further back there would not have been time for a single step in each orbit as her ancestors raced about in a tiny fraction of a second. She is projecting back to the very creation of her world, a strange alien world, very different from her own.

Now this is not the only possible model for Emma to propose. Perhaps a lesser ant would imagine a flat world, a large plane surface. Emma might have a boyfriend, Emmet. Emmet doesn’t walk; he just hangs around the blob waiting to do whatever ant-guys do. He gets the data from Emma pondering the deep inner meaning of this reality. And perhaps he decides her model is wrong. After all, what’s a girl-ant doing philosophizing about creation? She doesn’t walk in a perfectly straight line but always yaws very, very slightly to her left or right, so she walks in a giant circle on the flat surface. And maybe her path gets a bit straighter each time so the circles are getting bigger and bigger, taking longer and longer.

Hanley turned back to the board drawing two diagrams, labeling them.

So Emma has an Expanding Spherical Model; Emmet uses the Flat Expanding Tangential Circle Model. Perhaps they debate their models with Emma pointing out other observations, like the apparent curvature of the horizon. We’re lucky. We hover like gods above their world observing the reality, Emma has it right, Emmet is dumb.

So a model is no more than a mental image of the world based on observations and a touch of commonsense. Not so obvious just where our commonsense comes from. Maps and model planes are real things that plant pictures of realities in our heads. Physicists use observations to create pictures in their heads. Mathematics is the language of those ideas. Did you notice how Emma used mathematics to project both forward and back in time? See how she derived conclusions from her model beyond her observations.

We have such models in our heads. You’ve developed them from birth and now honed them throughout your education. Is your model of reality a naïve Emmet-style farce or a brilliant Emma-style revelation? What do the omnipotent gods see?

He paused for a moment to let them roll it over in their minds. Thirty pairs of eyes followed him, riveted on his words, as he moved to the window. Two pairs continued past him as he stopped, scanning out into the soon-to-be-fall foliage. Three pairs had been glazed over before his excursion.

Not bad. I've got most of them, he thought. Most are with me, especially my three musketeers. Good class. He consciously scanned back and forth through the class keeping close tabs on the young woman and her partners without lingering on them noticeably. His glow detector became hyperactive as he proceeded, looking for that warm glow telling him they were in sync.

He always focused the course on the nature of time and possible methods of time travel rather than the plethora of other important topics in the booming world of contemporary physics. Black holes, dark matter, big bang, string theory, gravity waves…how boring—but time travel, that was all he wanted to talk about, especially now—now that he had substance to back his conjectures. Still he had always harbored some remorse at restricting the course in this way. After all, it was supposed to be a general survey. That’s what Reshal had told him in the beginning. Hanley eased his guilt each term by pretending time travel had been selected by student referendum rather than his egotistical bias. He had to lead them obtusely in that direction.

You want answers or explanations? Go see your clergymen. They've got answers to questions. They'll tell you where you came from, where you're going and what to do until you get there. I'm a physicist. I don't deal in explanations. I deal in descriptions. I build models. Specifically I build models that describe patterns occurring in our perceived universe. Scientists describe. Engineers use our descriptions to design tools to modify our environment. Technicians build them. Mathematicians create a concise language so we can communicate our descriptions. None of us understand or explain anything.

Each of us is a scientist every day of our lives creating an ordered picture in our heads of the world around us. Watch a baby learning to get noise from a rattle. He likes the rattling noise when you shake it near his ear. Next you jam it in his little hand so he reflexively grabs it. By chance a small movement of his arm makes it rattle. He slowly connects a little shake with the rattling noise learning how to create the sound at will, his will. He now dominates his environment, making the noise whenever he wants it and stopping it when he doesn’t. It was OK when you rattled but it’s a hundred times better when he rattles. You overdid it. He liked the rattle sometimes but enough was enough. Now he is in control; he turns it on and off.

The baby controls his world with a simple model never understanding what makes the rattle rattle. Perhaps as he gets older you preach about dried beans inside hitting the hard shell when you shake it causing vibrations exciting the air around it producing traveling longitudinal waves reaching his cute little ears and so on and so on. You continue describing things in greater and greater detail but do you ever really explain anything.

Many of my colleagues would disagree somewhat with my view feeling they know basic truths. They would ascribe descriptive motives to engineers and technicians arguing that we physicists probe deeper into reality, obtaining a finer descriptive level until we move one step closer to the core—attaining a higher understanding. I don't know if that's true or not. And I refuse to fight a semantic battle. I simply feel the scientific mind creates descriptions. Philosophers hunt for basic truth. Theoretical physicists are free to be both scientists and philosophers by my definition.

We speak of physical laws as if there is some penalty for violating them. Is nature constrained to follow natural law? Who enforces these laws? Who enacted them? Or is it we’ve observed these patterns for hundreds, even thousands of years. They existed four hundred years ago and they existed yesterday and today, so we have a very high confidence they’ll hold tomorrow. Those laws embrace our model of reality.

I will teach you the only basic truth of which I am certain. That is, we have built within our heads a model, an intuitive feel for the world around us. It is based on everything we have observed since we first shook that rattle. It is the essence of every action we make, every day of our lives.

He emphasized the last few words of that line by raising his voice while he slowed his cadence so he could broad-side them again with his revelation. This time he proclaimed it proudly in full voice.

That model is a lie. It is a carefully constructed misrepresentation designed to fool you into complacency. In actual fact, we are surrounded by a magical world occupied by a strange menagerie of mystical beings whose sole job is to pull the wool over our eyes. Physics over the last century has forced us to the very threshold of this supernatural world. I will introduce you to many of its residents.

Another pause. His throat was dry. The chalk dust dried his lungs. Professors must all die from white lung disease. he used to joke. Now he was working with yellow chalk on a green blackboard. He turned to that green expanse, raised his voice a few decibels and wrote quickly as he spoke, clicking the chalk in harmony with the spoken words. Years of practice were evident as the words flowed clickingly from his fingers onto the board as he echoed verbally.

"This term we will discuss the following general topics which I feel are the most important in the scientific world today:

1. Isaac Newton

2. Magic

3. Relativity

4. Quantum Theory

5. Probability and Uncertainty

6. Time Travel"

His sacred itinerary was now etched into the board. Savoring the moment as he had done so many times in the past, he needed only to discuss these topics until an unsuspecting mind questioned his selections. Then he would easily direct the conversation to the inevitable Hanley-engineered conclusion. This moment had occurred precisely nine times in the nine previous performances of this course. Every revival was different but all were strangely the same. His carefully orchestrated symphony built toward its climax.

After all, he had a reputation on campus blossoming into the Physics Department legend. Every college harbors legends for students to thrust along from year to year. Students are a transitory feature of any school, coming and going quickly, evolving from applicants to freshmen to seniors to fading memory alumni in a flash. Faculty flit by, often as quickly, usually leaving behind a deeper mark. But their legends linger to journey through the years, growing stronger as each generation adds an imaginative twist. The people of the legends disperse to the four corners of the Earth to live out their years with the truth buried deep within them while their legends survive in place, never venturing out from their native land, nurtured in the telling and retelling. Most legends are false surviving through the impressionism of young adult minds coupled with a natural human tendency for embellishment rather than any hint of veracity. Most not only survive but grow and flourish from generation to generation. A very, very few however are quite true.

Hanley’s legend was true and had grown in place with him over many years. They spoke of it behind his back. Old Man Hanley is building a time machine. Been building it for thirty years. You'd think that if he ever succeeded he'd just travel back in time and show himself how to do it. Snicker, snicker.

They all knew it was his obsession, his temporal insanity. These students before him today were here to judge for themselves just which side of mental competency he resided on. He wanted them to know from the first day that he was ready for the challenge. Most came with open minds; they would leave even more so. And, of course, this term was to be very, very different. He would truly have the proverbial last laugh.

He turned back to the thirty-three pairs of eyes now riveted on him. No glazed over looks remained. But the eyes were smiling—not glowing—not laughing—just smiling. He smiled back and was broadsided by the inevitable question without any additional prodding.

I don't see how you can lump topics such as magic and time travel together with accepted scientific laws and theories.

The tone was mildly derisive but not disrespectful. He responded, Magic is a term we use for an observation which doesn't fit into our ordered model of accepted scientific theory. In fact, as we'll discuss, magic is to accepted scientific theories as Einstein’s relativity is to Newton's Laws. Magic is all around us. The closer you look, the more you see.

Dr. Hanley, do you actually believe travel through time is possible? Wouldn't it create insoluble paradoxes if time travel was possible?

It had originated from her. Her two flankers had watched and nodded agreement as the words were spoken. Hanley appreciated the pleasant tone and friendly phrasing, so much less confrontational than in previous years. Emphasis on the word actually gave him a convenient escape route to mask his true intent in a veil of academic hand waving. And he was pleased to elicit interest from such a pleasant looking coed especially one who would play a pivotal role in his future.

Thank you for phrasing the question so diplomatically, he began. May I first remind you that time travel actually is a reality? Each of us embarks on a journey through time from our very conception up until our death. I will be happy to take all of you on a journey to next Wednesday—the trip will take one week.

He paused for a deep breath, smiling directly at her as the obvious tautology succumbed her.

Your observation should not be that time travel is impossible, clearly traveling through time is the normal state of our existence, but rather your question should pertain to the possibility of controlling the direction and rate of time travel…whatever that means!

She smiled back at him obviously appreciating his point. She had never visualized her existence as a journey through time but it clearly was. Several young faces raised slightly in understanding. His detector alerted him to great warmth. Glow was heavy about him. He had pressed the right button winning the first battle opening a portal into their minds. The nonsensical idea of time travel had been rendered sensical. He took a breath and continued with growing vigor, feeding off their response.

Take a trip. Move yourself from one place to another. You could go to the airport, hop a plane to some faraway place where people dress oddly; speak oddly; think oddly. Or just sit right here for thirty or forty years and you’ll arrive at a place where people dress oddly; speak oddly; think oddly. Take my word for it. You guys might not appreciate that yet. It kind of creeps up on you.

We’re used to hopping on and off a space machine, an airplane or a car or a train, so we miss the obvious. We are residing in a time machine. We have passed our entire lives in it. But think about it. On a space machine, a spaceship, we can control our position in three dimensions, forward-back, left-right, up-down.

He stepped forward and back, slid left and right, then raised up on his toes, before settling slowly back to the floor, dancing through the motions in time to his words.

The spaceship moves in the three dimensions of space. We can stop and linger at any point. As we move through space we are also moving through time. We never move from here to there instantaneously but rather take up some time as we change our location. This time machine we live in won't allow us to control our trip through time like our travel through space. We have no control in the time dimension barreling along unrelentingly from yesterday to tomorrow.

If we wished to arrange a meeting with another spaceship-bound being, we would specify the location of the meeting in three spatial dimensions, the corner of 2nd Street and Main on the 3rd floor, and a fourth dimension, time. Being on the 3rd floor of 2nd and Main at different times doth not a meeting make. A meeting requires specification of four dimensions, three dimensions of where, forward-back, left-right, up-down and one dimension of when. We can control our movement in the three dimensions of space but in the fourth, we just move inexorably toward the appointed instant. It controls us. We can’t control it. And if we miss our time; if we arrive late at the appointed spot…tough luck. We can’t swerve back into the past. We can hop on and off our space machine. We never get to hop off our time machine…not in this life.

Of course our perceptions of time can vary. You know, time flies when you're having fun. Or when you're running late. Then it creeps when you're bored. But still, when compared to any dispassionate reference, the physicist's clock, it just marches along at its own pace unconcerned with our machinations. We are all time sailors whisked along by an irresistible wind.

There was no need to continue the charade any further. Paul Hanley, Ph. D., aspiring Time Traveler, would lead this class as he saw fit, into the annals of history, whatever that was.

Since you have shown an obvious interest in this topic, let's focus on Number Six, he turned and circled Time Travel on the board with a chalk-induced squeal. It was hard to make it seem spontaneous, selecting that topic for the tenth straight time. I'll spend one…maybe two…lectures on each of the first five topics focusing on issues that are germane to Item 6. Then we'll commence a discussion of Item 6. My intention is to poke some holes in your parochial view of reality then propose some corrections.

The trap was sprung; tradition was maintained. He had them hooked as he gloated, feeling a bit foolish. Nobody was fooled.

I can't tell each of you how to best understand and appreciate the concepts we'll be discussing. I will steer clear of mathematical derivations as much as possible sticking mostly to mental images, little mind games. I find that I get the most understanding lying quietly alone in bed at night before I go to sleep. From what I read in the newspapers, few of you ever get to do that. My second suggestion would be to roll them around in your head a few times during a quiet moment in the bathroom. I can't fully describe the warm feeling you'll get when one of these little gems clicks in. It's like a sudden awakening — a warm glow. One second it's a confusing swarm of words, the next it becomes part of your being—living, vital, obvious.

The class was concluded with a review of the prerequisites needed to understand the impending lessons, and then the assignment of a few problems from the text to sharpen their skills. They were written into a corner of the board then circled twice. He dismissed the class no more than two clock jerks early lingering to field any questions. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the young coed exit with her entourage, her bookends, one stationed to either side.

Episode 1a

Three Students

What do you think of him, Lee?

Lee Chadwick tipped her head slightly to one side thinking for a moment as the three moved down the paneled corridor. Masses of students spewed into the halls from either side as each massive wood door swung open. Faces, voices, colors all swirled about them, each body claiming its small allotment of unoccupied space then oozing toward its next class. For the female Physics major, one of only three women in the department, it was the first day of her junior year. Up to now, courses in her major had been dry. Sure, there had been sufficient interest to keep her going. And there was, no doubt, a great attraction to the simple beauty of natural law. Beauty had drawn her in from the time as a child gifted in the arts; she amazed her parents with her talent. Playing alone with a paper and crayon, she would recreate scenes of the world around her. The drawings were childlike perceptions in her parents’ eyes but unmistakably spatially accurate. Her obvious awareness of perspective and spatial relationships was impressive. Proportion and detail were her fortes demonstrated in each drawing, rich with incredibly accurate detail. Details missed by adult observers until they viewed the childish re-creations. They had always steered her toward the arts and could not abide her desire for physics. She could never explain to them how scenes created symmetry in her head. Detail was easy to retain since any loss of detail broke the symmetry. Proportion was necessary or you broke the symmetry. It was all so easy. Symmetry created her images and symmetry was created by natural law. Physics was at the root of everything beautiful.

But as college studies ground on she yearned for something more. Lee began to question her decision to major in physics as she plowed through the early drudgery of vectors and units of measure and numerical precision problems. There was no way to enjoy those empty pursuits no matter how necessary. Symmetry needed few names and no measures. Today she felt different. Hanley had struck a chord. Models — that’s all it was — models. It was all in her head. It was all symmetric patterns dancing within her, as she had known all along.

Of course she had been traveling in time. How foolish? She had fallen into his trap. She always existed now so she foolishly lived frozen at now. But that masked the obvious movement. Her now was ever slipping forward in time leaving behind past nows as they morphed into future thens. Hanley had touched her deep within with a finger probing into her subconscious, an idea gently stimulating a warmth emanating outward through her. She had entered the class confident in the sanctity of her now but left harboring a doubt as the impossible barrier had been pierced. Could it be?

She repressed a smile but could not restrain a slim trace of grin, a slight upward curl of her lips, as she answered. She had felt the warm glow in class building an instant rapport with him. It had been a long time since such warmth had grown within her.

I like him. I don't know just where this thing will go but he has a different perspective on things. I can't tell if he's putting us on or if he actually believes it. It's hard to picture him a kook.

Ken on her right correctly sensed this avowal was a response to his question despite the long pause. He too had been lost in some deep cerebral recess communing with his long ago. He agreed with her. Ken Ferris, junior Electrical Engineering major, had felt it. He had not expected it. This course fulfilled a requirement for a single 500 level physics elective plus he had always been intrigued by modern physics but he had not anticipated any great revelation here. This was to be just another step on the straight and narrow path to graduation.

Science had been mystically satisfying to him as a child but was one topic among many. Young Ken had read voraciously starting with history books, Wars, Old West, New Frontiers, Columbus. He was obsessed. As the years circled forward, he delved further back. By his early teens Ken had progressed to Roman then Greek and then to Biblical times. Soon he was into prehistoric cultures and then back through the timeless ages toward the dawn of man, the dinosaurs, back to the Big Bang. As history became clouded by the years, it became science. History begat archeology which begat paleontology then cosmology. With each venture to the library, each new stack of books, Ken turned from historian to scientist but never with any true glow. He did not recognize the real thing back then contenting himself with a very fine, but not complete, pseudo-glow. But more was to come.

It was about this stage of life he started to fixate on how things worked. The old family gas clothes dryer had tumbled its last, fated to be replaced by a shiny new model. His father asked for help moving the old beast out to the street for the town pick-up but young Ken lobbied to let it sit until he could inspect it. The father, happy to encourage youthful curiosity, consented. The boy methodically removed the steel covers from the top and back, then traced the electrical system from the long substantial black power cord up to the timer control. From there he moved down to the quarter-horse motor with fan and black drive belt. Each potentially valuable component was removed to a set of shelves. Next he traced the natural gas line into the demand regulator. This last item interested him greatly so he removed it for intense study. He was soon able to disassemble and reassemble the regulator completely in five minutes blindfolded. He carefully examined the rubber diaphragm soon understanding its function. This item was finally shelved as he continued through the gas line to the burners. Eventually a stripped steel frame topped by a stack of not-too-shiny white enameled panels was piled at the curb waiting for refuse pick-up.

Soon thereafter, any neighbor disposing of a washer, dryer, refrigerator, radio, TV, whatever, knew Ken was happy to move it out for them. A few days later the carcass would appear at the curb devoid of guts while the basement shelves filled to overflowing with parts. Ken loved to rummage among his parts soon learning how to assemble them into other interesting and occasionally useful devices though more often interesting and useless contraptions.

He loved the adventure of dreaming up a project, collecting the needed parts then assembling some beast. As he gazed upon each finished project, he basked in the glow of achievement, of an idea born within him coming to fruition by his hand, a tangible, lasting thing, a part of him that lingered on as a constant living reminder of his achievement. An engineer was born out of that glow of achievement. It had hit him again in the class today. It hit him at the image of a time sailor riding an irresistible wind. His mind had eerily grabbed onto that line, held it, rolled it over, parsed it. Just why was beyond his reach but there was some mystical bond forged in that thought.

David Euler listened attentively on Lee's left absorbing the punctuated conversation at some subconscious level as he too searched deep within. Something had touched him during the class also in some diffuse area of his psyche. Also a junior, a Mathematics major, he had little excuse for enrolling in the class. His chosen field was more abstract. It required no models. His equations had an ephemeral significance but no physical substance. They were no more than the organized symbols that composed them. He saw them — he solved them. The others could worry about the worldly implications. But he had felt the glow today. It had come when Hanley mentioned the four dimensional space defined by appending a time dimension to the normal 3-D space. That was when he felt it. He had stumbled into such higher dimensional spaces in a Non-Euclidean Geometry course last year. He loved it, finding it mystically satisfying to close his eyes and twist his consciousness into higher order universes, multi-dimensional spaces.

Now a thought was spinning inside his head. A clock, that big classroom wall clock, was sailing along in space traveling from star to star, pitching and yawing through 3-dimensions. Then suddenly the minute hand jerked forward into a new position bracketed by a counterclockwise past position and a clockwise future. His mind grasped the fourth dimension in that instant, he held it for a second but could not prevent it from wandering away. He lost the feeling as a conscious thought process investigated the jerking motion of the minute hand. Shouldn’t there be a smoothly flowing second hand? The minute hand doesn’t jerk…it flows with the second hand, only more slowly. Doesn’t it? The jerk was an artifact of the clockworks and not descriptive of time. Wasn’t it? This new mental thread usurped his attention, forcing out his inspired revelation, dropping him from his hyper-dimensional detour back into his 3-D reality.

It was hard to tell if he consumed mathematics