Time travel?

The idea of time travel has been around for awhile now. There are tons of theories on the subject, all of which I will not get into now... Too much to cover. I have thought about the ideas lately after revisiting some books and movies. 

It seems to me that physical time travel might be impossible or nearly so. The energy it would take is preposterous. There's also the fact that you would be atomized and would have to be put back together, in the right order one atom at a time. That seems highly unlikely. This idea is addressed in Stephen Baxter's "Manifold: Space". In this book, the main character travels through space by entering a series of gates that may serve as wormholes, but begins to worry about the effects on his body as he keeps going through them. I have even made some art work on this same idea. Seen below.

I read an article once that scientists figured out that individual cells held individual memories. If one were to travel in this way, just losing one cell might affect you greatly. What if our DNA was put back together wrong?

I think it's far more likely that any semblance of time travel will be through viewing time, not traveling through it. If somehow we were transported to another galaxy immediately, then looked back on earth, we could watch the dinosaurs roam. All we are is light particles bouncing of another mass of particles. Since light can only go so fast, though, if we were in another galaxy somehow, immediately, the light from earth would still be the light traveling from our past, thus showing a different spot along the timeline. Time is all relative.

I great book speculating on ideas like this is Stephen Baxter and Arthur C. Clarke's "Light of Other Days" where people can look through wormholes to see back in time. The book is about of it affects and how it changes society. Very interesting, plus those writers are awesome. 

I'm not so sure time travel would be a positive thing in the long run, no matter how it's done. There's something nice about "What's done, is done". Giving people options to see the past might be fun, but ultimately I think many would end up in a vicious spiral of watching regretful moments over and over again or reliving the good ones and not making new ones.

To see this possibility in action, watch the very first episode of the TV show "Black Mirror". In this episode, everyone has memory implants and can replay their whole day. Seems cool... At first. It's on Netflix and is a terrific show.

I'm not sure I will ever see gains in time travel theory in my life time, but the theories make for very interesting thought experiments.