Maths is one thing.

Reality is a different one.

What would be the impact of a wormhole near Saturn?

When people talk about time travel, we tend to think about jumping further into the future.

Hello, welcome to the supermassive podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society. With me, science journalist Izzy Clark and astrophysicist Dr. Becky Smelhurst. We're doing it. We are travelling through time this episode. I feel like the Doctor Who, like, theme should have come in there. That's the Twilight Zone. I was like, do-d-do-do-do-do-do-d-d-d-d-d-d- do do do do do. Gage science fiction references, right, Izzy, they're going to be right all the way through this episode. Yeah, we did our time special earlier in the year, but that brought up so many questions about time travel. We're going back again. Yes. I mean, there was too many things to pick up that. We're just like, let's put those in a little box, shut the lid, and we'll address those later in the year that time has come. Yes, once Becky had finally rewatch back to the future as a cozy sort of Christmasy time film, we could finally do this. Very, very important research, I think. And Dr. Robert Messi from the Royal Astronomical Society is here too.

Now, we've had this question a lot of, where would you go in time if you could travel to the past or to the future?

So I'm going to change that for this episode.

And I want to know, if you could go back in time, would you meddle with anything?

Yeah, it's just so tempting, isn't it? I mean, there's so many things that come to mind, and some are far too political for this podcast. So I'm keeping my mouth sealed on those, but I'll leave people to guess. I don't know. I think I'd sort of want to be there to stop the kind of outrageous misfortune that hits people from time to time. you know, thinking of Becky, actually, if we could do something, I think we'd definitely want to help with that.

But, you know, thinking of Becky, actually, if we could do something, I think we'd definitely want to help with that. But, you know, just enough to stop people getting sick or stopping the worst accidents or atrocities, which then I said, they think... Those who don't know that I'm ill, that sounds like you're going to stop me being born. No, no, no. Not my attention okay

that was more

those who don't know

yes yes exactly

oh god yes okay

well there we go right yes well anyway

I'm fine

yes I promise you there's got the best of intentions

but is yet another example of yeah not thinking you through you're going to travel back in time and stop yourself saying that, Robert? Yeah, that's why it was just. Anyway, it starts to sound like perhaps a slightly flawed superhero character. So other than that, I thought, you know, really simple things, like if I've screwed up cooking, then just being able to go back,

10 minutes would be perfect just to add the ingredient at the right time. I don't think that's too much to ask, is it? You know, if you're going to have minor godlike powers, then a few minutes here and there would be really, really helpful. I love that. You're like, irreversible reactions? Oh, no. Yeah, I have time travel. Exactly. Exactly. Take that eggs.

I burnt the roast chicken. I have time travel. Exactly. Exactly. Take that eggs.

I burnt the roast chicken.

Hang on back to you go.

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