George Pals’ The Time Machine (1960)

Today on Far Future Horizons we mourn the passing of veteran actor Alan Young, who starred alongside Rod Taylor in George Pal's motion picture adaptation of H.G. Wells’ classic science fiction novel “The Time Machine”.

Time’s Arrow

It controls the rhythm of our lives like a Metronome ticking away and measuring the pace and tempo of our existence. Time is an enduring mystery. And, along with time’s arrow we are taking an inexorable voyage into an unknown future.

Many of us today, the world over, will be counting the seconds as Midnight approaches and a New Year dawns. All of us during some moment of our lives have wondered about the fundamental nature of time. But, while it dominates our lives and all of us are bound up in its inexorable passage, few of us can give a precise definition of what Time with a capital “T” precisely is.

Today being the last day of 2016 AD we at Far Future Horizons are going on a Time Odyssey in search of the nature of time to explore it in all its majesty, wonder and mystery with the three part BBC documentary series "Time Machine".

From the creation of the highest mountains to the opening of  flowers petals, time controls the world around us. To understand this super-powerful force on Earth, we must wrench control of time ourselves - compressing, expanding, stopping and dissecting it, to reveal the passing of time and how it shapes our world and our lives.

 

Does Time Really Exist?

Today on Far Future Horizons we join host Morgan Freeman in another exciting episode of “Through the Wormhole” that will take us on a voyage of Discovery to answer to the question – Does Time Really Exist?

Through The Wormhole - Is Time Travel Possible?

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another episode of  “Through the Wormhole” hosted by veteran actor Morgan Freeman.

This installment explores the exciting possibility of travelling through the fourth dimension of time and will take us on an odyssey into the deep distant past and into far-flung futurity.

Einstein’s Theory of Relativity says that time travel is perfectly possible — if you’re going forward. Finding a way to travel backwards requires breaking the speed of light, which so far seems impossible. But now, strange-but-true phenomena such as quantum nonlocality, where particles instantly teleport across vast distances, may give us a way to make the dream of traveling back and forth through time a reality.

The New Time Lords

Is time travel possible? And if it were what will this reveal to us about the fundamental nature of reality? Will our forays into the fourth dimension reveal to us that all of cosmic existence is in fact virtual and that we are nothing more than mere virtual players in a highly advanced computer simulation? Will our attempts at becoming the New Time Lords only reveal to us that in fact we are mere pawns in a highly sophisticated arcade game?

According to the BBC documentary Horizon-“Time Trip” such possibilities are very real.

Travelling Through Time

Time travel has been the staple of science fiction novels, television programs and major motion ever since H.G. Wells first penned his classic prototypical scientific romance "The Time Machine" in 1895.

The New Twilight Zone - Profile in Silver

Today on Far Future Horizons we present an episode of “The New Twilight Zone” titled “Profile in Silver” that takes us back in time to the fateful day of November 22^nd, 1963.

Carl Sagan's Cosmos – Journeys in Space and Time

Today on Far Future Horizons we present the eighth episode of Carl Sagan’s highly acclaimed PBS documentary series – Cosmos: Journeys in Space and Time.

Stephen Hawking Into the Universe – Time Travel

Today on Far Future Horizons we are proud to present the second episode of Stephen Hawking’s epic cosmology series “Into the Universe” In today’s installment we join Professor Hawking on a foray through the fourth dimension and explore the possibility of time travel.

The Universe - Time Travel

Today on Far Future Horizons we present another episode of the acclaimed documentary series “The Universe”. This instalment of the series looks at the possibility of time travel and how it could one day become a reality.

The Universe ~ Unexplained Mysteries

Join us today on Far Future Horizons as we ponder some of the unexplained questions and mysteries of our cosmos.

Nemesis Death Star

We will delve into some of the myths, misconceptions, truths and amazing mysteries of our unique universe. Could life exist on Mars? Is time travel possible and does Einstein’s theory of relativity support it? Is there a companion dark star to our sun and could it pose a threat to earth? Learn about the spark that lit the big bang. 

Past Life on Mars?

Take a journey from science fiction that predicted all these things, to the scientific reality of what they mean to us in the ever-changing universe.

Can a Highly Advanced Extraterrestrial Civilization Build Dr Ronald L. Mallett’s Time Machine and allow us to Journey into the Deep Past?

These are just some of unexplained mysteries just begging to be explored and understood, and so long as there are inquisitive minds, the unexplained can one day be made explicable.

matter and antimatter asymmetry

The Time Tunnel (2002 Unaired Pilot)

Today on Far Future Horizons we present an unaired TV pilot film that was a remake of Irwin Allen’s 1960s SciFi television series The Time Tunnel.

The Time Tunnel was a 1966–1967 U.S. colour science fiction TV series, written around a theme of time travel adventure. The show was creator-producer Irwin Allen's third science fiction television series, released by 20th Century Fox and broadcast on ABC. The show ran for one season of 30 episodes. Reruns are viewable on cable and by internet streaming. A pilot for a new series was produced in 2002, although it was not picked up.

Time Travel - The Truth

The Principle Behind Dr. Ronald Mallett’s Time Machine

Is time travel possible? It was long relegated to the realm of science fiction, but some scientists now believe that time travel is not only possible but inevitable.

Albert Einstein redefined our understanding about the nature of gravity and showed us we inhabit a universe in which the very fabric of space-time is malleable and can be warped by any object with mass. But, what happens when space-time is not only warped but twisted? And, could this be done with the help of a laser beam?

Real Life Time Travellers

"The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very delicately made. There was ivory in it, and some transparent crystalline substance. And now I must be explicit, for this that follows--unless his explanation is to be accepted--is an absolutely unaccountable thing. He took one of the small octagonal tables that were scattered about the room, and set it in front of the fire, with two legs on the hearthrug. On this table he placed the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair, and sat down. The only other object on the table was a small shaded lamp, the bright light of which fell upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen candles about, two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and several in sconces, so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire, and I drew this forward so as to be almost between the Time Traveller and the fireplace. Filby sat behind him, looking over his shoulder. The Medical Man and the Provincial Mayor watched him in profile from the right, the Psychologist from the left. The Very Young Man stood behind the Psychologist. We were all on the alert. It appears incredible to me that any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however adroitly done, could have been played upon us under these conditions.

The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the mechanism. `Well?' said the Psychologist.

`This little affair,' said the Time Traveller, resting his elbows upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus, `is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through time. You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it was in some way unreal.' He pointed to the part with his finger. `Also, here is one little white lever, and here is another.'

The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing. `It's beautifully made,' he said.

`It took two years to make,' retorted the Time Traveller. Then, when we had all imitated the action of the Medical Man, he said: `Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this other reverses the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a time traveller. Presently I am going to press the lever, and off the machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future Time, and disappear. Have a good look at the thing. Look at the table too, and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery. I don't want to waste this model, and then be told I'm a quack.'

There was a minute's pause perhaps. The Psychologist seemed about to speak to me, but changed his mind. Then the Time Traveller put forth his finger towards the lever. `No,' he said suddenly. `Lend me your hand.' And turning to the Psychologist, he took that individual's hand in his own and told him to put out his forefinger. So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage. We all saw the lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery. There was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps, as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone--vanished! Save for the lamp the table was bare.

Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he was damned.

The Psychologist recovered from his stupor, and suddenly looked under the table. At that the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully. `Well?' he said, with a reminiscence of the Psychologist. Then, getting up, he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his back to us began to fill his pipe.

We stared at each other. `Look here,' said the Medical Man, `are you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe that that machine has travelled into time?'

`Certainly,' said the Time Traveller, stooping to light a spill at the fire. Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the Psychologist's face. (The Psychologist, to show that he was not unhinged, helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.) `What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished in there'--he indicated the laboratory--`and when that is put together I mean to have a journey on my own account.'

`You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the future?' said Filby.

`Into the future or the past--I don't, for certain, know which.'

After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. `It must have gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,' he said.

`Why?' said the Time Traveller.

`Because I presume that it has not moved in space, and if it travelled into the future it would still be here all this time, since it must have travelled through this time.'

`But,' I said, `If it travelled into the past it would have been visible when we came first into this room; and last Thursday when we were here; and the Thursday before that; and so forth!'

`Serious objections,' remarked the Provincial Mayor, with an air of impartiality, turning towards the Time Traveller.

`Not a bit,' said the Time Traveller, and, to the Psychologist: `You think. You can explain that. It's presentation below the threshold, you know, diluted presentation.'

`Of course,' said the Psychologist, and reassured us. `That's a simple point of psychology. I should have thought of it. It's plain enough, and helps the paradox delightfully. We cannot see it, nor can we appreciate this machine, any more than we can the spoke of a wheel spinning, or a bullet flying through the air. If it is travelling through time fifty times or a hundred times faster than we are, if it gets through a minute while we get through a second, the impression it creates will of course be only one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it would make if it were not travelling in time. That's plain enough.' He passed his hand through the space in which the machine had been. `You see?' he said, laughing.

We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. Then the Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it all.

`It sounds plausible enough to-night,' said the Medical Man; 'but wait until to-morrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning.'

`Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?' asked the Time Traveller. And therewith, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the way down the long, draughty corridor to his laboratory. I remember vividly the flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette, the dance of the shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but incredulous, and how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger edition of the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from before our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts had certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The thing was generally complete, but the twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished upon the bench beside some sheets of drawings, and I took one up for a better look at it. Quartz it seemed to be.

`Look here,' said the Medical Man, `are you perfectly serious? Or is this a trick--like that ghost you showed us last Christmas?'

`Upon that machine,' said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp aloft, `I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more serious in my life.'

None of us quite knew how to take it.

I caught Filby's eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he winked at me solemnly.

~ The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Is time travel possible? Would you like to become a real life Chrononaut? Will we ever be able to transverse the fourth dimension as easily as we transverse the three spatial dimensions of length, breath and height? And if it were possible to travel through time freely what will this reveal to us about the fundamental nature of reality? Will our forays into the fourth dimension reveal to us that we inhabit an infinite multiverse were any conceivable historic outcome is possible? Will we discover alternate realities in which Hitler was victorious and the Nazis won the Second World War or the American Revolution ended in disaster for the American Colonists and the British still rule the Americas? Or will we discover that time is in fact linear and that altering history will lead to strange mind boggling paradoxes?

Today we explore these questions on Far Future Horizons.

Down the Cosmic Rabbit Hole: Voyages to Elsewheres and Elsewhens

While I was growing up in the 1970s a new idea in Astrophysics had just come into vogue. The notion that the very fabric of our universe, the space-time continuum, can be ripped apart and be torn asunder to reveal portals that can take us to other parts of our universe or even other universes separate from our own. We were introduced to various new exotic celestial denizens that occupied this Cosmos along side planets, stars and galaxies the likes of which we had never heard of before – Black Holes, White Holes and Wormholes long before Michio Kaku became a household name.

I still have fond memories of reading books in my early adolescence with such thought provoking and imagination stirring titles as “Black Holes and Warped Spacetime” by William J. Kaufmann, “The Iron Sun: Crossing the Universe Through Black Holes” and “The Next Ten Thousand Years” by Adrian Berry all of which introduced the notion that cosmic portals exist that can take us on far off trips to elsewhere and elsewhens in our cosmos and beyond.

Today the notion of voyaging through such cosmic gateways that can zip you across vast distances in the twinkle of an eye or take you on voyages to parallel universes or on journeys across vast eons of time are the mainstays of twenty first century physics. It is almost as if the Physics of Star Trek has arrived a century earlier than expected.