General Monthly Meeting
The next meeting of the Royal Society of New South Wales will be a Special Meeting, combined with the Friends of the Powerhouse and will take place on Saturday 7th June, 2003. The topic should provide for a most interesting afternoon of discussion.Time Travel: Can it really be done?
Professor Paul DAVIES, Professor of Natural Philosophy,
Australian Centre for Astrobiology, Macquarie University.
Date: Saturday 7th June, 2003
Time: 2:00 pm
Venue: Coles Theatre, Powerhouse Museum, Harris Street, Ultimo. The Museum is
within walking distance or light rail travel from Central Station. NOTE: the
Museum will allow members of the Society free access, however there will be a
charge of $5 for guests. Large attendance numbers are expected and those
wishing to attend are required to book their seats - phone number: 9217 0600.
Please note that bookings are essential for this occasion.
Time travel makes great science fiction, but can it really be done? Well, maybe. Travel into the future is a proven fact, but lack of money prevents anyone from doing it adventurously. Travel into the past is a much tougher proposition, though it seems to be theoretically possible and has received serious attention in recent years by physicists. The best hope for building a time machine is to adapt a wormhole or stargate - if such things exist. If not, making one in the lab is not obviously impossible, though it may require the resources of a supercivilization. Accepting that travel into the past is potentially possible, what happens to the time traveller who visits his mother as a young girl and shoots her dead...?
Paul Davies is Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at Macquarie University. He previously held academic appointments in astronomy, physics and mathematics at the Universities of Cambridge, London, Newcastle upon Tyne and Adelaide. His research has spanned the fields of cosmology, gravitation, and quantum field theory, with particular emphasis on black holes and the origin of the universe. His monograph Quantum Fields in Curved Space, co-authored with former student Nicholas Birrell, is widely used. Davies is also interested in the nature of time, high-energy particle physics, the foundations of quantum mechanics, the origin of life and the nature of consciousness. In addition to his research, Professor Davies is well known as an author, broadcaster and public lecturer. He has written over twenty-five books, both popular and specialist works. They have been translated into more than twenty languages. Among his better-known works are God and the New Physics, The Cosmic Blueprint, The Mind of God, The Last Three Minutes, About Time and Are We Alone? His latest book is How to Build a Time Machine.