A Nonlinear History of Time Travel
ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL HERTZBERG Births, deaths, and other time travel paradoxes. BY JAMES GLEICKG Idoubt that any phenomenon, real or imagined, has inspired more perplexing, convoluted, and ultimately futile philosophical analysis than time travel has. (Some possible contenders, determinism and free will, are bound up anyway in the arguments over time travel.) In his classic textbook, An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, John Hospers tackles the question: “Is it logically possible to go back in time—say, to 3000 B.C., and help the Egyptians build the pyramids? We must be very careful about this one.” It’s easy to say—we habitually use the … Continue reading A Nonlinear History of Time Travel