I went to the future, and discovered that time travel is impossible (that is, if logic has anything to do with it)

Parkinson's disease has no one to thank more for it's presence in the modern psyche than Michael J. Fox. And, the lovable Mr. Fox has nothing to thank more for his presence in the modern psyche than Back To The Future - a trilogy of hover-boards, bad-ass retractable jacket-sleeves, killer vintage ES 335 Gibson Semi-Hollow body guitars, and the most impressive over-simplification of the notions of time-travel ever written. Amazing. Simply put, it's just a great freakin' movie. Er... 3 great freakin' movies.

However, this popcorn logic-based train-wreck of overacting is still the best possible place I can think of to start my thoughts on time travel.* (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and Bogus Journey don't count because... Keanu Reaves sucks.) And of course, you'll want to know what I think of this, or you just won't have the full story.

Here are the questions we need to answer:

• Will time travel ever be possible?
• If so, will we be able to travel backward AND forward?
• If so, wouldn't we already be doing so?
  

Let's take, first of all, the idea that you can travel "back" in time, and change events that happened before time travel was invented. (There will be disclaimers throughout, I'm sure, but let's start them by saying that there is no way to discuss this without serious grammatical overlap, and logical cross-eyedness). In the first "B2F", Marty McFly goes back in time to when his dad was in high-school, and tries to make him... tougher. He is in danger of having his teen-aged mom fall in love with him, and begins a 2 hour fiasco of innuendo that would make a gnat's skin crawl.

Here's the problem with the concept that humans could ever (EVER) travel back in time. If it is ever going to be possible, then at some point in the past, someone from the future has already come back, and the cycle has already begun. Which means, if the manipulation of the past is ever possible in the future, then it is, by simple paths of logic, always possible. Since we know that it is currently not available, we can ascertain that it never will be. Make sense? No? Let's try an example.

Ask 100 people what they'd do if they could go back in time, and someone (probably many of them) would say something like "Dude, I'd totally go back to when Hitler was like, 12 years old, and I'd just beat him like a rag doll, or I'd like, kidnap him, or something. Yeah."

Genius.

Or you'll get "I'd stop the crusades."
Or, "Um, I would like, go back to my childhood, and like, just tell myself how wonderful I really am, and that I don't have to prove anything to any... " I'll stop here, 'cause I think I just threw up in my mouth.

Here's the problem. If time travel, at any point in the future, is ever invented, then of course, someone will do these very things (though, you'd probably still never get that bubble-gum pep talk you clearly needed, unless along with time travel, we've discovered how to help people not to throw up in their mouths as well). Now, if we can safely say that at some point (let's say the year 2080) time travel is invented, and people can indeed go backward, wouldn't someone around Hitler's time already have known about it?

Yes. The answer there is yes. Or, to put it in the terms of Stephen Hawking, if traveling backward through time is ever going to be possible, we would be plagued with time tourists today.

Don't worry if you're confused. Just stop reading, and we'll all keep you posted on the events of the rest of humanity. If you get that, let's move on.

Now, having stated these simple steps of logic, we can ascertain that even if time travel were ever possible, there is no way that we will be able to travel backward, to events that happened before traveling through time was made available (feel free to go backward now, though, and re-read anything I've just written, 'cause it is hard for some people to get - incidentally, if I could travel back in time, I'd stop most of those people from learning to read).

Now, this still doesn't rule out the concept that time travel will someday be invented (by the way, when I say "invented" I mean that the technology is discovered, tested, perfected, and implemented as a staple into modern culture, not just that the theory is stated. Remember Einstein was a genius, but one of the best things he ever wrote was ... well, wrong.)

Okay, so let's look now at what "Time Travel" would be, if it is NOT moving backward through time. In order to move forward through time, you simply have to travel faster than time itself. Or, you have to slow time down while you continue moving forward. Either way, now we're just talking basic rules of physics. If you can run at 10 miles per hour, and I can run faster than 10 miles per hour, then I can run past you, and see parts of the road that you will eventually see, before you do. Now, if "Time" moves 670,616,629 miles per hour (or, for the sake of easy reading, let's use "The speed of light" or "X"), and I can run faster than "X", then I will be able to see parts of the road (or the world) before time does. Okay, that's a terrible way to describe it, let's try something else.

DEFINITION: "Light Year" -

• 9,460,730,472,580.8 km (about 9.461 Pm)
• about 5,879,000,000,000 statute miles
• about 63,240 astronomical units
• about 0.3066 parsecs

OR: "Distance covered by traveling at the speed of light for 1 earth year." So the formula would be something like: Speed of Light x 365 days = 1 Light year

In smaller units, if you travel at 10 miles per hour for 1 hour, how far will you go? 10 miles. That's right. So: 10 mph x 1 hr = 10 miles

This coming together?

If you could look through a super-duper high-powered telescope (TM) into space, and you could see a star exploding, the reality is, that star is at least 4.22 light years away (the closest star we know of), and probably exploded earth years ago, which means you are essentially looking years into the past. Conversely, if you could somehow go to that star, and look back at the earth through the same telescope, you could see the earth, millions of years ago. Adjust the distance and/or the telescope strength, and you may be able to see... yesterday. You follow?

Okay, let's move on. If you could use the right equipment, you could SEE the past... from "outer space". Still not very enticing, is it? Nah, didn't think so. Okay, but about this "moving faster than light" thing? What's so great about light?

Well, the speed of light is also the speed of any image traveling to your eye. Let's take this example from wikihow.com on how to determine the distance of a lightning bolt from yourself.

1. Watch the sky for a flash of lightning.
2. Count the number of seconds until you hear thunder.
   
3. Divide the number of seconds by five to calculate the distance in miles (or divide by 3 for kilometers).
   
1. In other words if you counted 15 seconds from when you saw the lightning, the strike was 3 miles (5 kilometers) from your location. The delay between when you see lightning and when you hear thunder occurs because sound travels much, much more slowly than light. Sound travels through air at about 1100-1200 feet (330-350 m/s) per second, which is a little more than one mile per five seconds (one kilometer per three seconds).
4. Do this for a few consecutive strikes of lightning.
5. If the distance is getting progressively smaller, your ass is about to be fried.
   

See? It's fun for everyone. If you see a star fall from the sky, the distance of that star from you determines how long it took for that image to travel to your eye; in scientific terms - a long-ass time.

Now, if we're able to somehow physically move in any direction faster than the speed of light itself (670,616,629 miles per hour: aka "really f$*$ing fast"), then we'd be able to essentially move forward in time, faster than time. (Don't get too excited, currently, the fastest recorded speed ever travelled by a human was in 1976 (!!) at a whopping 2,188 mph.)

Speed of Light: 670,616,629 mph
Fastest Human: 2,188 mph

... and the winner is, the speed of light, but a crap load of mph's.

So. What are we learning here? That time travel is impossible? No. Not even close. That time travel is implausable? Abso-f$#@ing-lutely.

Let's say the improbable happens (as it tends to over time), and someone figures this out. Let's say we figure out how to stay alive, and move people faster than 670 MILLION miles per hour. Having that kind of technology means we're going to use it, right? And if history has taught us anything, it's that whatever is created with the intention of being used for good (see: moving forward to discover the cure for AIDS, Cancer, Bad Hair), is inevitably going to be abused for... less than good (see: moving forward to come back and spoil the end of "Lost" - it's lame, don't bother. Or, to discover how Brittney Spears is known in 40 years - she isn't).

Now, here we get to some crap that is frankly far over my head (not that the rest of this topic clearly isn't, but rather that this next part is like even more. Like, speed of sound is fast, but speed of light is faster: time travel in leu of the speed of light is hard to get, but time travel in leu of time warps in the space/time continuum... is harder). However, Stephen Hawking explains a buncha crap on his site, then comes to the basic conclusion that though it's not possible that time travel will ever allow people to move backward through time to any point before it was discovered (invented), it is possible that time travel, once becoming available, will forever be available back to the point at which it was invented.

Kinda like saying, "time travel is available starting ... now. No time travel was available before I said 'now', so if you're going to go backward, you can only go backward to the point where I said 'now', no further. However, you can go forward as far as you want."

Here's the problem with the last part of that ("forward as far as you want"). Just because I can run faster than 10 miles per hour doesn't mean I can run faster than 20 miles per hour. It doesn't even mean I can run faster than 11 miles per hour. Maybe I can run exactly 10.000000001 miles per hour. Which is still faster than 10 miles per hour, but only slightly. Just because we could one day move forward faster than time, doesn't mean we can move forward infinitely faster than time.

Now, let's say the first time that time is warped and people can move forward, say, 4 seconds, is on August 3, 2007. Then, Jim, let's call him Jim. Jim gets into the machine, the contraption. The rocket-ship shaped thingy. And he vaporizes. Jim's colleagues stand around looking at each other. There is a hush. A strange, awkward silence. There's a split second of thinking "Holy crap, maybe we should have let Jim call his wife first". Then, 4 seconds later, Jim re-appears. Jim steps out of the rocket ship, and says "the damn thing's broken".

Jim didn't experience those 4 seconds. He flipped the switch, and nothing happened. He stepped out, and the world was 4 seconds older. The other scientists are in tears with joy, and Jim is forever skeptical of whether they're pulling his leg.

Now, over time, they figure out the algorithm, and learn to go faster and faster. Or, they figure out how to travel longer, at the same speed. The gap grows over time, and 1 millisecond in the machine equals 4 seconds outside of it. So, 1 week in the machine equals 12 years outside of it, and so on. (these numbers are a crock of shit. FYI).

Now, let's say they start building larger, more comfortable, livable machines where people can stay for longer periods of time. Let's say some kid is raised inside of this machine. Still only going slightly faster than the speed of light. That kid is born on earth, put into the machine, and then, when he's 12, gets out... a million years later. See where this is going?

So, just because we can see tomorrow, doesn't mean we can see the end of the world, right?

Wrong.

Remember how we said that if we invent time at, say, 10PM on August 7, 2007, then you could move backward all the way to 10PM Aug 7, 07, but no further. What that means, though, is that people in the year 50,490 AD could travel all the way back to that point in time as well. So, essentially, we don't necessarily have to go forward in time to "discover" the future, because they'll come back to us. And, if I know humans (which I don't), I know that many of them will want to come back to "the beginning", meaning they'll want to come back to that very second that time is invented.

Now, if there is a "portal" or "door" through which all future "time tourists" (as Stephen Hawking calls them) can travel, and that door is all at one place and moment in space/time, then not only does every discovery instantly collapse onto that one moment, but so does every conflict, every disease that travelers from the future may have, every super-villain that may have been born on Aug 7, 07 will be a target for future heroes. Every war criminal escaping death into the past. Every new destructive and explosive technology. It all "happens" at that very second. Which means, at 10PM on August 7, 2007, every moment of the future that will happen, happens. And the universe collapses in on itself.

The moment in which time travel is invented, the world will end.

Puff, puff, give, man. Puff, puff, give.

* I'm not a physicist, mathematician, scientist of any sort, pilot, pitching coach, astronaut, nuclear engineer, or any other type of authority on things that could/should pertain to time-travel, or the speed of light. If this is not obvious to you, you should be shot in the forehead point-blank with a potato gun, and beaten with a rusty muffler until your feelings are hurt.

on smells, and the ways my body is changing.

There is a growth on my tongue. It's as if my tongue is swelling to conquer my chest. I feel it pressing the back of my teeth. When I read email, I take breaks to stretch and massage my jaw for the pain. I could choke. There is a chance that my tongue is morphing into another person. A little villain. A not-so-little-as-yesterday Lex Luther.

My hands are bony. They're not growing. They're shrinking, I feel. My wrists were always small, my hands freakish and rubbery in comparison. But now, they're shrinking. It's fitting, I think. Large tongue, tiny hands. My forehead is secreting the strangest goo. Back to my tongue.

My tongue doesn't taste odd. It's not even a new texture. It's just progressively - daily - occupying more space in my mouth. I don't know why. I wasn't bitten. Was I bitten? No. I wasn't bitten. I didn't bite it. I didn't eat anything strange. I may have swallowed more than I should have. I may have chewed up and swallowed a buncha stuff I should have spit out. I probably shouldn't have even eaten it, now that I think about it, but since I did, I should have just spit it out. Now, I'm paying for it. My tongue is rejecting it. Rejecting me. I may have to amputate. Should have thought of that sooner.

I get phone calls (sometimes), and I feel myself sweating. I pace. I walk a mile in a 10 minute phone call. I start to hyperventilate. I can smell copper. I taste pennies. My cheeks feel red. Like Jaundice. No. Jaundice is yellow. What's red? Fire. My cheeks feel red. Like Fire. My eyelids are heavy, but won't shut.

It's just within reach. This thing. This goal. It's so close that I can see how far I need to go. Before, I couldn't even see it. It was so far away, that I thought I was closer than i was. Now, I'm close enough to see just far I have to go. I hear smart people say that the more they learn, the more they realize they don't know. That's dumb. The more I learn, the more I realize I like learning, and hope I never run out. I digress.

My feet are covered in blisters, and I walk a fraction of what I used to. I miss her. I forgave her. Then she hurt me again. I asked her to stop, and she accused me of hurting her on purpose. I just wanted it to stop. My feet are sweaty. They're not swollen, just sweaty. I wish all this would stop. I wish there were some reason. Some excuse for the excess in failure. I wish I could just quit. I wish I had no ambition. No drive. I would be a much happier person. I wish I expected less. Delivered more. Was more stable. More predictable. More dependable. I wish I wasn't so selfish. I was once very selfless. I am not anymore. I don't think so. I'm a freakish, big-tongued, sweaty-footed, hyperventilating, overweight, cross-eyed, vagabond.

I didn't want this. I'm afraid. I don't laugh as often as I want. I don't cry as often as I probably should. My eyes water, but there are no tears. Not real tears. I'm tired. I'm too young to be this tired. I'm too old to be this scared. What the hell is that smell?