The "block universe" is a natural way to think about our real universe. The "illusion" of time passing is easily explained with chains of causal relationships. At 3:00 pm I experience something; at 3:01 I remember that experience and plan to respond at 3:02 pm, and so on. My own view of time passing is simply the following of a thread of snapshots, ordered by causal dependencies. These snapshots are called "time capsules" by Julian Barbour, who develops these ideas in excruciating detail!
There may be no way to step outside the "block" and "travel" to a different time. (The ABC Science piece OP links to, and which seems to imply otherwise, is just obfuscation IMO.) On the other hand, threads of causal relationships MIGHT point backwards, or have backward-pointing segments, if some form of
retrocausality is valid. But this would be a very different topic.
Apparently Einstein believed in a block universe where the past and future exist eternally and are inevitable.
https://plus.maths.org/content/what-block-time
"The block universe theory, where time travel is possible but time passing is an illusion"
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science...eory-time-past-present-future-travel/10178386
This might be compatible with how people think God relates to the universe.
What do people think of that idea?
Quantum fluctuations will fuck it up. Each time you time travel it'll be different. There's no way to, even hypothetically, go back and forward in time.
But more importantly... who cares about what Einstein thinks of anything? It's interesting to study Einstein for historical reasons. But we don't care what... let's say Socrates... said about things he was wrong about. We only care about the stuff that has held up. We don't let the stuff he was wrong about tarnish his memory.
The "reality" underneath the model of modern physics is still a mystery. There MIGHT be multiple universes but there might not be. Quantum physics MIGHT make the world non-deterministic, but it might not. Nobody is certain about such things. The meme that Albert Einstein was wrong about quantum physics is misinformed. Note that results like Bell's Theorem, often thought to repudiate thought experiments like EPR, do not achieve that in models where retrocausality is allowed.
[Off-topic] One of my peeves is that some people are too eager to reject common-place memes.
Marilyn Monroe was the sexiest Hollywood actress? Yes, she probably was!
George Washington was the greatest U.S. President? Many historians would agree.
Casablanca is the greatest film ever? Self-evident In my opinion!
And Albert Einstein really is one of the greatest scientific geniuses who ever lived. He's on the top pedestal with Sir Isaac Newton and Archimedes. It's common to equate Einstein with relativity, while making Neils Bohr et al the creative genius(es) behind quantum theory. But Einstein was one of the key founders of quantum physics; and it was his 1905 paper demonstrating that light was quantized into photons for which he won the Nobel Prize. Many accounts imply an Einstein vs Bohr duel which Bohr won, but this is over-simplified, particularly given the points I make above.
