A physicist looks at The Time Traveler’s Wife
AUG 13, 2009
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.023593
Slate : Physicist and science-fiction fan Dave Goldberg is particularly sensitive to the pleasures of mind-bending time- traveling narratives. He’s also sensitive to their flaws:
Most fictional accounts of time travel are rife with paradoxes, parallel universes, and plot holes that violate strict physical laws: Instead of exploring the limits of our understanding, they make a mockery of them.
That’s why I’m so excited about the film adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife , which tells the story of Henry DeTamble, a man with a rare genetic disorder that causes him to skip around in time while his long-suffering wife, Clare, waits for him at home. The premise is no more or less plausible than that of, say, Back to the Future, in which a tricked-out DeLorean must reach 88 mph to jump into the past. But The Time Traveler’s Wife follows through on its premise in a realistic way.
A detailed hypothesis of how “realistic” time travel would work can be found at Slate.com .
© 2009 American Institute of Physics
