Initial/Older study of Time Travel [Past]

This post is the older version of Time Travel [Past]. I needed to improve and update the whole thing but I didn't want to delete the feedback or the post. I created a newer and more up to date post of this topic but I'm keeping this post on blogger so people can see the development.

H.G.Wells originally created the creation of the concept of “Time Travel”. He was a very popular science fiction writer and created other famous novels such as “War of the Worlds”, “The Conquest of Time” and “The Invisible Man”. It’s quite amazing how he wrote about the idea of Time Travel over 100 years ago and it’s developed into this whole sub-genre, including scientists such as Einstein developing theories on the matter.

(Photograph taken from the article from "The Telegraph" written by Matthew Moore on the  22nd September 2009)

H.G Wells was born in 1866 in England. His father was a famous cricketer until he broke his leg, after that he became a shopkeeper. As a child he developed a love for literature which continued on through his life. As a young boy his mother was a housekeeper, while she was cleaning she’d secretly let him into the libraries and let him read. He became a teacher/pupil at Midhurst Grammar school before gaining a scholarship for the Normal School of Science in London. There he studied biology but unfortunately left the course due to losing interest. After this he taught in private schools and settled down in London. He married his cousin Isabel but left her to marry one his is brightest students, Amy Catherine. In 1893 he devoted his life to writing and published his first novel, The Time Machine in 1895.

"Man can go up against gravitation in a balloon, so why should he not hope that, ultimately, he may be able to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even turnabout and travel the other way?"

-:The Time Machine:-

This book was eventually created into a film in the 1960's. The film was directed by Geroge Pal and the screenplay was written by David Duncan. The story is about a Victorian gentlemen who created a Time Machine and goes into the future. He travels into the fture and watchs as the first and second World Wars pass him. He ends up in the year 802,701 were the humans, who are now called Eloi, in a cilivatations without books, a government or any laws. He asked to read some books so he can learn about this new time but the books are all mouldy and crumbled to dust. His time machine is then captured by the Morlocks and hidden in the bis sphere. He finds out that the Morlocks are eating the humans and ruling over them! To get his time machine back he has to defeat the Morlocks and free the humans! The movie ends with him going back in the past and telling his story, but he goes back to the future to go see his love interest.

The movie is a science fiction/romance/adventure genre and is a very iconic film. The device that he travels in is known world-wide and is parodied in media today. The most recent I've seen is the parody of it in the TV series "The Big Bang theory". The main character ends up bidding on a replica of "The Time machine" on eBay and doesn't realise that it's a full scale model. The whole episode references the idea of time travel and parodies parts in the film too, such as the parts when he travels through time and everything suddenly changes. (Will be mentioning this again in my present research, don't worry). The scene is very iconic though and demonstrates the overall idea of what we think Time Travel would be like. I found a video on Youtube showing the scene.

 

-:Back to the Future:-

The "Back to the Future" is a trioligy of films created by Robert Zemickis. The first one was realised on the 4th December, 1985 (in the UK). This film series was the first time I'd ever really seem anything realted to Time Travel and one of the main reasons I love the therpy of Time Travel so much. The movie tells of a boy called Marty McFly and Professor Brown, or "Doc" by Marty. The Doc finally creates a Time Machine and asks Marty to help him in his experiment. 

"You built a time machine, out of a delorian?!"-Marty
"Well I thought that if I was travelling in time I better do it in style"-Doc

Unfortuently the experiement is interupted by terroists who are after Doc. For the Time Machine to work he needed Plutoniam which he stole off them. Poor Doc is shot and Marty has to get away in the car. Not reasling the flux copasitor is still running (the device that makes time Travel possible) he hits 88mph (the speeded need to travel through time) and ends up travelling back to November 5th 1955. The movie is about him finding the past Doc to help him get back into his own time, 1985. Unfortuently it's not all that simple as Marty has ended up running into his parents! Not only did he ruin their first encounter, his mother has no fallen in love with him. He tries to save the Doc by telling him in the past that he will get shot but the Doc doesn't want to cause any paradoxes. In the end Marty writes him a secret note but the Doc throws it away.

"Why did you have to rip up that letter? If only I had more time... wait, what am I talking about?! I'm in a Time machine!"-Marty

Realising he has the power to turn time Marty goes back 10 minutes in the past from the Doc being shot to save him, unfortuently once he goes into 1985 he crashes and can't get to the experiement in time, watching the Doc get shot all over again. When he goes to moan over his friends body the Doc sits up and shows he's wearing a bullet proof vest. He has cellotaped the letter back together. 

-:Dr Who:-

Dr Who is a TV series that was first aired on TV on November 23rd 1963. The first episode was about them travelling 100,000 years into the past to help Cavemen discover fire. William Hartnell was the actor who played the first Doctor. There have been 11 Doctors overall over the past 50 years. The Doctor is a Time Lord who, in other words, is an alien. He used his time machine, the Tardis, to travel through space and time. Through-out the series it has created some very iconic characters that many people remember, such as the Daleks and the Cyberman. The actors who played the Doctors are Patrick Troughton (1966-1969), Jon Pertwee (1970-1974), Tom Baker: (1974 - 1981), Peter Davison (1982-1984), Colin Baker (1984-1986), Sylvester McCoy (1987-1989), Paul McGann (1996),  Christopher Eccleston (2005), David Tennent (2006-2010), Matt Smith (2010-present).

-: Vehicles for Time Travel:- 

I've noticed that while researching the past of Time Travel they all have different ways of Travelling through time. All look very different but I'd like to know if there’s any common factors into what go into a Time Machine. Here's a list of the ones that I have found;

-:The Time Machine:- 

The Time Machine from "The Time Machine" (1960)

Based off of HG.Wells books named with the same title. This time machine kind of looks like a old fashioned sled. He has a control panel were he inputs the time and the level is used to speed up or slow down how fast he goes into time. The large disc at the back spins as he travels through time: faster is he's going faster and slows down when he's going slower. The interesting thing about this machine is that it can't really move, it has no wheels and has to be dragged if wanting to move from a point. This means that if he travelled through time he would end up in the same spot but in another time era. I really like the design of this machine and I really think it captures the looks and colours of the Victorian era (the time machine is built in the 1900).

-:Back to the Future:-

The Delorean from "Back to the Future 1"

The Delorean from "Back to the Future 2"

The Delorean from "Back to the Future 3"

The "Back to the Future" trilogy had a Delorean as the main method of travelling through time. Well the car held all the mechanics for the means; such as the Flux Capacitor and the area to put the plutonium so it could generate the 1.21 gigawatts that it needs to travel through time. Throughout the trilogy though the Delorean alters and changes for the time era that it is in. In the second film the Delorian is used to go into the future. While there the Doc gets it all updated with flying capabilities and a new fuel system so it uses rubbish as petrol. In the third film they go into the past, 1899 to be precise. Unfortunately most of the new futuristic mechanics are fried after the car is hit with a lightening bolt. The engine still works and the Flux Capacitor but flying and new fuel systems are damaged. They have to get new wheels for the car as well as updates on the engine. In the past though they have to get Marty back to his own time so use a train to push the car up to 88mph.

-:The Time Machine (2002):- 

The Time Machine from "The Time Machine", 2002 version

There might be a bit of confusion here but the original film "The Time Machine" was re-made again in 2002, under the same title. The Time Machine in this one is total different yet still holds some of the qualities. It still holds that old, rustic feel with the brass and the wood. The discs seem to have been replaced and changed into two discs. It also holds some old gages and dials so it still retains that Victorian feel to it.

-:The Tardis:-

The Tardis is one of the main staples of the TV series, Dr Who. It may look like a simple telephone box but once opened up the inside looks a lot bigger than it does on the outside. This has become a reference in every day chat, with people saying things like "It's alike a Tardis, it's a lot bigger on the inside" to describe something that looks small on the outside but bigger on the inside. It has a sytem of different machine and wires which help the Doctor travel through time and space its self! The Tardis is also known for making a strange noise when it disappears and re-appears in different areas. It also can fly through space and time. It is originally based off the Scottish blue police boxes which they used to have dotted around the streets.

-:The Persistence of Memory:-

(Dali, 1931)

The painting is very famous and well known; many people have taken this famous imagery and interrupted it in their own way. The idea of the piece is the decay of time. "The ants may represent destruction or decay, the rocks can be viewed as eternity or reality, and the melting clocks perhaps show that regimented time is an artificial concept that cannot withstand the true power of the universe beyond." (Nola, 2008) The piece was created by Salvador Dali in 1931. It's an oil painting and only measures 10x13 itches. The colours are rich and show a mixture of a dream and reality, the reality being the mountains in the background "The background itself shows the rocky landscape of Port Lligat in Dalí’s native Catalonia, Spain." (Nola, 2008). His art dealer, Julien Levy, originally said the piece was never sell... it did. Dali actually made it to the cover of Time magazine in 1936, only 5 years after the piece was sold.

(Time Magazine, 1936)

When I did art a few years back we studied art history and I always found this piece to be very interesting. It's a very iconic piece and is also very popular, being placed in many museums since it was first painted in 1931. The piece really catches your eye due to the surrealism and dream like state of the clocks and unusual landscape. The piece has been used a lot in present day in merchandising and parody pieces which I will have to cover in the "Present" section of my Time Travel research.

-:Time Magazine:-

The magazine isn't about Time Travel (unfortunately) but it's a very popular magazine to say the least. The magazine first began in 1923 and was created by two men, Henry R. Luce and Briton Hadden. Funnily enough the two were originally rivals and reported the news for two separate newspapers. They worked together later on at the “Baltimore News”. They soon left after only 3 months to go to New York and achieve their dream of making their own publication. Originally the title they wanted was “Fact” but that soon changed.

"The Digest selected its subjects arbitrarily and treated them at length, quoting liberally from newspapers and other sources. Time, by contrast, would cover all the news, briefly and in its own organized way." (Tebbel, 1991).

(Luce, Hadden. 1923)

The magazine was very popular and by the end of 1924 the magazine had a circulation of 70,000. Probably one of the features that is well known for and makes it popular is the “Man of the Year” (now known as Person of the Year.) Rather than it being a person who has done something good it’s a person who has done something well known that year which means it’s had some very notable people features, including Adolf Hitler in 1938. It also causes lots of controversy, with 2001 being a choice between Osama Bin Laden and Rudolph Giuliani. “At any rate, Person of the Year is surely Time's most anticipated issue each year.” (Aliperti, 2005-2011)

(Various covers from 1927-2004)

The covers are very collectable too, with lots of results showing up on eBay to buy old covers of the magazine. Also it's seen as a great achievement if you can be on the cover on Time Magazine. While searching for famous covers I came across an advert which lets you buy covers of the magazine.

The link leads to this website were you can buy larger prints of covers and get them framed too. It'll set you back around $20 (depending on framing and cover) but it shows that there is a market and popularity for the covers, both past and present, if you can get them as pieces of art for your home.

I was surprised to hear that the magazine had done so well in its first year alone and seems to have been snowballing in popularity ever since. The cover of TIME magazine is very well known all over the world and is even parodied in films. The very iconic red border and type instantly make you know it's TIME magazine.

-:Magic Tree House:- 

Coming soon....