The new time travelers : a journey to the frontiers of physics /

The story of physicists' quest to answer a mind-boggling question: How can we travel through time? Since H.G. Wellsʾs 1895 classic The Time Machine, readers of science fiction have puzzled over the paradoxes of time travel. But in the 1990s, a group of theoretical physicists at Caltech undertook a serious investigation of the possibility of pastward time travel and concluded that it might be possible, inspiring a serious and sustained study that engaged more than thirty physicists around the world. Many of the figures involved in these theories are familiar: Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Kip Thorne; others are names known mostly to physicists. These are the new time travelers, and this is the story of their work--a profoundly human endeavor marked by advances, retreats, and no small share of surprises.--From publisher description.A fantastic journey to the frontiers of physics. Also includes information on black holes, cosmic strings, David Deutsch, Albert Einstein, energy, Pierre Gassendi, Kurt Godel, J. Richard Gott, gravity, Alan Guth, Stephen Hawking, Charles Howard Hinton, interstellar travel, jinn, Andrei Lossev, Mike Morris, multiverse, Igor Novikov, paradoxes, Roger Penrose, quantum mechanics, general relativity, special relativity, -- Carl Sagan, science fiction, spacecraft, stars, Sun, Kip Thorne, thought experiments, time, time travel, universe, Matt Visser, H.G. Wells, John Archibald Wheeler, wormholes, Ulve Yurtsever, etc.Includes bibliographical references (p. 353-367) and index.Intimations of spacetime -- Einstein's radical idea -- "Unphysical" time machines -- Pastward time travel--seriously -- Paradox -- Cosmic strings and chronology protection -- Novikov's wild ideas -- A time travel summit -- A parade of time machines -- Time travel in another kind of spacetime -- Explaining the apparent absence of time travelers -- Time machines at the ends of time.The story of physicists' quest to answer a mind-boggling question: How can we travel through time? Since H.G. Wellsʾs 1895 classic The Time Machine, readers of science fiction have puzzled over the paradoxes of time travel. But in the 1990s, a group of theoretical physicists at Caltech undertook a serious investigation of the possibility of pastward time travel and concluded that it might be possible, inspiring a serious and sustained study that engaged more than thirty physicists around the world. Many of the figures involved in these theories are familiar: Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Kip Thorne; others are names known mostly to physicists. These are the new time travelers, and this is the story of their work--a profoundly human endeavor marked by advances, retreats, and no small share of surprises.--From publisher description.A fantastic journey to the frontiers of physics. Also includes information on black holes, cosmic strings, David Deutsch, Albert Einstein, energy, Pierre Gassendi, Kurt Godel, J. Richard Gott, gravity, Alan Guth, Stephen Hawking, Charles Howard Hinton, interstellar travel, jinn, Andrei Lossev, Mike Morris, multiverse, Igor Novikov, paradoxes, Roger Penrose, quantum mechanics, general relativity, special relativity, -- Carl Sagan, science fiction, spacecraft, stars, Sun, Kip Thorne, thought experiments, time, time travel, universe, Matt Visser, H.G. Wells, John Archibald Wheeler, wormholes, Ulve Yurtsever, etc