Time Travel and Black Holes: Annotated Bibliography

Anderson, Craig. “The Twin Paradox.” College of the Redwoods, Spring 1999. Web. 22 July 2010.

This article explains the concept of the “twin paradox”, which is also known as “time dilation.” Craig starts his article by introducing the readers to Albert Einstein’s concepts of relativity. According to Craig, Einstein believed that “the basic premise of relativity is that neither time nor space is absolute.” Craig then goes on to explain the background of time dilation, and tries to explain the complicated mathematics behind time dilation. To explain the concept of “twin paradox”, Craig creates a fictional story of two twins, Dr. Mills and Dave Arnold, who decide that the oldest of the twins should travel at the speed of light to a distant planet while the other twin stays behind. The paradox lies in the question of which twin would age faster, Dr. Mills or Dave Arnold. Craig concludes that due the theory of relativity and the analysis of accelerated time frames, Dr. Mills will age faster than Dave. Craig acknowledges the fact that most people who are new to relativity would make the wrong connection between differential aging and acceleration. He concludes his article by stating that “time is as ambiguous as social interaction” and that it is possible to increase youth by time travel.

What I found most interesting about this article was Craig’s idea that it was possible to increase youth by traveling at the speed of light. If this was discovered by our society today, there would no longer be a need for makeup—everyone could simply travel through time in order to look younger. This article gave me greater insight about both time travel and about time dilation. The article’s ideas seemed far-fetched at first, but after rereading...

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... obstacle that most people who wish to travel in time must face—the universe can only hold a certain amount of matter in order to remain stable. The article then discusses some theories of time travel, which involves the understanding of quantum mechanics and quantum realities. The article then breaks the idea of time travel into 4 sub-theories: fate, alternate universe, success, and the observer effect. Of all the theories, I was most interested in the “observer effect” theory. The “observer effect” theory stipulates that anyone who travels into the past runs the risk of altering any important events of history. It is possible to kill a relative if traveling into the past. This article helped answer many of my questions about time travel, but I wished it would have provided the readers with more theories to help extend its belief that time travel is possible.