Time Travel movies and shows that are PC* by chrisisall

OTHER SCIENCE FICTION SERIES

Time Travel movies and shows that are PC*

POSTED BY: CHRISISALL
UPDATED: Sunday, October 21, 2007 19:45
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VIEWED: 14598
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007 6:49 AM

As soon as my head stops swimming, I'll post a comment.
But for now, some fun links...

Temporal Anomalies in Popular Time Travel Movies
http://www.mjyoung.net/time/

Time Travel Institute
http://www.timetravelinstitute.com/

Chronos Technologies: The Future of Time Travel
http://chronos.ws/

The Time Travel Fund™
http://www.timetravelfund.com/

John Titor: Time Traveler
http://www.johntitor.com/

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Wednesday, September 26, 2007 7:03 AM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by cljohnston108:

Temporal Anomalies in Popular Time Travel Movies
http://www.mjyoung.net/time/

This one is so cool.
I first saw it a couple years ago thanks to ManWithPez.

A 'nomoly Chrisisall

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Friday, September 28, 2007 10:15 AM

IMNOTHERE

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
If quantum effects manifested themselves on a macroscopic level, I could tunnel into Miss Panetierre’s bedroom, now that she single and 18, and get entangled, with her consent of course

Hope you enjoy the subsequent paternity suit - that macro scale quantum tunneling thing would play havoc with the "precautions"...

However - fear not because, due to the uncertainty principle, knowing Miss Panetierre's exact location would make it likely that she would acquire a high velocity in a random direction. Come to think of it, that probably works in the real world, too :-)

The angels have the 'phone box...

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Friday, October 12, 2007 4:42 PM

HKCAVALIER

I think the trouble with the multiple universes concept lies in the assumption that they are static and all fully existent and simultaneous, like eggs in a basket, or barbie dolls on a shelf at Toys 'R' Us. But that's just a silly paradox generating machine of a theory.

If we're gonna talk about multiple universes we gotta think in terms of infinite fractal futures (aka universes) branching out in every possible (and impossible) direction from every given moment.

If we look at Hiro Nakamura in Heroes, what we see is a man traveling through time and changing it every time he moves. Practically speaking he doesn't really change time for anyone but himself; the old time-lines still exist, he's just not part of them anymore, he's moved into a new fractal variation of the time-line that he himself spawned when he moved through time/space. Everyone experiencing the "dark future" of NY after the bomb is still existing in that time-line, but Hiro has escaped it by moving back in time and altering his trajectory so that a different fractal future comes about where the bomb does not go off and his friends are still alive, etc.

So if Hiro were to go back in time and kill his grandfather and then went "forward" in time, he would merely find himself in a world where his family line doesn't exist, no one would know him, etc. He would not cease to exist, because his personal trajectory through fractal time is unchanging, only his connection to the past time-line has been severed/changed. If he then went back in time again and prevented himself from killing his grandfather he'd find himself in a time-line which included his grandfather and most likely himself--but not necessarily--in fact, now that I think of it, being unable to "restore" his previous time-line, it is entirely unlikely that simply preventing his grandfather's death would ensure his existence in such a future, severed as he is from the first time-line that brought him into being--way, way too many variables to control if he wants to "undo" anything he's changed.

Now, of course, I remember that in Heroes, Hiro does go back in time attempting to save the waitress's life, fails and "comes back" to Ando who awaits his "return," apparently, in the first time-line. So, you know, maybe the writers were just being dumb, but maybe not--maybe my theory needs refining.

It's interesting that whatever Hiro did he was unable to change the waitress's fate, so it's possible that these other time-lines he opened "closed" up again, or re-merged with the "previous" time-line. This would suggest that there are certain things that happen that have a certain "temporal gravity" that makes them somehow inevitable, or nearly so across many time-lines. Perhaps fractal time does not simply flow "outward" from each moment, but flows "inward," reconnecting time-lines that have been separate for some time.

Perhaps that's what "fate" is.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Friday, October 12, 2007 5:09 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
So if Hiro were to go back in time and kill his grandfather and then went "forward" in time, he would merely find himself in a world where his family line doesn't exist, no one would know him, etc.

Why? If the act of going back in time is just the act of changing to a different universe, then why does what Hiro did in that universe affect the original universe at all? They’re not the same universe. What you seem to be suggesting is that Hiro can effectively change the universe from his frame of reference to whatever he wants without any consequences at will, simply by moving to whatever universe in which the events he desire have transpired. Even the laws of physics are not guaranteed to be the same in every universe.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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Saturday, October 13, 2007 4:17 AM

IMNOTHERE

Quote:

If we look at Hiro Nakamura in Heroes,

Aaargh! My Eyes!

Polite request:

Here in the UK "Heroes" is one of the few big US SF shows with a decent time slot on free-to-view terrestrial TV, and we're about 2/3 the way through season 1. I don't know if you actually spoiled anything (or shared some great wisdom about time travel), because I'm averting my eyes from most of your post... Judicious use of spoiler tags (or threads clearly titled "Heroes Season 2" would be appreciated.

(In return, I'm sure we'll all be careful what we let slip about Dr Who and Torchwood... us UKers haven't had much opportunity for retailiatory spoiling since a few heady weeks in the 90s when the US networks pre-empted Babylon 5 and the UK got ahead...)

As for the time travel theory, that website debunking all the movies seemed to assume that all the "alternate" timelines were arranged in some extra time-like dimension so that one timeline existed "before" another one.

Instead, you could imagine a quantum-esque situation in which all the infinite possible timelines exist potentially but collapse to the most stable, paradox-free solution when viewed by a future (or extradimensiona) observer.

Now, the simple (but boring) solution to that would be a timeline in which time travel was never invented.

However there are also the "Terminator" solutions in which someone goes back in time with the intention of (e.g.) killing the rebel leader's mother. Any timeline in which they succeed, and return to a future in which the leader was never born (and hence have no reason to have gone back to kill him) will be "forbidden" and vanish when observed. However, those timelines in which they either (a) just fail or (b) actually cause the events they set out to prevent will be viable.

To a future observe, though, that loop will have always been there - there is no "before" timeline. The universe doesn't care how confusing it is for the poor shmuck trapped in the loop - it might care about where the extra mass came from, but any sort of time-travel plays havoc with conservation of mass...

Alternatively, I think the basis of the Micheal Crighton "Timeline" solution is that you never face the paradox of continuing to exist in a timeline that you have intervened in, because you interfered in a parallel universe, the person that made the same changes in your timeline was an alternative "you" from a third universe and so on.. and because there are an infinite number of such universes you can keep on passing the paradoxical buck to a parallel "you" for ever...

(That book also featured the lovely idea that the "time machine" simply did a "destructive scan" on the traveller and injected their data into the quantum foam in the hope that, amongst the infinite parallel universes, some clever sod had worked out how to re-assemble them... Count me out - LOTS of plot holes but some fun ideas)

Of course, least hypothesis is just that time travel isn't possible - but that violates Hollywood physics because it would be boring.

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Sunday, October 21, 2007 7:45 PM

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Timerider, from the 80's. With Fred Ward. One of my favortie soundtracks.

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