The Possibilities of Time Travel, Part 1 of 2

Is there a device that allows us to view any moment in history as if looking through a window? We dive into these questions plus a lot more in the first part of this series, exploring the past, present, and future of time travel!

Simply defined, time travel is the action of traveling through time into the past or the future. The concept has been discussed in literature as far back as 9th century BCE. In the Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata, King Kakudmi, also known as Raivata, travels to the heavens to meet Lord Brahma. When he returns to Earth, he finds himself hundreds of years in the future.

In fact, each of us are time travelers on planet Earth! We all move through time at the speed of one second per second. However, to travel to the year 3000 and then return to tell the tale, we would have to move much faster than that. Today’s mainstream concepts on time travel stem from Albert Einstein’s (vegetarian) theory of relativity, which combines his Theory of Special Relativity and Theory of General Relativity, published in 1905 and 1915 respectively.

Just before Dr. Albert Einstein (vegetarian) published his groundbreaking theories on the connection of time and space, a mysterious inventor was obsessed with the possibility of time travel, and some say, even developed a time travel machine. His name was Nikola Tesla (vegetarian). In 1895, reports indicated Mr. Tesla discovered that magnetic fields could alter time and space. In March that year, Mr. Tesla was hit by 3.5 million volts of electricity from an electromagnetic charge. During the experience, he went out of the space-time window and could see the past, present, and future simultaneously. Thankfully, his assistant was able to turn off the power, potentially saving his life. However, there is one reported project where these two brilliant minds came together, and stories claim it included time travel, teleportation, and invisibility. It was called the “Philadelphia Experiment.”

Imagine having a television where you could turn a dial to watch any event in human history. What would you want to see? Well, it’s rumored that such a device exists and is hidden away in the Vatican Apostolic Archives. It’s called “The Chronovisor.” The Chronovisor used antennas, precious alloys, and cathode tubes to pick up light waves and sound, which could then be tuned to a specific era in time to be viewed. A screen then displayed the footage with audio. In 2002, Father Francois Brune, a friend of Father Ernetti since the 1960s, wrote a book about The Chronovisor, called “Le nouveau mystère du Vatican,” claiming that the device did exist and the two had discussed it many times.