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    Time Travel Trouble
    Time Travel Trouble
    Time Travel Trouble
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    Time Travel Trouble

    By Tony Thorne MBE

    ()

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    About this ebook

    An introduction to the concept and hazards of Time Travel...in either direction, including a collection of quirky tales to illustrate them including:


    Time to Survive  – The awesome perils of short term time travel, before you even arrive!


    Testing Time – Some trips might be unplanned, and  take a lot longer than expected.


    Timely Encounter -  How to escape justice... on a permanent basis? 


    Brain Leak – An acount of a painless way to travel ahead in time.. or was it.


    Tomorrow the World – If only you could go back..!  Think of the infinite rewards in reach.


    Long Term Future – A way to survive the time involved in putting you right, one day maybe? 


    A collection of eight speculative tales about the idea of traveling in time, to intrigue and entertain you. Read them and then decide if the author's conclusions are valid.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTony Thorne MBE
    Release dateOct 21, 2017
    Time Travel Trouble
    Author

    Tony Thorne MBE

    I am an Englishman, born and technically educated in London, England, and now living in Austria; but in the winter, in the warmer Canary Island of Tenerife. I originally qualified as a Chartered Design Engineer, specializing in Applied Physics products. For developments in the field of low temperature (cryo)surgery instruments, and very high temperature (carbon fibre) processing furnaces, the Queen awarded me an MBE. Earlier in life I also wrote and sold science-fiction and humorous stories, was an active SF Fan, and a spare time lecturer for the British Interplanetary Society. Now retired I write quirky speculative fiction; mostly tall Science Fiction and Macabre tales, with over 100 short stories published in various collections, including MACABRE TALES, THE BEST OF THE TENERIFE TALL TALES, THE JUNIOR PHILOSOPHY SOCIETY, BEST SELLING AUTHOR PLAN etc.. The first 4 volumes in my near future, 5 stars SF espionage series for general readers, POINTS OF VIEW, are now available from Amazon, Smashwords etc. My best selling title, THE SINGULARITY IS COMING, is published in English and Chinese versions.

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      Book preview

      Time Travel Trouble - Tony Thorne MBE

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Publisher's Introduction

      Author’s Introduction

      MIGRAINE TIME

      TIME TO SURVIVE

      TESTING TIME

      TIMELY ENCOUNTER

      BRAIN LEAK

      YESTERDAY THE WORLD

      LONG TERM FUTURE

      IT’S TWISTING TIME

      Publisher's Notes - About the Author

      TIME TRAVEL TROUBLE

      ©2014-17 Tony Thorne MBE

      First eBook edition, July 2014

      This is the second edition October 2017 considerably updated and improved.

      Credits

      Earlier versions of the following tales have appeared elsewhere i.e: Brain Leak in MACABRE TALES, Long Term Future in TENERIFE TALES Vol.1, Survivor in TENERIFE TALES Vol.3, Etcetera Press publications), and also in Argentina, (Axxon Magazine). TOMORROW THE WORLD was first published in Planet Magazine No. 39, September 2003.

      .

      All rights reserved. All the characters in this collection of stories are fictitious, so any chance resemblance to any living persons, or otherwise, really is coincidental.

      Dedications

      Thanks once more to my liebe Wienerin, Eva, and all my friends, present and past, in Tenerife but especially to the late, great, Harry Harrison for inspiring me to take up writing again…and producing this modest effort... plus a novel or two..!

      Cover collage (C) 2014 by the author.

      TIME TRAVEL TROUBLE

      A collection of speculative stories…designed to warn you against trying out a time machine, especially if someone tries to sell you a working one.

      (Extract from the Wikipedia introduction to the subject)

      Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space, generally using a theoretical invention known as a time machine. Time travel is a recognized concept in philosophy and fiction, but has a very limited support in real world physics, and then usually only in conjunction with the concepts of quantum mechanics or wormholes.

      The 1895 novel The Time Machine by H. G. Wells was instrumental in moving the concept of time travel to the forefront of the public imagination, but the earlier short story, The Clock That Went Backward by Edward Page Mitchell, involves a clock that, by means unspecified, allowed three men to travel backwards in time. Historically, the concept dates back to the early mythologies of Hinduism (such as the Mahabharata).

      More recently, with advancing technology and a greater scientific understanding of the universe, the plausibility of time travel has been explored in greater detail by science fiction writers, philosophers, and physicists.

      Author’s Introduction

      Most scientists today seem to agree that Time is still a mystery. Also some of the things we do know about it now must seem weird , if not crazy, to the uninformed. For example, it’s a fact that a clock runs faster upstairs than it does downstairs, and a lot faster if you put it up in an Earth Satellite. However, the hard part to accept is the fact that it’s time itself that changes, not the clock. Our Global Satellite positioning systems wouldn`t work correctly if we didn't take that phenomenon ino account.

      Einstein showed that we exist in space-time. i.e. Our three familiar length, breadth and height dimensions plus one of time. These are inseparable and some philosophers still suspect that the past continues to exist. If so, how could we observe it?

      Following on from the famous HG Wells treatment mentioned above, the best time travel story I ever read, was BY HIS BOOTSTRAPS, in Astounding Stories, written I back in the ‘1940’s by Robert Heinlein, in which the hero meets up with himself. A first time idea back then, as far as I know. A similar occurrence happens in the second part of the BACK TO THE FUTURE film trilogy, when Marty McFly meets up with himself. However, one of my tall tales in this collection involves the idea of meeting up with a lot more same-self contacts than that.

      Here now is an edited excerpt (June 2014) from an ongoing discussion on the website LinkedIn –Regarding the only way around the so called, Grandfather Murder Paradox, i.e. the physical act of going back in time, is only possible by creating another reality, or parallel universe, thus avoiding the infamous paradox, of going back and preventing your own existence. Putting that more simply, what otherwise would be the consequences if you somehow prevented your father from meeting your mother? Or if perhaps you kill yourself as an obnoxious teenager while you’re away back then? Tough luck on your kids, don’t you think?

      My contribution to the discussion, about half way into it, was – "In several of my tall tales I’ve explored the probability that the concept of time travel to the past, is illogical and must be impossible.

      I've published tales covering several of the ideas raised in this discussion, but all pointing to one conclusion. Travel to the past can't work, unless one can accept the idea of an infinite number of realities. e.g. per person, per each time, doing the traveling. All anyone seems to be considering here, in this discussion, is one person, making one trip to achieve something. What about making a lot of trips?

      One of my tales in this book involves the possibility of a time traveler repeatedly meeting himself. And alternatively, what you could achieve by leaving a whole case of best single malt whiskey some where safe, a long way back in time and then then returning, repeatedly, starting from a few moments ago to recover thousands of lovely bottles.

      Further to that fascinating idea, think about the consequences of a remotely operated time machine, something small, for doing something similar with the Internet. Accessing bank accounts for example, at say microsecond intervals...!!? Then go back repeatedly, to collect them all up. How about giving everyone one to use. What an ‘economy busting’ war weapon that would be..!

      Finally I have to point out that nobody from the future seems to be visiting us. – Some people have suggested they’d be in disguise! All of them? Whatever for?

      Then my later comment - "It's not just a case of one single person possibly creating an infinite number of realities is it? Consider millions of ‘time travelers’ doing it, each creating many new realities. What would each doppelganger in them do thereafter, carry on a normal life, especially if he/she still had the machine left with them to use? Where would all the energy and mass come from anyway?

      What about my idea of giving everyone an automatic machine programmed to repeatedly send back objects at minimally increasing instances. Consider how many 'infinite' realities that could produce... especially if the 'replicated' machines did it too..!?"

      I still believe my simple conclusion, that nothing can go back in time, is less messy and more likely to be correct. My final reason for being sure it cannot be done is if you had a machine that could take you back and return you, you could bring someone back with you.-- and more than once! A new meaning to the concept of The Second Coming?

      So… this book is a collection of unlikely yarns about some of the perils of time travel in either direction, but mostly in going back. Don’t take everything too seriously though. The ideas in them are something for readers to think about, and decide if they’re possible.

      Comment by the late legendary American author, Harry Harrison, the American author of over 40 novels, several film scripts, and numerous collections of short stories. This is his flattering introduction to Volume One, in my TENERIFE TALES trilogy, containing earlier versions of three of these tales, which he reviewed during his visit to me on that island, for a fantastic week‘s chat about old friends and memories,

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