Show Date:September 21, 2005  
Pam Eastlick for THE DEEP on line

WHAT TIME IS IT?
AND
OCEAN TRACKS

Greetings and welcome to The Deep column and the deepest radio show on Earth. The Deep is the science talk radio program that takes you from the depths of the ocean to the farthest reaches of the universe. This week on The Deep, aired at 6:00 this evening on K-57, we’ll talk about time and time travel. Then we’ll have some expedition calls. Maybe we’ll hear from Bob Silver and his amazing discoveries in the Mediterranean. Or perhaps we’ll talk to someone in Russia. We’ll also have some science news updates and we’ll be taking your phone calls. Tune in tonight and join host Jim Sullivan, Pam Eastlick and our expedition coordinator Peter Melyan for the latest in scientific news! Then log on to www.thedeepradioshow.com for more information on all the latest and deepest news!

DEFINING TIME
“Oh my gosh, I’m late!” “Mommy, when is my birthday?” “What day is the ComCo meeting?” “Honey, when is the phone repairman supposed to be here?” “Boy, she came in early today!” “Does anyone know what time it is?”
All questions we hear everyday, but here’s the really deep and profound question, “Does anyone know what time is?”
There have been many definitions of time over the years, but I’ve only heard one that really works. “Time is that quality of the universe that prevents everything from happening at once.” It may not be very profound, but I challenge you to come up with a better definition!

Time remains one of the most puzzling aspects of the cosmos. Einstein inextricably linked it with space and therefore we speak of the ‘space-time continuum’. Time is also linked with velocity or speed. The faster you go; time slows down for you. As you approach the speed of light (186,000 miles per SECOND), time slows down substantially and traveling extremely fast can turn you into a time traveler.

You leave for a distant star at a substantial fraction of the speed of light and when you return to Earth, hundreds and even thousands of years have elapsed in your absence. We’ve even proved that this is true. The space shuttle doesn’t go very fast compared to the speed of light, but it does travel faster than we do on Earth. Atomic clocks aboard the shuttle are always the tiniest fraction of a second slower when the shuttle returns than clocks that have remained here on Earth. Build a big enough rocket or detonate enough atomic bombs at the aft end of your spaceship, and you will eventually be propelled close to the speed of light.

Of course, if you’re made of matter (and trust me, you are), you can never reach the speed of light. As you approach the speed of light, your mass (weight) increases. Eventually, you have so much mass that no force in the universe can propel you any faster.

So, time travel into the future is definitely possible, but what about time travel into the past? What about time machines? Well, there’s a little factor that virtually no one seems to consider when they build their fictitious time machines. And that is that you are moving as you read this article, and you’re moving with astounding speed. Your spaceship Earth travels around the Sun at 66 THOUSAND miles per hour. You’re traveling around mach 65 right now.

But that’s not the only way the Earth is moving and it is by no means your fastest speed. The Sun takes you, the Earth, all the other planets and the entire solar system around the center of the Milky Way galaxy at just under half a MILLION miles per hour. It takes the Sun 250 million years to make one complete trip around the galaxy’s center. It’s called a cosmic year.

So, what has all this got to do with time travel? Well, let’s suppose that you step in your time machine to go back to visit the dinosaurs. They all disappeared about 65 million years ago. Unless your time machine is also a spaceship, you will be out of luck because the Earth is no longer where it was when the dinosaurs disappeared. It’s not even where it was when you began to read this sentence. We’re a quarter of the way around the galaxy from the point in space where the dinosaurs died and unless you also travel there, when your time machine stops, you’ll be breathing a lot of vacuum. Physical time travel also MUST be space travel.

I also believe that two things are true, regarding physical time travel into the past. Either it is impossible, or we destroy ourselves before we figure out how to do it. Why? Very simple. We’ve never been visited by time travelers. Of course, we are ALL time travelers. We are traveling into the next second, the next minute, tomorrow and next week. Enjoy your journey and travel on over to The Deep tonight at 6:30 p.m. on K-57, to hear a marvelous discussion about the nature of time.

TRACKING DEEP
The Ocean Research Institute at the University of Tokyo has begun an ambitious study of the ocean. They are gathering information on ocean pollution, temperature, currents, and depth and they’re taking pictures and looking at marine ecosystems. So how are they doing this? Remotely controlled submarines? Satellites?
No, they’re attaching sensors to whales and seals. Seals and whales cover thousands of kilometers in the open ocean. Male elephant seals can swim 2,000 miles looking for food, and whales dive to depths of about 3,000 feet.
"This is a revolutionary research method in which living creatures are used to measure the unknown world in the sea," said Prof. Nobuyuki Miyazaki, a member of the research group.

So far, researchers have attached sensors to elephant seals, blue whales and sperm whales living in the Pacific Ocean. In the future, they plan to monitor sea turtles and eels and whales living in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
The smallest sensor is about 2 inches long and looks like a crayon. It weighs about half an ounce. Cameras attached to the sea creatures snap photographs about every 30 seconds, and can take 1,500 pictures. Their location is recorded using the Global Positioning System.

A sensor attached to whales, left, is pictured next to other sensors used on fish and seals. The sensors are attached to seals and turtles with string, which breaks off after a specified period using a timing device. The devices are attached to whales using suction cups and they also eventually fall off. Monitoring the sea using its inhabitants will open a whole new realm of research but close attention must be given to the effects of these devices on the animals.

Whether we’re learning about time or new research methods, The Deep, hosted by Jim Sullivan with Pam Eastlick and Peter Melyan is the place to be on K-57 tonight at 6:00 p.m. Don’t miss it!