An Open Letter to Dr. Paul J. Nahin

An open letter to

Dr. Nahin,

I just read the second edition of your book Time Machines.  Your book is one-stop shopping for lovers of time travel: A must read for anyone who wants to consider himself well read in science fiction. I especially appreciate your effort in tackling the difficult physics involved. I would find the physics must less interesting if they had been presented detached from the literature I am so enamored with. I found your references to stories I have read bringing back fond memories, and your brief descriptions of some of the stories I have not read to be tantalizing. I intend to seek them out. Your extensive bibliography will prove most helpful in that regard.

I read the first edition several years ago just after my reading group had finished an exploration of science fiction time travel stories and novels. Back then I had wished that I had come across your book before I put together the reading list of time travel stories. So this time through your expanded second edition I took note of all the stories you mentioned that I would like to read to read. The list is long. I thank you for your diligence in weaving your comments about these stories into the text in every section, including the Tech Notes, and the Chapter notes. This added greatly to the readability of the book.

I now plan to re-read your book whenever you come out with a new edition. You were able to assimilate the science behind the scientific research and communicate it to a layman such as myself. This is indispensable  to someone like me who wants to know the state of the art but does not have the resources to gather and distill the research.

Your book is very refreshing as it is a serious treatment of a difficult and misunderstood subject. You rightly consider the implications of time travel to include a paradox concerning free will. The sections dealing with predestination and the block-universe were thought provoking. I subscribe to the theology that we do live in just such a universe. I find it curious that some physicists that hold to no particular religion have come to the same conclusion about the immutability of the future as well as the past.

Since you solicited suggestions for future editions, I have a few:

(1)

Compile a list of stories that fully comply with the current prevailing scientific thought on possible time travel. I found that many of the stories you mention in the text fail the “Nahin test” of plausibility. It is sometimes difficult to differentiate which stories you think are consistent with science and which stories you rave about despite their scientific errors. The classic novel Bring the Jubilee  (which I too greatly admire) comes to mind; which is either a change the past story, or a parallel world story, and certainly not in line with the idea that the past cannot be changed, that today prevails among physicists.  It is, though, lauded above Turtledove’s The Guns of the South, also a change the past story.

I was surprised that more of a pitch was not made for the stories and films that are faithful to the type of time travel put forth in your book; I now call these “Nahin approved” stories. The list of films that hold true to the scientific “you can affect the past but you can’t change the past” theory of time travel proposed in your book, are comparatively few. I would say the best of these is  the film “12 Monkeys;” a film that, sadly for me, you mention only in passing as a remake of the short French film “La Jetee.” Instead of the statement (p. 293) about Timecop and 12 Monkeys that, “Both films are subtle arguments against free will,” perhaps you could have added that 12 Monkeys, at least, was consistent with current scientific theory and yet still managed to maintain a sense of tension about the unfolding of events in a block universe. The film Timecop, which you roundly criticize, is mentioned twice (pages 249 and 269). Now I enjoyed both films, but can, after reading your book, appreciate the correctness of 12 Monkeys over Timecop. The change the past film “Back to the Future” is mentioned four times. This is sending the wring message. You would be doing a service to storytellers in both film and print media, by lauding the rare occasions when they happen to get it right. This, perhaps, would increase the number of “Nahin approved” stories in circulation.

(2) Include a list of time travel Films

(3) Consider revising your statement on page 115: “Maddox himself had introduced religion into the debate with the claim that creationists love the Big Bang because it seems to endorse science by ‘imagination’; Maddox thereby stained the Big Bang with his unfair (I think) juxtapositioning of it with the pseudo-science of creationism,” implies that (1) creationists love the big bang, and (2) creationism is a pseudo-science. First Maddox’s view of creationists loving the big bang does not hold for Christian theologians who believe in the literal six day creation put forth in Genesis. These young-earth creationists teach fiat creation, that is creation, by God, out of nothing, and not creation, by nobody, via a Big Bang. The metaphysics of the Big Bang is problematic for atheistic scientists. Second your estimation that creationism is pseudo-science confuses the issue. If you agree with Maddox that creationists love the Big Bang then why rile him for lumping the “true science” of the Big Bang with the “pseudo-science” of creationism?  Cannot a “truth” be believed by adherents of even opposing schools of thought? This slam against creationism is doubly confusing because you weave theology all through your book (For example: free will versus predestination, and the many references to the crucifixion.). Many philosophers and theologians would classify themselves as creationists and as scientists. And visa versa. You risk alienating the segment of your audience that reads your book for its merging of science and metaphysics, or religion, by such a caustic statement. My perception is that this “pseudo-science” statement was not in keeping with the tone and the theme of the balance of the book.

(4) Correct the typos: Reading the second edition of Time Machines (1st printing) I happened to notice several typographical  errors. I hope this information will be useful for further printings. I use a system of reference that lists the page number followed by the paragraph number. If the paragraph number is negative then the count starts from the bottom of the page.

89.1 [typo] The Kerr-Newman solution is intriging (should be: intriguing)

111.-1[typo] Laviathan [should be: Leviathan]

136.3 [typo] Raymond Chandle [should be: Chandler]

289.1 [typo] know [should be: knows]

311.2 [typo] lops [should be: loops]

346.1 [typo] decides not to sent [should be: send] the signal

360.2 [typo] “The global solutions of the dynamical [Eistein] equations. [should be: Einstein]

471.3 [typo] both spellings are used: “von Hoerner” and “Von Hoerner,” which is it?

498.-1 [typo] the distances through the wormhole itself could [be] very small.

519.-2 [typo] That is entering A’ and exiting A’ are events… [should be: entering A and exiting A’]

527.-2 [typo, spelling] Baxter Ring, 535.1 (manuevering [sic] a rocket at 1/2c) [should be: maneuvering]

219.-1 Boucher “The Chronokinesis of Jonathan Hull” Great Stories of Science Fiction, Ed. L. [typo should be: I.  as in Isaac?] Asimov

(5) Bibliographic omissions

As I mentioned I am using your bibliography to try to locate many of the intriguing stories described within. I discovered that a few were not referenced in the bibliography:

33.-1 Turtledove “The Long Drum Roll” (Civil War later expanded into The Guns of the South) [not referenced in the bibliography]

42.2 Ambrose Bierce “John Bartine’s Watch” (horror) (not referenced in the bibliography)

366.2 David Gelernter The Lost World of the Fair (1939) (trust me – if you read Gelernter’s book, you’ll come as close as you can in today’s world in taking a ride in a “time machine.” [must read] (not referenced in the bibliography)

(6) Some more items to add:

33.2 The Beatles song Yesterday is also used in Tim Power’s book The Anubis Gates as a means for time travelers to identify eachother.

58.1 Inadvertent sound recordings made in the past [like “The Colors of the Masters.”Sean McMullen]

66> Where Are All the Time Travelers? [This is the first time Nahin has used a question mark in one of his section headings, even two others were in the form of questions.]

For example:

35> Who Else Might Be Interested in Time Travel

43> Backward in Time – Can it Really Be Done

108.2 anachrony (the telling of a story out of normal time sequence, such as occurs in time travel movies. [and in the new classic Memento]

117.2 Progress was steady if sporadic, and by Newton’s time

seagoing chronometers [see Dava’s Longititude] were precise enough to make worldwide navigation possible.

Thanks for putting together such a fine book. I eagerly look forward to the next edition. Let’s hope that the physicists come up with more difficulties concerning time travel so that even more time travel stories will be written. Reading your book has shifted my own imagination into gear. I may try to write a few stories of my own.

Sincerely,

Doug Eigsti

[This letter was written years ago and never sent. I thought I would post it here because of the useful information it contains for readers.]