The WORD on Time Travel with James Gleick

"Quid est ergo tempus?" "What then is time?" (Augustine)

When did Time begin? Was it the Creation, or Big Bang? Is it just an Illusion, a construct of man? Who coined the phrase "Time Travel?"

For the answers to these and many other questions on Time Travel, James Gleick is your man. Come along to his WORD Christchurch session at the Piano on Tuesday 16 May, 6pm to hear him talk about his book, Time Travel: A history.

Time Travel

I'm so excited. I've always wanted to find out how to Time Travel. I could get so much more done.

My first memory of a Time Travel story would have to be the Time Tunnel. Yet as I look back it's an element in so many stories - the Pevensies always came back to the same moment they left (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), The guys in Land of the Lost travelled, and then I read The Time Machine.

H.G. Wells is arguably the master, although he was no Newton. Yet he raises a theory (mirrored by Ben Elton in Time and Time Again) that Time exists only in the memory: "There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it." (p.8).

Susan's student, Penelope, in Terry Pratchett's The Thief of Time, asserts that "Its always now everywhere, Miss."

Gleick, a Harvard graduate, explores not just story in his book, but scientific theory also, from the concept of Time to the idea of travelling at will through it. He has also written a book on Isaac Newton.

Time Travel: A history, has a formidable index, and an indispensable book list of stories, anthologies and scientific works on the nature of time and travel.

After a small survey of colleagues and friends I've come up with some questions for Mr Gleick. Feel free to ask one at the event. (They won't let me ask them all!)

1. Can you meet yourself in Time and not cause a temporal reaction?
2. Can you move through Space as well as Time?
3. Did the Time Tunnel guys EVER make it home?
4. What was the outcome of Predestination?
5. If you kill yourself in time will you cease to exist in other dimensions?
6. Can you kill your mother/father yourself and not cause 1.
7. Why can't Dr Who fall in love?
8. If the future hasn't happened yet, can you only travel backwards?
9. Can you travel back/forward to wipe someone out and change the future?
10. If light can split into particles and waves, can a person be at two places in Time?

Time travel fans will want to check out my lists of -

• Time travel reads
• Time travel movies and TV shows

Kōrerorero mai - Join the conversation