TIME TRAVEL AND “IT”

In a recent experiment Australian scientists made time travel possible. They sent a “photon” back to past. This experiment is very recent and created much curiosity throughout the world as it was published in world’s premier scientific journal; Nature.

The experiment is compatible to Einstein’s concept of a wormhole. According to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity space and time are interconnected and can be called a space-time curve. A skew in this curvature can cause a hole through which one can go back to the past .And General Theory of Relativity has been proved beyond doubt.

But here comes the very pragmatic and simple argument called grandfather question against the notion of possibility of going back to the past. The argument says if it is possible for you to go in to the past you will be able to stop your grandparents to meet (like killing your grandfather!), thereby stopping your birth itself. So logically it is impossible to go in to the past.

Then how do we come to terms with these two conflicting scenarios which are both true!

Let me tell you that a photon although is a particle is actually the smallest “packet of energy”. As everyone knows mass and energy are interchangeable and from the famous equation of special theory of relativity of Einstein, E= mc,² where E stands for energy and m stands for mass and c stands for the speed of light (which is a constant). The mass of a photon is equal to zero at rest is actually also a wave.

Photons and also other extremely small particles are dealt in quantum mechanics where things act in a very queer fashion, to say the least. The shape, size and momentum etc. are not very determinable as we are used to in daily life. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle says that we cannot measure the position and momentum of a quantum particle simultaneously with precision. In the very complex and strange world of quantum mechanics whatever knowledge we gain from daily life of physical world begins to falter.

In almost similar fashion Einstein’s theory of relativity makes us lose our usual way in the macro world of gigantic dimensions like the intergalactic space, mammoth black holes and speeds nearing that of light. With greater speed time becomes slower than when at usual speed we encounter. Black holes are enigmatic objects which do not emit light yet are at core of the galaxies creating sources of vast energies.

Also problematically Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and quantum mechanics do not go well with each other fundamentally. Only very recently scientists have been able to come to a little bit of rapprochement between the two but not at all totally. Sending photons to “past” through worm holes is one such effort towards the rapprochement.

So it is possible to go back to the past yet it is impossible!

Where does this leave us then? The conclusion is that, the more we delve deeper and deeper in to something and know more we begin to know that we know nothing. There is something unknowable which will elude our grasp however we or the scientists may try now or in any time in future. New questions and new mysteries will always engulf us (like the case of dark matter and dark energy that scientists are grappling to solve these days).

There is something in Upanishads which says Brahman is not describable.

“IT” is the only knowledge yet ever unknown.