Heinlein’s By His Bootstraps

The Heinlein piece should be a fun read. Lewis says Heinlein gives us a way in which time travel could happen that is possible, but if you pay attention you may find features of the story that seem contradictory, impossible, or problematic in some other way. The story at least seems to go against what common sense says makes sense. You might get ideas while reading this for ways of arguing that time travel is impossible, which could be your topic for the term paper. (Similarly, you may think some appearance of impossibility can be explained away, another good topic for the term paper.) Most of the papers we’ll read suggest that time travel is possible, so your term paper could try to show some way in which these arguments (or those in other papers that are available) are flawed.