4 - Sunday, January 1, 1989 — North Shore News = 9 Bos HUNTER © strictly personal * — A COUPLE of months ago, three American physicists published a paper offering a complex mathematical analysis that pointed to the existence of ‘cosmic wormholes,"’ meaning that time travel is theoretically possibie! Far be it from me to pretend to begin to understand the mathernatics or physics involved (i'm still not sure how my digital watci, works, let alone com- prehend time itself), but from what I have «..ad about the theory, ix goes sumething like this: If travel through ordinary space, using ordinary time, is analogous to a worm crawling over the sur- fact of an apple, a shortcut or warp from one distant point in space to another, boring instan- taneously through time, would be a ‘‘wormhole.”’ Such a phenomenon is possible at the subatomic level, the scien- tists state. Although no one has been able to observe a wormhole yet, the parallel with black holes, which were discovered mathemati- caily long before being observed, Suggests that once we know what to look for, we are a giant step closer to finding it. The philosophical implications are truiy staggering. Causality itself might be violabic, meaning that the basic rules of reality — that one thing leads to another — could be changed. i don't know if this scares me more than it thrills me, or whether it should be taken as proof that chart notes. UF. Medical Office Computer Applications «an evening course - Use the microcomputer to: ¢ Manage billings and accounts receivable wits: practice management software. e Record patiant demographics and e Operate the electronic scheduler. e Produce recall letters and pre-recorded forms with word processing software. CALL 984-4959 for details. COST: $75.50 DATES: TUESDAY EVENINGS JANUARY 10 TO FEBRUARY 28 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Ge aPILANO COLLEGE 2055 Purcell Way. North Vancouver COMPUTER TRAINING Hands-on training Set your own pace Set your own Schedule Start any time e INTRO TO COMPUTERS e BASIC OPERATING SKILLS e BUSINESS & OFFICE SKILLS e Word Processing e Financial Spreadsheets Line ACCESS CENTER ... At Lonsdale Quay at the North Vancouver SeaBus Terminal 984-4671 Hours: Mon.-Thurs. 1-9 p.m. Fri. & Sat. 1 everything is going to be okay or that the universe is indeed mad. If time travel is possible, it is also probably ineviteble. Given that the future goes on for eterni- ty, sooner or later someone is machine with which to venture into the past. It seems to me there are two log- ical possibilities. One is that the future entities won't dare come back in time, lest they disrupt the flow of events leading to themselves. The other is that they are here among us right now and have been among us all along. ce I; someone is bound to invent a time machine giving them access to the past, they are equally bound to have already visited it.’’ bound to invent a time machine, even if it takes a million or a billion years. Geologically speak- ing, what’s a billion years anyway? This presents an intriguing dilemma. If someone is bourd to invent a time machine giving them access to the past, they are equally bound to have already visited it. Let us presume that at some point in the future, a time machine is devised that makes use of a “traversible wormhole.’’ The peo- ple — if indeed they are people and not some form of artificial in- telligence or mutants — are faced with a serious problem. Obviously, the human race or its successors survived, otherwise there wouldn't be anybody or anything around to build the time pace merg 2 e Data Bases -4 p.m. 1 The second choice makes more sense. I mean, when you think about it, the survival of the human race thus far is an extremely ua- likely event. There have been so many points where we should have been wiped out, whether by ‘ce Ages, floods, plagues, sabre-toothed tigers, you name it, that our survival seems nothing Jess than miraculous. The fact that we endured this long into the Atomic Age, when we came so close to blowing ourselves away so many times, makes me suspicious in the ex- treme. It is almost as though we had guardian angels, hm? History appears to be one long siring of accidents. If it is anythisg, it is fortuitous. Whim, fancy, luck — this is the stuff of the story of our species. Consider this point. If we had time machines now, looking back over the past, is there anything we would want to change? I submit that depends entirely on who had the time machine. If native North Americans were to gain possession of such a device, for instance, wouidn’t they be tempted to go back slightly less than 560 years to intercept Col- umbus and stove in his boats? I know if I were them, 1 would very seriously consider it. In fact, I would consider it my duty. Given that there will very likely still be bad guys and good guys in the future, or at least different races and nations and ideologies and faiths, wouldn’t they all see an advantage in going back and alter- ing the outcome of certain batties, getting rid of some inventions, substituting others, knocking off some messiahs, escorting others to their rendezvous with destiny? And how do we know that this isn’t precisely what has been hap- pening all along? I don’t want to add to your psychological burdens, but sud- denly, I can see a whole other level of justifiable paranoia in life. Is all this being ... steered? If time travel is inevitable, I think it must be equally inevitable that history is fixed, rigged by weirdos from the future. ft has an awful ring to it, doesn't it? It would explain so many otherwise inexplicable things... Daughter credited for saving her mom’s lite NORTH VANCOUVER District Fire Department officials are cred- iting a North Vancouver woman with saving the life of her mother Dec. 15 during a house fire. Said Capt. Bert Batt, ‘‘As a result of the girl’s action, we now have the mother living.”’ Firefighters were called to a two-storey home at 942 Belvedere Drive at 2:42 a.m. Upon arrival crews found the home's living room engulfed in flames. Yvonne Schaerer, 21, had smelled smoke earlier from her downstairs bedroom. . She felt the closed door leading upstairs and found it to be warm, She called for her 59-year-old mother, but heard no answer, only the crackling flames. Schaerer called the fire depart- ment, closed all of the downstairs doors and left through the base- ment. She worked her way through the smoke to her mother’s bedroom upstairs and screamed for her to wake up. She shook her awake and pulled her from the bedroom to safety. Investigators believe the fire started with smoking materials left on a living-roosa chesterfield. The fire caused an estimated $50,000 damage to the home. v ‘of Ce