By Leah Stone
So much has been going on to celebrate the 50th of Doctor Who it is as if the whole world has been put into a temporary wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey state. from generations of people sitting down to watch old Doctor Who re-runs, to specials on the best monsters/villains, special merchandise and deciding to show the 50th Anniversary special in cinemas. On Friday, Professor Brian Cox, famous for his educational and highly informative and entertaining science shows, hosted a special lecture, specially recorded to try and answer questions that circulate around every Whovian’s mind: Is time travel possible? Do aliens really exist? Can I build my own TARDIS? (The answer to that one is no, unless you have a spare black hole handy.)
So much has been going on to celebrate the 50th of Doctor Who it is as if the whole world has been put into a temporary wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey state. from generations of people sitting down to watch old Doctor Who re-runs, to specials on the best monsters/villains, special merchandise and deciding to show the 50th Anniversary special in cinemas. On Friday, Professor Brian Cox, famous for his educational and highly informative and entertaining science shows, hosted a special lecture, specially recorded to try and answer questions that circulate around every Whovian’s mind: Is time travel possible? Do aliens really exist? Can I build my own TARDIS? (The answer to that one is no, unless you have a spare black hole handy.)
Now I’m not the sort of person who understands scientific know-how, so I will admit some of the things he discussed were a bit over my head. However it was quite a wonderful being pulled away from the fictional Doctor Who and being presented with the facts. Brain Cox explaining what is possible and what is probable almost made the whole thing real.
Of course there’s the standard rule to time travel: Do not meet your past/future self. You should probably not do anything to change the future either, because then you will be stuck in some sort of paradox and the universe would be destroyed or something.
Cox uses visuals in order to try and explain what is possible and what isn’t. For example he produces a few experiments to show how time passes differently for different people. If someone went up in a rocket and was told to come back once they had flown for 10 years, more than that amount of time would have passed here on earth and they would be an actual time traveller! But then you can’t really travel back from then and you’ve aged 10 years.
Of course there’s the standard rule to time travel: Do not meet your past/future self. You should probably not do anything to change the future either, because then you will be stuck in some sort of paradox and the universe would be destroyed or something.
Cox uses visuals in order to try and explain what is possible and what isn’t. For example he produces a few experiments to show how time passes differently for different people. If someone went up in a rocket and was told to come back once they had flown for 10 years, more than that amount of time would have passed here on earth and they would be an actual time traveller! But then you can’t really travel back from then and you’ve aged 10 years.
Now some of his scientific lingo and information gets all too confusing if you don’t understand that sort of thing and perhaps don’t have a degree in physics. He goes off to talk about “light cones” and “event horizons” causing my far too simple brain to go on a bit of a tangent and threatens to explode, calmed only by the odd snippets of Professor Cox and Matt Smith in the TARDIS. At the end of the programme I felt like it was possible but not 100% clear or sure on how. There were people on skateboards, Rufus Hound with a massive clock strapped to his back, and candles, quite a few mentions of candles. Forward time travel? Possible if you can go faster than the speed of light. Travelling back in time seems far more complicated.
However despite my “I am struggling to understand it but I will keep watching anyway” attitude, just the mere prospect of time travel perhaps being possible one day is enough to get you tingling with excitement. We may be a long way off yet, but perhaps it IS possible. And surely, with all of the millions of billions of planets in the universe, there must be AT LEAST ONE that has alien life forms?
Perhaps this is all too much to even comprehend right now, but oh the possibilities…
However despite my “I am struggling to understand it but I will keep watching anyway” attitude, just the mere prospect of time travel perhaps being possible one day is enough to get you tingling with excitement. We may be a long way off yet, but perhaps it IS possible. And surely, with all of the millions of billions of planets in the universe, there must be AT LEAST ONE that has alien life forms?
Perhaps this is all too much to even comprehend right now, but oh the possibilities…
Keep checking back all this week for more Doctor Who related articles, all in the run up to The Day of the Doctor next Saturday!
RSS Feed
