This has to be one of the most remarkable things that I have ever read.

What do you think?

“All You Zombies” (1959) by science fiction master Robert Heinlein

Paraphrased book.

Taken from the excellent book “THE PHYSICAL POSSIBILITIES OF TIME TRAVEL IN EINSTEIN’S UNIVERSE” by J.Richard Gott

A 25 year old man is in a bar lamenting his fate; curiously, he calls himself the “Unmarried Mother.” He tells the barman his story. This man has had it rough. He had been born a girl and raised in an orphanage. As a young woman, she had become pregnant and decided to keep the baby. When it came time to give birth, she had a cesarean section. The baby was born- it was a girl. During the operation, the doctor noticed that the woman had, hidden inside her body, male as well as female organs. With some reconstructive surgery, the doctor transformed her into a man without her consent. This is why the man refers to himself as the “Unmarried Mother”. Moreover a stranger soon kidnapped the child from the hospital.

The bartender interrupts the young man’s story: “The matron at your hospital was Mrs. Fetherbridge- right? … Your name as a girl was Jane- right?” The bartender asks the Unmarried Mother whether he wants to find the man who had gotten “him” pregnant. He does. Then the bartender ushers the unfortunate young man to the rear of the bar to a time machine. They go back in time 7 years and 9 months, where the bartender drops the man off. The bartender then goes forward in time 9 months, just in time to abduct a baby named Jane. He next takes baby Jane back 18 years earlier in time and puts her on the steps of an orphanage. After that he returns to the young man, who has just impregnated a young woman named Jane. The bartender then takes the young man to the future to learn the trade of bartending. At the end, the bartender considers the whole affair, and looks down at his old cesarean scar: “I know where I come from- but where did all you zombies come from?” he muses.

The bartender, who is Jane, has gone back in time to become both his own mother and father. His world line is indeed complex. He starts as baby Jane, is taken back in time by a bartender, grows up in an orphanage, has sex with a man, gives birth to a girl named Jane, changes sex, goes to a bar to lament his fate, takes a trip back in time with a bartender, has sex with a woman named Jane, and is picked up by the bartender and taken to the future, where he becomes a bartender who then travels back in time to engineer the whole thing. It is a self-consistent story, both bizarre and wonderful.

Thought provoking. But either you can't exist in two bodies at the same time OR it proves that time travel will never be possible in practice even if we ever do prove that it is possible in theory.

Interesting stuff though.

Wow, that's crazy. I had to read it three times and my brain hurts.

There are many scenarios like that, that prove time travel couldn't exist in reality (i.e. If I went back in time and shot my father then I wouldn't exist therefore I wouldn't have shot him, therefore I would exist, therefore I would have shot him therefore...)but this is the best I've heard. They all seem to leave you in a chicken/egg loop.

A person from nowhere, cool. It may even be the answer to a theological question.
God created the world but who created God?
He went back in time and created himself.

Daft !! I call it.

Nice one!

I'm currently reading a book called "The Elegant Universe" (it's excellent!) which, along the way to explaining Super String Theory, gives you the basic low-down on both Einstein's theories of relativity and Quantum Theory.

I've read about Quantum theory before, but I had never before read a decent description of Einstein's theories. It had always puzzled me why he said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. I think I understand this now. I think I also understand (or should I say, have an appreciation of) how time can run at different speeds dependent on your movement (which could conceivably be considered forward time-travel in some instances). I'm looking forward to seeing if there is a discussion on backwards time travel. Doesn't look obvious at the moment.

Yes, it is quite a story. The text is online, I can provide a link if you want.

I have been citing the thing in time travel discussions on the Café for almost a year now. Good to see someone has found the story.

A careful reading will turn up some wonderful sayings on the time-cop plaque, and the phrase "can't resist seducing oneself". Gems for the attentive reader.

Ah that was good.

Things can move faster than light, just not actually MOVE faster than light. You can stand still and be moved across the galaxy faster than light could, but at no time are you actually MOVING faster than light.

Also there are many ways to travel forward in time but I don't think there have been any succesful ones to go back, and actually get anything useful from. I mean I think that if one end of a wormhole was moving in space at a certain speed, then you could actually travel back in time but it wouldn't actually be back in time since it would all be relative to how fast your moving. hmm. I think that's right.

There was a good article in WIRED a couple months ago about different methods of "time-travel"

I don't remember if I put this idea here or just at another site, but here goes: A time travel stunt. Go to a small store and buy a few items, but keep the receipt. Now go back the next day with that receipt, but also wear a concealed FISM flash. Get the same items you bought yesterday. When you walk up to the cashier act a little confused and say things like, "Do I know you? You look familiar. I feel strange." Let them ring up the items and as you get that receipt switch it for the old one. As you do this start to act really weird then suddenly grab the cashier as you scream, "It's happening again!!!" Set off the FISM flash then look startled as if someone just woke you from a sound sleep. Look around puzzled. Ask the cashier the same questions then look at the receipt and mumble nervously, "we're stuck in a loop!" then rush out of there but leave the receipt for the person to find and leave the items. When they check everything it's going to look really strange that the date is wrong.
Greg

Greg, I like the cut of your jib!

Great Greg, that's funny and very wicked!!!

Thanks, guys. I actually came up with this for someone that was trying to pull off time travel stunts, but he never got back to me to see if he actually went through with it. I'd love to hear from anyone if they try this out.
Greg

Sorry folks, nobody gets to arrive somewhere before the signal that they are leaving arrives there.

Same for co-moving frames... if your world in your galaxy is moving at just a bit less than the speed of light to my left, and someone else’s... to my right... when these folks look at each other... their relative velocity is still less than the speed of light. That's just the way it is. Check any beginner's text on modern physics for the math. The rule for adding speeds just does not work the same when discussing FAST moving stuff.

As to time travel... well, the idea of making the ends of a wormhole connect two different times almost works... if you can make a wormhole, move the ends, and enlarge them to the size anything might travel through the thing.

The bit in Wired about the HUGE ribbon or loop distortion was funny.

Till someone does some good physics... we're going to have to settle for time travel the old fashioned way. One day at a time together with the rest of our world.

Carpe Diem!

That's not what they told us at the Quantum Conference at the Jupiter Station in 2348... it's was a Tuesday, I believe.
Greg

I don't know if you watch the science channel or not but there is a guy whose dad began the mathematical equations based on Einstein’s, and worked on it his whole life. The father passed away and the son spent his entire life on the equations. 2002 the math is finished thanks to some fancy computing. The first time machine is being built as we type, with a hefty grant from the science community and the rest funded by DARPA (go figure) and other branches of the govt that are undisclosed. It should take about two years to finish.

Here is the catch.... any non-living object can be sent back in time, but only back as far as the day and exact moment, the time machine is turned on. This is due to the fact that you can't send things back to a machine that has not been built yet. The test to see if it works begins the moment its turned on, when all of the sent objects should begin falling out of it since there are plans to send numerous test items back for the first few months of operation.

The machine will continue to work until it is turned off sometime in the distant future.

According to the calculations voices could come through from the future as well as well.

Sending things forward will require a different machine with a reverse physical structure and no plans or funding are in the works.

Well that's what the show covered, who knows if it will pan out.

Yeah, if you believe what you read in modern physics. A while ago it was considered heresy to say the world was round because the books said otherwise. Likewise, evolution was (and in some places still is) considered untrue. No doubt there will come a time when much of what we 'know' today will turn out to be rubbish.

BTW We can already see into the past thanks to film, that's something that was unimaginable not that long ago.

Can you post a link or something?

I really don't see how you could send back any actual information, because it would create a paradox... what if they send back a paper that gives instructions that will stop that same paper from actually being sent back?

I *really* hope that they aren't actually working on something so farfetched.... if it actually works it'll probably end all life in the universe.... *** DARPA.

EDIT:
Instead of getting a bunch of test items back, wouldn't you be able to get some super duper technology and extra time traveling stuff from a couple thousand years from now too, the moment you turn the machine on?

* Gosh I hope that 'seeing into the past' remark was a joke.

A bit of film or video is a recording made of an event. While one can review the recording, it is none the less an artifact and not quite the same as the view through a {{{hypothetical}}} wormhole through which one would be able to send and receive both information and matter.

There is some okay physics analysis on wormholes and the classic problem of someone interacting with themselves in the past. As it happens, the only problem with time traveler interactions have been with the authors of the stories. On the other hand, wormholes seem very difficult to create, enlarge, transport and store anywhere near each other. Hence the need for some good physics work.

Sorry to report that all experiments to date have supported relativity theory. With an assertion about the measured speed of light being invariant... you can bet that it was tested as well as possible by the cleverest folks at the time, 1905 and has been subject to further tests over the years. Such a counter intuitive physical property in the real universe bears close inspection.

Okay, back to the episode of 'The Twilight Zone' already in progress...

As a quantum physicist, I highly recommend reading "The Elegant Universe" to give laypeople a basic conceptual education in the description of modern physics as it currently stands.

As a physicist, I do not believe in time travel, parallel universes, and other speculative theories. Einstein himself, while stating that time travel might be able to be described mathematically and philosophically did not believe it was possible.

I have read considerable material relative to the mathematics of the current theory of the universe consisting of 11 dimensions (not just the 4 visible ones) and the work being done trying to integrated the descriptions of these.

Anybody willing to work through the math of Field Theory can find the best work to date in Steve Weinberg’s 3 Volume Set on the subject.

I would only add, I still enjoy a good science fiction story using time travel as its basis. I just read "Timeline" and loved it, although the physics was flawed. The same with "Contact" and that was written by a physicist (but he wasn't a relativity guy, only an astronomer).

Sorry, I don't remember the exact name of the show, other than it ran on the science channel on cable. We normally don't get it so I was soaking up as much as my brain would handle.

The guy that is doing it is an African American gentleman in his 50s with black frame glasses and a bit of gray on the sides.

They showed the usual science/discovery channel graphic mock up shots and it looked like stacked lasers in a corkscrew shaped octagon formation that made a tube of laser light. They only accelerate the object slightly faster than falling and it melts away.

Of the real one he was building they showed the steel rack and mounting space where the lasers went as being completed and they were adding more parts and getting ready to mount the lasers and cooling units.

EDIT: In theory if the machine could be kept alive well into the future, small items and information could be sent back to any time that occurred since it was started.

Of course we know that if it works, they will claim it failed and keep it for themselves...Govt. policy. And then of course if planes didn't crash and wars didn't start its not like we would have any old newspaper clippings to prove things changed.

Steven,
A couple of questions.

What is the current interpretation of the double slit experiment and its results?

-The current pop literature is pushing a sort of 'many worlds as real until measured' interpretation. *Which is Okay to the extent that the part of me that is elsewhere getting coffee right now will vanish before I get back to my chair and start typing again.

Has there been any feedback on that experiment by Alain Aspect on correlated photon pairs? Between that and q-bits, the pop literature is getting confusing.

This stuff makes science fiction stories seem quite tame by comparison.