"The Sphere, hanging from a long wire set into the ceiling of the choir, swayed back and forth with isochronal majesty.
I knew - but anyone could have sensed it in the magic of that serene breathing - that the period was governed by the square root of the length of the wire and by p, that number which, however irrational to sublunar minds, through a higher rationality binds the circumference and diameter of all possible circles. The time it took the sphere to swing from end to end was determined by an arcane conspiracy between the most timeless of measures: the singularity of the point of suspension, the duality of the plane's dimensions, the triadic beginning of p, the secret quadratic nature of the root, and the unnumbered perfection of the circle itself.

I also knew that a magnetic device centered in the floor beneath issued its command to a cylinder hidden in the heart of the sphere, thus assuring continual motion. This device, far from interfering with the law of the Pendulum in fact permitted its manifestation, for in a vacuum any object hanging form a weightless and unstretchable wire free of air resistance and friction will oscillate for eternity." (Eco, 3)

The purpose of this report is to help describe the physics of time the fourth dimension of our universe, or rather our constant preoccupation with time, starting with weight driven clocks and moving all the way up into time travel. Within this report I hope to stir some questions, entertain, but most of all inform you on my chosen subject of research. Also I would like to quote my good friend, astronomer Carl Sagan for I feel he said it best when he referred to time being "resistant to simple definition." So true Carl, so true. In this paper I will aim for a medium difficulty definition, as it has not been eliminated from the picture yet.
For a slight history, the pendulum clock has been used and scarcely changed since the year 1656, and were at that time the first clocks to keep time with any kind of accuracy. (How Stuff Works, 1)

First, before the pendulum there was the simple weight driven clock. How it works is you first need a weight to act as a source of stored energy. This allows the clock to run for a long time unattended. When you "wind" a weight-driven clock, you pull on a cord that lifts the weight. That gives the weight kinetic energy; the clock uses the kinetic energy as the weight falls to drive the clock's mechanism. Now these clocks were highly inaccurate and even with careful measurements and the right amount of friction, humidity and temperature can change and throw everything off. (How Stuff Works, 2)

Our friend Christian Huygens is credited with first suggesting the use of the pendulum. Pendulums are useful on account of their period, since the only things that affect the pendulum is the length of the pendulum and the force of gravity. In the 1600s they weren't too interested in putting their pendulum clock in space so the force of gravity was pretty universal, they needed only change the length of the pendulum. The introduction of this idea let them have the second hand ACTUALLY go around every 60 seconds. Image that. (How Stuff Works, 2)

Our first step in building our very own pendulum clock is getting the pendulum itself. The pendulum is your source of energy allowing the clock to work unattended for a relatively long period of time. As the pendulum reaches the end of a cycle or arch it is full of potential energy, and is thus prepared to swing downward again using our friend gravity. Once reaching the bottom of the arch it has its full kinetic energy which helps it reach the other end of it's cycle. One method used to make pendulum clocks last longer without any assistance is an "escapement" which has the job of imparting just enough energy into the pendulum to overcome friction and allow it to keep swinging. The escapement is also used to turn the gears on the clock making the hands move. (How stuff works, 3)

Pendulum clocks are still useful today as they create their own energy (ie. When the power goes out you still know what time it is) and also if you play with the length of the pendulum a lot you can get an extremely accurate clock.
Now that we have a grasp of time keeping is there anyway to defy that clock which is constantly counting down our days? Maybe. "A quiet backwoods study opens a huge window on aging" as reported by Discover.com. A researcher by the name of Justin Congdon has come across some pretty interesting findings about turtles and essentially turning the discussion of aging in mammals upside down.

Some turtles caught by the researchers at E.S. George Reserve near Ann Arbor, Michigan were tagged as adults in the 1950's are still healthy and fertile today. "They're also the key to Congdon's groundbreaking discovery: Blanding's and perhaps also Midland Painted turtles don't senesce - deteriorate physically - as they grow old. They simply don't age," Says Congdon. Also contrary to other species of life the females produce more eggs in their older age than when they were younger. The cause for death in these turtles is often being hit by a car or raccoon attack. Also infectious diseases kill these turtles at all ages in apparently equivalent proportion; which is interesting because human illnesses like cancer and heart disease often times strike older people, these turtles don't seem to become more vulnerable as they grow older. Which leads us to the important question of will the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ever stop? Not as long as they aren't paired against an automobile, raccoon, or infectious disease they won't. (Discover, 2)
Next in my paper I would like to give some definition of time travel, is it possible? According to Albert Einstein with his theory of special relativity is it theoretically possible. No one has successfully traveled (far) in time but no one has been successful in ruling it out either.

Time as I said earlier can be defined as the fourth dimension of our universe, the three other dimensions of space of course being up-down, left-right, and backward-forward. Time and space need each other, for one to exist the other must also. The relationship between the two is referred to as the spacetime continuum, which means that any event that occurs in the universe must include both. Sometimes space feels like a third wheel when it goes out with time and one of time's friends, but it has to happen to maintain the spacetime continuum. (How Stuff Works, 3)

Using Einstein's theory of special relativity time slows down as an object nears the speed of light. From this theory many scientists believe that traveling faster than the speed of light could make it possible to time travel not only to the future, but also the past. Although that seems easy enough the problem is that the speed of light is thought to be the highest speed that something is able to travel. So time travel to the past seems out of the question. As an object nears the speed of light, it's relativistic mass increases until, at the speed of light, it becomes infinite. Relativistic mass is of course referring to the apparent foreshortening (or contracting) of an object in the direction of motion - this can be calculated using the Lorentz transformation. Also the length of an object is at it's maximum when at rest. Accelerating an infinite mass any faster is theoretically impossible - for the time being. Luckily time travel to the future (instead of the past) appears to be not as difficult and looks to be an attractive vacation location. Look for a club met in your future. (get it -future) (How Stuff Works, 5)

Not only is the future a cool place to go, time travel is also extremely lucrative, Lets go over the facts. Close to every theory physicists can throw out is quickly bought up by storytellers. "Time Travel gives good box office; Arnold Schwarzenegger will reportedly get $30 million to star in the third Terminator film." Time travel works on all levels, comedy, romance, horror, fantasy, and detective stories. The money making possibilities of time travel do not stop there, how much do you think people will be willing to pay for a seat on a space ship to the future? (Popular Science, 1)

Earth's largest time traveler to date is Sergui Avdeyev who traveled 1/50th of a second into the future, according to Princeton astrophysicist J. Richard Gott III. Upon crash landing on a planet he found it run over by super intelligent apes, and later discovered he had landed on earth all along. (Those damn dirty apes) (Popular Science, 2)

Another possible time travel method is the proposed existence of Wormholes (or Einstein-Rosen Bridges); if they do exist they are thought to have the highest potential for time travel. Not only could we use Wormholes for time travel but also to travel many light-years from Earth in only a small amount of time it would take to use conventional space travel methods.

Wormholes are thought to be possible based on Einstein's theory of relativity, which showed that the effects of gravity and acceleration are identical. Since light takes a finite time to traverse the universe both space and light are affected by gravity, there are no straight lines in space. Furthermore the only straight line would be a light beam passing through a path with no gravity, this is seemingly impossible. Thus, all lines in space are curved and space itself is often described as curved, since the masses of the stars and planets effectively curve the spaces around them by the gravitational fields produced from their colossal mass. (Owen, 21)

A good example of a Wormhole offered by the good folks at Howstuffworks.com is holding a bed sheet straight and then placing a baseball in the middle. The baseball will cause the bed sheet to curve, now place a marble at one of the ends of the bed sheet and watch it roll towards the baseball because of the curve. (How Stuff Works, 3)

Not all is up and up on the time travel side some very important problems and paradoxes arose whenever time travel is involved. To understand the percussion of time travel you must first understand quantum mechanics and quantum realities. The jist of quantum realities is that every action creates an alternate universe, examples are numerous. What if Adolf Hitler woke up one morning and instead of ordering the eggs benedict at the hotel where he was staying he ordered the kosher meal and thought to himself "Hmm these Jews sure know how to make a meal kosher, I guess they are alright." (but in German) This would create a very different world that we live in today, and also in theory a very different parallel universe. (Time Travel Institute, 2)

Quantum mechanics works on a smaller level proposing that every miniscule event and action has an opposite. Mix that with the chaos theory and time travel is more than a little scary. (Time Travel Institute, 2)

One of the other problems facing us in time travel is the "bucket factor," I'm going to allow the good Dr. VonSchnelling at the "Time Travel Institute" explain this one for you. "Imagine zat zee universe is a bucket. Zis bucket is full of water to zee brim. Zuppose now that a time traveler from zee future arrives in zis universe. Pretend zat your fist is zee time traveler. Plunge your fist into zee bucket. Water spills from zee bucket. You have just filled the universe with more mass zan it can support. You have just exploded zee universe. Zat is not good."

"And what of the universe zat the time traveler has just left? Zere is now less mass in that universe zan zere should be. Zee inevitable conclusion is zat zuch an action would cause an immediate black hole zat would swallow zee entire universe. Zat is not good, either." (Time Travel Institute, 3)

An infinite number of theories are brought up with just the mention of time travel; I came across on my own while reading this is what would the future be like if everyone on the planet traveled to the same place in the future today?
A few other theories presented by the Time Travel Institute are: Fate - Travel back in time to save a persons life to find out it is unavoidable, or that you were the cause for their death. Another theory being the Alternate Universe theory suggesting that you travel back in time to save someone's life, do a good job, get back and find out it was in an alternate quantum reality which doesn't effect the one you are from in the least. (Time Travel Institute, 3)

Another theory is the Success theory, lets say you travel back in time, successfully kill your grandfather, then you would inevitably never been born, and therefore could have never went back in time to kill your grandfather, thus the paradox ensues. (Time Travel Institute, 3)

Before even going ahead of ourselves lets say you travel back in time before you were born. The mere fact that you could exist in time prior to being born creates a paradox in itself. (How Stuff Works, 4)

On that note I'll conclude that time travel sounds interesting, but since it can bring about the destruction of the universe I say to leave it to the movies.