Time-Wells and Instant Comunication

In the Contact Series, I touch on the concept of sending information back in time. There has been a lot of discussion about time travel among many of today’s physicists. A topic that would never have been taken seriously by scientists previously has finally received a serious examination. Unfortunately most agree that nature conspires against the possibility of making a trip back in time. The amount of energy required either becomes impractical or impossible, depending on who you listen to (and I really wanted a time machine, too).

But what about sending information back through time? I read about Ronald Mallett’s work using lasers to distort spacetime and create a method for time travel. While his work is very controversial it does have some valid points and is based in science. Harold White and the Icarus project have also proposed using light to warp spacetime, so the jury is still out considering whether time travel will ever be possible.

I personally don’t believe we will ever have a time machine capable of transporting a person back in time. It simply creates too many physical paradoxes. But I find the possibility of sending information into the past fascinating.

Suppose a devise is invented that can transmit data into the past. It might only be able to send the information to itself, but even that would have far reaching ramifications. How would it work? In the novel I described the devise as a time-well. Information could be dropped into the well on a specific date, for instance January first, 2099, and appear in the same time-well fifty years earlier, January first 2049. This information could then be used accordingly (instant lotto winner, guaranteed stock picks, avoidance of natural disasters).

In the book it is used to solve the problem of communications over great distances. The problem of sending a message to a star ship 20 light years away is that the message is twenty years old when it gets to the star ship. By utilizing a time-well, the message could be sent twenty years into the past and then sent out to where the star ship would be in twenty years. The message would appear to be instantaneous. The reply could be handled in the same manner aboard the star ship if they also had a time-well. 

Of course this “opens a whole ‘nother can of worms,” as my grandfather used to say. Why not just read all the messages from the future before you leave. Then you can avoid any nasty surprises or unfortunate space battles that you might lose. How would knowing the future, change the future? And what paradoxes would result from having the information? Would your time-well fill to overflowing with messages from alternative futures, all possible futures?

It could also lead to some very creative story writing, the challenge is making the story simple versus so convoluted and confusing that the reader is hopelessly lost. It is just one of the many ideas that I touched upon in the Contact Series, hoping to give the reader something to consider.