Wednesday, May 8, 2024
7pm EDT
via Zoom (please contact Gail Larose at glarose0@gmail.com for the Zoom link)
Peter Watson
Emeritus Professor of Physics, Carleton University

Can We Time Travel? Ten Different Answers! *

We think we understand time, because it dominates every single aspect of our daily lives, even how you read this sentence. It is when we start asking the hard questions that we realize we don’t! Time travel makes regular appearances in popular culture, with innumerable time travel storylines in movies, television and literature. It is a surprisingly old idea but is time travel in fact possible? As a theoretical physicist, I find that there are several possible answers to this question, not all of which are contradictory.
*Actually, there are 13 answers!

Peter Watson infuriated his father by reading far too much science fiction as a kid. He learned physics and math at Edinburgh and Durham universities, and joined Carleton University in 1974, becoming chair of the Physics Dept and then Dean of Science. He has worked at CERN in Switzerland, Oxford and Edinburgh Universities and spent two years in Nigeria. In addition to a 40-year career in theoretical physics, he has taught a wide variety of courses at all levels, many involving innovative teaching methods. Although he retired in June 2008, he has continued to teach, give public lectures and do research.