Time Travel [Hardcover]

J Richard Gott's Time Travel in Einstein's Universe explores humanity's long-held dream of travelling in time. He explains how Einstein's theories of relativity offer a faint glimmer of hope that was not available under Newtonian physics. It's an interesting and informative read, but anyone looking for the blueprints for a time machine, especially for travel to the past, will be sorely disappointed as time travel is strictly a pastime for super-civilisations. However, thinking about time travel is useful when exploring the extreme limits of current theories. Gott is a physicist himself, and has shown that a time machine operating for tiny fractions of a second could have led to the universe creating itself, side-stepping the problem of where it came from. When it comes to practical applications, special relativity allows travel to the future by accelerating up to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light. This has already happened to a modest extent; cosmonauts and astronauts who have orbited the Earth many times at high speeds are a few milliseconds younger than they would otherwise be. Travel to the past is much harder and involves manipulating wormholes, black holes or cosmic strings, feats possible only with galaxy-spanning technology. The ideas are not always easy to grasp, but Gott illustrates the concepts with references to popular fiction and film wherever he can. Although his writing sometimes lapses into a dry, textbook-like style that can be hard going, for anyone interested in the frontiers of cosmology it's well worth persevering. --Elizabeth Sourbut

Gott presents a thoughtful and entertaining romp through science fiction and "real" science, without unduly blurring the distinction between the two.

Gotts considerable achievement is to make such mind-bending ideas accessible to the general reader ..

a superbly compelling read in which Gott eases us wittily through the impedimenta of world-lines, Cauchy horizons ...

taken in easy stages, the book is accessible to all and is a wonderful read.

One of the world¿s most outstanding astrophysicists provides a state-of-the-art investigation into the possibility of time travel. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Human beings have a strong desire to travel through time. As an acknowledged world expert in the topic, Professor Richard Gott is rumoured to have a time machine in his garage, and he was once sent a letter inviting him to give a talk on the subject six months after he had already done so. But time travel has a serious side too. He often receives calls from people who want to return to the past to see a loved one. Although scientists are not yet taking out patents on a time machine, they are investigating whether it is possible under the laws of physics. In Newton's three-dimensional world this would have been inconceivable. But with Einstein's theory of relativity a fourth dimension - time - enters the frame. Is it really inconceivable that we can travel along the timeline? In Time Travel, Richard Gott offers an intellectually expansive, witty and engaging study of the viability of time travel, which takes us from the dream of time travel itself in H. G. Wells's path-breaking novel The Time Machine to cutting-edge research into astrophysics and quantum teleportation. He explores the scientific, social and moral implications of time travel, and looks at recent remarkable experiments in which fundamental particles were actually sent into the future. Finally he reveals how the study of time travel to the past may provide new insights into cosmic origins and evolution.

Richard Gott is Professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University and has written on time travel and other subjects for Time, Scientific American, New Scientist and Nature. He is one of the world's experts on parallel universes, string theories and cosmic origins.