Imagine going to the past and meeting Einstein, Shakespeare or da Vinci. Imagine going to the future and meeting your great grandchildren. Time traveling opens possibilities to such seemingly impossible tasks. But time traveling itself seems possible. Time traveling means to travel through time and go to different times anytime you want. Time traveling has till now only been a good topic for science fiction writers. It has only existed in imagination. But is there enough intelligence in human beings to turn imagination into reality? Will man make the time machine, a device which can travel through time?
Ronald Mallett is one such man who is determined to build a time machine. He is a physics professor at the University of Connecticut. With a brilliant idea and Einstein’s equations Mallett has designed a time machine which uses circulating laser beams. Black holes, wormholes and cosmic strings- all three phenomena are proposed for time traveling, although all of them are possible, none seem feasible due to the gigantic mass they require. So, instead using any of the above three Mallett’s time machine uses light in the form of circulating laser light to warp or loop time. While, his team is still looking for funding, Mallett hopes that the time machine will be built within 10 years. Mallett believes that depending on the technology and funding time travel may be possible this century.
When people show concerns over time traveling Mallett assures them that time traveling is not dangerous. “The Grandfather paradox [ in which you go to the past and kill your grandfather before you were born] is not an issue” says Mallett “when you travel in time means you are both traveling in time and into other universes.”
“When you go back into the past,” Mallett says,” you’ll go into another universe and the things you do in your visit to the past does not affect our universe.”
Mallett has also written a book about this grand project with New York Times best-selling author Bruce Henderson. The book is named Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to make Time Travel a Reality
Mallett’s father died at the age of 33 of a heart attack when Mallett was 10 years old. After reading The Time Machine by H.G.Wells, he was determined to build a time machine so that he could go back to the past and warn his father about the dangers of smoking so that his father’s heart attack and death could be prevented.
Mallett now is 62 and he believes that he will live to see the first time machine. Sadly, the way it works means that he will never be able to fulfill his original wish – to warn his father about his deteriorating health. ”My solace is that if this works, future generations will be able to prevent the type of tragedy that I went through” says Mallett.
There is no doubt that between any two generations, there is always a conflict. That conflict of ideologies regarding the way of life has been properly coined into the term ‘generation gap’. Generation gap is a phenomenon that has prevailed in the society from the very beginning years of human civilization. It occurs in all societies, no matter how different they may be in terms of their culture. It exists between all generations, although the gap may sometimes be narrower and at other times wider.
The society is always evolving in terms of science and technology. That growth in science and technology is also affecting our way of living and our perceptions of life. Our parents or grandparents may have perceived something to be totally wrong or unacceptable, but now those very things may be very ordinary to us. Similarly, what might seem very uncommon to us now may be ordinary among our children. Because of that difference in our perceptions, we are always in conflict with the older or younger generation.
However, in my opinion, generation gap must not be taken in a negative sense and should moreover be welcomed. Generation gap in the society is the indication that we are acquainting ourselves to advancements made in science, technology and to the rest of the world. Many people of older generations despise younger ones accusing them of not continuing to follow their culture. While it would be wrong to disrespect someone’s culture, I think that it is appropriate for the society to have new and “updated” cultures. We must understand that each generation will have its own unique way of living and thinking.
Generation gap must be taken as a natural occurrence. It is after all, a result of the evolution of the mind of humans and how it thinks. Looking closely at a single family or community, generation gap might seem like a problem occurring specifically only in that family or community. But, in a wider perspective, one will find that the generations, as a whole, are in conflict with each other. Every generation struggles and fights with the other generation to make their thoughts and perspectives accepted in the society. That is the natural order of things and it should not be disturbed.
Our older generations had a generation gap with their elders too, and they still have it with the younger generations. This will just go on, because, each generations has different beliefs on what is right and what is wrong. They continue supporting their beliefs but neither one generation, as a whole, ever compromises. As younger generation begin to become more active in the society, their ways now become more acceptable, replacing the old ones. That’s how it works and this should not be disturbed else the harmony of a particular society with the rest of the world will be broken.
