Mysticism: 9. Future travel

Christmas Tree, Bush residence, Eichler design with Church landscape, Stanford Green, California c. 2007

Mike and Kellie, 2009

iRobotic Architect:  competition entry, suckerPunch 2012

….”If one thinks of a three-dimensional model consisting of the two-dimensional surface of the pond and the one dimension of time, the expanding circle of ripples will mark out a cone whose tip is at the place and time at which the stone hit the water (Fig 2.3).  Similarly, the light spreading out from an event forms a three-dimensional cone in the four-dimensional space-time.  This cone is called the future light cone of the event.  In the same way we can draw another cone, called the past light cone, which is the set of events from which a pulse of light is able to reach the given event (Fig 2.4).

The past and the future light cones of an event P divide space-time into three regions (Fig 2.5).  The absolute future of the event is the region inside the future light cone of P.  It is the set of all events that can possibly be affected by what happens at P.”  (Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 25)

Fig 2.5

The amazing thing about Fig 2.5 is that whereas the “absolute future” cone expands upward, and the “absolute past” cone expands downward,  everything outside of this event is termed “elsewhere”.  What is “elsewhere”?  Is “elsewhere” past, present, future, or what?