Time Travel

Yes, I do! Seriously. :)

Okay, now let me explain. A few days ago, I did a quick web search that returned no results: I looked for the exact phrase “I want to meet a time traveller”, which returned no results – so I wondered, “Why are there no results?”. UPDATE: There is at least one result now, since Google indexed this article 2 minutes after I posted it. Also, the “single L” variant (as pointed by Lorand) does return one result… :)

Time travel itself is and has been a very fancy debate subject. Even more, there are people collecting money for a time when time travel will be possible, in order to pay other people to retrieve you from your current frame of reference (their past – your present) and bring you into the future (their present – your future). Still, it’s hard to believe nobody really tried the thing I’m about to do now…

Let’s take it one step at a time. Suppose at any one point in the future, they make time travel possible. And they make it available to everyone. And they make it cheap. At that exact point, time travellers will start “navigating” through the space-time continuum, creating all sorts of paradoxes, and perhaps even alternate universes in the process. But then again, that’s not really relevant. :)

What’s relevant is this: once all that happens, we should start meeting time travellers, since they’ll be all over the place. This however brings out the next question: if time travel is indeed possible, even if it will only be possible using future technologies, shouldn’t we have already met the guys/gals doing the travelling? Shouldn’t they already be here, if they do discover time travel in the future?

Well, the answer might be both yes, and no. Consider this: the year is 2508. You are a time traveller, and you’re considering going back 500 years in time, on Earth. But you have a very, very weird outfit (compared to the 2008 fashion trends), you don’t speak the language, you’re not aware of the customs. Plus, you just can’t cope with such rudimentary/old/ancient technology. In short, you’ll be a misfit, and for you it would be like going back to the Dark Ages, or perhaps the Stone Age.

So, what do you do? Well, I for one would try to blend in, not to raise any attention. Learn the language, fashion some clothes, try and adapt. And that’s perhaps one of the reasons time travellers haven’t been “identified” as of yet. Maybe they’re doing a really great job at adapting. :)

Now, what would a time traveller seek when time travelling? It may be landmarks, events, people… it may be anything. But also, time travellers may be people who tried searching the history archives for a book, a blog entry, a newspaper article, or a TV show where someone, somewhere mentioned that they wanted to meet a time traveller. And it only takes one time traveller that’s just crazy enough to humor the ones who wrote the articles, and come back in time in order to meet them.

Well, right now I’m one of those guys, doing the writing. So I’m saying this again, knowing that all this will be indexed in a search engine somewhere, or a forgotten history archive: it’s December 30th, 2008 – I’m Tudy, and I want to meet a Time Traveller! :D

Of course, you do realize (as do I) that if I do meet one such time traveller coming back for a while just to make my day, I will probably not be allowed to tell you anything about it, because of the consequences… ;)