Time Machine XLIX, Jason Brammer

WIKIPEDIA: Although time travel has been a common plot device in fiction since the 19th century, and one-way travel into the future is arguably possible given the phenomenon of time dilation based on velocity in the theory of special relativity (exemplified by the twin paradox), as well as gravitational time dilation in the theory of general relativity, it is currently unknown whether the laws of physics would allow backwards time travel.

Time Machine Model

Last night I watched the classic 1960 film The Time Machine, where a Victorian Englishman travels far into the future based on the novel by H.G. Wells. Travelling into the future is a concept suggested in many ancient myths and folk tales, often with the person returning to find his family old or gone. Travelling into the future is also possible according to our law of physics–for example, if I were to ride a beam of light to the sun and back, I would arrive in the future. 

Time Machine XXIX, Jason Brammer

Travelling to the past is a different beast. It is not known whether the laws of physics would allow it, and it has only occurred in literature relatively recently in the 18th and 19th century. Time travel to the future doesn’t seem to be in vogue in the popular imagination–or perhaps just my imagination. If anything, I assume time travel is to the past when I think of it, and Jason Brammer’s time machines certainly look like they would travel to the past (although the artist’s website doesn’t make any claims as to whether the pieces work). Which way would you go?


(However I would also be overjoyed to have a plain and simple travel machine, per below.)