I just finished the book TIME TRAVEL IN EINSTEIN’S UNIVERSE: If you are into unimaginable places to visit, getting off the beaten path or going where no man has gone before, you better check out Einstein’s “Worm holes”.

With Albert as your guide, you cover a lot of space in no time at all. The professor’s trip takes you to a place where time and space are the same thing. No baggage, no visa and you will be back before you know it.

Einstein’s book got me thinking about big excursions, beyond those private jet around the world. What’s the grandest cosmological tour to the ultimate destination? A trip to end all trips. How about a quick visit to the Big Bang or even before? Albert cautions you can’t get there from here. Going back before the Bang doesn’t work because before the beginning, there was no time or space: Zip. Nada! It is like you go down south. You keep on going and going till you reach the South Pole. Now you say you would like to go still further south. Sorry pal, it doesn’t work. There is no “something” before the beginning. So that’s a dead end trip. It’s humbling as well as grandiose all at the same time. Our guide Mr. Einstein, who came up with this theory is, or was the best in the business. It’s ironic in that this colossus of intelligence, Mr. Big with his grand theories makes us all ephemeral and insignificant. With a put down like that, you may be thinking- cancel all your wormhole trips . But hold on- any tour that includes stupendous events covering billions of years and trillions of planets and stars can’t help but make you feel a tad minute while simultaneously feeling wondrous.

Let’s try again- scale back a smidge. Don’t bother with The Big Bang full fireworks display. Maybe something less ambitious than the start of time. If you chose the right worm hole, like choosing the right bus, you could end up where you wish. There are a few preferred destinations.

BACK TO THE TIME OF EARTH’S “FIRST LIVE ONE”

You may think me provincial but I’d love to hang out at the time when life began on this planet. That moment was one of the all time accomplishments for Mother Nature. For this she should get a lifetime achievement award. That happened to be a premier genealogy moment in all our family tree. We all began when the chemicals in some primordial stew transformed into a little self reproducing fungus or bug. Some of you boast about your ancestors and their humble beginnings, but get a look at “Mr. First “: No arms or legs, homeless, an orphan with no parents and no education. You may have met some objects of pity in your travels but nothing compares to Mr. First’s handicap. He was nothing but lonely swamp ooze (We now call it wet lands if you are p.c.).

This first progenitor wouldn’t be much to look at- you’d need a microscope to see him. Feel sorry for him but then look at how things turned out. Think about what a fantastic future his diverse descendants had? Go forward long enough from that inauspicious beginning and you find that several homo sapiens in his genetic line went on to become every parent’s dream, President of the United States. Of course others were losers. They made nothing out of themselves and for billions of years remained swamp scum.

Maybe you don’t care about swamps, bugs and scum when you travel. But what if this visit gave you the answer to THE REALLY BIG QUESTION: Did “First Guy” do it all on his own like Darwin suggested or did he have some assistance- as implied in scripture? Get the answer to that question right and you’d have some real take home value from your trip. You might even record the moment with a “selfie”! At a minimum it would give you some great pages in your journal

ARTICHOKES

Moving quickly out of the swamp, no trip is any good without culinary adventures. I would most like to imagine the point in time when a human ate his first artichoke? The damn thing is prickly green/purple and unappetizing ugly. It is 95% inedible and is tastes like cardboard if you skip the mayo. Yet somewhere way back in time, some starving human must have seen that repulsive thistle, and defied all the good advice from the neighbors like, “What are you crazy?”. In view of what happened to Adam and Eve with the apple, you might think that humans would have learned a lesson. He ate it anyway. Talk about a courageous species, I for one am proud he or she did it. It makes me believe we humans are nuts but have an adventurous spirit.

A THOUSAND POUNDS OF GOLD

Travels should include artists, art galleries and museums. With this in mind, I would like to take the worm hole bus back to the time of Vincent Van Gogh the painter. I’m a sucker for a sob story but this poor guy who worked all his short life never made a dime,- never sold much of what he painted and lived a depressing life of paucity. It would give me such a warm tingly feeling to tell him”Vincent, don’t feel like a failure. Just wait a 100 years until 1990 and your painting of Dr. Gachet will sell as the most expensive work of art in the world: 82 million dollars!”He might look troubled and say “What is a dollar?””Let’s make it easy, Vincent: That is the same as 5,000 pounds of gold, or more than two tons.” Einstein never said we time travelers would be able to interact with past events, but wouldn’t it perk up that poor artist’s spirits to know how things turned out. Just chatting with him about his later sales would allow us both to reflect on the crazy changing attitudes and what we Homo Sapien values.

Personally I can’t wait for them to get this time travel capability into a working model. It would do wonders for the entire travel industry not to mention my own itinerary.