Word: backwards
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...height -- there exists time, which is treated mathematically as though it were equivalent to the other three. But there is one important difference: while humans can travel freely in any physical direction -- up and down, left and right, back and forth -- they can go only forward in time, never backward...
Still, there is nothing in the laws of physics that says time cannot run backward. Einstein's equations of motion work equally well, mathematically, when the direction of time is reversed. Yet no one has ever been able to travel back in time. Theoretical physicists find the situation intriguing: if the laws that govern nature really permit time reversal, there should somehow be a way to achieve it. Now a theorist at Princeton University has come up with a way that travel into the past might, in principle, be accomplished, even if it may not be practical...
...paths. In principle it could reach the far side of a string at exactly the same moment as a light ray traveling the longer path. In essence the ship would be moving faster than light, and under the peculiar logic of special relativity, it would thus go backward in time. For complex reasons, the ship has to make a complete loop around the string, and thus a single string will not do; there must be two strings -- passing each other at nearly the speed of light -- for the trick to work. But work it apparently does. Says Gott...
...learned English when she was about seven, and by the age of 15 she was publishing poems as sophisticated as any American who was publishing in the 18th century. We need to make that common knowledge, as common as the fact that Michael Jordan can do the triple quadruple backward dunk...
...while unworthy ones are sent back to earth to try again. After you've been to Judgment City, the second alternative is not entirely appealing. The highly evolved locals jocularly refer to earthlings as "little brains," because they employ only 2% or 3% of their mental capacity. A step backward becomes particularly dispiriting to Daniel after he meets a brave, smart woman named Julia (played by a sexily beaming Meryl Streep). She is a sure shot to move on to a higher plane of existence, and he would desperately like to join...