Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe
J. Richard Gott
291 pages including index
published in 2001
I have to say, Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe does exactly what it says on the tin, exploring the possibility and methods of timetravel in the universe as we know it since Einstein formulated his formulas about special and general relativity. In the process Gott manages to also explore some of the more exotic theories about our universe and how it came to be. It seems that science fiction writers got stiff competition from astrophysicists these days in dreaming up weird and wonderful posssible universes…
It’s this that I have a bit of a problem with here. Granted, this is of course a popular science book, written for thickies and ignoramuses like myself, but it seems to me that a lot of what Gott theorises here is put too strongly as the truth rather than as just a possibility, a theory. For example, at one point he is explaining how the universe might have used timetravel to come into existence, having a closed timeloop for an origin rather than a true origin, now safely in our past so that we can no longer use this timeloop ourselves. Now I’m sure this is all allowed by the maths, but is there any observable support for this theory? That is, can our measurements of the observable universe prove or disprove this theory? Because otherwise, what is the point?