Time travel question

[Stargazer1976]

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]

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™]

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]

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

[Foxbat]

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™]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Time for the Stars published in 1956.

[dwndrgn]

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.