Nostradamus Speaks -- Deep Time

Deep Time

Dr. Nostradamus had long promised to teach me time travel, "when I was worthy."  But recently he disclosed, or implied, or hinted ... (seriously, I still really am not sure) that he is not strictly speaking a time traveler, just very, very old -- over 500 years old in fact. He's a genetic "freak of nature" (his words, not mine) and while that fact is extraordinary, it is not supernatural. Dr. N gets touchy about this because he maintains that belief in the supernatural is at the core of human stupidity. He wants to make it perfectly clear that everything about him is completely within the laws of the natural world. Period. Full stop.

I think I was disappointed to learn that I wasn't ever going to be able to time travel in the way I had hoped to given all the movies I had watched. Okay, that was a childish fantasy, but still.

It was on this sort of a time travel reverie that I started thinking about time itself and since Dr. N had been around for a while he might have a unique perspective on the topic. It was worth a shot so I snuck in a question to Dear Dr. Nostra and attributed it to a sleeper cell coordinator I trusted would not rat me out -- Zappnin in SoCal.

"Dear Dr. Nostra," I read, "Zappnin in SoCal asks if you can talk a bit about looking back in time since you are so old."

Dr. Nostra says: "Thanks for the question Zappnin in SoCal. You are obviously a very smart young fellow so I will share with you an insight that has troubled me since I first became acquainted with Galileo back in the day.

"When we look out into space we can see stars that are, say, 5 million light years away. This simply means that the light we see started traveling to us 5 million years ago.

"This is a common understanding of space and time within the scientific community and most of the educated public gets it.

"Now imagine that we have a telescope so powerful that we can see a planet orbiting a star 5 million light years away and can zoom in so close that we can see the surface of that planet and what's happening there. In detail.

"Are you following this, Number One?"

"I'm with you, Sensei," I said, "Go on."

Dear Dr. Nostra continued: "It is important to understand that we are not looking 'out there'; we are looking at the light that has 'come here.' 

"So the light that has come here, to us, has been traveling for 5 million years and what we see happened 5 million years ago on that distant planet.

"Hang on to your lug nuts Grasshopper, because the ride is going to get bumpy."

"I'm hanging, Boss, go for it." I said.

The Great Prognosticator went for it, "Now, imagine that in real time, right now, so to speak, that distant sun went supernova and that distant planet is utterly evaporated. Gone."

"Cool," I said, "Like the Death Star in Star Wars."

He ignored the comment. "Images of that great disaster will not reach our eyes until 5 million years have passed. That's 5 million years in our future. Are you with me, Dungbeetle?"

"I'm with you, Sensei," I said.

Dr. N continued, "In the meantime though, the history of that distant planet, all that happened from right now, our time, exists and will continue to exist, but only in the complex pattern of photons that are even now streaming out in it's light cone. A light cone from a planet that in physical reality no longer exists -- but will appear to exist in the images the photons create in our brains -- for the next 5 million years.

"These are the kinds of thoughts that would have you burned at the stake in the days I came of age. The church was a centuries old monster then and the mentality that supports that kind of oppression is alive and thriving today. But don't get me started.

"So that's enough for today. I hope my response will stimulate further thought for Zappnin in SoCal."

Dixi