My interest in the nature of time
Time has fascinated me since my childhood. In my 20s, I pondered the nature of time, particularly how space and time could not exist without each other.
In my 30s, I wondered why and how space and time collapse into a oneness when the mind shuts down during deep sleep.
At times, I had temporarily this oneness made up of everything and nothing while practising deep meditation – but only in short bursts.
But my most memorable experience of this occurred after coming out of a coma. I was in a Sydney hospital recovering from to a serious head injury sustained in a motorbike accident.
I remember waking up in my bed fully but not able to use my mind to process any thoughts. My brain had suffered a lot of bruising, so it was difficult for my mind to function properly.
I couldn’t differentiate any one object from another; there was no separation between anything, and time did not exist for me.
There was movement: doctors and nurses were coming and going from my room. But from my perspective, it was all happening at once because space and time were not distinct; and this state lasted for more than a day.
When my bruised brain began to heal, I slowly started to experience the world in the way that most others do and I returned to live a normal life. Except that the memories of this experience remain with me today as if they only happened yesterday.
As a result, I became interested in the philosophy and science of time, and how they compare to the public perception of time. These experiences inspired me when I was looking for a topic for my PhD thesis.
Physics, philosophy and film
To an outsider, ‘time-travel movies’ might seem like a strange PhD research topic; but for me, it was a perfect fit.
Physics was always my best subject at school, and I went on to gain an honours degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering in the UK. And more than ten years later, I completed a master’s degree in Film and Digital Video at Sydney University.
After a sabbatical year in Paris, I returned Down Under a married man and moved to Canberra, where I begin a PhD in Science Communication at The Australian National University.
Most of my first year was spent trying to nail down a research topic that would bring together my knowledge and interest in both Physics and Film Studies.
Over the years, I had become interested in the paradoxes that exist in physics and philosophy. Also, I had read a lot of popular psychology, so was looking for an area where they all met.
And my search finally led me to a topic in the area of movies involving time travel and other temporal phenomena.
Researching time-travel movies
I began my research by identifying the different models of time that science and philosophy researchers had produced.
My initial thought was there must be about 40 movies involving time travel and other temporal phenomena that fit my criteria; but I eventually identified more than 400 of them!
I then analysed 144 of these movies and then ran focus groups with movie-goers. This helped me uncover the 21 different models of time travel that were being used in film.
The articles and information that appear on this site are based on that research. You can download a free copy of the thesis to read the academic version of this research. Or you could just keep on reading about it here…