# time travel



## ereviscale (Jul 3, 2006)

I wasnt sure where to put this so i just decided to put this here. i think alot about time travel, love the movie time machine and was just wondering what you people thought about it


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## littlemissattitude (Jul 3, 2006)

I love stories and movies about time travel.  Not sure about the practicalities of it, though.  The paradox thing makes me nervous.  Therefore, I choose to believe that if time travel is possible, any unfortunate meetings and events simply create another timestream or reality or universe, as in the David Gerrold novel, _The Man Who Folded Himself_.  Must be drawbacks to that theory, as well, though.

I also kind of like the theory in Kage Baker's novels of the Company.  The rule there is that nothing that has been recorded can be changed.  Trouble is, that seems to be coming under some question in the later books and stories.


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## j d worthington (Jul 3, 2006)

While I still think actual time travel is a very, very dubious proposition, I read some books on the subject a few years ago dealing with it as an actual possibility -- got lost in the maths, but some of the concepts sounded interesting. And I've seen a thing now and again on places like the Discovery channel on the possibility of actually overcoming the barrier so -- who knows.

But, as Little Miss indicates, the consensus seems of opinion seems to be that a person who travels in time would not return to their "original" timestream, but would instead find themselves in an alternate wherein whatever paradox would exist here was the already existing state of things there. In other words, paradox would, by its (and that reality's) very nature, not exist. And anything that might be a paradox there would not be in yet another reality, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum. From what I understand, there's at least some support for this in mathematical theoretical models, and perhaps (though I'm not too sure about this) some tiny experimental evidence. That last I've only heard rumor of, so can't give an opinion one way or another; though I remain doubtful.

Which movie are you referring to? The George Pal film, or the newer version (for which I still wait for Wells to climb out of his grave and strangle his grandson for having anything to do with). As for time travel stories -- love 'em. As far as paradoxes there, I find them fascinating and lots of fun; helps keep the mind limber. And there's always Fritz Leiber's *The Big Time*, with that wonderful line "You can't time travel in the time you travel in when you time travel."


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## Milk (Jul 3, 2006)

Personally, I don't think the past exists, nor could it ever  , and as for travelling into the future, everyone does that.

Two of my favorite Science fiction books of all time are focused mainly on time travel.

*The Timeships *by Stephen Baxter--- a sequal to H.G Wells Time Machine.

and

*Hyperion *by Dan Simmons.

I would consider time travel a staple of Sci fi. Its in so many stories. The two books above are my favorites.

And yes the recent "Time Machine" movie was awful, for a variety of reasons. On a side note comparing it to the older movie I find it annoying that the old fears of Nuclear technology have been replaced by an even sillier set of fears about Genetic Engineering. Im seeing this in a few of the remakes. The newer movies seem to replace the Nuclear alarmism of the 50's with a newer more modern genetics alarmism. Both are uniformed and silly imo.

I love Sci Fi in general but sometimes I get annoyed when the plot driver is "those crazy scientists! What have they gone and done now!?!"


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## j d worthington (Jul 3, 2006)

Milk said:
			
		

> I love Sci Fi in general but sometimes I get annoyed when the plot driver is "those crazy scientists! What have they gone and done now!?!"


 
I'd say that this is because Hollywood is still caught in the 1920s with ideas in sf (lots of mad scientists and rampaging robots in the pulps back then, not to mention *Star Wars* concepts of galaxy-hopping) and almost none of it has any connection to actual sf writers or scientific input. In the few cases where there is such respect for decent sf or science, such garbage simply sinks to the bottom. Let's face it: Hollywood (with a few notable exceptions) has never been terribly gifted with originality or imagination...


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## Leonardo (Jan 10, 2007)

j. d. worthington said:


> From what I understand, there's at least some support for this in mathematical theoretical models, and perhaps (though I'm not too sure about this) some tiny experimental evidence. That last I've only heard rumor of, so can't give an opinion one way or another; though I remain doubtful.



I think the basic quantum physics are rooted in the assumption that for every possible action in the universe, a paralell universe is created. Thus, the difficulty in travelling back to where you came from after having time traveled is not in arriving at the right _time_, but rather in the right _universe_;
While you might arrive just where you left, the world might be radically different. (although not so different as would be impossible through some sort of a natural course of events.)

Also (although I'm not sure it qualifies as SF), I found *The Time Travelers Wife* *by* *Audrey Niffenegger* to be a delightfully original read. It's not very complicated, but it's very beautiful. Reccommended.


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## mosaix (Jan 10, 2007)

Leonardo said:


> Also (although I'm not sure it qualifies as SF), I found *The Time Travelers Wife* *by* *Audrey Niffenegger* to be a delightfully original read. It's not very complicated, but it's very beautiful. Reccommended.



Thanks Leonardo. You're the second person to have recommended that in as many days. I must look it up.


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## BookStop (Jan 10, 2007)

Can I third the recommendation? It's a brilliant novel.


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## SpaceShip (Jan 10, 2007)

My books are based on travelling back in time and I think that with the writing of it, my mind begins to accept the possibility that it could happen.  Two of the characters in my books - a boy and his dog - can mind speak and I was astonished that my cousin (who's 53) told me he'd tried to mind speak to his cat!  It didn't work - he said.  So we all believe in something out of the ordinary don't we?


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