TIME MACHINE?

Since the beginning of technology, scientists have been trying to invent a time machine. Personally, I don't think it's possible to travel backwards or forward in time. Think about it. Everyone would be going back trying to change their past, which would also change their future, which would then change their past, which would then change their...okay, maybe you get the idea. For example, how about if you went back a bunch of years and tried to convince your former self not to do something because it would turn out badly. Say he told you to go fly a kite and the next thing you know, the two of you are rolling around on the ground punching and kicking each other? Remember, you're both of these people. It adds a whole new meaning to the idea of a guilt trip, and they'd have to open drive-through therapy clinics.

On the other hand, you could go back in time and tell your former self to do dangerous, daring feats for huge sums of money, because he couldn't be killed. Otherwise it wouldn't be possible for you to be there from the future telling him he couldn't be killed.

The possibilities boggle the mind. Not only that, but congress would go crazy trying to come up with a whole new set of laws to cover time travel. Of course, they could travel into the future and bring back the set they'd already come up with. Except if there was a law against doing that.

Even if a time machine were possible, I honestly believe that all this back and forth travel to change the past, then the future, then the past, would eventually bring everything to a screeching halt and the entire universe would become one giant, shapeless glob, frozen in time and space for eternity. Sort of like an old fashioned alarm clock that had sprung its main spring.

Now a device to speed or slow the passing of time - well, that's different. And it's already here. Many of us know this device by its common name: computer.

The way it works is, if I want to slow time down, I simply click to download a very large file, or queue up a bunch of text pages for the printer or worse yet, pictures, and it's a sure bet I'll soon be beating my head on the desk, yelling, "Hurry up!"

On the other hand, if I want to speed time up, like when I'm hungry and know lunch won't be for quite awhile, I simply sit down to write a few lines on my latest story. Next thing I know, I'm on page twenty-seven and my wife is calling me for the sixth time to come and eat, while I keep telling her I just need to finish this one last sentence.

So forget time travel. It isn't going to happen. Now, the speed of time, on the other hand...oops, I think it's time for supper.