David Toomey - The New Time Travelers: A Journey to the Frontiers of Physics

Willem Jacob van Stockum during academic year 193435, two years before he demonstrated that Einsteins theory of general relativity allowed pastward time travel. (Courtesy of Christopher G. Oakley.)

Albert Einstein, whose theory of general relativity permits pastward time travel, with Kurt Gdel, who conceived of a model of a universe that would allow such travel everywhere, in Princeton, c. 1949. (Photograph by Oskar Morgenstern, courtesy of the Archives of the Institute for Advanced Study.)

Kip Thorne, who led the first teams to investigate the possibility of pastward time travel in the universe we know. (Courtesy of Kip S. Thorne.)

Igor Novikov (here enjoying some light reading), who proposed that pastward time travel need not violate causality. (Photograph by Tune Andersen.)

J. Richard Gott, who conceived a time machine of cosmic strings, wearing his coat from the future and holding a model of the universe giving birth to itself. (Courtesy of the Office of Communications, Princeton University.)

Stephen Hawking, who proposed that nature might prohibit pastward time travel. (Getty Images.)

Matt Visser, who has conceived numerous types of time machines, among them the Roman Ring. (Courtesy of Matt Visser.)

David Deutsch, who argues that if pastward time travel is possible, it would be between whole universes. (Photograph by Daniel Kuan Li Oi.)

S everal of the figures who play important roles in this history took time from their work to share their recollections, and to offer perspective on events and ideas described in the pages following. Thanks are owed to David Deutsch, John Friedman, David Garfinkle, J. Richard Gott, Allen Everett, Thomas Roman, Kip Thorne, and Matt Visser; each is as gracious as he is generous. I am also especially grateful to Tom Roman for answering my many questions with care, commenting at length on several drafts of the manuscript, and offering valuable advice at various stages of the project.

I also wish to thank my colleagues in the English Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Humanities and Social Sciences Division at the University of the Virgin Islands. In particular, appreciation is owed to my friend and colleague John Nelson for encouragement and support throughout this project. Thanks to Larry Chunga, Stan Koehler, and Steve Peck for enlightening discussions of astronomy and cosmology; to Therese Hart and Mizan Kahn for answering questions of mathematics and its history; to Robert Kove for showing me many years ago that geometrical proofs may be intuitively obvious and to Marla Miller for her suggestion of a title. For contributing photographs, arranging interviews, and locating archival materials, thanks to Tune Andersen, JoAnn Boyd, John Tepper Marlin, Christopher G. Oakley, Daniel Kuan Li Oi, and Marcia Tucker. Parts of this book were composed as the author was traveling; for opening their homes to me, I owe a debt of gratitude to Annette Markham and Elyzabeth Holford, and Patty OKeefe and Scott Patterson. Much thanks to my students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, whose intellectual curiosity is an ongoing inspiration, and who assure me that even in our practical-minded era there are still 2:00 AM residence hall discussions concerning the subjects of this book.

I am grateful to my editor, Angela von der Lippe, for taking a chance on this project and for telling me (in her inimitable and gracious way) when I was straying off course; to her assistant, Lydia Fitzpatrick; and to the capable staff of W. W. Norton for skillfully managing a hundred details of production. Insofar as the prose is clear and the presentation is accurate, much thanks to Stephanie Hiebert, who read, queried, and fixed. As always, warm thanks to my agent, David Hendin.

I am indebted to the staffs of the W. E. B. Du Bois and the Physical Sciences Libraries of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Young Science Library at Smith College, the Keefe Science Library at Amherst College, and the Historical StudiesSocial Science Library at the Institute for Advanced Study. Finally, the books and articles whose titles appear in the bibliography of this book provided me a wealth of background material, and I refer the interested reader to them for more complete histories of theoretical physics and astrophysics in the last hundred years.

Of course, any errors are mine alone.