Day 1947: The Sultan's Elephant

Wednesday

This is exciting! London is being visited by a GIANT WOODEN TIME-TRAVELLING ELEPHANT!

That's JUST LIKE ME!

Except for the being giant.

And wooden.

And the time-travelling.

But there's no need to be picky: time tourist pachyderms of the enormous ligneous variety are to be made very welcome in our capital city. Welcome friend elephant, I hope you have a nice time!


This does make me think a bit about the NATURE OF TIME.

Time is another dimension, according to FUZZY HAIRED GENIUS Mr Einstein, which means it is like up-down or forwards-backwards, except that everyone seems to be at the same point and all going in the same direction, unless you are a time traveller like Dr Who or my friends Professor Richard and Romana.

So my question is this: does the future "already exist"? Is it already "there" in the "time-dimension" like the telly is "there" in the forwards-backwards-dimension? At least, my telly is "there" from where I am sitting on my sofa.

If it IS there, then does that not make everything a bit POINTLESS as it is already determined how things turn out. Does that make the universe one big solid four-dimensional crystal thing, with all of the positions of all of the atoms and bits over time all fixed, including the atoms and bits of time travellers, because their time travel is ALSO part of the fixed events? Which would be a bit depressing.

On the other fluffy foot, if it's NOT there, then would that not make time travel impossible? Because there would be no "future" to travel to or from until the "present" actually got there? That would also be a bit depressing.

Could this be a time for QUANTUM MECHANICS to come and save us again? Quantum Mechanics makes things go all "fuzzy" (which I like already!) by saying things only exist as PROBABILITIES until we OBSERVE them.

I think that this is what some of my Daddies' Doctor Who books think. SOME of the future must be there, but what it looks like is not fixed and crystal until someone (i.e. Dr Who) comes along and LOOKS at it. This would mean that if you travel into the future – or if you are from the future and travel into the PAST! – then the bits of history that you KNOW are the fixed bits and the bits that you DON'T KNOW are the fuzzy quantum bits that you can mess around in and change.

So, that means that the history of London in 2006 cannot be very IMPORTANT so that the time giant wooden time-travelling elephant does not know about it!

Um, now my fluffy head is all dizzy!