You wrote it tomorrow, did ya?I went into the future and retrieved my completed manuscript. This saved a lot of trouble and effort.
Time Travel Book?
- Thread starter justlukeyou
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Well, that depends. If I wrote the manuscipt tomorrow, but I'd already been to the day after tomorrow first, then went back in time to retrieve the manuscript I wrote yesterday, which is tomorrow...
My brain hurts.
My brain hurts.
Like I said, that paradox of time travel is always waiting there to bite you If you went into the future to retrieve your completed manuscript and bring it back, how did it ever get completed in the first place? You didn't write it because it was already written.
If you went into the future to retrieve your completed manuscript and bring it back, how did it ever get completed in the first place? You didn't write it because it was already written.
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I've discovered an easier way to do time travel which avoids such paradoxes. It involves a calendar, scissors, and tape.
I've discovered an easier way to do time travel which avoids such paradoxes. It involves a calendar, scissors, and tape.
And tequila. Tequila makes the world go 'round. (Or maybe just the room... )
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I haven't tried tequila with a calendar. Should I use scotch, masking, or duct tape?
That would make for a funny story, tho -- someone who does time travel by rearranging a calendar.
That would make for a funny story, tho -- someone who does time travel by rearranging a calendar.
I developed an idea once.
It was about a scientist in his thirties who had discovered a way to use neutrinos as means of communication. That discovery made the internet much faster and cheaper since you could send information through the earth directly instead of sending it around through massive cables. As a result, he became very wealthy.
He also had a wife and a kid who he loved very much. Basically, he had the perfect life and as a scientist, he had all the money to toy with stuff. That's how he discoveries the possibility for time travel.
After some successful tests that set his doubts aside, he decides to try it. What does he do? The most cliche thing any time traveler could possibly do of course, go back and kill Hitler.
He does, and of course the world is changed drastically. He goes back to his timeline to see the changes, and although his grandfather hadn't been involved in WW II, he still had a kid who was not the MC's father and he never gets born.
He remains in that time period for a little more, trying to understand how he could still exist, but then decides to go back and stop himself from killing Hitler and revert everything back to normal. He goes back a few minutes before he appeared at the spot last time he jumped, but as he waits, his other self never appears. He is confused for a little while, but then leaves back to the future, and Hitler lives.
Again, the world is drastically different. None of the people alive at that point resemble anyone he knew, not even the world leaders. The only ones he is familiar with are those born before he goes back in time.
He panics, goes back again, trying to understand what has happened. During his quest, he finds out that time itself doesn't really exist and that the universe exists in frames, like those of a movie. But after each frame, a whole set of other frames can follow, each one different from the other but all of them possible within the physical laws of nature. The universe is like tree, starting as a single tree trunk at the moment of the big bang, and then branching out. And the timeline of the universe always follows a single branch, randomly selecting which branch it goes through next.
Because of the vast number of possibilities, the MC finds that each time he had timetraveled, he had reset that timeline, and thus even he hadn't changed a single thing, the universe would still end up vastly different from the one he knew. Certain large constructs like the United States and other nations would still exist, but the people that made up those nations would be an entirely different set from those on his timeline, except those born before the moment he appeared.
Then, the MC spends months trying to perfect the timetraveling technique so he can spawn on his own timeline and be reunited with his loving family. A lot happens in between, but in the end, he achieves something very close. He ends up in a very similar timeline to his own, but since the permutations are almost endless, it's still not exactly the one he knew. For all he knows, everything could be the same, but some molecule on a dust cloud a billion light years away could be a millimeter closer to earth.
Thus, his ownself still exists on that reality. In his desperation, he waits for when his own self is alone in his house, goes in, holds a gun against his head, and the book ends.
But I got stuck trying to explain the mechanics of timetravel itself (because it's impossible) and left it like that.
It was about a scientist in his thirties who had discovered a way to use neutrinos as means of communication. That discovery made the internet much faster and cheaper since you could send information through the earth directly instead of sending it around through massive cables. As a result, he became very wealthy.
He also had a wife and a kid who he loved very much. Basically, he had the perfect life and as a scientist, he had all the money to toy with stuff. That's how he discoveries the possibility for time travel.
After some successful tests that set his doubts aside, he decides to try it. What does he do? The most cliche thing any time traveler could possibly do of course, go back and kill Hitler.
He does, and of course the world is changed drastically. He goes back to his timeline to see the changes, and although his grandfather hadn't been involved in WW II, he still had a kid who was not the MC's father and he never gets born.
He remains in that time period for a little more, trying to understand how he could still exist, but then decides to go back and stop himself from killing Hitler and revert everything back to normal. He goes back a few minutes before he appeared at the spot last time he jumped, but as he waits, his other self never appears. He is confused for a little while, but then leaves back to the future, and Hitler lives.
Again, the world is drastically different. None of the people alive at that point resemble anyone he knew, not even the world leaders. The only ones he is familiar with are those born before he goes back in time.
He panics, goes back again, trying to understand what has happened. During his quest, he finds out that time itself doesn't really exist and that the universe exists in frames, like those of a movie. But after each frame, a whole set of other frames can follow, each one different from the other but all of them possible within the physical laws of nature. The universe is like tree, starting as a single tree trunk at the moment of the big bang, and then branching out. And the timeline of the universe always follows a single branch, randomly selecting which branch it goes through next.
Because of the vast number of possibilities, the MC finds that each time he had timetraveled, he had reset that timeline, and thus even he hadn't changed a single thing, the universe would still end up vastly different from the one he knew. Certain large constructs like the United States and other nations would still exist, but the people that made up those nations would be an entirely different set from those on his timeline, except those born before the moment he appeared.
Then, the MC spends months trying to perfect the timetraveling technique so he can spawn on his own timeline and be reunited with his loving family. A lot happens in between, but in the end, he achieves something very close. He ends up in a very similar timeline to his own, but since the permutations are almost endless, it's still not exactly the one he knew. For all he knows, everything could be the same, but some molecule on a dust cloud a billion light years away could be a millimeter closer to earth.
Thus, his ownself still exists on that reality. In his desperation, he waits for when his own self is alone in his house, goes in, holds a gun against his head, and the book ends.
But I got stuck trying to explain the mechanics of timetravel itself (because it's impossible) and left it like that.
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This thread reminded me to go back to my time travel novel or series of short stories; I haven't decied which. I use the regular method of time travel; i.e., using variable probabilities to access parallel universes with the time dimension in a different direction, which eliminates any hint of contradiction. The main characters may not have wonderful forethought, but they get to redo things when necessary, so the plots are more comedic than tragic.
for more information see:
http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu/handle/10575/1302
http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu/handle/10575/1230
and other material at:
http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu/handle/10575/1060
and
Jeffrey A. Barrett (1999) The Quantum Mechanics of Minds and Worlds; Oxford University Press, Oxford (QC174.12 .B364 1999)
for more information see:
http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu/handle/10575/1302
http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu/handle/10575/1230
and other material at:
http://ucispace.lib.uci.edu/handle/10575/1060
and
Jeffrey A. Barrett (1999) The Quantum Mechanics of Minds and Worlds; Oxford University Press, Oxford (QC174.12 .B364 1999)
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My time travel book came out this week. It's about mathematics, murder, and time. Plus a taste of cocaine.
Mark Moore
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I have a first draft of a story involving time travel that I wrote in 2010. I'm trying to polish it up and self-publish it. It's not very heavily sci-fi, and the time-travel is a small part of the story, although it's (ahem) present in a lot of scenes. It's about a young woman in the 1980s whose father invents a time-dilation device. She wears it like a wrist watch and uses it to "fast-forward" through boring and/or unpleasant events. The main story deals with her romance, her eventual engagement and marriage, her relationships with her female friends, etc.. It's actually very sci-fi-lite. The time dilation is used to allow her to be a slow-aging protagonist that gets to experience many decades in a relatively short amount of time.
I had the concept of time travel as more of a hitchhiking thing through rifts. The book turned out pretty well though it's been a few years since i touched it. (Became little too complex to deal with,)
I'm glad you think it's a good idea!
But damn, for an aspiring writer, I do make a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes.
But damn, for an aspiring writer, I do make a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes.
In answer to your last question, it's because paradoxes get in the way (as you correctly indicate in your paragraph before last).
As to the discrepancy of place, the assumption is that time travel entails a conservation of the space/time continuum, so when you travel back in time, the universe adjusts so you arrive in the same place. That's actually a far less extreme proposition that time travel itself.
You can probably write a time travel many different ways. For me, I made a magic suitcase a time traveler by bringing two young girls into it to travel through time in which they weren't just a different year, but THEY were older! It was really cool because at the end, you discover elements about the suitcase where you understand why it works the way it does.
It was really cool because at the end, you discover elements about the suitcase where you understand why it works the way it does.