Au Wai Laam

10384267
Film and Philosophy 162-01
4th November, 2007
‘Time travel only appears in fictions and films and it causes a lot of puzzles. Therefore, it is impossible
and scientists should not pursue it,’ Discuss.
Time is a very basic concept in the world. No one knows “time” exist or not. Some one say

that time is moving and move in one direction so as to something in the future will happen. But

here is a question: if time is moving, how can we examine the rate of temporal progression?

While time is not made up of atoms, it is something abstract. We can’t find out the actual rate of

temporal progression. We can’t grasp the time until now, how can we even talk about time travel?

Time travel only appears in fictions and films and it causes a lot of puzzles. Consider

Terminator, Kyle Reese is the biological father of John Connor. In 2012, John sent Kyle to the

past. Kyle backward travel to 1984 and his encounter with Sarah led to give birth of John. And

then Kyle died. In 1995, Kyle was born and then became friends with John. He led the birth of

John, but he is smaller than John. How come the father is smaller than the son? And how come

Kyle die before his birth? It is logical contradiction.

But I think the time travel problem is easy to be solved by the times going. There have no

science many years ago. I think Ah Don, the first man of the world, has not even imagined human

can fly in the sky, live in 200 metres above the ground. Science is more advanced day by day. We

can change the dream of “time travel” to be real.

Although time is not an essence, I think time may be is an unknown energy. In this high
technologically century, many unknown are going to be known. Albert Einstein, a well known

physicist and also my most admiring idol, had a special theory of relativity which mention the

concept of time dilation. ’Time dilation is that travelling at a speed close to speed of light can

“slow down“ the ageing of the traveller. A person travelling at the speed of light for a year from

location x to location y and then back to x has spent a year of his personal time; but due to the

difference of time frames between the traveller and the world at x, he will find that after a year of

high-speed travelling, the world at x has in fact progressed for more than a year (such a scenario

is called the Twin Paradox).’1 Extract from Twenty Problem In Phylosiphy. If we can travel at

light speed, we can have a chance to go to future. But someone will ask: how can we travel at a

light speed, this is technological impossible. About one hundred years ago, there has no any

aeroplane in the world. The first aeroplane is invented by Wright brother,Orville and Wilbur who

are American, in 1903. The aeroplane could fly 106 km/h in 1910. After upgrade and upgrade, the

plane in 2004 can fly at a speed of 7700 km/h. Between about one hundred years, the speed of

plane in 2004 is about 73 times the speed of the plane in 1910. The speed of light is about

299,792 km/h, is 2828 times of the plane in 1910. According to the improved rate of speed of

plane, a light-speed plane will be invested after about 3900 years later. So it is technological

possible to time travel.

As a conclusion, I think time travel is absolutely not impossible. Scientist should strive to

investigate about time. Even if there are many puzzles and trouble, scientist must be brave to face

1
Twenty Problem in Philosophy
them. It is because they can have a honor fame after they solve them. Time travel can be expected

soon.