Another Time

(Camembert, Mass, June 6, 2015, Havarti College) As we all know, Dr. Henry Spatuccio is the most amazing of all physicists. All or our physicists have been saying for decades that we can travel through time, the majority stating that the route is through a "wormhole." I think it is fascinating that humans can travel through time by traveling through wormholes, the implication being that humans are a kind of worm. We continue to struggle with our place in the universe.

Dr. Spatuccio shocked the world of physics when he announced that not only can we travel through time, but he actually did it, and he told his story last night at the Einstein Auditorium before a crowd of more than a thousand students and faculty. Spatuccio began by explaining that he planned to travel from the present to the future first, because that would make his journey more objective scientifically. If he had traveled to the past first, he could have been accused -- upon his return to the present -- of describing what we already knew about the past from our study of history. He could simply have had a kind of psychedelic experience in which vivid dream visions of the past seemed very real to him, and thus only thought he had traveled to the past. By traveling to the future first, he could return with entirely new information that could later be verified by the unfolding of the future. Here is his story, in a nut's shell:

Dr. Spatuccio concluded that this early in the game it would be wise to travel to a future setting where he would not create a ruckus. So, he arranged his future itinerary to simply travel from his Havarti office to his dentist's office two months into the future. His appearance there would seem perfectly normal, possibly a mistake about his next appointment for a cleaning, and he would be less likely to do anything that would change the future in any unplanned or inappropriate way. The rules for time travel have not yet been adopted, if there will be any such rules. We will then have the same problem with time travel rules that we have with all rules. Some people break the rules. Anyway, he was appropriately cautious, being a responsible man and not wanting to influence the course of the future without first getting the approval of Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA, and the National Mothers' Equal Rights and Healthy Food Caucus.

Another reason he chose to visit his dentist's office two months in the future was because he knew that there would be the most interesting magazines in the waiting room. So, he could read a couple and then be two months ahead on the latest news, and report what is going to happen next month. Pretty rapid verification of his journey considering the time that most physics experiments take before all the physicists have joined in agreement. Before the receptionist asked him why he was there, he picked up Modern History and read an article about some new research that said President Abraham Lincoln smoked at least one cigar every day. This was surprising, of course, because until now, rather until then, we had no historical data that suggested Lincoln smoked. None of the few photographs of him showed any cigars anywhere. No one who discussed the President made any mention of his smoking, his favorite brand of cigar, or whether smoking affected his health in any way.

Dr. Spatuccio escaped his future dentist's office before causing any problems with the outcome of the universe, and upon his return stopped at the present in his Harvarti College office to grab a cup of coffee. Traveling through time was a bit tiring, and he wanted to be sure he was up for his next trip, this time to the past. While sipping his cup of Jumping Java, he had a brilliant idea. He could go to the relatively recent past, say 1865, and verify whether Lincoln did in fact smoke cigars. He decided to go to the White House, and to Lincoln's closet, and sniff his clothing. What a fantastic development for the first documented human trip through time. To the future, back to the present, then to the past to verify what was learned in the future, and then back to the present, in time for lunch with his colleagues group, the Philosophicats, at the Havarti Dome Café.

Well, he did go back to the White House in 1865, and he did sniff Lincoln's clothing in his closet. And he did smell something funny, but he was not certain it was tobacco. But that is not the end of it. One of the servants reported to the President and his wife that he had seen a strange man in the President's room. Everyone became alarmed, what with the war only recently tearing the fabric of the country apart, and suspicions high everywhere, they began to search in hysterics for the strange man, but Dr. Spatuccio escaped back to the present before he was seen again. As a result, however, the Lincolns cancelled their trip to Ford's Theatre. Our adjustment to this unfortunate scientific error has only begun, but I found out this morning, before finishing my story, that my editor is Elijah Tubman, and I am the first white person to publish an article in Modern History.