# Time travel question



## Stargazer1976 (Feb 1, 2005)

I was watching a one hour sci fi show and the topic dealt with Time travel. I found what I consider a significant flaw and was wondering what you all thought about it.

In the episode a man builds a time machine and when he first uses it he goes forward in time two days. While there he finds his wife shot to death. He then goes back in time to the point he originally left from. Once there, he tries to convince his wife to leave town in order to alter future history. She thinks he is crazy and tell him she has been wanting a divorce. As the next two days continue along he grows possesive of her and begins fighting with her. Finally the point comes where he accidentally shoots her to death.

He then goes back in time to the day they met and finds his original self. He figures that by preventing him from meeting his wife she will never die. He then shoots himself to death. When he does the one with the gun disolves or vaporizes and the other one dies on the sidewalk.


My feeling are... He can not kill himself because he is the inventor of the time machine. If he dies he does not make the time machine or even exist to come back and kill himself.

What do you think?


----------



## Sirathiel (Feb 1, 2005)

Temporal paradox. Very classical. A time loop: he can't kill himself because then he would not event the machine not being able to go back in time, like you said.

It's why anything pertaining to time travel tends to be very complex. It's why there's the theory of the ripple effect : one minor change, could change everything in the large scheme.

On the other hand, it's what is so fascinating about the concept of time travel.


----------



## The Master™ (Feb 1, 2005)

There is also the fact that he would not have been responsible for his wifes death in the first place...

Once he travels forward in time, then he has taken himself OUTSIDE his normal flow of time, and entered an alternate time where he did exist for those two days...

Ah, the old grandfather paradox... You can't stop yourself from existing in former time, because you would then cease to exist, and then can't build the time machine in order to go back in time to stop yourself... 

In answer to your question: WHAT A PILE OF HORSE MANURE!!! 

However, it is fun watching these things to pick them apart... DON'T GET ME STARTED ON "BACK TO THE FUTURE II"!!!


----------



## Stargazer1976 (Feb 1, 2005)

I have always had fun picking apart Back to the Future II.


----------



## Foxbat (Feb 1, 2005)

I stopped thinking too much about Time Travel because it gives me a headache  
However, there is an interesting short story (which I can't find in my collection but I know it's there somewhere) that you might like. I think it might be by Zelazney and it's basically about a guy who, through time travel, gives birth to himself. I was reaching for the aspirin by the end of this one


----------



## The Master™ (Feb 1, 2005)

Bit like Red Dwarf in the episode "OROBORUS", where Dave Lister is his own father... That was quite good... 

"Window of Opportunity" episode from Stargate SG-1 remains my all time favourite time travel episode of any programme!!!


----------



## Neil040 (Feb 1, 2005)

I love the time paradox puzzles!  But they also make my brain hurt too in the end so I only go so far with them..  lol

I think you cant go back in time and kill yourself for the obvious previously mentioned reasons...

I think that if you go back in time and alter stuff.. that spawning parallel universes is unlikely and I dont like that idea anyway...

I like the idea written of in which IF you did go back and alter something you thought was significant.. such as assasinating hitler while he was insignificant.. the force of future history would be such that the time line would invariably slip back into line.. in other words another person would emerge to fill the role of hitler.. and the main flow of history would unfold anyway.. just another name as the arch villain.  So history might be different for a while.. but ultimately would come back into line and defeat your best attempts..

Of course, the real killer in time fantasies is that IF it is possible EVER.. then it would already have been discovered.. in the future.. and in that case we are already living in the altered past of the future time traveller.. who of course has had an eternity to meddle with his/her past.. so this is the BEST its gonna get!


----------



## dwndrgn (Feb 2, 2005)

You guys all make my head hurt!  Yeah, time travel stories are fun but I try not to pick them apart because I know I'll end up saying that it wouldn't work.  I just enjoy them as they are.

In the real world I consider time travel impossible mainly because time is a human invention - a sense if you will, and not a static physical thing that can be travelled upon.


----------



## polymorphikos (Feb 2, 2005)

There's a theory that we could never travel forward because the future hasn't happened yet, so if we went back into the fast the future would cease to exist and you could do whatever you want, but be trapped. 

Conversely, if you travel back in time there's the theory that everything you do will aid in the eventuation of the time-period and scenario you departed from, so that you can do whatever you want if you go back to 1600 AD, it's just that no-one ever realised that that duke was shot with a M-16 by a marauding time-traveller, and put it down to God and mysteries. I follow this one. The basic think is, if I had a nuclear bomb and travelled back to 1985 to blow-up Sydney, obviously I didn't succeed because no-one remembers Sydney being blown-up by a nuclear bomb. This isn't predeterminism, because the future itself in undefined and it is only the past that is set.


----------



## Sirathiel (Feb 2, 2005)

heh, the joys of time travel theories...

I especially like what Neil said about history going back to its course no matter what you do and what Poly said about already knowing that he wouldn't succed in blowing up Sydney in the past because we know it didn't blow up.

There are so many possibilities of how things might work... Sure, the headache is a guarantee, but still it's so much fun!


----------



## cleasterwood (Feb 4, 2005)

Hi, I'm new to this forum.  I write fantasy novels taken from Egyptian mythology and since we're on the topic of time-travel, I was wondering if someone could help me out as well.  I'm looking for something, anything that I can compare my novel to.  It is a time-travel novel where the main character, Andrea, travels into ancient Egypt, but there is a twist, which I haven't found in any other novel I've read, Andrea has an identical twin who stays in the present but sees her twin's life in the past.  Has anyone run across something similar or have I stumbled upon something new to the genre?  If you've read anything that sounds remotely related, please let me know.
Sincerely,
C. L.

P.S.  Does anyone here read Deep Magic e-zine?  I've my first published short story in this month's issue.


----------



## Leto (Feb 4, 2005)

Hello, and welcome. Very remotly related Robert Heinlein wrote a story about two telepath twin brothers, who served as radio during an interstellar travel. One's on Earth and one in the ship. The one in the ship sense his bro aging while he's travelling, and finally use his nephew and grand niece as radio...


----------



## cleasterwood (Feb 4, 2005)

Thank you, I'll have to check it out.  Do you remember the name of the story?  It's so frustrating when I can't find anything to compare my work too but I guess in a way that could be good.


----------



## Leto (Feb 4, 2005)

Time for the Stars published in 1956.


----------



## dwndrgn (Feb 4, 2005)

Well, this isn't completely the same but a little similar.  Suzanne Frank has a series of books about a girl who gets thrown into ancient Egypt and replaces a person there and that person ends up in the main character's modern world.  No cross-communication though.  I think I've seen a movie once that dealt with this although the setting was different.  I don't recall the movie much at all, as it was probably pretty bad - it was a long time ago too.


----------



## Leto (Feb 4, 2005)

how, I've forgot the Promethea comic by Alan Moore : http://www.angelfire.com/comics/eroomnala/Promethea.htm


----------



## cleasterwood (Feb 5, 2005)

Thanks Leto, wow that's old.  Nothing newer I suppose?

Dwndrgn,
Again, that's remotely similar I guess.  This hasn't been easy for me as it seems no one has read anything like it. 

Is is possible that I've created my own niche?


----------



## Quest (Feb 5, 2005)

There have been many stories of people who switch places in time.  I would say that the communication bit betweent he time zones makes your story a little different.


----------



## cleasterwood (Feb 6, 2005)

Quest,
They're not really switching places though.  Both MC are rooted into the present time, niether came from the past nor did the MC switch places with anyone.  It is rather unique I guess; nice to know I've done something different.    Now, how do I present this fact to publishers?


----------



## Robert M. Blevins (Feb 8, 2005)

If you'd like to tackle the overworked TT theme with something fresh, or at least interesting, remember: suspension of disbelief, try not to make the paradoxes too obvious, make the story/character so interesting, or his situation so unique that the reader will overlook a couple of small holes.
_Time is a river. If you have a boat with a powerful engine, you can still go up and down the river and jump off onto the bank whenever you like._ There is an interesting note on the link below, check the submissions page. Good luck!


----------



## cleasterwood (Feb 8, 2005)

Robert,
I've actually already tackled the overworked TT theme and am working on the second novel now.  There really aren't any paradoxes in it either.  The jist of it is that the twin must travel back into time so that the world can stay the way it is today.  I've also braved the rarely ventured Eygptian period instead of the easily researched boring Middle Ages.  Interesting site as well.


----------



## Chimeco (Mar 4, 2005)

polymorphikos - actually we should be able to travel forward in time quite effectively according to special relativity (time passes slower for moving objects). Basically if you launch yourself at an accelerating rate of speed on a roundabout trip to and from earth, you will arrive back at earth to find that everything has aged far greater than you have. This is time dilation, and it's already been measured and accounted for. The concept isn't too difficult to grasp, as long as we're moving forward. We just don't forward time travel yet because we don't have the technology to propel us at the speeds necessary yet.

Traveling backwards in time is the hard part. While special relativity allows for forward travel, you have to factor in gravity to get to the past, and that requires the use of general relativity as well.

I'm just a hobbiest at this stuff, but from my understanding of the subject scientists are able to construct plausible Time Travel models using this as their foundation. 

This is where black holes start showing up in models (i.e. Hawking). Gravity bends space time, or curves it (as does acceleration). Put two black holes together and stick a spaceship in the middle, and launch that thing at an accelerating rate nearest the point of speed of light and you may be able to travel into the past according to Hawking. (this model is under fire now I believe).

Did anyone know that CERN is creating a new particle accelerator that will produce and attempt to measure the radiation of tiny black holes? Yeah, I said it_--create _black holes. Miniscule ones, the size of atoms, thought to commonly exist at the beginning of the universe like dust motes on a recliner. But you'll be able to blink quicker than they live.
http://unisci.com/stories/20014/1001012.htm

And there's really nothing that prevents a tiny black hole from existing as far as Physics is concerned. Scientists just haven't been able to account for them yet, in a reasonable matter. Mass is just one theorized way of creating a black hole. I guess smashing protons together at singular (no pun intended) speeds is now another way.

By the way, if you take anything away from this, it should be a new perception of TIME. Time is not time as we know of it day to day. It's not really the stuff of clocks and progression. _Progression _is only a *behavior *of time. Right now all we know is that time moves linearly. It moves forward. But that doesn't mean we should be constrained in our thinking of time because of that. Think of time as a medium that we exist in, like a river carrying us downstream. We're not able to paddle our way upstream yet, because we lack the technology to do so. But that doesn't mean it's impossible.

Sry for being so longwinded.


----------



## Heresy (Mar 17, 2005)

Holy cow, my head is spinning.  This is why I hate time-travel stories, someone always creates a paradox that ruins anything possible from happening.  They did that in Terminator 2 when they destroyed the factory where the machines were made.  Ugh, I was like, but, but..


----------



## Stormflame (Apr 9, 2005)

I went about writing a time-travel story once and in the outline got so confused...I quit.


----------



## littlemissattitude (Apr 9, 2005)

polymorphikos said:
			
		

> There's a theory that we could never travel forward because the future hasn't happened yet, so if we went back into the fast the future would cease to exist and you could do whatever you want, but be trapped.


 
Of course there is also the theory that all time happens simultaneously, and that time's seemingly one-way, linear nature is an illusion created in all our minds to keep us sane.  Personally, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that one, but it would solve a lot of problems in relation to the omniscience of the Christian god, people who can seemingly predict the future, and quite a few other mysteries.  But I think it irredeemably complicates the whole question of free will vs. predestination.  So, this is the theory that makes my head hurt. 

Personally, I like the idea that time travel does exist, but that paradoxes are impossible because wherever a paradox would be created, a new time-stream is created instead, leaving the original time-stream intact and only creating the new reality in the new time-stream.  See "The Man Who Folded Himself" by David Gerrold for this theory.

Other good time travel novels include Orson Scott Card's "Pastwatch" and Kage Baker's Company novels, beginning with "In the Garden of Iden."  Baker's idea is that _recorded_ history can't be changed, but that this leaves many shadowy places that haven't been recorded and are therefore susceptible to change.  "Pastwatch" - well, anything I'd say about this one would be a spoiler, so I'll just urge you to go find it and read it - it is a very good book.


----------



## A1ien (Apr 9, 2005)

The thing about time travel is, if it were invented at any time, it would become known at every single point in time in the universe because in an infinite time line there is infinite numbers of people wanting to go back to infinite points in time


----------



## GOLLUM (May 17, 2005)

cleasterwood said:
			
		

> Hi, I'm new to this forum. I write fantasy novels taken from Egyptian mythology and since we're on the topic of time-travel, I was wondering if someone could help me out as well. I'm looking for something, anything that I can compare my novel to. It is a time-travel novel where the main character, Andrea, travels into ancient Egypt, but there is a twist, which I haven't found in any other novel I've read, Andrea has an identical twin who stays in the present but sees her twin's life in the past. Has anyone run across something similar or have I stumbled upon something new to the genre? If you've read anything that sounds remotely related, please let me know.
> Sincerely,
> C. L.
> 
> P.S. Does anyone here read Deep Magic e-zine? I've my first published short story in this month's issue.


Hi there and Welcome to the forums! 

It's Gollum here from Deep Magic. I didn't realise you'ld joined this forum until now..

I've naturally read your work and think it rocks!!!!


----------



## PERCON (May 18, 2005)

> Originally Posted by *cleasterwood*
> _Hi, I'm new to this forum. I write fantasy novels taken from Egyptian mythology and since we're on the topic of time-travel, I was wondering if someone could help me out as well. I'm looking for something, anything that I can compare my novel to. It is a time-travel novel where the main character, Andrea, travels into ancient Egypt, but there is a twist, which I haven't found in any other novel I've read, Andrea has an identical twin who stays in the present but sees her twin's life in the past. Has anyone run across something similar or have I stumbled upon something new to the genre? If you've read anything that sounds remotely related, please let me know.
> Sincerely,
> C. L.
> ...



I've written something that follows that same sort of idea, but in mine the person in the past was killing people off and as each one was killed they disappeared in the present and the surroundings which they would have influenced in their life changed too. 

I like time travel stories. Bit depressing at times, but they make good reads. So I started writing them myself, I don't care if I'm sticking to one particular type of story because I like writing about it.

 What good is a time travel story if the reader knows where they are and what's going on all of the time, it should take at least a few days to get the idea firmly implanted in their minds of what just happened. 

Time is very complicated, lets keep it that way.  

_PERCON_


----------



## evanescentdream (May 30, 2005)

I don't honestly support time travel. If you go back in time, to change something, nothing should happen: it would have already happened that way the first time around. But then that depends on just how time functions: a continous line moving in both directions, or a ray traveling in a certain direction with a fixed endpoint.

The more I try to make sense of it the less understandable it is.


----------



## Hesh (May 30, 2005)

Concerning the topic at hand, you could kill your past self. Think of it like this:
When a bullet is shot, the person doesn't die until the bullet hits it's target.
So technically, you wouldn't be prevented from pulling the trigger.
Therefore, when you shoot the bullet at your past self, you can do so because the bullet hasn't killed him, thus you still exist. When it hits him,
however, everything you've done will have never happened.

I kind of think as time travel as present is a dot in the center. Two rays come from this dot: one going to one side which is the past, and the other being the future. Thus, the dot can move freely on this time track. When something happens during the present(which when time travelling, no matter what time your in, is the present), effects the past and future, obviously. The future will have changed, and the events will have been remembered as the past. 

The future is complicated to explain. I think of it as always changing, but always their.  Like a chalkboard, the outcome of your actions are written on the chalkboard, and whenever an event would effect the outcome, the previous outcome is erased and a new one is written.


----------



## ZLBilley (Jun 4, 2005)

As far as we can tell, causality only happens forwards... so if someone were to travel back in time, then the the state of having travelled back in time would cause the time  machine to send them back at some time in the future, and not the other way around. And since there would be nothing that would actually cause them to be in the wrong time in the first place... well, time travel really wouldn't exist, now would it?


----------



## Dean (Jan 19, 2006)

I hope I can pull this off properly, First of all, Time Travel is full of paradox, its like a cube shaped Chess game, most people are almost instantly thrown into a mad foaming to think of it, it definately, ALWAYS has strange permutations. Secondly, if you were going to work on a time travel scenario you would most surely need a massively parrallel super computer just to put up even a front of serious treatment of time paradox with any real time accuracy? Thirdly, if You knew of such a computer and could get time on it, what are the chances you would find the builders of the computer who constructed it for just such an application but are befuddled by your discovering it and asking to borrow it for the afternoon...........Its sure to have been a super secret.....because if it worked, you would never hear about it in any of the local journals, because with it you could control the very fabric of  any intruders existance? whew, not exactly all I wanted to say, could I have some more time and a fresh cup of pencils?


----------



## Julio Clearsky (Feb 10, 2006)

For Time Travel read Cloud Atlas


----------



## topspin (Feb 10, 2006)

Another newbie here, so im just gonna jump right in. 
If your time travel 'method' involves physically moving yourself and your time travelling vessel into the past, you and it will be affected if you change stuff that effects the journey in the first place. 
If your time travel method involves creating an exact duplicate of yourself in the past (out of native particles) with all the properties that you yourself  have _now_ then anything you do in the past may change the future, but not the duplicate you sent back, since it is 'of' that original time.
Don't quote me on any of that, because it may turn out to be utter nonsense.


----------



## steve12553 (Feb 12, 2006)

There is a concept of quantum physics, that I don't expect to ever fully understand, that says that all possible options happen all at once iin parallel. It be be that if you were to go into the past and change something that the change may just happen in a parallel timeline or dimesion where the future was going to work out that way anyhow. For example, if you were to kill your past self then the result would happen in a timeline where you died at that point anyway and didn't affect the future. Now that I've made myself clear as mud...........................


----------

