The good folks at Merriam-Webster give us 14 definitions for “time” as a noun, another 5 as a verb, and then 3 more as an adjective.
A quick peek at the etymology tells us that the “time” came into the English language by way of Old English and (Old Norse) words for “tide.”
That “time” and “tide” are related shouldn’t surprise anyone — after all “time and tide wait for no man” is one of those “proverb” things. e.g. If you make your living next to/on a large body of water then the tide going out and coming in probably greatly influences your day to day activities as much as the sun rising and setting.
From an “exploration” point of view “precision time keeping” was essential for sailors because they could use it to determine their longitude. Not being a sailor or even mildly comfortable on a boat that doesn’t have a motor – I’m told you can use a sextant to determine your latitude using the moon and stars.
Obviously in 2023 GPS is used for most voyages. Some high up officials in the U.S. Navy pointed out that we should still teach “basic seamanship.”
I’ve had a career that revolves around “fixing” things because, well, things break — so teaching basic navigation without GPS sounds obvious. e.g. the U.S. Army initial entry training (“basic training”) used to spend a little bit of time teaching the POGs (“persons other than grunts”) how to read a map and use a compass.
“Way back when” I was trained as a medic – which used to mean nine weeks of “basic” and then another period of “AIT” (advanced initial training) — all of which I seem to remember took 6 months in real time. In 2023 Google tells me that the “11B Infantry” training is “One Station Unit Training” lasting 22 weeks.
The “Distance” Problem
Before the “industrial revolution” in the 18th century gave us things like trains, and eventually planes, and automobiles – the fastest human beings could travel on land was on the back of a horse.
Which basically meant that the “average human being” would live and die within 20 miles of where they were born. Since MOST people were ‘subsistence farmers” they probably didn’t have a pressing need to travel exceptionally far.
Of course “ancient peoples” probably formed the first “cities” as equal parts “areas of mutual protection” AND “areas of commerce” — so the “local farmers market” today might be described as an example of the foundation of modern society – “people gotta eat” and “people like to socialize” …
Those ancient subsistence farmers no doubt figured out the cycles of the moon as well as the yearly seasons so they could optimize the output of their farms. Those folks not concerned with the tides still had to “plant” and “harvest” – so “time management” was a consideration even if precise time keeping wasn’t an issue.
Those Ancient Greeks even went so far as to create the idea of a “decisive battle” so they could decide conflicts and get back to their farms with minimal disruption (i.e. if you don’t plant, you can’t expect to harvest) – but that is another story.
The point being that “time” was a constant – how we “redeem the time” is up to the individual – but part of being human is dealing with the inevitability of “time passing.”
The relationship between “distance” (d), “speed” (s), and “time” (t) is probably still a “middle school” math exercise (d= st) which I won’t go into – but it is hard to overstate the impact that “fast and safe high speed travel” changed human society.
My favorite example is “transcontinental” travel in North America. Before the U.S. completed the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 the fastest you could travel from “coast to coast” would take 6 months – e.g. you could probably take a train to Nebraska in a couple days, but then the trip from Nebraska to the west coast would take several months. Or you could sail around South America (Cape Horn) which would also take 6 months (it was probably safer but much more expensive).
btw: Canada’s “transcontinental railroad” opened in 1881 – and is still in operation. Parts of what was the U.S. Transcontinental railroad are still around – but the rise of “automobiles” and the Interstate highway system made “interstate railway passenger travel” unprofitable.
AFTER the transcontinental railroads you could travel coast to coast in about a week. The original “intent” of the U.S. transcontinental railroad was that it would open up trade with Asia – i.e. good shipped in from the “far east” could be shipped across the U.S. — the bigger impact ended up being allowing immigrants from Europe to settle “out west” – which is again, another story.
It is safe to say that the “problem” of distance for “human travel” was solved by the industrial revolution. e.g. Google tell me I can DRIVE from southwestern Ohio to California in 2 days – although I could hop on a plane and travel from CVG to LAX in about 6 hours if I was pressed for time.
If I wanted to go to Chicago (298 miles from Cincinnati) the drive is about 6 hours – but with the cost of gas (if I schedule far enough in advance) the plane trip would still take 4 hours, but probably cheaper than driving.
The point being that “Travelling around the world” in ANY amount of time USED to be an unthinkable adventure because of the distances involved and the lack of safe/speedy travel options – now it is about time management and deciding on how comfortable you wanna be while you travel (and of course whether you want to be shot at when you get where you are going 😉 — and THAT is another story …
Faster Than Light
Back when I was teaching the “Network+” class multiple times a term – the textbook we used would start out comparing/contrasting common “networking media.” The three “common” media covered were 1. coaxial – one relatively large copper cable, 2. unshielded twisted pair (UTP) – 8 smaller copper wires twisted together in pairs, and then 3. “fiberoptic” cable – thin “optical fiber” strands (“glass”).
SO I would lecture a couple hours on the costs/benefits/convenience of the three “media type” – spoiler alert most “local area networks” are using some flavor of UTP because it is still hits that sweet spot between cost/speed/convenience. The take away from that “intro to networking class” about “fiberoptic cabling” was that it was exceptionally fast, but more expensive, and harder to install than the other two.
The “exceptionally fast” part of fiberoptic cabling is because we are dealing with the speed of light. Yes, there are other factors in network “speed” but physics 101 tells us that it is not possible to go faster than the speed of light (which is 300,000 kilometers per second or 186,000 miles per hour)
(oh, and the “slow” part of most “computing systems/networks” is the human beings involved in the process – so UTP is just fine for 99% of the LAN implementations out there – but once again, that is another story)
I’m not a physicist but saying that the speed of “light” is the speed of energy without mass is accurate enough for today. The point being that unless you can “change the rules of the universe” as we understand them today – it is NOT possible to go faster than light (FTL).
There was a lot of optimism that “science” would solve the “interstellar distance” problem during the “space race” period of human history. But “interstellar distance” is mindboggling huge compared to terrestrial travel – AND we keep hitting that hard barrier of the speed of light.
Of course neither “subsistence farmers” OR “trained thinkers” 2,000 years ago comprehended the size of the earth in relation to the rest of the universe – “educated types” probably thought it was round, and might have had a good idea at the earth’s circumference – but travelling “around the world” would have been the stuff of fantasy.
Some well meaning folks were predicting “moon tourism” by the end of the 20th century – and I suppose the distance isn’t the problem with “moon tourism” so much as “outer space” being VERY non-conducive to human life (read that as “actively hostile” to human life).
Gene Rodenberry (probably) came up with the idea for “Star Trek” as a direct result of the “moon mania” of the late 1960’s. Yes, “Star Trek” was conceived of as a “space western” so it was never a “hard” science fiction program – so the “Star Trek” universe tends to get a pass on the FTL issue.
After all humanity had created jet engines that allowed us to break the speed of sound, wouldn’t it be natural to assume that someone would come up with FTL engines? With that in mind “dilithium crystals” fueling warp drive engines that allow our adventurers to go multiples of the speed of light doesn’t sound that far-fetched.
Folks were using “Mach 2” to signify multiple of the speed of sound – why not use “Warp speed” for multiples of the speed of light.
It is easy to forget that “the original series” (TOS) was “cancelled” each year it was produced – after seasons 1 and 2 a fan letter writing campaign convinced the network folks to bring the show back. TOS was always best when it concentrated on the characters and stayed away from the “hard science” as much as possible.
BUT I’m not picking on “Star Trek” – just pointing out the physics …
Time Travel
Mr Einstein’s theory sometimes involves a “though experiment” where we have two newborn babies (or feel free to think of newborn kittens/puppies/hamsters/whatever if the “baby” example gets in the way) AND we put one of the newborns on a “spaceship” and accelerate that ship “close to the speed of light” (we can’t actually go the speed of light – we are just getting as close as possible).
When our imaginary thought experiment ship returns – the newborn on the ship doesn’t appear to have aged but the newborn that stayed behind is now extremely old. This is the “twin paradox” and a lot of folks smarter than me have spent considerable time examining the question –
The point is that Mr Einstein’s theory does not allow for “travelling backwards” in time.
Again, “Star Trek” (TOS) became famous for slingshotting the Enterprise around the sun, and going faster than the speed of light (“light speed break-away factor“) to travel backwards in time.
Of course, if you have “suspended disbelief” and have accepted that the warp drive engines can routinely achieve multiples of the speed of light – then the “Star Trek” writers are just engaged in good storytelling, which again interesting characters and good stories has always been the best part of the “Star Trek” universe.
btw: the most plausible “time travel” in a TOS episode was “The City on the Edge of Forever” – that is the one with Joan Collins for casual fans (season 1 episode 28). It tends to be listed near the top of “best episode” lists for TOS.
I seem to remember someone asking Stephen Hawking about the possibility of time travel “way back when.” (btw: Mr Hawking was a Star Trek fan and has the distinction of being the only “celebrity guest star” to play themselves – TNG Season 6, episode 26 – Data on the holodeck playing poker with Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Stephen Hawking) – as I remember it, Mr Hawking’s response was something along the lines of “if you could travel faster than the speed of light, then time travel might be possible”
Of course that is probably the same as him saying “… and it is also possible that monkeys might fly out of my butt …” – but you know, it is entertainment not “hard science.”
While I’m at it
The “time traveler” in HG Well’s “The Time Machine” explains traveling in time as travelling in another “dimension” – since humanity had created machines to let us travel in the other dimensions (up, down, side to side – e.g. length, width, height) then travel through “time” would just require a new machine.
That “time travel device” just becomes an element of good storytelling – i.e. best practice is to tell what it does and NOT spend a lot of time explaining HOW it works.
Doctor Who and the TARDIS (“Time And Relative Dimensions In Space”) get a short explanation when required – and they added the ability to travel instantaneously through time AND space, probably both as storytelling device and as a nod to Mr Einstein’s “space-time” concept.
“The Planet of the Apes” (1968) used the basic “twin paradox” idea – but then “something happened” and rather than landing on a distant planet they end up back on earth.
In the 1970 sequel “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” the “rescue team” has followed the first group – and this time they say they were caught in a “tear if the fabric of space time” or something. Of course they conveniently land in the same general area as the first crew and everyone speaks English.
There were three more “Planet of the Apes” sequels – they travel back in time in “Escape from the Planet of the Apes” (1971) – I don’t think they bother to explain how the got back, but I haven’t been able to sit through “Escape from the Planet of the Apes” recently.
I think “Planet of the Apes” (2001) was a victim of a writer’s strike – it isn’t particularly re-watchable for any number of reasons – not least of which is that they jump through illogical hoops to have Mark Wahlberg end up back in the present with a monkey Lincoln memorial.
The Andy Serkis as Caesar “Planet of the Apes” trilogy doesn’t bother with the “time travel” trope – substituting a “engineered virus” that (unintentionally) kills most of humanity and makes the surviving humans less intelligent.
“The Final Countdown” (1980) has an aircraft carrier go back in time to 1941 just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The movie revolves around the “can/should they change history by intercepting the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor” question – you can watch it for free on Tubi.com if interested.
This time around the time travel is a “finger of God” sort of thing – as I remember it a mysterious storm just appears and the 1980’s era aircraft carrier ends up in 1941. I’ll just point out that it is “plausible” but won’t spoil the ending …
Fred Ward had a long career as a “character actor” that died in 2022. He tried to make the move from “grizzled nice guy co-star/sidekick” to “leading man” multiple times in the 1980’s. He appears destined to be remembered as Kevin Bacon’s co-star in “Tremors” (1990) – he was one of those “instantly recognizable faces but you might not be able to recall his name” actors.
Mr Ward starred in several movies that qualify as “cult classics” (i.e. well made movies that didn’t find a mass audience at the time of release but continue to be popular years later). Mr Ward’s “time travel” movie was 1982’s “Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann” – which isn’t available streaming, but has a blu-ray release which probably illustrates the “cult classic” concept better than anything
As I remember it (I haven’t see the movie in years) – Mr Ward is a dirt bike rider that accidently gets sent back in time (1870s American West) by “secret government experiment” of some kind which he accidently stumbles into — the memorable part is that they manage to slip in a version of the classic time-travel “grandfather” paradox.
Normally the “grandfather” paradox is similar to “Back to the Future” where the time traveler does something to keep their ancestors from meeting/reproducing/whatever. “Timerider” is the other option – where he ends up being his own great-great-grandfather – enjoying the movie doesn’t revolve around that point and it looks like the movie is still being sold on blu-ray in Italy and Spain, so …
The whole “time travel machine” trope got called for its inherent silliness with “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989) – the movie is funny on multiple levels, and it is safe to say it skewered the whole “travel in time and change events” movie genre — “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey” (1991) takes the joke even further but it suffers a little from “sequel-itis” …
I’ll finish with a nod toward “Land of the Lost” both the 1974-1977 kids tv show and the 2009 Will Ferrell movie – where they “slip through” rips in time or something.
I suppose the “science” behind the movie/series is similar to “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” where it is implied that there are “rips in time” or something that can be predicted and then travelled through.
Yes, I am ignoring the various “multiverse” shows out there – simply because they are just modern “duex ex machina” plots. Worth noting because they reflect humanities desire to be able to go back and “fix” the past, but they quickly wore out their novelty …
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