Expert: Time Travel 'Theoretically Possible'; Let's Run with It

Sometimes I wish I had Marty McFly's DeLorean and, you know, Doc Brown to help me crank up the necessary gigawatts to make it work like I want.

Of course, I could have that DeLorean all day long and twice on Sundays and I ain't goin' back in time.

But, according to a FoxNEWS report, there's a professor who says time travel is theoretically possible, but then also says it would be futile if you actually COULD travel back in time.

WARNING: Professor Fabio Costa uses the word "paradox" a lot. It's a word that's always confused me. I know that it kind of has something to do with contradictions, but you really have to see it in context.

Anyway, Costa does use an interesting example of the futility of time travel if you could actually do it. And it's a timely example. He talks about COVID and how if you were to go back and stop patient zero from catching it, then in the present day you wouldn't have the need or desire to go back and stop patient zero from catching it. See? A paradox. I'm already confused.

Time travel is an interesting subject in movies. It always has been, but it's so difficult to make it believable.

Back to the Future, arguably the most popular time travel movie ever, probably accomplishes the difficult task in the best way possible. It's a great movie, but if you were to really scratch the surface away, you could find flaws in the logic.

And that's okay, since IT CAN'T HAPPEN, theoretical possibilities or not.

But if it COULD, what would you do?

It's like the butterfly effect. If you were to go back in time--maybe even just a week--what might seem like your most insignificant action could set off, potentially, a catastrophic domino effect.

Let's say I go back to my freshman year in high school and do it all differently. I wasn't the greatest student in the world--hardly anything CLOSE to a straight-A student--but I racked up my fair share of A's and B's.

What if I went back with the seed of thought that I was going to really buckle down and blow the doors off Daviess County High School with my smarts?

What if I took my current sense of humor (which, honestly, began developing right about that time) and used it as a defense mechanism against the bullies I faced? I think my confidence would have soared instead of hiding like it did throughout most of those four years.

Then maybe I get crazy good scholarships and don't enter the fields of study that led me into a career in broadcasting.

Then I look at all the people I never would have met--likely NONE of the good, close friends I have now. I'd be a completely different person.

And, who knows? Along the way, I might do one of those small insignificant things I mentioned earlier that would butterfly-effect its way all the way to 2020 and...well, it's not going to happen.

Time travel is a fun topic. I've actually, in the past, thought that time was a series of planes and not linear, making time travel seem more possible. But no. I have no business theorizing about anything science-related.

I had high school science teachers who would back that up. Oh wait, if I go back in time and do what I said I'd do, they'd feel differently, wouldn't they?

See? PARADOX!

I hate that word.