The Woman who was unstuck in Time: chapter 1 It was a dark and stormy night.

The night was dark, nights usually are, and there was an electrical storm, which is unusual for Seattle. The whole effect was a motivator to stay indoors and study with a trusty computer and a fast internet connection. Deborah Schwartz was doing just that, studying a commentary on the book of Daniel.

Deborah was a student at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. She was finishing up her senior year, after which she hoped to get a scholarship to get a Master’s degree. She was eligible for some work-study money, working in the library. She had some savings, but tuition and life were expensive, so her diet was mainly mint tea and Ramen noodles. The room was cool, so she wore a sweat shirt.

Deborah’s studio apartment was an austere place. There was a small throw rug on the hardwood floor. Under a bunk bed was a desk and a worn swivel chair. A small fluorescent light served for illumination. Against both walls were book shelfs crowded with books on all kinds of topics. Off to one side was a small kitchen, off to the other side, a small bathroom. On the door post was a mezuzah. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezuzah. It was compact, but she could afford it and that was enough.

Daniel has two parts to it, the first part, which is relatively straightforward, and then a second part, which has some truly weird prophecies in it. Deborah was fascinated by the truly weird prophecies at the end of the book, from chapter 7 to chapter 10, where Daniel envisioned strange beasts convened by divine command. She wondered how much of the prophecy of Daniel was actually written later and then attributed to him.

A chat window opened on her computer. It was from a friend, Elisa Cohen, who was a graduate student at Stanford, studying for a Ph.D. in quantum physics.

Hello. I've got a date for tonight.

Who is it?

A Jewish boy named Ocean.

How do you know he is Jewish?

There was an old woman with him, who I guess she was his grandmother or something. It's really weird about her. She knew my name. She knew I was Jewish and she said I was "a nice girl". Then he asked me if I was a physicist.

What did you tell him?

I told him I was working on my Ph.D. at Stanford.

So then what did he say?

He asked me out for a date. Tonight! In fact, he's going to pick me up in about 10 minutes.

Where are you going?

To the library. At Stanford. He said he wants me to explain the brane and the bulk.

Don't you mean brain?

No. "brane" and "bulk" are concepts from higher dimensional space. Wormholes and stuff like that. If you want to travel to other stars, then you need something like a wormhole to get there. Otherwise, they are too far away. I gotta go in a moment. Do you have any advice?

Carry a condom. You never know.

I always do. Bye.

Another chat window opened on her computer. It was from deborah@192.168.0.43 “Another Deborah reaching out to another Deborah - how lame. What a strange address”, she thought.

Are you busy?

Yes, I am. What do you want?

I want to talk with you.

What do you want to say?

Not online. In person.

Where are you?

In the parking lot of your apartment building.

I don’t trust you

I know the password for your wifi. It’s a very strong password, but easy to remember.

How do you know my password?

I know a great deal about you. I know that you broke up with Allen 9 days ago, that you are very conflicted about your motives for doing so. You want children, he doesn’t. I know that you are studying the book of Daniel. I know that you like the prophecies at the end of the book. I know that you will graduate in June, with high honors. I know that you have a scar on the sole of your left foot where you stepped on some broken glass while walking barefoot. Your mother gave you a terrible lecture on the dangers of walking barefoot, and now you wear sandals even in the shower. I know you like mint tea. Shall I go on?

How do you know all of these things?

Not online, in person.

I don’t trust you.

I understand. I want you to make a leap of faith. It’s important. Please.

Alright - come to the window of my apartment.

Okay. You will see an old woman.

Deborah got up from her computer and opened the blinds on the front window. She could see very little from the dim lights the landlord used in the common spaces. The rain came down in sheets. It was no night to be out.

A figure appeared in the window. It looked like an old woman, caucasian, gray hair, about 5 foot 6 inches tall, maybe 140 pounds, but appearances can be deceiving. She was wearing a hooded dark coat that reached down to the knees. Water was beading up on the coat and dripping off the bottom. She was wearing pants and flat shoes. Almost against her will, Deborah moved to the front door, threw the deadbolt, and opened the door.

“I’m not surprised. You and I are time travelers. I am you, but about 50 years older”

“Yes, you have. It’s one of Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws. May I have some tea? I’m a little cold”

Deborah (the younger) left her visitor in the living room while she went into the kitchen to put some water on the stove. She got a couple of mugs from the dish rack, and got a couple of tea bags from a box on the shelf.

“You felt that it was more important to focus on your studies than to invest in creature comforts. You had just barely enough money to pay rent, buy food, pay for tuition and books. You didn’t have much of a margin, in money or in time. Besides, this was just a temporary place. So you never decorated it, never personalized it, never called it home. Just as well”

“We will never really find a home. I shouldn’t predict your future from my past, your future might be different. Or it might not be.”

“The problem with time travel is that it destroys causality. Events in the future might cause events in the past. There are paradoxes - suppose I - we - go back in time and kill grampa?”

“That would cause a fork in the space-time continuum. There would be a different future, but the event of grampa’s death would be the same. In fact, the reason why I am here is to explore that paradox in a slightly different way”

The kettle began to whistle. Deborah took the kettle and poured the hot water into the mugs. Deborah (the elder), held her mug in both hands.

“I am here to launch you on an adventure, an adventure such as nobody has ever had before. You will go places and do things that nobody has ever done before”

“I know. I am going to have to face her, and it will not be easy, because I am older now than she is”.

“You say that you are me. You say that I hurt my left foot. I did. There is still a scar. I was told that I will have it for life. If you are me, then you also have a scar on the sole of your left foot.”

Deborah (the elder) sat down on the sofa, and took off her left shoe, and then her sock. She held her foot up for Deborah (the younger). She inspected the foot, rubbed it briskly, and then sank to her knees.

“Oh my God. That’s 44 years. That’s practically a whole lifetime. Why did you come here?”

“I have a timeship which I am going to give you. You have to go to the future, refurbish the timeship and get some training, figure out when the war was, then go to the past and change the outcome of that war. You see, in the future, the past was changed. The future is going to be despotic, evil. There will be no Jews at all, but also no Christians and no Muslims. Something happened in the past that changed all that history. Something that happened before Jesus. The language of the future has no greek or latin words - in fact, they do not use a latin alphabet. So the change happened before the Romans and the Greeks. You have to go forward in time to equip yourself and service your timeship, then go back in time to fight the war. I can tell you where to go on the first leg of your journey, but I can’t tell you how far back you have to go on the second leg of your journey.”

“I tried and failed. You will have to try again. Perhaps you will succeed. Look, you’ve had quite an eventful evening. It’s late. Go to bed now, and I will see you tomorrow night.”

“Wait - I haven’t had an eventful night - I’ve been studying and then we’ve been talking”

“I know. But you’ve had a major shock to your world view and you need some time to absorb it all”

Deborah (the elder) opened her coat, and reached inside her shirt. She pulled out a medallion on a cord around her neck. It was about 1 inch in diameter and perhaps a quarter of an inch thick. There was a red circle about a half an inch in diameter at the center of the medallion.

Deborah (both of them) found themselves in a brightly lit chamber 4 meters high by roughly 10 meters in diameter, semi-circular, with a rectangular space connected to it that was more dimly lit.

“We are in our timeship which is currently in orbit about 1000 kilometers above the earth.”

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

“A little bit. We were at 47º North latitude, 123º West longitude, and now we are at 0º latitude and about 150º W longitude. Plus, we’ve gone up about 1000 kilometers, so we traveled about 7000 kilometers and that took us about 2 milliseconds at the speed of light”

“The transporter can’t do that. It’s limited by the speed of light and it has an effective range of about 20,000 kilometers. So when we left, the timeship was more or less directly overhead. Which is why we had to leave when we did”

Deborah (the elder) led Deborah (the younger) down a long corridor. She came to a door, opened it, and ushered Deborah (the younger) into a conference room with seating for 20. There was a nice wooden table, plush chairs, and carpeting. There was a video projector and a screen at the far end of the room. To one side was a small sink, cupboard, and a teapot on a counter. Deborah (the elder) made a beeline for the counter.

“Yes. The two of us have to split up and work this problem separately. My job is kind of complicated. I have to stay here in 2013 and prepare for you to come home. It’s risky”

“What we’re doing is illegal. It is illegal to change the past, but it is not illegal to travel to the future and bring back advanced technology, It is also possible look for adverse consequences of certain actions and come back with advice on how to avoid those adverse consequences. There are chrono police that enforce those laws. Once I return to your apartment, I am liable for arrest, trial and conviction” Look at Novikov’s self-consistency principle (file:////home/jeffs/logbooks/notes_2021-12.html#self-consistency_principle).

“Well, our execution. I don’t think it will happen to you, because I am here, but it might happen to me”.

“Because somebody went into the past and changed history, and nobody in the future knows about it or cares about it. They did it in such a way that we don’t know who they were or how they did it. I spent 40 years of apparent time trying to track it down, and failed. I know that it has to do with the story of Deborah, in the book of Judges. Beyond that, it’s impossible for me. However, I firmly believe that when a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, she is almost certainly right. When she states that something is impossible, she is very probably wrong.”

Deborah (the elder) walked over to a cabinet, opened it and withdrew something. It was roughly conical, perhaps 20 cm in diameter at the base and 15 cm high. Since Deborah could carry it with one hand either it wasn’t very heavy or else Deborah was very strong.

“It’s a chronobeacon. Time travelers use it to fix reference points in time and space, so they can return to a given place and time. Each chronobeacon has a 128 bit address which is unique, so it can be found in the space-time continuum.”

“128 bits is 3.4*1038 chronobeacons. By way of contrast, the earth weighs about 4*1027 grams. Now, I am going to go back to your apartment and turn it on. You will detect the chronobeacon, and return to it.”

“You don’t search for it until you are ready. Once you are ready, you search for the chronobeacon, and tell the timeship to go then”

“Once I turn on the chronobeacon, somebody else will detect it, too, and come looking for me. They will know that I am roughly 66 years old, so if they find me there, hopefully they will leave you alone and continue to search for me. I might as well let them find me. They will arrest me, take me to their time, try me, convict me, and execute me.”

“Yes. However, once they find me, then they will not look for you. You will be able to live out the rest of your life unmolested”

“There was a judge named Deborah.... Oh no. No. Not me. I am supposed to fight a war?”

“He studies war. In his timeline, the world is at peace with itself. The study of war is declared illegal except for certain scholars who are licensed by the government to study world history. However, this fellow couldn’t get a license, studied the wars of the past, including their methodology. He studied weapons and martial arts. For that, he is to be punished”’

“He is going to be exiled into history. You are to take him back to the past and maroon him there”

“So let’s go back to this war I am supposed to fight. With all of this advanced technology in this timeship, it ought to be a cake walk”

“According to the biblical account, the only miracle on the battlefield was that it rained, which turned the ground to mud, which bogged down the enemy’s chariots. Your infantry will still be able to move. Plus, you will have the high ground. It is easier to hold the high ground and attack from the high ground. There’s a bigger problem, however”

“We have a pretty good idea of where you are supposed to go, but we don’t have a good idea of when. The Book of Judges spans about 350 years. You have to find the right moment in history - not too soon, and not too late”

“You have to go into the future, 2372, to refurbish the timeship, pick up supplies, chronobeacons, and get some training. Then you go to 2456 where you will pick up Walter Brown, your prisoner.”

“You go to 2372 for refurbishing and training. The timeship is almost completely out of power and supplies. The systems require some maintenance. For the timeship, it’s been 50 years since it was last serviced. You will have to go through some training. That whole process will take about 2 years of apparent time. Then you have to go back in time to sometime between, oh, 1380 BCE and maybe 1025 BCE. You have to find a man named Lapidot and marry him.

“History doesn’t say. Ship’s stores include a variety of contraceptives and the autodoc is capable of performing a tubal ligation or a vasectomy. So it’s up to you”

"When I hear his steps outside my door I lie down on my bed, open my legs and think of England."

“You find a Jewish general named Barak and you convince him to lead an army of 10,000 men against an army of 900 iron chariots, led by an enemy general named Sisera. Barak’s men fight Sisera’s men. Barak’s men win. Sisera slips away from the battlefield and arrives at the tent of a woman named Yael. She kills him by driving a tent stake through his head.”

“You will get detailed instructions during your training, but I can give you a quick overview. Space as you know it has 4 dimensions.”

“Where c is the speed of light. Check the dimensions - every term under the square root has dimensions of length squared.”

“I know. The methods of instruction in the 20th Century were crude and inefficient. You can barely balance your check book without a computer. I can walk into any university in the world and teach graduate level mathematics, in any language.

“Now, the speed of light is constantly 3.0*108 meters per second, no matter how fast you go. That’s predicted by Maxwell’s equations”

“Maxwell’s equations?”
“Yes, 4 equations that describe the relationships between electricity and magnetism. If you work the equations correctly, you wind up with a wave that propagates at the speed of light, no matter what frame of reference you are in”

“No. Suppose you decide the throw a ball at a person standing alongside the track in front of you. You throw the ball at 20 kilometers per hour. The person will catch the ball going 30 kilometers per hour, the speed that you threw the ball, plus the speed of the train. Now suppose that the person decides to wait until you pass him or her and then throws the ball back at you. If the person throws the ball back at you at 20 kilometers per hour, then you will catch the ball going 10 kilometers per hour. Simple vector addition, although because the ball and the train are moving in the same direction, it looks like a scalar instead of a vector”

“Now, suppose your train is moving 2.4*108 meters per second, which is ⅘ c. You shine a flashlight in the direction your train is moving. Somebody measuring the speed of light from your flashlight will still see if moving at 3*108 meters per second. However, each wave of light is going to come from a source that is a little bit closer with each wave. So although the speed of the waves remains the same, the wavelengths will decrease and the frequency of the light will be higher: the light will be shifted into the blue. Similarly, if you shine the light in the opposite direction, the speed of light will remain the same, but the frequency will decrease: the light will shift into the red. This relationship is described by the Lorentz contraction:

$<math> <mrow> <mi>L</mi> <mo>'</mo> <mo>=</mo> <mi>L</mi> </mrow> <msqrt> <mrow> <mn>1</mn> <mo>-</mo> </mrow> <mfrac> <mrow> <msup> <mi>v</mi> <mtext>2</mtext> </msup> </mrow> <mrow> <msup> <mi>c</mi> <mtext>2</mtext> </msup> </mrow> </mfrac> </msqrt></math>$

“I cheated - I used a Pythagorean triple when I set up the hypothetical. Can you visualize a train moving ⅘ c? It would cross the country in 50 milliseconds. Anyway, the problem is that when v is greater than c, the expression under the radical becomes imaginary, and nobody in your time knows what to do with an imaginary distance. So they concluded that travel at faster than the speed of light was impossible.

“However, it is possible to fold space and move from place to place at will. That’s what our time ship does. You are stuck thinking that space is fixed in four dimensions. However, space has many dimensions and what is a straight line in your preconceived notion of space may actually be a very circuitous path in higher dimensions.

“Time travel can be accomplished using these higher dimensions and that fact that ct has the dimensions of length.

“The transporter does something similar, although it has to be more precise, so it has less range and losses the time travel capability.

“Yes, I do, and more. You are going to have to because if anything breaks down, you have to fix it, so you have to understand operating principles of everything. The only person who will have a clue of where and when you are is me, and I won’t have a timeship to go off and rescue you”