TIME travel has tested the greatest scientific minds of our age. Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Doctor Who: they have all wrestled with its difficulties.
Now it appears that a possible solution may come from Cork, where the UCC Science Society has found that time travel may be out of the question, at least for the present.
The society will meet on October 22nd when Dr Michel Van Dyck of the university's physics department will lecture on the subject.
Sadly, hopes that this may produce a breakthrough were cruelly dashed by the society's admission that "the exact time and venue are not yet finalised".
But if time travel is a reality, why hasn't anyone come back from the future to tell us? "Perhaps some people have come back but they have made very sure not to interfere with us," said Dr Van Dyck.
"If the future interferes with the past and changes the way we know the future to be, then time travel is not possible. But if the future influences the past in the way we know it could be, then it should not be ruled out completely."
This is the grandfather paradox: if you went back in time and killed your grandfather before his wedding, that could pose considerable problems for you. If you went to his wedding and waved at him from the crowd, you would probably do nothing more than confuse him.
It's not all nonsense, according to Dr Van Dyck. There are solutions to Einstein's theory of general relativity which make time travel possible. Small, very light particles could travel back a few seconds in time through what are known as "thin" wormholes. Sadly, thick wormholes, the kind that could accommodate a human, have a tendency to collapse.