Time travel question

[Leto]

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

[cleasterwood]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[littlemissattitude]

Originally Posted by polymorphikos

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]

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]

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.

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]

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.

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

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]

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]

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.