Students will learn the basics of time travel and construct their own actual Time Machine during the semester. Bonus credits awarded to students who succeed in actually traveling through time. All work MUST be submitted on time (relative to an observer in Professor Chumley's reference frame).

Prerequisite: A thorough knowledge of string theory, black holes, and quantum physics, along with a demonstrated facility in the tasteful appointment of one or more of the following crafts: boats, ships, planes, or cars (to ensure that one's time travel ship does not unwittingly speak volumes about the aesthetic cluelessness of its geeky human cargo).

Credits: 3 credit hours (relative to the student's reference frame at the time of course completion).

Right, Time Travel 101.

Second day of classes, people. You should all have Michio Kaku's "Parallel Worlds" now in your student library, along with "The End of Time" by Julian Barbour, and "How to Build a Time Machine" by Paul Davies.

Remember, a semester flies by rather quickly (from the point of view of an observer on campus, I mean), so you better start buying materials right now for your Time Machines. Keep in mind, you're going to need to "implode the quark-gluon bubble," as Davies puts it, at some point, so if you're renting, you may want to find other premises for your experiments. (The good news is that Davies believes a great deal of energy is not required for this procedure -- the bad news is that this energy has to be directed very precisely or else!)

What's that? Yes, you will be graded with respect to your ability to actually visit other "spacetimes." I don't want to hear any nonsense about, "Oh, well, we saw some stars which were billions of years old so in a sense, we went back in time."

Of course, if no one succeeds in actually going backward or forward in time, then I'll grade on a serious curve that will reward those who made the most progress in that direction. But I mention this almost parenthetically, because I don't want anyone to start out with the assumption that you can't actually do this. I mean, other professors are always telling me that no student could possibly create a time machine. And I always say the same thing in response: "Well, maybe that's because naysayers like yourself are always trying to establish that incapacity as an a priori truth!"

That usually shuts them up, boy, I can tell you!

Well, I'm sorry, but they fail to realize that it is precisely their negativity on this subject that is creating a self-fulfilling (or in this case, a self-unfulfilling) prophecy. No WONDER a time machine can't be built, given the no-can-do spirit of academia on this point! I say we begin with the assumption that such a craft CAN be built and "go from there," as they say.

Let them call me "mad" if they want to! (Hey, listen: Bring it on, babe! Sticks and stones may break my bones -- you know what I'm sayin'?) It just gives me yet another chance to utter that famous self-motivating line of all intellectual mavericks: "Mad am I? I'll show you who's mad!"

In fact, with your help, this entire class will show them who's mad this semester, right? (You betcha!) Now then, where were we?

Man! Look at the clock. If I didn't know better, I'd think that one of you had already found a way to move into the future -- and to take this whole class with you, into the bargain! I mean, where did the last 20 minutes GO?!

Anyway, here are a couple of theoretical questions I want you to ponder as you read your texts over the coming three months:

1) What are some of the seemingly strange implications of the notion that there is no one fixed universal time as had been previously posited by our good friend Isaac Newton?

(Because trust me, if the irreality of "absolute time" has not "weirded you out," then you simply haven't grasped the concept yet.)

2) Stephen Hawking pooh-poohs the idea of traveling backward in time because he notes that we ourselves should see time travelers amongst us if future generations had ever discovered the skill: and since we (as far as we know) see no such voyagers, time travel probably will never exist. Although this is obviously a strong argument, it is not a theoretically insurmountable one: Suggest several scenarios in which our failure to see time travelers would not logically presuppose their nonexistence.

(Hint: Think about Hawking's own multiple universe theory. Perhaps the time traveler never goes back to the PRECISE universe from which they came, and therefore no "grandfather paradox" can arise!)


Right, time's up (relative to that ever-loving observer in the appropriate time frame, of course).

Honestly, I think one of you students is mucking about with time even as we speak! This class went by WAY too fast! All right: Come clean, people: Which of you has succeeded in lassoing a black hole and, as 'twere, bending it to your will? No one? Hmm. Okay, well, which of you has succeeded in bending space-time, then? (let's put it THAT way). Come, come, people, you can't expect to get academic credit for these accomplishments of yours if your own professor doesn't even know about them!


So! It seems we have a shy scientist in our class. (Either that or the classroom clock needs replacing -- but that seems unlikely, since I'm aware of no other currently malfunctioning timepieces in the entire university! It seems somehow just a little too convenient that only the clock in this Time Travel classroom would be "on the fritz.")

Okay, your assignment is chapter one ("How to Visit the Future") in "How to Build a Time Machine."

Speaking of which, you need to get hopping on these time machines of yours.

Oh, and before you rush out and buy an imploder, remember that a particle accelerator might work just as nicely. But a word of caution: You'll essentially be trying to implode a black hole under its own phenomenal weight. So be careful! If you must work from home, at least double-check the terms of your renter's insurance before throwing any potentially irrevocable switches.

Of course, how ever you want to reach the necessary Planck energy levels (be it by imploder or accelerator), those steps are -- or certainly should be -- at least a month away for you. First things first, after all: You've got to build the actual cabin that you're going to sit in while you go back (or forward) in time. You've got to decide on the seats, the general layout of the dashboard, what sort of restraining devices you might want to use such as seat belts and airbags, what if any audio equipment you might want installed, etc. And try to think outside the box, people: You don't want to get back to the Sahara Desert in 2000 B.C. and suddenly realize that you should have installed an air-conditioner!

Right, off you go. Tomorrow we'll discuss the potential benefits of using negative quantum vacuum energy in your Time Machine -- and we'll look at some suggested color schemes for the outside body work of the craft itself. After all, we want to make the right impression when we visit these other temporal realms.

Now then, you have a lot on your plate, so get busy: After all, time flies! (though with a little ingenuity, some of you might succeed in stopping it in its tracks this semester!)