A possible Time machine !

Even as a kid, I have fantasized a lot about Time machines and Time travel. The Idea simple amazes me. You can be born in the twentieth century, yet you can see the formation of Earth and the moon, play with dinosaurs, inaugurate pyramids, witness the rise and fall of empires and walk with Jesus. It sounds exciting, doesn't it? But after 23 years on Earth, I realize that it is close to impossible, at least in my life time. I cannot have all the above fun. As any writer would do, I started thinking crazily and my brain bumped into an Idea.

To explain the Idea, I have you tell you about an atom and time. Scientists(as well me) believe that atoms are the smallest indivisible component of matter ever found. Atoms are in turn made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. It has also been proved that atoms can move from place to place. All that you need is a small push, a force. So lets simply say atoms are everywhere and they can move.

Now moving on to time. When I was in class VI, my physics teacher taught me what time is or rather what the unit of time is. A second is the time taken to do something, somewhere, somehow. She never taught me what time is. It was not in the syllabus. So what is time? It is an instance when a particular atom is in a particular place at a particular position.

Let us take a simple example. Lets us take a snapshot of Earth at time 'x'. Let us assume two things, all humans move one step every second, backward or forward, their last movement being forward for all. At instance 'x', Earth is at the starting point of its spin and will spin once east to west every second. At instance 'x', all humans move backward and the Earth spins west to east, all for a second. What will you call this new instance? 'x+1' or 'x-1'. Confused, huh? Me too.

But It looked to me like it is 'x-1'. We have moved back to the past, just a second though. we may change the future. Let us say this happens again. We are in 'x-2'. Three more times and we are in 'x-5'. Now imagine a jump from 'x' to 'x-5' bypassing all other instances. We have moved back 5 seconds, all we need is a greater push. 10 seconds, some more force. 24 hours, a huge push. Years, unstoppable force.

You would have guessed by now. The time travel is achieved through movement of atoms, by restoring them to where they were at any particular time. OK fine. How does that make you walk with Jesus? Simple. Restore the atoms 2000 years back. And introduce some more atoms into them. Its You. Sounding simple, isn't it?

But physics has the catch. Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed, It says. Importing you into an alien environment is no different to introducing energy. So this energy needs to be compensated with a compromise in the environment. We cannot create it, like the same it looked. But you have gone back. How to get back to the future?

You need some kind of memory system that can store all details of all atoms at any particular time. You can move back or forward from here and get back in one piece. But it is going to need a lot of force and lot of pushing.

OK then, how to move the atoms. Simple. What is current? Flow of electrons in one direction and the flow of protons in another due to difference in potential, a difference in energy. So to move a single atom, you need a small energy, to move zillions of them, you need a lot of them.

The theory asks more questions than it answers like any other theory. And I give two of the straight away. How to move the atoms and how to remember where atoms were at any instance?

It sounds crazy. Maybe even stupid. But this can be a starting point. The Idea and a Vision. And maybe some day, some one will come from the future and visit us, even after we are gone. Well, now, I am starting to think about immortality.