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Peter Cochrane's Hard Drive 1997 Time Travellers We have been preoccupied by travel and discovery since we first became true bipeds. For the vast majority of our history we have been concerned with, and constrained to, travelling through space. Time only became an issue when physical travel exceed our speed of communication. Not until the arrival of the steam train did we find it necessary to invent the telegraph, which in turn led to the telephone, radio and TV. Today, time is a primary concern, for we have conquered all aspect of terrestrial travel, barring the logistics of making it sustainable efficient. We can travel anywhere, and even escape the planet, but time is always running out. Non of us have enough time. Most life systems inherently try to be efficient, they seek out the lowest energy route to the greatest return. They do this unthinkingly as it is part of the natural order like a leaf falling. And so it is with us. Most have enough space, and resources to travel, but time is non-negotiable, it is always limited and cannot be reversed or replayed. The passage of time also seems to speed up each year we live as we pack our lives with increasing activity and experience. How then might we become even more efficient in the use of this non-transmutable commodity? Might time travel be possible through some artificial dilation and expansion at least? Time spent on a keyboard sees a huge dilation of time, it is even worse than reading a book. For me, looking at the screen for ten minutes sees one hour of non-screen time slip by unnoticed. Say to your family, I only need ten minutes to do my mail or finish this little job, and emerge from the screen an hour or two later to frowns of perplexity. On the up side this dilation can be used to great effect in the reverse direction. When travelling by car, train, boat or air, open up your lap top for the duration, expand from 12 to 16 point to offset motion sickness, and a 1 hour trip becomes 10 minutes, and a 7 hour journey about 60 minutes. Travelling across the Atlantic only takes an hour, Pacific two hours and so on, and work is completed without the conscious sacrifice that it so often takes. Now a new and irrational phenomenon enters our lives. Waiting for a bus or train for 10 or 15 minutes is irritating and wasteful. But think about a reboot, download, or application start up. These seconds feel like a substantial period of time. When your computer is powering up you might as well be powered down - but we don?t have that luxury - we can only wait ineffectively. The only solution is more RAM, faster processors, better power handling, more efficient and smarter software. We need machines on 24 hours a day with all applications open simultaneously, and no lock ups or reboots. When travelling by air, train or car I avoid reading newspapers and watching free videos. Similarly, when staying in hotels I avoid watching TV. Instead of letting work pile up back at home and office, I time travel - work full time on the move. When I do get back to base I try to hit the ground running - time dilation has been used and not wasted - I feel ultra-efficient. But is there a downside? Well a bit like a fighter pilot or someone on a rollercoaster ride, nausea is the challenge. Seven hours of information flow may feel like an hour on the body, but rather more in the mind, we are the ultimate limiter. Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is: |
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