That Reminds Me . . .

I read somewhere that time travel is not possible, because if it were, then the people of the future would already be here.

This seems a very conclusive argument, until you look a bit more closely at it. Now when people give me that argument, I say to them, how do you know they’re not here? Do you think that, if people from the future came to our time, they would advertise the fact?

Most of us, even in this modern world of instant news and communication, don’t even know what’s happening in the next street to ours. It would be so easy for a future person to disguise themselves.

And what about going into the past and doing something to change future events? Could be that this is happening all the time. Our future selves have discovered how to create enormous wealth, longevity, and inner happiness. So they return to the past in order to set in motion the chain of events that will lead to those outcomes for certain individuals. They give help to the past version of themselves who are living in the future.

This could be how the world was created, how the Universe itself was created. Everything we see may be the creation of our own future self, following a blueprint set out in the future, once all the possible mistakes and wrong turns and problems have been seen and solved. This could apply to everything we see around us. We could find this very reassuring. Whatever is happening around me, my own future self has already seen and foreseen this, and has factored it in to the plan made many centuries from now for the purpose of bringing about my ultimate happiness. My other self has gone ahead of me to pave the way.

If any adjustments need to be made, if you make any mistakes, your self of the future returns to the past and makes the necessary changes to bring the plan back into alignment.

This is how time travel might work. If it was a reality, how could it be any different?

I just found another completely barmy piece of scientific research. There’s a lot of it about these days, it seems. I got this piece from the New York Times, but I’m quite embarrassed to say that the original research is once again from a university in England.

It reminds me of the  story about a sultan who didn’t like girls, and anyway he wanted more boys in the population so that his army would be more powerful. So he issued a decree over all his dominions to the effect that any couple could have as many children as they wanted to, as long as they kept having boys. As soon as they had one daughter, that couple had to stop having children, by law.

The sultan believed that this would lead to a predominance of males in the population. But he was wrong. In fact, the ratio of the sexes, even after years and decades under the new law, remained at 50:50. And the ratio of female to male births continued to be 50:50 as well.

Sounds incredible? Maybe, but it can be proved very easily using probability theory.

I met a man some years ago who said he had read some scientific research which proved that men with long penises were more likely to have sons than men with short ones. He said that this was because the male-producing sperm could swim faster than the female-producing variety, but they do not like to swim long distances. So if they have not got far to travel, the male-producers will get to the egg first, while if the distance is greater, the female-producers will have the opportunity.

In the interests of responsible reporting, I will only say that the man in question did have three sons and one daughter. I need hardly add that I did not ask him to verify the correlation. That would have been taking investigative journalism a little too far, I think.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, so the saying goes. But according to legend, it was founded on a particular day, and today, April 21st, is the anniversary of that day 2761 years ago. That was the day when Romulus and Remus, who had apparently been raised by a she-wolf, inaugurated the city that has had so much influence on all the rest of mankind.

Even those who have never been there, or have not heard of the place, have not escaped its influence. There’s a joke question isn’t there? What have the Romans ever done for us? All our laws are ultimately traceable back to Roman law. Most of our grandest public buildings, especially government buildings, are in a style that copies the Roman style. The Catholic Church is based in Rome. The city gave us films like Roman Holiday, La Dolce Vita, Ben Hur, Carry On Cleo.

The Romans were in many ways a peculiar nation though. They had a very strange number system. For instance, Rome was founded, according to them, in 753 B. C. but the following year was 752! It must have been very confusing having to count backwards all the time. (Although oddly enough, our forwards number system was invented by the Arabs, who write backwards). What the Romans did when they got to one is not very clear, history is silent on this question. Go to zero, you might think, but unfortunately the Romans hadn’t thought to invent the zero. Perhaps they hoped they wouldn’t have to think about it because it might never happen.

The Romans were in denial.

Can you imagine it - a world without zero? This means they had no way of talking about nothing. Which must be why they talked so much, and ended up founding the legal system we use today. And as everyone knows, it meant they couldn’t take no for an answer. Which is why they kept invading, invading, invading until the entire world was in their control. The bits that mattered anyway.

People say the Romans invaded Britain. In fact they only invaded England, but they called it Britannia. This is the essential root cause of the confusion over the true name of that country - is it UK, England, Britain, Great Britain, or England. However this is a confusion only in foreign countries. Every man, woman and child - indeed every infant at the breast - in these islands, understands the subtleties of distinction in those names. And we welcome that confusion in other countries, as Britannia seeks once again to dominate the world and rule the waves. The world will be conquered again with tea, fish and chips, politeness, and Harry Potter.

And what about Rome? You might think it is the rather faded and jaded capital of a small insignificant country in the middle of a large lake. But its influence spreads far and wide. And influence is power. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, as they say, and you can influence world events without being politically powerful, or having huge fire power.

And of course, all roads lead to Rome.

 I’ve just finished re-reading The Number One Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. If you haven’t read it yet, please allow me to recommend it to you most highly.

It’s about a woman named Precious Ramotswe in Botswana who inherits a modest sum of money from her beloved father, and uses the money to set up the first ever detective agency for ladies in all of Botswana. The book is about her adventures, which are continued in the excellent series that follows it.

It should be read, not only by people who are interested in Botswana, or ladies, or detective mysteries, but by anyone who enjoys quirky and subtle humour, and appreciates the love of life and respect for others shown by the characters in the book.

McCall Smith is from Scotland, and he lived for some years in Botswana. He has also written a series of novels set in Edinburgh, but I did not enjoy those as much as the Botswana series. For me, the Ladies Detective Agency really is the Number One.