Van Stockum Syndrome #4 History Can Repeat Itself

"Van Stockum was an early twentieth century physicist from the Netherlands. Handsome chap, but sadly he died in World War Two during a bombing raid. Anyway, he did some of the early work on Einstein's General theory of relativity. One of the things he came up with was the concept of a world line in a Lorentzian manifold. Twisted up space to you and me." She stirred a copious amount of sugar into her coffee. "Also known as a closed timelike curve."

"Look lady, I haven't got a clue what you're talking about. Just... What the hell is going on?!"