Charlie Chaplin Time Traveler Brings About Speculation

While watching footage from Charlie Chaplin's 1928 movie, 'The Circus,' Irish director George Clarke spotted something that seemed out of place, a bit odd even. This is bringing about a lot of speculation from the easily explained to the possibility she is a time traveler.

In the clip posted on YouTube, a man is seen walking on the sidewalk in front of the camera followed by a portly woman (could be a man, but not likely) who appears to be talking on a cell phone. Cell phones weren't invented until the 1970's and even then they were bulky behemoths.

Naysayers argue the woman was either talking to herself or was using a hearing aid. There's no doubt that some people carry on conversations with themselves, but this is a rather strange bird.

Here's a little food for thought:

With the invention of electricity in 1892, society began moving away from the big ear trumpets and made the transition to battery-powered hearing aids. By the roaring '20s, hearing aids were still quite big and many were as large as a desk radio and were heavy. The 1924 Siemens hearing aid was a compact, pocket size, carbon microphone-amplifier and some speculate this was what the woman was using in the clip from 'The Circus'.

The 1950's brought with it the invention of the transistor and hearing aid technology evolved once again.

In the '90s, digital hearing aid technology came into use. Today, this technology is once again going through a change and ADRO (adaptive dynamic range optimization) technology is being made available by some manufacturers.

Physicist Talked About Loophole in Einstein's Equation:

Physicist Dr. Michio Kaku, time travel expert and host of the Science Channel's 'Sci Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible' told TIME in March, "There's a loophole in Einstein's equation that even Einstein realized wasn't there. In Einstein's equation, time is a river. It speeds up, meanders, and slows down. The new wrinkle is that it can have whirlpools and fork into two rivers. So, if the river of time can be bent into a pretzel, create whirlpools and fork into two rivers, then time travel cannot be ruled out."

Dr. Kaku went on to say time travel isn't for us, though, because the energy necessary to "...create a wormhole or to wrap time into nuts is incredible ... It's maybe for our descendants who have mastered the energy of this technology."

So, maybe this woman is one of our great grandchildren yet to be born. Or, perhaps she has been born and has not yet traveled back to Charlie Chaplin's movie premier in 1928. It certainly is entertaining to think about all the possibilities and we can hope that at some point, time travel would be possible.

Sources:
The Chaplin Time Traveler: What Does Science Say? TIME NewsFeed