Stephen Hawking, Kip S. Thorne, Igor Novikov, Timothy Ferris, and Alan Lightman

The Future of Spacetime

Where the science of black holes, gravitational waves, and time travel will likely lead us.

Our minds tell us that some things in the universe must be true. The new physics tells us that they are not, and in the process it blurs the line between science and science fiction. Here are six accessible essays by those who walk that line, moving ever further out in discovering the patterns of nature, aimed at readers who share their fascination with the deepest mysteries of the universe. The basic concepts of the new notion of space and time, those of Einstein's general theory of relativity, are introduced by theoretical physicist Richard Price, and are the unifying theme of the five essays that follow:

• Stephen W. Hawking: Chronology Protection
  Our fantasies of time travel and why they probably violate physical laws that we have yet to discover.
• Kip S. Thorne: Speculations about the Future
  What we might expect to discover about general relativity and its interface with quantum theory in the new century.
• Igor Novikov: Can We Change the Past?
  An exploration of the problems time machines pose to logic and free will.
• Timothy Ferris: On the Popularization of Science
  How scientists can communicate to the public the new, often counterintuitive ideas of spacetime.
• Alan Lightman: The Physicist as Novelist
  The creative similarities of and differences between working in theoretical physics and writing fiction.