1 00:00:00,860 --> 00:00:07,856 This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. 2 00:00:07,856 --> 00:00:17,850 The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine. 3 00:00:19,849 --> 00:00:28,843 In 1895, H. G. Wells published a fantastic novel about time travel. He entitled it, The Time Machine. 4 00:00:31,842 --> 00:00:41,836 The book ushered in a fanciful era of imaginary trips to awe-inspiring events of history. 5 00:00:48,831 --> 00:00:52,829 79 A.D. The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius. 6 00:01:00,824 --> 00:01:03,822 26 A.D. The Resurrection of Christ. 7 00:01:10,818 --> 00:01:15,815 15 Billion B.C. The very creation of the universe. 8 00:01:24,810 --> 00:01:28,808 Today, science is reshaping our concept of the cosmos. 9 00:01:29,807 --> 00:01:35,803 Are we at last ready to journey to the stars and conquer the barriers of time and space travel? 10 00:01:46,797 --> 00:01:51,794 We are witness to the last leg of a hypothetical journey to the stars and back again. 11 00:01:52,793 --> 00:01:56,791 Our crew has been traveling through the galaxy very near the speed of light. 12 00:01:59,789 --> 00:02:02,787 They have finally returned to Earth. 13 00:02:03,787 --> 00:02:08,784 Due to an effect called time dilation, first described by Albert Einstein, 14 00:02:09,783 --> 00:02:14,780 hundreds of years have passed on Earth while only a few years have passed in the spaceship. 15 00:02:18,778 --> 00:02:23,775 Once they have landed, what will the crew find when they open the portal of their ship? 16 00:02:29,771 --> 00:02:36,767 The Earth has reached undreamed heights of technology or seared itself back into stone age emptiness. 17 00:02:39,765 --> 00:02:42,763 It is easy to conceive of the astronauts' journey through space. 18 00:02:43,763 --> 00:02:46,761 It is harder to comprehend their travel through time. 19 00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:51,758 The Earth has reached undreamed heights of technology or seared itself back into stone age emptiness. 20 00:02:51,758 --> 00:02:54,756 It is easy to conceive of the astronauts' journey through space. 21 00:02:55,756 --> 00:02:58,754 It is harder to comprehend their travel through time. 22 00:03:00,753 --> 00:03:04,750 How far-fetched is the idea of actually traveling through time? 23 00:03:05,750 --> 00:03:10,747 Today, we accept the concept of distance space travel because we have journey to the moon and back. 24 00:03:11,746 --> 00:03:17,743 Now, scientists are preparing for a world where both time and space travel are inseparably linked. 25 00:03:18,742 --> 00:03:22,740 One expert on the subject of time and space is William Kaufman, 26 00:03:23,739 --> 00:03:29,735 author, lecturer and adjunct professor in the Department of Physics at San Diego State University. 27 00:03:30,735 --> 00:03:35,732 We all live in space and time. We're all familiar with the three dimensions of space, 28 00:03:36,731 --> 00:03:38,730 forward and back, left and right, up and down. 29 00:03:39,729 --> 00:03:41,728 And time, time is what clocks measure. 30 00:03:41,728 --> 00:03:44,726 As the clock ticks on, it's measuring time. 31 00:03:45,726 --> 00:03:49,724 And of course, as we go from the cradle to the grave, you're also moving through time. 32 00:03:50,723 --> 00:03:52,722 It's kind of like looking up at the stars. 33 00:03:53,721 --> 00:03:57,719 When you look up at the stars during the night, you see stars scattered across the sky. 34 00:03:58,718 --> 00:04:02,716 If you think about what you're seeing, if you look at a star that's 10 light years away, 35 00:04:03,715 --> 00:04:09,712 you're really seeing how that star looked 10 years ago because it took the light 10 years to get to you. 36 00:04:09,712 --> 00:04:16,707 And therefore, to me, one of the great lessons of the nighttime sky is that as we are looking out into space, 37 00:04:17,707 --> 00:04:25,702 we're also looking backwards in time, that we must incorporate time on an equal footing with our three dimensions of space 38 00:04:26,701 --> 00:04:32,698 and talk about something that we call space-time, one of the things that was given to us by Albert Einstein. 39 00:04:32,698 --> 00:04:43,691 Albert Einstein changed all conventional thinking in physics when he published his famous theory of relativity in 1905. 40 00:04:44,691 --> 00:04:51,687 He is equal mc square in which energy is per equal to mass. 41 00:04:51,687 --> 00:05:03,679 Multiply this square of the velocity of light showed that very small amount of mass may be converted into a very large amount of energy. 42 00:05:04,679 --> 00:05:11,675 Albert Einstein approached all of reality with a deep personal conviction, almost a religious belief, 43 00:05:12,674 --> 00:05:17,671 that if we're doing anything right in science, if we're discovering anything of any real value, 44 00:05:17,671 --> 00:05:21,669 then the way we write down our discoveries, the way we write down our equations, 45 00:05:22,668 --> 00:05:29,664 should not depend on things like the color of your skin or your religion or how fast you happen to be moving, 46 00:05:30,663 --> 00:05:35,660 whether you're sitting here on the earth or zooming through the solar system at three quarters the speed of light. 47 00:05:36,660 --> 00:05:44,655 And all Einstein did in 1905 was take everything we knew about electricity and magnetism 48 00:05:44,655 --> 00:05:48,653 and rewrite it in a form such that it would be the same for everyone. 49 00:05:49,652 --> 00:05:56,648 For an example, suppose you have a rocket ship moving through the solar system at three quarters of the speed of light 50 00:05:57,647 --> 00:06:06,642 in order for you on earth and your colleague in that spaceship to have a complete, coherent, rational understanding of how things work. 51 00:06:06,642 --> 00:06:17,635 You have to say, his rulers are shrinking. You have to say that the very mass of his spaceship is behaving as though it's much more massive than it normally is. 52 00:06:18,635 --> 00:06:26,630 You have to say, his clocks are ticking more slowly than normal. Not only do the clocks tick more slowly, 53 00:06:27,629 --> 00:06:32,626 but every process proceeds more slowly, like the rate at which a man's beard grows 54 00:06:32,626 --> 00:06:38,623 or the rate at which your heart beats or even the rate at which you age. 55 00:06:39,622 --> 00:06:44,619 One of the results of all of this is that you can't travel faster than the speed of light. 56 00:06:45,619 --> 00:06:53,614 And the reason why this is so is if you think about moving out in a rocket ship, say a rocket ship even with an infinite supply of fuel, 57 00:06:54,613 --> 00:06:58,611 as that rocket ship goes faster and faster and faster, its clocks slow down. 58 00:06:58,611 --> 00:07:02,608 And as a result, it burns that fuel more and more slowly. 59 00:07:03,608 --> 00:07:10,604 And the slowing down of time is so powerful that at the speed of light clocks stop, time stops. 60 00:07:11,603 --> 00:07:19,598 And as a result, you never are able to burn that final drop of fuel, that final precious drop of fuel that would put you over the speed of light. 61 00:07:20,598 --> 00:07:28,593 While Albert Einstein was exploring many of the hypothetical and mathematical aspects of space and time, 62 00:07:29,592 --> 00:07:36,588 people in the United States and in Germany were actually building machines to take us up off of the surface of the Earth. 63 00:07:41,585 --> 00:07:46,582 Early experiments in rocketry appear almost comic compared to today's accomplishments in space. 64 00:07:50,580 --> 00:07:59,574 But improvements in rocket design came rapidly, especially in America under Robert Goddard and in Germany with the work of Werner von Braun. 65 00:08:00,574 --> 00:08:09,569 By 1932, von Braun had taken charge of Germany's rocket program and had begun the tests that would lead to the infamous V-2 missiles. 66 00:08:10,568 --> 00:08:18,563 During World War II, Adolf Hitler used the V-2 rocket as a weapon of terror against the civilian population of London. 67 00:08:27,558 --> 00:08:32,555 For better or for worse, rockets have always had a military application. 68 00:08:33,554 --> 00:08:44,548 But underlying all of this in the minds of everyone who works on these projects is the vision of using these machines to take us beyond the confines of our own planet. 69 00:08:45,547 --> 00:08:53,542 To explore the moon, we've walked on the lunar surface to use reusable rocket ships like the Space Shuttle to make many trips, 70 00:08:54,542 --> 00:08:58,539 to make use of the full potential of what actually exists out there in space. 71 00:08:58,539 --> 00:09:06,535 And you know, perhaps not us, but our children may very well be able to put flights to space stations or to the moon and beyond. 72 00:09:09,533 --> 00:09:16,529 One group that hopes to be among the first to utilize the Space Shuttle when it opens up to civilians calls itself OASIS. 73 00:09:17,528 --> 00:09:23,524 They gather together on weekends to share food and their enthusiasm for space travel. 74 00:09:24,524 --> 00:09:28,521 I'm Charlie Carr and I'm with the California Museum of Science and Industries. 75 00:09:29,521 --> 00:09:31,520 This group is doing something that's really unique. 76 00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:39,515 It's getting together a lot of people from different backgrounds, from technical fields, from social fields, people working in the community, 77 00:09:39,515 --> 00:09:45,511 all different sorts of people and they're all thinking and talking about space, they're talking about what's going to happen in the future, 78 00:09:45,511 --> 00:09:51,508 talking about what's going to happen personally with their lives as more people move out into space. 79 00:09:53,507 --> 00:10:01,502 A frequent lecturer to the group is Dr. B. J. Bluth, sociologist and expert on long duration space flight. 80 00:10:02,501 --> 00:10:10,496 The work that I do really focuses in on how people can live in space, how they can get along together, 81 00:10:10,496 --> 00:10:19,491 what kinds of general problems, stresses, factors make it easier and harder for them to have a viable, successful mission. 82 00:10:19,491 --> 00:10:23,489 The human is going to have certain kinds of problems when he goes to space. 83 00:10:23,489 --> 00:10:31,484 There are stresses, there are physiological problems, there are fears, there are incidents that occur, there's the interpersonal relationship, 84 00:10:31,484 --> 00:10:36,481 there's being holed up all alone, no place to go, no way to get away. 85 00:10:36,481 --> 00:10:44,476 If you can imagine yourself being in a camper with no privacy curtains with another person for six months and no place to go and you can't walk out of the camper, 86 00:10:44,476 --> 00:10:47,474 what kinds of things happen in that kind of situation? 87 00:10:48,474 --> 00:10:55,470 We have a very human problem in going to space. The technology is only one aspect. 88 00:10:55,470 --> 00:11:02,465 And if the human part of this space travel isn't as carefully solved as the technology problem, 89 00:11:02,465 --> 00:11:06,463 all of the technology in the world isn't going to make it possible to do what we want to do. 90 00:11:06,463 --> 00:11:10,461 Obviously there are a lot of technical problems with space travel. 91 00:11:10,461 --> 00:11:16,457 It's a difficult business getting someone there and back and healthy and sane during the process. 92 00:11:16,457 --> 00:11:20,455 But there's another whole aspect to this business. 93 00:11:20,455 --> 00:11:25,452 Because sitting around in the scientific journals for the past 15 or 20 years now 94 00:11:25,452 --> 00:11:31,448 have been things like time machines and time tunnels, wormholes in space, 95 00:11:31,448 --> 00:11:37,445 highly warped regions of space where you could go in some place in our universe and come out in another universe, 96 00:11:37,445 --> 00:11:42,442 or go in one of these holes and come out back in our own universe at a different time, 97 00:11:42,442 --> 00:11:45,440 a billion years ago or a billion years in the future. 98 00:11:45,440 --> 00:11:51,436 And these are some of the most fantastic hypothetical things that science has ever given us. 99 00:11:52,436 --> 00:11:57,433 In our future explorations of the galaxy, will we one day make the discovery 100 00:11:57,433 --> 00:12:01,430 that will fulfill H.G. Wells' dream of time travel? 101 00:12:07,427 --> 00:12:12,424 Will we find the mechanism to travel backwards and forwards through time? 102 00:12:16,421 --> 00:12:22,418 I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time traveling. 103 00:12:22,418 --> 00:12:26,415 There is a feeling of helpless headlong motion. 104 00:12:26,415 --> 00:12:32,412 As I put on pace, night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. 105 00:12:32,412 --> 00:12:39,408 So wrote H.G. Wells in 1895 in his incredible novel, The Time Machine. 106 00:12:39,408 --> 00:12:44,405 Wells described a machine of brand new technology. 107 00:12:44,405 --> 00:12:50,401 He described a machine of brass, ebony, ivory and translucent glimmering quartz. 108 00:12:50,401 --> 00:12:55,398 It was designed to take man on a journey through time. 109 00:13:01,394 --> 00:13:07,391 Wells clearly understood the implication of traveling backwards and forwards through the centuries 110 00:13:07,391 --> 00:13:11,389 and depicted it as a wonderful adventure. 111 00:13:14,387 --> 00:13:19,384 The time machine was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 112 00:13:19,384 --> 00:13:24,381 It was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 113 00:13:24,381 --> 00:13:29,378 It was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 114 00:13:29,378 --> 00:13:34,375 It was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 115 00:13:34,375 --> 00:13:39,372 It was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 116 00:13:39,372 --> 00:13:44,369 It was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 117 00:13:44,369 --> 00:13:49,366 It was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 118 00:13:49,366 --> 00:13:54,363 It was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 119 00:13:54,363 --> 00:13:59,360 It was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 120 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:04,357 It was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 121 00:14:04,357 --> 00:14:09,354 It was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 122 00:14:09,354 --> 00:14:14,351 It was designed to travel backwards and forwards through time. 123 00:14:14,351 --> 00:14:23,346 In an effort to accurately predict the future, H.G. Wells strove to utilize the latest scientific theories of his day. 124 00:14:23,346 --> 00:14:30,341 A strong proponent of the theory of evolution, Wells suggested that the environment of industrialized England 125 00:14:30,341 --> 00:14:35,338 caused the factory workers to evolve into what he called Morlocks. 126 00:14:35,338 --> 00:14:44,333 The Morlocks were pale, pink-eyed, carnivorous creatures who inhabited underground caverns of complex machinery. 127 00:14:44,333 --> 00:14:50,330 Wells saw a different fate for those who lived the life of leisure in society. 128 00:14:50,330 --> 00:14:59,324 After thousands of years of living without need or conflict, Wells proposed that they would evolve into what he called the Eloi. 129 00:14:59,324 --> 00:15:07,319 The Eloi were childlike creatures of limited intelligence who would frolic and gather fruit on the surface of the earth. 130 00:15:07,319 --> 00:15:14,315 Today, the evolutionary prophecies of H.G. Wells seem to many unlikely. 131 00:15:14,315 --> 00:15:21,311 But is it possible that someday science may actually build a time machine? 132 00:15:21,311 --> 00:15:28,307 Having a time machine is a very attractive idea. We all have things we'd like to go back and change about our lives, 133 00:15:28,307 --> 00:15:31,305 or maybe affect history somehow. 134 00:15:31,305 --> 00:15:37,302 But scientists have trouble with time machines. There are a lot of illogical inconsistencies that develop. 135 00:15:37,302 --> 00:15:42,299 For example, if you had a time machine that could take you back a billion years in the past, 136 00:15:42,299 --> 00:15:48,295 well then you should certainly have no difficulty going five minutes back into the past. 137 00:15:48,295 --> 00:15:57,290 And if you could go back five minutes, you could meet yourself and tell yourself, literally, what kind of a nice trip you had. 138 00:15:57,290 --> 00:16:04,285 And then both of you could do the same thing. And then all four of you could do it. And then all eight of you could do it. 139 00:16:04,285 --> 00:16:08,283 In other words, there's an inherent inconsistency that suddenly comes up. 140 00:16:08,283 --> 00:16:13,280 If you could travel back into the past, then reality must be irrational. 141 00:16:13,280 --> 00:16:18,277 There must be a very irrational part to how the universe works. 142 00:16:18,277 --> 00:16:20,276 And we don't see this going on around us. 143 00:16:20,276 --> 00:16:25,273 And for this reason, when scientists find time machines popping up in their calculations, 144 00:16:25,273 --> 00:16:30,270 a lot of flags go up and they begin suspecting that they've done something wrong. 145 00:16:30,270 --> 00:16:37,266 If there is any chance of a time travel mechanism existing, it will probably be found in distant space. 146 00:16:37,266 --> 00:16:49,259 Some scientists believe that when a giant red star explodes, the remaining core may collapse down to an incredibly dense ball of matter called a black hole. 147 00:16:49,259 --> 00:16:56,254 The gravitational field around a black hole is so intense that not even light can escape it. 148 00:16:58,253 --> 00:17:04,250 The full description of how black holes work also include white holes. 149 00:17:04,250 --> 00:17:09,247 The full description actually is a set of black holes and white holes back to back. 150 00:17:09,247 --> 00:17:17,242 What's a black hole for one universe where things fall in is a white hole in the next universe where stuff gushes out. 151 00:17:17,242 --> 00:17:23,238 But the interesting thing in all of these pictures where you have a black hole, white hole situation 152 00:17:23,238 --> 00:17:31,234 is that if you take into account the effects of rotation on the black hole, the entire structure inside the black hole change. 153 00:17:31,234 --> 00:17:39,229 In particular, one of the things to come out of this theoretically is that you could possibly use this black hole as a portal, 154 00:17:39,229 --> 00:17:46,225 as a time tunnel from our universe to some future universe, or perhaps even some past universe. 155 00:17:48,223 --> 00:17:52,221 Such a journey into a black hole would be fraught with dangers. 156 00:18:02,215 --> 00:18:09,211 If you can go through that wormhole in space and time, then you can travel very, very near the center of the hole. 157 00:18:09,211 --> 00:18:16,207 You can travel very near where the matter of the star collapsed down to, where you have this tremendous curvature, 158 00:18:16,207 --> 00:18:21,204 this high warping of space and time. And there are problems with that. 159 00:18:21,204 --> 00:18:26,201 For example, if you could travel very near that place where we have infinite space-time warping, 160 00:18:26,201 --> 00:18:34,196 according to Einstein's famous equation E equals mc squared, the energy in the gravitational field of the hole 161 00:18:34,196 --> 00:18:42,191 produces a lot of matter that fills up the wormhole and chokes off any possibility of space travel to future universes. 162 00:18:42,191 --> 00:18:48,188 And this is one of the ways in which we think nature prohibits time machines. 163 00:18:48,188 --> 00:18:54,184 Nature takes care of things and makes sure that things won't come out too irrational by having a time machine. 164 00:18:54,184 --> 00:18:58,182 It chokes off the possibility of getting through the wormhole. 165 00:18:58,182 --> 00:19:06,177 Perhaps the tunnel through a black hole will forever remain blocked, but the possibility always remains that someday 166 00:19:06,177 --> 00:19:13,173 someone will make a discovery which will allow us to visit Earth's distant past or glittering future. 167 00:19:15,172 --> 00:19:20,169 Carol Amato has a background in social science and is a member of OASIS. 168 00:19:20,169 --> 00:19:25,166 She has a special plan for accomplishing her goal of space travel. 169 00:19:25,166 --> 00:19:32,161 I use the computer in my work and I'm hoping that by doing so this will provide a career path for me to get into space. 170 00:19:32,161 --> 00:19:38,158 My children I'm trying to prepare just by being adaptive to new situations. 171 00:19:38,158 --> 00:19:44,154 Tracy has a tremendous interest in growing things, plants and baby animals. 172 00:19:44,154 --> 00:19:50,151 I'm hoping she'll take this interest into space because it's going to be necessary to want to nurture things 173 00:19:50,151 --> 00:19:56,147 in order to make the environment be a psychologically pleasing one and to recreate something of the Earth. 174 00:19:56,147 --> 00:20:03,143 Damon's a very active boy. I hope he can utilize that energy that he has in some constructive way. 175 00:20:03,143 --> 00:20:06,141 Maybe he can go into space and become one of the pioneers. 176 00:20:07,141 --> 00:20:15,136 With the successful flight of the space shuttle and the likelihood of civilian space travel on the horizon, 177 00:20:15,136 --> 00:20:22,132 it is not difficult to imagine families like Carol Amato's someday traveling into space. 178 00:20:22,132 --> 00:20:30,127 Perhaps one day a boy Damon's age will solve the mystery of what lies on the other side of a black hole 179 00:20:30,127 --> 00:20:33,125 or at the place beyond the stars. 180 00:20:37,123 --> 00:20:48,116 What are the limitations of the galaxy? Will we ever travel faster than the speed of light or backward and forward through time? 181 00:20:51,114 --> 00:20:55,112 I don't think that any scientist would categorically say, 182 00:20:55,112 --> 00:21:00,109 no we will never travel faster than the speed of light, no we'll never have time travel. 183 00:21:00,109 --> 00:21:08,104 But if we ever do, then this would have to come from a whole new view of science, a new super science, 184 00:21:08,104 --> 00:21:13,101 whereby we understand today's limitations as one separate little case. 185 00:21:13,101 --> 00:21:21,096 In other words, the kind of science that would give us travel into the past or travel faster than the speed of light 186 00:21:21,096 --> 00:21:27,093 would be as advanced over us today as we are over Neanderthal land. 187 00:21:30,091 --> 00:21:32,090 Derek last Schsprünger 188 00:21:32,090 --> 00:21:36,887 continued 189 00:22:00,073 --> 00:22:04,071 here on the History Channel, where the past comes alive.