Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Time Travel and Cybermats

Hey, people!

November 23rd marks the 48th anniversary of the science fiction series Doctor Who, a show I've loved since I was a little kid. As such, in honor of this occasion, I have two special videos for your enjoyment.

Why am I posting it on the 22nd, then? Well, because of Thanksgiving, I may not be able to get to "That's All I'm Saying" for this week, but I wanted to give you something. Plus I figured the videos are done, so I might as well release them, anyway. Besides, it's probably the 23rd on the other side of the planet. Or something. I don't know, just enjoy.

The first is something I've had on the backburner for a while - my theory of time travel and how I think it can work without paradox.



NOTE: This also is not the same as an alternate timeline, since the individual person's timeline itself is still continuing and happening as the individual remembers it, since that has become a part of the individual's causal past.


And next, people said they wanted to know how I built the cybermat featured in the All-Star Comics #16 review, so here's the tutorial!



In other news, in the next week or so, I'll be making an Odds and Ends post about the schedule of upcoming episodes, the Pollo Redesign Contest, and the return of Lightbringer. ^_^ ‎

90 comments:

gellielfson said...

Nice theory. You should check out a YouTube user named 10thdim if you want to hear another person's ideas.

The Blue And The Gold said...

Speaking of Thanksgiving, while we may not celebrate it down here in Australia, I'd like to wish you, Liz and everyone at Channel Awesome a happy and safe Thanksgiving (and to those who live in countries that don't celebrate it, I still send my thanks to you) and as corny as this is going to read, I'd like to say I'm thankful for TGWTG but mostly I'm thankful for you and Liz, for your countless hours of entertainment and for being an inspiration to me in both my every day life and aspirations (really gotta learn how to make videos of my own, I wonder if TGWTG has anyone showcasing Australian content on a regular basis). Until then, I have my blog, which I will now shamelessly plug (http://randomcollectionsofwords.blogspot.com/) and my goals

I'd also like to wish a happy and safe Thanksgiving to the rest of the ATFW fanbase too, and I'd like to apologize to you Lewis if I've bugged you with any of my stupid questions/long posts

Oh and if you obtain another Cybermat, I suggest the names Bob and Madge (or Pinky and Perky).

Thanks again, for everything!

The Blue And The Gold said...

Oh and yes, it is indeed the 23rd down here in Australia and in my state, just a little after 6:30 am

rick007 said...

Your theory reminds my of the late '80s-early '90s show Quantum Leap. On that show the theory is to think of your life as a piece of string one end is your birth the other your death. Tie the ends together and your life is a loop. Ball the loop and the days of your life touch each other out of sequence thus you can travel from one day of your to the next out of sequence. It's a old world ain't it?

Kevin Holsinger said...

Good afternoon, Linkara.

Ah, time travel...one of my long-time favorite geek conversations.

For the moment, let me throw in where I'm currently at on the subject (this thinking has evolved over...*cough*...time).

If you can travel to a moment in time, then it already exists. If a time traveler could travel to ANY moment in time, then EVERY moment in time already exists. You end up with a similar understanding of time that Doctor Manhattan has, where all events are happening simultaneously. There's no "past", "present", or "future"...merely aspects of the present.

Problem is, if every moment in time already exists, you can't change anything. The very act of time travel is one of the events that exists simultaneously with all the others.

Thus this is one of the reasons I don't currently buy into the idea of changing time, regardless of whether time travel is possible or not.

(I beseech thee, oh Internet gods, to not screw with the publication of this post)

Kaibaman41 said...

My God a Time Travel Subject The Irony! I'll get why in a minute. I actually have a theory with time travel is based on what we individually do. Like helping a person out in our current timeline whether it be a average person or your employer, we then make an alternate universe where we may have never helped that person and the like.

Also the Tutorial is pretty interesting looks like a little bit more work then the Dragon Dagger but still informative.

Now to bring up what I said in Paragraph One....THEIRS A BOOSTER GOLD SERIES IN THE WORKS! http://www.comingsoon.net/news/tvnews.php?id=84566

Anonymous said...

So what would happen if that person, who travelled back in time, then travelled forwards in time to the point they left? If they did kill their own Grandfather presumably they wouldn’t disappear in this theory but what would happen to all the other threads that are connected to theirs?

Scientifically there’s nothing that stops time travel being possible. In fact because time moves slower around lager objects, due to gravity, and because it slows down at really high speeds it is feasible to assume we could travel to the future. We see the past when we look at stars so in theory we can travel back in time too.

I know this is a bit of topic but I’ve always thought stories that say, “We can’t change the past,” but then go on to change the future aren’t really thinking about time travel properly or are just ignoring facts. After all the present will be the past in the future. Therefore, if you see the future and change it, it’s no different than changing the past.

One theory says something along the lines of ‘if you travel in time then you can’t course a paradox because you’ve always travailed in time.’ Basically meaning that it’s impossible to kill your own Grandfather because, before you’ve gone back in time, your Grandfather already remembers meeting you in his past and you NOT killing him. Personally I’ve never liked that theory as it would mean a time traveller had no free will because before he’s set off what he will do is already set in stone.

Sorry I’ve rambled enough. I’ll finish by saying I enjoyed both videos and quoting Douglas Adams-

“Concentrate,” hissed Zaphod, “on his name.”
“What is it?” asked Arthur.
“Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth.”
“What?”
“Zaphod Beeblebrox the Fourth. Concentrate!”
“The Fourth?”
“Yeah. Listen, I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox, my father was Zaphod Beeblebrox the Second, my grandfather Zaphod Beeblebrox the Third...”
“What?”
“There was an accident with a contraceptive and a time machine. Now concentrate!”

P.S. I don’t know what time it is were you are but your normal reviews come out at 10:00pm in Englang, where I live, so it’s still the 22nd but who cares? After all ‘it’s always now everywhere no matter where or when you are.’

Endless said...

I've though about time travel before, and I have developed my own idea about how it could work:
-First thing to consider is that time, the way that humans perceive, it doesn't exist. For example, the hands on a clock don't actually tell time. They tell physical causality. A gear applying force on another gear, an electrical signal affecting a chip, etc.
-Second me might not have "time" but we states. Matter and energy are constantly changing and affecting other things.For example, water can change from gas to liquid to solid and back.

So what if you could reverse the state of anything and everything in the universe at the same time?

Let say you want to see what the earth was like 200 million years ago. What if a machine could change the location and state of everything(the matter, energy, anti-matter, etc.) in the universe? Wouldn't that be a form of time travel?

Anonymous said...

I think the word you were looking for is diamater as radius is the circle centre to the edge diamater is from edge to edge and I think circumference is the distance all the way around

Anonymous said...

Funnily enough, your theory for time travel is similar to mine. You've thought it out much more than I ever bothered to but the we share the idea that time is made up of multiple lines. It was a very interesting video.

The cybermat video was good too. I might try to build one for myself based off of yours.

Hope you have a good Thanksgiving.

Inquisitor D. said...

Well, I'm... not entirely sure on the Yarnball theory, but it's a little late for me, and my mind's kinda fried. So I'll try and explain my personal take on the idea instead, which I think might be similar, but I'm not entirely sure. But hey, I think it's pretty simplistic (good or bad as that may be)

Meta-Time!

Basically, time for a time traveller works on an alternate timeline, related either personally to them, or to time travellers as a whole. They're bound by cause and effect within that timeline, starting once they first moved in time, but relative to everything else, they can go nuts (and not messing in their own past personal timeline is... debatable)

Using the classic analogy, the man who shot his grandfather now lives in a world where he never existed before, because he shot his grandfather, but he still exists now. Because that change is one he wrought whilst standing outside of time in the first place. Why should he be bound by it's traditional rules? He's now a temporal orphan, true, but that doesn't mean he should no longer exist. He doesn't have a place in history, but he's already moved beyond history.

Let's take the Doctor Who image of the Time Vortex. Regular people are constantly being spun through this vortex, and each leaves behind them a line.

Time travellers can jump from point to point within it. They can reach different points in the line, affect different eras, because they've gotten beyond the vortex. Their own timeline is independent of traditional time, which exists at the edge of the vortex. But time still passes for them, because they haven't escaped it. Instead of one line, they have many shorter ones.

Not sure if that makes more sense, or less, but it's how I like to look at it :)

Capt. Sake "Hancock" Mangusto said...

Logic dictates that each time line as a whole can't connect or cross paths with each other without creating a different new timeline where two similar self share the existence in the same new universe.

Everytime you go back in time you create an alternate timeline where there is two of you co-existing in the same timeline but that doesn't mean your own time line had been changed or erased, you are just directly interfering with the timeline that exists in a parallel universe where now there is two Lewis Lovhaugs sharing the same niche of space and time, the original parallel timeline of Linkara Host-version is also preserved and not affected because that's where Linkara Guest-version arrives is a new one created by his presence therefore you can messed around with guaranteed of non-consequences for both original timelines whatsoever.

You can't change the past because it already happened, you also can't change the future because once you see it it also already happened, the only precious moment you have that really matters is your present.

Everytime you visit the past or the future you create a new reality where you exists there but as principle you never existed as you are now in the past of your own timeline, that's impossible because again the past can't be changed, only the present can be changed.

And if we start to talk about visiting the future, the future you visit only exists and is the way you find it because between leave the present and reach the future yourself cease to exist and reappears in the present-future creating a hole in the precedent present-past where there is no Lewis Lovhaug anymore until you get into your destination.

Based on this theory the Back to the Future movie series is absolutely nonsensical, a great adventure and fantasy plot but far far away from any serious science fiction logic if you start to follow real scientific speculation, changing the past or trying to prevent events that will happen in the future is pure fantasy.

Whatever happened in the past, whatever will happen in the future can't be changed or prevented because had already happened and is happening already simultaneous through the multiverse, if can happen then it's already happening and if happened in the past then the event can't be change, you can only add yourself in the scene at your own risk by creating a whole new timeline.

In small terms :

-YOU CAN'T CHANGE THE PAST;
-YOU CAN'T STOP THE FUTURE;
-YOU CAN ONLY OWN THE PRESENT, NOW!

Can you time travel back and forward in time ? Probably not you but someone of your other selves can, will and already did it even before you start to wonder about.

Is he happier than you ? Probably not because once you start to travel you can't never come back to same moment you departure because of the conservation of energy in the universe, you can add something in the past or in the future without subtracting something in the present and that means you, your companions and your time machine unless of course, again, you enters another parallel timeline where your other self didn't come back yet. Therefore once you start travel the only home you may go back is the one where you vanish from the face of the Earth for the same period of time you remained away.

Maybe the Time Lords had find a way around the glitches but we didn't see it anyone coming to this universe yet.

Class dismissed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVNNhBtBbOs

*Sake Mangusto a.k.a. Arizona Schmidt a.k.a. Minnesota Flying Dutchman a.k.a. Rio de Janeiro Solo, part time theoretical physics professor part time time and relative dimensions in space explorer and copy right stretcher of the law thanks to quantum mechanics.

Soundout said...

"Time are people's memories" - Owner from Kamen Rider Den-o

Time Travel is a confusing thing but I think the quote above explains it best.

Cferra said...

Re: Time Travel. Somewhere Captain Janeway's head has started hurting. Great explanation of time travel. It's an almost Dooc Brown quality even though we're talking about Dr. Who.

Curious. Does this apply to what we know about time travel in Star Trek?

As for the cybermat, that is really, really neat. I remember your dragon dagger tutorial well. You're a lot more handier with tools than I am. I have to salute you on that and the little droid.

LucasChad said...

Some time ago, I saw two big screen Doctor Who movies with Peter Cushing in the title role. The two movies were Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966). The way Cushing portrayed the Doctor in those movies are radically different than the TV series.

In the TV series, the Doctor was an intelligent alien, but Cushing played the character as some sort of bumbling but level-minded old human doctor. He's sort of like a British Doc Brown. I don't know if it's kinda offensive to hardcore DW fans, but I thought Cushing does his usual best especially when he furthers himself from his more successful Hammer horror roles.

Of course let's not forget the film's title villains. When these films came out in Britain, it made the Daleks more popular than the show with a line of toys, games, and other merchandise. The Daleks are the most interesting characters and I'm sure any DW-fan can agree how awesome they are.

I admit I'm not a big Doctor Who fan, but I watched these movies because Peter Cushing was in them. I don't know if you ever heard of those movies, but I would love your honest opinion about them.

rutana said...

You actually posted the video shortly after midnight in europe, so for Dr Who coming from Great Britain, you picked just the correct time ;D

Anyway, interesting videos. I mainly have the same opinions on Timetraveling, allthough I like to go more to phylosophical questions here. Like... if we're destined to travel back in time, could it be, that our own past allready was altered by our future self traveling back in time?
I have to admit though, I haven't seen Dr Who yet (just happend to zap into one, very funny episode though, but didn't even knew it was a series XD), I'm planning to, but I'm still unsure where to start - with the clasic seasons or the newer seasons?
Anyway, my thoughts of Timetravel are not bound to Dr Who, that's all I wanted to say ^^

I'm looking forwad to the results of the Pollo Contest ^.^

Kreachure said...

Hi, your time travel theory is very interesting. I've been playing around with it for a bit, and so far I've found it's very solid. Perhaps I've been analyzing your theory more than even you yourself have, maybe because I do think it's a theory worth looking into; so I hope you get the time to develop it further at some later date. Have you, for example, thought about how time travel to the future would work? Would you be able to find yourself, or not? Just a thought. Anyways, keep up the good work!

Kreachure said...

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I'm familiar with many time travel stories from literature and other media, and I haven't heard of one with time travel that works like your theory (since those which sound alike simply create alternate universes, and yours clearly doesn't). As I said, worth exploring. ^.^;

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"I admit I'm not a big Doctor Who fan, but I watched these movies because Peter Cushing was in them. I don't know if you ever heard of those movies, but I would love your honest opinion about them."

I've never watched them, but I know all about them. Frankly I have zero interest in them considering the details they changed (hey, let's make the Doctor a human scientist actually NAMED Doctor Who that not only invented time travel and space travel, but dimensional transcendental walls!).

Anonymous said...

When I was younger I was obsessed with time travel. Thanks mostly to Back to the Future I used to always create stories of my future self coming into the past to make sure things do not disrupt my life. My theory of time travel is just like the one shown in Frequency, if effect precedes cause than everything is going to change. As I got older I got more into the alternate reality theories because it doesn't raise as many questions as time travel. Besides since it was clear the future I imagined wasn't quite the future I actually had I felt I had to explain what happened in those stories, and alternate realities worked (you're not the only one who can create story lines). If you create an alternate time line, as you stated, it means that the other one may still exist you are just not experiencing it unless you can go back to where it started and snip it out of existence. As you may guess, Back to the Future 2 was my favorite movie ever and that was the plot basically. Not sure if I am making sense so I will stop, let me end by saying Happy Thanksgiving!

Anonymous said...

Time Travel: That sounds reasonable enough to explain what the Doctor was trying to get at.

The How To vid: entirely how I thought you did it, but interesting enough.

Other: I've seen the Cushing movies, though not recently, and for what they are (an alternate take on the Doctor and such) ... Eh... They're not bad, it's just that the detail changes may wrinkle your nose a bit.

Fiery Little One

LucasChad said...

"I've never watched them, but I know all about them. Frankly I have zero interest in them considering the details they changed (hey, let's make the Doctor a human scientist actually NAMED Doctor Who that not only invented time travel and space travel, but dimensional transcendental walls!)."

That's okay. I'm only recommending these movies for the hardcore Peter Cushing fans and for those that are following his filmography. They may not be horror material, but are still worthwhile. Between the Hammer horror films and the original Star Wars, it's good to know he's one of those actors that are still loved long after they're gone.

The Offender said...

Time travel is a bitch. Ask Jonah Hex about it some time. Personally I think Douglas Adams was right about time travel and paradoxes, "If the universe came to an end every time something didn't make perfect since, it would not of gotten very far."

Drowin said...

Well Linkara, I can honestly say you aren't the first to think of this theory as my mates and myself basically worked a similar theory of time-travel for our BESM game in high school. However, I'm glad that you thought this one out yourself and came to your own conclusion on the matter and it was fun and enlightening to listen to your thought process.
Waiting patiently to see how this will inevitably play into the upcoming plot-line. :)

Adaminator1 said...

My own theory is that time travel would actually have the time traveler creating an alternate universe-- an alternate timeline, allowing him to affect it without affecting his future self, completely paradox free.

Now of course, in the case of the grandfather paradox, he wouldn't be born, yes, but that doesn't mean the original timeline he came from is affected, so he'd still *be* there.

tehwaffleman said...

Isn't your theory just a over-analogized version of the multiverse-time theory, where in every minute-action creates a new timeline/universe. The best example of it I can give is Terminator. Though Terminator doesn't have forward time travel, that's limitations of the in-universe technology, not the actual explanation as it would be the same with forward time travel. Here is a link http://carlgoldenberg.com/files/terminator_timeline_beta.jpg

Capt. Sake "Hancock" Mangusto said...

Plain and Simple :

- You can go wherever you want but will be always the present of your actual self timeline;

- You can't alter or affect your own self past and barely influence your own future selves - because in the realm of probability there is more than one.

- Time Travel only gives you a headache if you indulge your self to go in the realm of fantasy where magical logic rules, closer to that place where bad written books burn - no surprise if that guy with the magic gun looks so angry most of time;

Nice videos, nonsensical yarn ball theory. Get a TARDIS, bye !

Bazookoidben said...

Oh hurrah. This was a double wammy of fun! And happy Doctor Who day and Thanksgiving Lewis.

I actually enjoyed the cybermat tutorial a lot since I have been wanting to make one ever since I saw Tomb of the Cybermen.

I enjoyed the tutorial, and I'll share a bit of advice with you from one prop builder to another. Never under estimate paper mache. No really. It's awesome stuff when you know how to do it just right. If your not that great at shaping poster board I recommend paper mache, or a slight variant that you can get premade at most craft shops called decopage. It's darn usefull stuff and can be easily shaped. and sanded down to give quite a study build without requiring primer, that's if you willing to put in the time of applying it, waiting for it to dry, sanding it, and then painting it. It's a trade off, sometimes its worth it though, your call really when making something.

But hey, by the looks of it, you know what your doing with all the stuff you've made over time. Still, hope to be seeing the cybermat soon, he's a great little critter. I suppose lights wouldn't be too much hassle if you got a small set of those mini Christmas tree lights, using the hollow of the tail to store the batteries they could be easily wired around the body, and with different settings you get, hey, all the more fun. Who knows, perhaps you have something better in mind. I'll stop throwing advice at someone who's clearly more talented at it than me. ^-^'

Wibbly wobbly warney...warney? It could work. The thing is until we actually properly understand time I don't think we will be actually understanding the nature of time travel fully. Thing is, time itself is a man made construct, and even that it's just a measuring system. Still that won't stop me wanting a TARDIS.

Anyway, from one Whovain to another, Happy Doctor Who Day, Happy Thanksgiving and happy....cybermat building!

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"Isn't your theory just a over-analogized version of the multiverse-time theory, where in every minute-action creates a new timeline/universe. The best example of it I can give is Terminator. Though Terminator doesn't have forward time travel, that's limitations of the in-universe technology, not the actual explanation as it would be the same with forward time travel."

Except as I keep saying - it's NOT creating an alternate timeline or an alternate universe. The same one is still going on, it's just the events all happened in the causal past of the time traveler. Everything still happened, only now the threads of that timeline are tied into the one person who went back in time and then split up again as they make changes since they're in a new location, like threads in a yarn weave splitting off. It's still the same universe, the same timeline, only now multiple events transpire within that timeline linked to one person.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"But hey, by the looks of it, you know what your doing with all the stuff you've made over time. Still, hope to be seeing the cybermat soon, he's a great little critter. I suppose lights wouldn't be too much hassle if you got a small set of those mini Christmas tree lights, using the hollow of the tail to store the batteries they could be easily wired around the body, and with different settings you get, hey, all the more fun. Who knows, perhaps you have something better in mind. I'll stop throwing advice at someone who's clearly more talented at it than me. ^-^'"

I did buy some tiny lights that MIGHT work, but there are some problems with the idea. While storing the batteries in the tale might work in theory, I'm worried about the weight balance - suddenly the tail is a lot heavier and the front may not be able to hold it. Also, replacing the batteries for the lights might be a bit of a hassle. In addition, I couldn't find any tiny Christmas tree lights that were just red. ^^;

Calvin said...

Okay, the Time-Travelling-Thingie is pretty understandable and visual. It is a bit like the Star Trek XI Reboot-Idea, that all that we saw during the Years of watching Classic, TNG, DS09, Voyager and Enterprise actually did happen, and now, hence Nero travelled back in time, killed Kirks dad etc. there is another timeline, a parallel universe so to speak.

That is something, that I can understand. And what can happen, when someone interfers in the time directly, can be seen in the 9th Doctors run, in the episode "father's day".

To the Cybermat, I can only sincerely say "WOW" - that is a hell of work, that you have been doing and it looks extremely well.
Plus I noticed the dark lantern ring in the background and the TNG-Phaser-Rifle, that obviously can be put together etc.

So, those were quite entertaining videos - thank you very much.

Greets

Cal

KnightlyElf said...

I like your theory of Time Travel.

I recently saw on the 2nd part of NOVA's The Fabric of the Cosmos, "The Illusion of Time" that every person has their own sense of time, and time doesn't flow identically people. In fact, even being up in a plane decreases the flow of time minutely.

Just thought that was interesting.

Link to the NOVA program:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/fabric-of-cosmos.html

Anonymous said...

When is the new Odds and Ends coming?

Volvagia said...

Good videos. On another, unrelated, note: Will the rest of the comics you text-recapped be covered next year? Discounting the "Smoke and Mirrors" reviews, that's four videos (Badrock, Miller Time for ASBAR 5+6, Isaac Asimov’s iBots and, your very first text review, Thunderstrike). That may be a bit much, and you might only get to one or two those, but I think it'd be great if you just cleared those off your plate.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"When is the new Odds and Ends coming?"

When it's done. Why is that concept so difficult for some people?

"Good videos. On another, unrelated, note: Will the rest of the comics you text-recapped be covered next year? Discounting the "Smoke and Mirrors" reviews, that's four videos (Badrock, Miller Time for ASBAR 5+6, Isaac Asimov’s iBots and, your very first text review, Thunderstrike). That may be a bit much, and you might only get to one or two those, but I think it'd be great if you just cleared those off your plate."

Actually, Youngblood #1 is my first text review and I already made it a video. XD

I usually keep the text reviews as a backup in case I know I'll have enough time to record a new episode, but not necessary enough time to write it. In this case, I'll get to them eventually (including ASBAR), but they're not the highest priority, since the remaining ones aren't exactly the most exciting for me, IMHO.

Thunderstrike I always go back and forth on since I got some flack from people since they actually didn't like my review. XD

Calvin said...

Heya, I don`t want to appear as someone who knows it better, but I might have a tip for you.
Like I said, I stumbled across a Stargate-Comic and found it quite entertaining. It could be something for your review.

It is called "Stargate - Doomsday World" - book one of three.
Written by Raff Ienco, John Migliore and painted by said Raff Ienco.
It was published by Entity comics in November 1996 - but - whenever you can get a hold of this comic, you can buy it. It is recommended by me (okay, that doesn`t have to say anything at all), but like I said, it is quite good. It is Pre-SG1, because in 1996, they probably didn`t even plan on making SG-1.

Greets

Cal

Anonymous said...

Not sure if you read this. I posted this some months ago. It's an explanation on how Timeranger's (the show Power Rangers Time Force is based off) mechanics of time travel work:
http://superherotime.tumblr.com/post/5474793338/note002

The explanation given in that show seems to be similar to your explanation here. Time flows as a web of strings and can be altered. However, as long as there isn't somewhere to see that "Time has changed" people don't notice it.

Capt. Sake "Hancock" Mangusto said...

Some non-useless insight and short comments for a change :

- Re-design, Re-dimension and Re-done the Cybermat shell from inside, made it most closely you can to a pyramid with the top cut off. Closer you get to keep all engine inside in this shape most balanced your bot will be and just in case add a light stick to distribute just a little more weight enough along for the engine in front don't made the whole thing flip off.

I don't know if this helps or not and if don't please don't take the next suggestion as an insult, i think this link maybe can help a lot with the batteries plus wires plus engine plus lights plus cybermat body problem.

Maybe this helps better than any idea i may have and try to explain through my "working in progress" english.

http://www.societyofrobots.com/mechanics_chassisconstruction.shtml

Enjoy.

marconius666 said...

First of all, let me just say I have my own ideas on how time travel could work, but it's nothing like this or Doctor Who or pretty much any sci-fi I'm familiar with; I'm not gonna go into this because a) there's points that are still unclear in my head and b) it'd take a long time and isn't really on topic.

That being said, I think the idea presented here is very interesting... so interesting in fact, that it might be close to, well, reality.

I never liked the idea that people are, for some reason, treated as special in terms of time travel or say, alternate timelines. Why are humans more special in this than, say, rats? Rats aren't nearly as complex in mind, yes, but they still make choices; clearly a time traveler would change not only the fate of people, but of plants and animals as well; for that matter, why are living things treated as special? Would sending a non-living, non-sentient object back in time not also change the course of history? You don't need to travel back in time to kill Hitler, all you need to do is make a brick suddenly pop up above his head. Plus there's no reason why time-travel couldn't occur naturally, it doesn't have to be man-made.

With that in mind, I think we can apply the above "yarn" theory... but instead think of every single particle having its own little timeline. Which, considering that we know time is relative (slows down near gravity wells, for example), actually makes a lot of sense. Time doesn't pass at the same rate for everyone and everything, so you actually -can't- assume a single timeline, because it would break apart, like heating up a inhomogeneous strip of metal.

So I think if we have this perception, rather than one based on people for no real good reason, we'd actually have a very objective view of how time could work.

As for paradoxes, I never understood why those would ever occur. If you travel back in time and kill your own grandfather, you'd create a new timeline where you're never born, yes, but why would that make you at the time of the killing not exist? Back to the Future had that thing where Marty started fading out of existence and... well, there's no reason why that should happen now, is there? There's no evidence I'm aware of that suggests that particles interact in time BACKWARDS, so clearly something that happens (or doesn't happen) in the future can't affect particles in the present, so there's no reason you'd fade out of existence, no matter how many relatives you murder.

Ratin8tor said...

Yeah you've probably already heard this theory, and no doubt this probably doesn't make too much sense, but I have a view of time and space similair to yours, but different (and that sentence too doesn't make sense).

Imagine the smallest possible unit of time. The thing that takes us from now to then. The smallest of the small. Now from that snapshot of time imagine every single possiblity. And I mean all of them. Every single possible thing, from you starting to sneeze to suddenly becoming cars (and have always been cars). Imagine threads come off that picture and join to the picture that corrosponds with them.

Make sense? Well imagine that for every single thing that has happened or could ever happen. So I view time not as something that moves, but as a bunch of pictures pasted one after another like in a film strip of a scrapbook. A film strip has a bunch of pictures put together that we think of as moving images when they don't.

Now following on from that (and to probably bore everyone further) I argue that time travel exists when we take in the possiblity of the multi-verse theory. If we assume that it exists, then we must assume that there are universes where we own a time machine (since we don't currently own a time machine here).

Now upon the theory that every choice creates a new universe, we choose to go to different points in time (say 1488 or 1489). So a version of us goes to each. Again we also go to different parts of space, and we bring different items with us. Every time we choose not to do something, we at the same time choose that we do.

So soon the multi-verse is filled with yous that have been to every point in space/time and brought everything with them. Likewise every other person, alien or inamite object has also been to these points. So to cut a very long comment short, everything exists everywhere and everywhen.

So I argue that if there a finite amount of parrallel universes (since there are only a finite amount of choices), then they must by definition fit within a infinite universe. Thus I call it the multi-universe.

So travelling through time is impossible. However travelling across through parrallel universes to the moment where you happen to be in the past is perfectly fine, if a bit difficult.

Yes I know your posing a completely different (and probably much more sensible) theory, I just love to discuss my insane theory with people for the sole purpose that I like it and I find it a laugh.

Still, I really enjoyed the vid, it's nice to see other people's perspectives on time travel.

Anonymous said...

Just finished watching the new version of The Electric Tale of Pikachu. But where exactly is the new effect shot that took so long? I couldn't find it anywhere?

Also, was it a coinsendence that Planet of the Symbiotes had a similar outcome to the Entity's and you worked it into the storyline as if it was on purpose.

TRICORDER!!!

Unknown said...

I wonder how many peoples' heads I could make explode if I started talking about my pet theory of the omniverse, where a perceived "universe" is just an n dimensional temporal-spatial subspace of the infinitely dimensional omniversal superspace and t is purely temporal instead of spatial only by the accident of our perceptions. This gets especially fun to talk about when I mention that t could very easily be a multidimensional spatial construct instead of what our chrono-linear perceptions foist upon us.
I won't mention that all the spaces involved are likely infinitely sized non-euclidean ones...

Andrew said...

I like the theory. It reminds me of those event lines that xkcd did of the Lord of the Rings movies, following every character as they entered and exited the movie and events that influenced them. It also brings to mind Socrates' Theaetetus and his treatment of Heraclitus's idea that "you cannot step in the same river twice".

Heraclitus's theory of flux is a world in constant motion and change, which Socrates partially disproves with what Aristotle would later define as the Law of Non-Contradiction: That is, if everything in the universe is in flux then logical deduction cannot occur because everything is different from one moment to the next. Yet it can, therefore we have a contradiction.

However, your explanation of time travel suggests a kind of flux exists as Heraclitus might define it, at least as time travel is concerned: We're not different people from moment to moment, but there is a continuous motion to our personal timelines, that once you "step in" one causes it to be different when you re-enter the timeline at a later date post your interaction with the past.

tl;dr, your explanation of time travel raises a lot of interesting philosophical ideas that might be great for story telling purposes.

Seth said...

There are two theories of time in philosophy.

Theory A: Time is tensed, the past is gone and future is potentiality.

Theory B: Time is untensed. The past and future exist, the sense of movement in time is illusory.

You have to go with Theory B to have time travel.

Philosopher talks on the two theories (worked on time philosophy for 13 years):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNLKcq6JjYk

He says the best movie on time travel is Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure because they can talk about "we are going to set the key in this pot" and then they find the key. Since time isn't tensed it all happens at once.

The problem in your view is still what happens when you change things. Everyone effected gets their lines buried if the change would effect them. So do their actions start over in new versions of themselves?

It would make a vertical dimension of time with cause of effect being buried in previous timelines.

Are the previous events accessible or are they erased. If they accessible you get multiple worlds. If they are erased you get a past that is gone and a future that is potentiality, meaning you don't get complete time travel because if your timeline is buried you can't reach events in your past.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"Just finished watching the new version of The Electric Tale of Pikachu. But where exactly is the new effect shot that took so long? I couldn't find it anywhere?"

Look to the part where Linkara is talking about the "kingdom of the never-should."

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"It would make a vertical dimension of time with cause of effect being buried in previous timelines.

Are the previous events accessible or are they erased. If they accessible you get multiple worlds. If they are erased you get a past that is gone and a future that is potentiality, meaning you don't get complete time travel because if your timeline is buried you can't reach events in your past. "

Again, the line is curing back and not traveling back along the line - all those things for other people still happened, but they are now linked to the person who traveled back. When the line alters something,l all those things still happened, because they came from a world and a time that existed for that timeline's causal past. Only now the lines are veering off into a new direction because the world is changed. Again, it all still happened, but they won't go along the same way they did before and the threads will split off.

Not a different universe, not parallel timelines - still the same timeline, just going in a different direction after the curve.

Cory of PRIVATE Corp said...

OK, I know I haven't watch the videos yet, but I do want to comment that this yes I'm a day late but you uploaded this on my birthday. Strangest gift ever and I didn't think of checking out your blog.

Yeah, yeah it's completely unintentional but it's still cool to know some small things. Again I should watch the videos but it's neat to know some things that I don't know about, even when the next day is an anniversary for a long-running British series. Well, here's to you and to the Doctor! May you and he continue to provide us with excellent entertainment and high-quality story-telling.

opalangel7 said...

Also, at least in the Doctor Who universe, I think there's a tree thing involved for each companion. This might sound a little messed up, but here we go:

Wait, scratch that. I put my original review in Microsoft Word and it was just over a page long. So, to save space, I'll just put it up on my blog that I usually use for Plot Bunnies. After all, this theory is kind of a plot bunny... right?

For my full ramble go here: http://opalangel7.blogspot.com/2011/11/plot-bunny-6-doctor-who.html

Ahem... It's probably a good thing I didn't post that all here. It's pretty long.

Seth said...

"Not a different universe, not parallel timelines - still the same timeline, just going in a different direction after the curve."

Right, the problem is what does a second time traveler see?

If I travel back to 1980 and change something, the previous world still happened in my timeline and loops with me. If you now travel to 1985, which version do you see?

If I'm time traveling how do I choose between two layers of the same colored line when they are on the same year?

If I can choose between them, I'm calibrating around individuals and it would functionally work like parallel timelines that start and stop as things travel through time. So there wouldn't be only one 1985 destination but more then one 1985.

If I only can access the top most layer, then I can't time travel to all events that happened in the past.

And your line model makes it look like you transfer your mind to your previous self. Because if you travel bodily you end up with a second copy of the red line since there are now two physical copies of yourself. Similar to how the movie Primer worked with recursive timelines.

Capt. Sake "Hancock" Mangusto said...

Not a different universe, not parallel timelines - still the same timeline, just going in a different direction after the curve .

Lewis, on most of 50% of the multiverse you and your parallel selves made the other 50% face palm immediately and made that extra %1 blup into non-existence in shame.

Okay let think for a moment that it is possible time travel back and forth in your own time line without affecting yourself (the travelller) or your future present selves (at least if you don't interact with them directly), and yes you can but according to Doctor Emmett Lathrop "Doc" Brown you can only do this because, as discovered later, the flux capacitor generates a Clayton-Lathrop Convergency Bubble that may be burst at any moment thanks to the time travelers lack of care when dealing with life, the universe and everything else - like when Marty meet his parents and the paradox start to work it's tools on his family.

There is no evidence if any other sort of time travel device work out this effect or if this an exclusive flux capacitor's capability so go ahead and mess up your own history if you don't care the consequences, just don't forget to pay Doc for the royalties, in euros please, american currency is useless in the future.

That's what you get when you prevent England purchase of Louisiana from France, thanks Linkara for that, you delay North American technological development for at least a hundred years.

Anonymous said...

Not a bad theory of time travel, though I have a few general nitpicks. First, using the term "timeline" implies a linear progression. In reality, assuming my basic understanding of quantum mechanics is correct, particles are in all possible states at once, and it's only our application of cause and effect that results in a linear chain of events. Our brains are hardwired for cause and effect, which certainly works for us, but it's a bit limited - any number of "causes" could have resulted in this particle being in this current state at this current time, and any number of "effects" could come from it. It's easiest just to collapse that all into a single timeline, but in my opinion, it oversimplifies things.

Also, another thing that I don't see brought up very often. Your body is constantly regenerating - cells die, and in order to replace them, you need to eat and drink to provide the raw materials for cells to grow back. I believe I read somewhere that your body, or at least your skin, completely replaces itself every 7 years or so [citation needed], which means that, if you went 20 years in the past or so, your body would either vanish due to the particles being used in other things (plants, animals, etc), or your body would "overwrite" those particles. Not a big deal with a significant amount of time elapsed (some plants and animals would lose a few atoms here or there), but what if you only went back, say, a month? Either your past counterpart would vanish entirely, or they would lose a large amount of their bodies (skin, bones, brain and other tissues) and almost certainly die gruesomely and immediately, which would have a whole host of problems on its own.

Anonymous said...

1. Blah blah - greek/tapestry/blah blah.

2. Re: Grandfather Paradox - the idea of time "as a steam"/curving back on itself is, of course, not a new one. While you can kill a new timeline's verison of your grandfather, you can never kill YOUR grandfather, thus it's not a paradox. If you're marvel, this (usually) creates a new timeline, with the original timeline either being 616, or a new reality, and 616 becoming the altered one (no rhyme or reason which, other than the editors don't want terrible things to happen). If you're Dr. Who, this does not happen - the "original" timeline is destroyed... erh, "never existed"...

The PROBLEM with this, of course, is that writers in Doctor Who never got their metaphysics set, and thus watching Dr. Who time travel is pretty much like watching S1 of Voyager's time travel... all over the place. A better explanation is to say it's Back to the Future timetravel - "whatever the script requires" timetravel. When forced to explain it, the writers say "oh, you're not looking at it the right way".

Anonymous said...

3. The idea that we are looking at time in a subjective way is, of course, necessarily true - but it is true of everything. Also, we cannot prove cause and effect (just because the future has always been like the past doesn't mean it will continue to do so. To know this you would need to know what you are trying to prove. Read your Hume/blah blah). However, our assumptions of (something like) causal determinism commit us to the notion that there is a special temporal relationship that the past causes the future. Otherwise, temporal paradoxes might occur.

Bringing us back to grandpa - you must be commited to the past "having happened in some sense" if you are able to kill "your" grandpa, as otherwise you wouldn't exist to do the killing. However, if it is possible you can then, presumably, live out life in the new timeline... no BTTF fading away or junk like that.

Suppose, though, that you went back in time and just kicked your grandfather. Marvel (FF recently) has introduced the idea that small changes in the timeline do not diverge the timeline. What constitutes a "small effect" is inconsistent, as arguably the early F4 adventures happened in 616, since they keep traveling back to it every 5 years or so homage-style (see Hulked Out Heroes Deadpool story...).

The problem is that if you kick your grandfatherm, he has a different history and his grandson, although seemingly identicle, has a different history as well. There are, thus, 2 of you... as much so as if you had killed your grandpa after you father was born. Do this enough and you get Marvel Kang-madness... where you've crossed your own timeline and altered the past SO MUCH that there are multiple temporal copies of you.

Doctor Who cannot have this.

In all likelihood, then, "Time" in Doctor Who is sentinent in some sense (in the sense that the editor decides what's what), and when the Doctor changes the past - HIS PAST - he changes his past PERIOD. If you do this too close to home, you get rose's-father-style nonsense. If you do it stepping-on-a-butterfly way, the audience - standing OUTSIDE of OUTSIDE of time... yeah... doesn't notice it.

Long story short - time travel in Doctor Who doesn't work. It's science fantasy. It's click your heels 3 times and say the doctor's name and everything will be all right fantasy. Which is fine.

A serious show can't get away with saying time is a ball. It can get away with multiple timelines/destroyed timelines/etc.

4. Finally, let me just say this - your account of strings seems far too person-centric. You need to make a "time string" for every molecule/etc. Humans have memories, fine, and atoms do not. But the atom at the base of your hair has as much of a history as any other atom, and probably more than yours.

Scale is such a tough thing in scifi - but you can imagine a single atom in a universe where nothing happens from t1 to tn, and that - sir - has a history. To fall back on itself, to "tangle" with other strands/etc... unweaves history. It turns history from a nice, beautiful tapestry into a mess - even if you could work around the temporal paradoxes this would cause. And Occam's razor seems to apply here.

Time is, in fact, like a road. But when you come to a loop in the road and start erasing the yellow line in the road, when you loop around again the line is gone.

Individuals have what you might want to call a "personal timeline", and when you go back and kill yourself as a little kid... well - something is gonna happen. But if you're writing science fiction and you say "A happens", then you darned well better stick to that next time around. Otherwise the future is not like the past, and you've given up causation.

Anonymous said...

hope you have a happy thanksgiving day!

Dodge This said...

A ball of yarn. For the great sky kitten to play with.

Dodge This said...

Reads this while knitting...huh
Pokes yarn ball.

BooRat said...

My beliefs on time travel aren't far from your's in that for me to believe in the concept I must also believe in alternate realities. In that there are an infanet number of alternate worlds! A new reality born from every possible chance of change whether it's a world that's only different because you chose Chicken for dinner instead of Beef or whether a single cell divided or not!
Which is basically what you kind of described here! So going back and changing things would only create another new universe(actually several) and you'd be going back the the time you started at but in this case back to the time you were in the new world! Confused!? Yet?

As for the robot the guys in the pic didn't use clay to me it looks like but something like fiberglass or plaster!
I think if you wanted the toy car to fit better I'd say take some of the plastic of it! as long as you don't harm the mechanism in it it shouldn't ham the predominance! I'd just say get a cheap-o one from a dollar store instead with a radio controlled set up!
Will you still be getting the real world toy version from the online store!?
Thanks for the videos!
Happy Thanksgiving, Maaaaaan!!!

BooRat said...

As for real world time travel from what Steven Hawkins said on his Discovery Channel special time is effected by gravity and time only moves forward never backwards so we can travel to the future but never back and the easiest way to do so is to go into space and travel around the moon at the speed of light and when you return to Earth more time will have passed on Earth than what did inside the space shuttle, but not by very much but if done in a longer term a substantial amount of time will pass to be very noticeable! like 10 years to you will be like 30 years on Earth!

Capt. Sake "Hancock" Mangusto said...

Okay younger amateur time traveler most recent version of Lewis Lovhaug please stand for your preposterous theory of time and explain this to me :

*why the Doctor never go to the same period of time twice ?

*why the Doctor never stumble upon himself in any shape, sense or form ?

*why he never take his companions back to their starting travelling point in time ?

Please answer those all basing your answers following the Yarn Ball theory rules okay. Help your viewers to see if the theory stands for it self or collapses.

samson said...

assuming we could travel back in time, my personal thery is that everything that has you cannot change an=nything, as you have already done it. IE, if you travell back in time and kick a puppy, you will always have kicked a puppy as it will always have happened, as everything that has happened has always happend, and will never not have happend. in this scenario the grandfather paradox isn't a problem, as you simply couldn't kill your grandfather for some reason, (like, for example, not wanting to), as your grandfather never diead before he died, thus you cannot have killed him.

if this made scenes, you may award yourself a gold star

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"*why the Doctor never go to the same period of time twice ?

*why the Doctor never stumble upon himself in any shape, sense or form ?

*why he never take his companions back to their starting travelling point in time ?

Please answer those all basing your answers following the Yarn Ball theory rules okay. Help your viewers to see if the theory stands for it self or collapses."

Frankly, Sake, I think you need to learn to not let your emotions govern your actions so much. This is just a silly little theory I had on time travel, yet you seem determined to break it apart at every level, just like on other posts you feel the need to repeatedly make your point even after you've stated it.

However, since you're asking...

-The Doctor actually visits the same periods of time on many occasions, including Roman history, Greek history, Shakespearean times, and modern times.

-Actually, on one or two occasions he has stumbled into the same area as one of his past incarnations. The best example I can think of is during an audio drama when the eighth Doctor accidentally is at the same festival as his seventh incarnation and quickly has to hide himself to avoid running into them.

If an audio drama isn't good enough for you, the TARDIS revealed in the episode "The Doctor's Wife" that while it doesn't always take him where he WANTS to go, it always takes him where he NEEDS to go. As such, it avoids instances where he would run into himself.

-Part of it is the unreliability of the TARDIS, and part of it is THAT HE HAS. Ben and Polly were dropped off a day after they left, Amy Pond was able to go back to the point where she left with the Doctor, Martha was able to be returned to earth in season 4 after she was accidentally taken for a trip to another world, that one idiot kid in "The Long Game" was able to be returned to his home in the same time as he left. For others, they don't WANT to go back to the moment they left. Several companions joined the Doctor not under the best of circumstances and left by their own choice at different points than when they left. Susan, Ian and Barbara, Leela, Romana, Tegan, and Nyssa all spring to mind.

Elsentinela said...

As someone above this post says, the time has been fully done, past, present and future are all relative to the point of view... of the viewer, when you post the video was your present but now, that i am writing this, i am "talking" actually to you at the past, right now is MY present time

So the time could be seeing as this letters i'm posting, the first "A" written it's a moment in time, and the first "V" (of "above") it's another moment in time, A comes first than the V but they EXIST and so all the other letters, it depends of the flow of your reading and the speed for make the "time"

Your theory it's actually very interesting, but... well going into that it's quantum physics territory... Schrödinger's cat could give so much of a headache

Too late to think about all of that, maybe tomorrow
Have a nice day =D

Cody said...

Several years ago, I read two of the esteemed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking's books, The Universe in a Nutshell and A Brief History of Time. Both quite similar in that they are written to a lay audience (anyone who is not a physicist by profession), so it is almost all conceptual and no math really.
When it came to the idea of time travel to the past, Hawking proposed that paradoxes would not happen because the laws of physics are such that time travel is impossible at any but the smallest (sub-microscopic scales).
Now, I'm not a physicist myself, but my take on it is that paradoxes aren't prevented from happening by anything, it is that by definition they do not happen.
Applying this reasoning, if time travel to the past is possible, then it works like it did in the Star Trek reboot - appearing in the past joins your personal timeline with other timelines, creating a new timeline from an objective viewpoint. You can't change your own past, because it already happened, which means you can alter the course of an alternate you's timeline in any way you wish, within your abilities of course.

Capt. Sake "Hancock" Mangusto said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Capt. Sake "Hancock" Mangusto said...

Thank you for finally answering when i made a few polite questions instead of just tell me to back off when i get you annoyed or pissed you off unintentionally by me - except for that time with the JLI stuff when i clearly pass the limit.

Let's consider both points made, your answers satisfactory and help the show goes on.

TARDIS are unreliable ??? Blasphemy, only the Doctor's TARDIS is unreliable and that is his fault because he screwed the classes about how to do the proper maintenance like a young adventurer from Minnesota who let his robots fall apart before giving them new spare parts they actually need or like when he forget to programme that android version of himself with Asimov Laws in order to preventing it from becoming Evil.

I wonder why the Doctor don't pic up more american companions ? You guys are obviously made for each other, look what you accomplished when you convince the Mongol Hordes to invade Russia instead of ANYTHING WARMER IN MEDITERREAN GOD'S EUROPEAN GREEN EARTH ? They could actually wipe out the Catholic Church but Nooo Sir, Mr. Goody Two Shoes think setting up the scenario for the 1918's Russian Revolution was more appropriate than preventing King George III from be bat shit insane.

Well mission accomplished, i hope you accept Frank Miller presence in this time line as a fair compensation despite any complains.

And on topic, did you made any improvement on the cybermat like the ability to turn around the corner instead of just going in a straight line ? Any chance of space on that tiny shell for a mic, a webcam or a cell phone ? How much weight he can carry beyond his own and how do you deal with made the engines and wheels more silent ?

Please answer all those questions in Cybermats Tutorial part 2 after the winter when you were able and dealing with a non-excruciating schedule.

Thank you for the tutorial by the way. All Boys loves toys but Every Men loves build them.

November 26, 2011 7:45 AM

Laughing Hyena said...

To those quoting, using, or saying the phrase: "You can't change the past!"

Yes, you can. In fact, you can change it without time traveling at all. How?

I assume none of you were paying attention to the furor that erupted over the school board in Texas and the altering of history textbooks, I take it? And it's a good thing this got noticed. Otherwise, it would have passed and no one would be the wiser about it.

The kinks, bumps, and changes in Paleontology over the years to alter our views on dinosaurs? In fact, there's still a ton species we haven't discovered yet!
Or all the lost knowledge we have yet to re-discover thanks to the burning of the Alexandria Library, disasters, war, etc.
Or the greatest example of all online: Wikipedia!

brian_13090 said...

It's funny, your theory of time travel is also brought up as a possible solution in the awesome book "Doctor Who and Philosophy". I'd check it out, it's a pretty good read.

Keyln said...

Part 1 of 2 since I'm a bit wordy...

The theory of relativity states that time is a perception, and that time can flow differently for different objects moving at different speeds. In fact, we're moving through time right now, just at a rather slow pace and in only one direction (to the future!).

With that said, the theory of relativity does state that the flow of time changes the faster an object moves from the perspective of an observer of the object. Think of it this way. If a person (let's call him Person A) boards a spaceship that will orbit the Earth for 1 year traveling at 80% the speed of light with one person (let's call him Person B) observing on Earth.

From the viewpoint of Person A, 1 year may pass, but from the viewpoint of Person B, 10 years may have passed (there's no real scale here). Thus, someone could say that Person A has effectively traveled 10 years in the future (albeit very very slowly).

This leads me to think that time is like a river, in which we are all flowing in (in one direction at relatively the same speeds). Traveling in time would be like traveling on this river, boarding a canoe, and using the paddles to move faster in the river or slower. So, in this scenario, it would be possible to go up the river (or back in time if you will), but that person would have to overcome the natural current. But let's say, for the sake of this scenario, that it's possible. What then? Would it be possible to change history? I would say no.

Stemming from the general theory of relativity, I derived with what I call the Consistency Hypothesis. This hypothesis states that from the view point of any given object (or person) time is always consistent and constant. In other words, from the viewpoint of the object, the flow of time doesn't change, nor does its history. It means that the object doesn't necessarily go "poof" if something happens to it to cause it to not exist (i.e. Grandfather paradox), nor does it mean that if the history of the object changes, the object changes automatically (ala Back to the Future). It does mean, though, that the object can change from the viewpoint of the observer. Meaning, if a person goes back to kill his grandfather, to the outside observer, that person would be an anomaly who shouldn't be.

Keyln said...

Part 2 of 2 because there's a limit on how many characters I can post.

So, what would happen if a time traveler went back and changed history? I go back to my "time is a river" analogy. Rivers are not straight lines, but curve, merge, and sometimes fork, and we just go along with the ride, sometimes choosing which fork to go down, going with the curves, etc. For the time traveler, though, if he has the power to go up the river (i.e. travel into the past), he has the power to create new "paths" if you will for the river to go down by doing things that change the flow of the river. And thus, the time traveler creates a new path, and goes down that path. To those on the old path, from our point of view, the traveler has disappeared, and we have no idea what happened to him. To those on the new path, the traveler is a strange anomaly who changed things. If the traveler can return to the old path, honestly, I have no idea if its possible. There is a principle called the Uncertainty Principle that states that the mere act of observation changes the results. In this case, the act of traveling in time would create a new path. And for the traveler trying to get back to his old path, it would mean that he would never be able to, just get to the closest like it. And for those in the old path, it would mean that they would never see the traveler again.

I would be afraid, though, that this would make for some very boring science-fiction writing though. As far science fiction time travel rules go, writers just make stuff up just to A) Keep drama and tension in the story and B) Makes stuff up so to keep the explaining to a minimum.

Honestly, the only science fiction story that comes closest to above from what I've seen is Timecop. To the time traveling cop, when he returns, everything's changed. To everyone else, that's the way things have always been. Although, there are a couple of things that do make me want to groan, namely the whole scars appearing out of nowhere and the whole "the same matter can't occupy the same space at the same time" nonsense.

I hope I haven't bored everyone to tears with my rather long-winded theory on time travel...

Anonymous said...

Not sure how else to send this to you, but here's a nice little Crazy-Steve moment from a fancomic I found that might give you a laugh
http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/330/5/e/robin_1__batman_over_9000_by_go_devil_dante-d4hfffx.jpg

Anonymous said...

Hey linkara can you do a review of sonic x #26 because its so stupid!

the story is that robotnik decides to become a wrestler.
yes a wrestler and he likes it too, and not only that but the money that he is earning from wrestling is going to charity!

so linkara if you ever want to do another bad wrestler comic please give this one a try.

Anonymous said...

@ Anonymous
November 28, 2011 12:26 AM

Linkara already said that he won't review any Sonic comics
That one time was an exception he made for a special occassion
He does NOT care for Sonic!

Also, the name is Eggman! It's always been that! Get it through your thick skull!

Seth Aaron Hershman said...

Hey, Linkara, wasn't quite sure how to contact you but I thought you'd be interested in this. I know you're a huge Blue Beetle fan, and I am too. I have a friend with a pretty big comic book collection that he's been unloading on me, and included therein is the first issue of Dan Garrett Blue Beetle (the archiologist, not his single-t policeman forebarrer.) For reference, it's this comic here: http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Blue_Beetle_(Charlton)_Vol_2

Now, I'm not willing to part with it, but I'll scan it and email the scans so you can use it for your next Secret Origins Month. It's pretty silly--atomic bombs exploding without doing anything, random local changes, a six-foot-high "giant" mummy, and so forth. I just need your email address, or if for whatever reason you don't trust me a dummy one that you can receive it from. Hell, I can even photocopy it and mail that to you if that's better.

Anyway, just thought you'd be interested. You can contact me on my Blogger account.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"Also, the name is Eggman! It's always been that! Get it through your thick skull!"

Please do not hurl insults at one another.

Also, I call him Robotnik.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"Now, I'm not willing to part with it, but I'll scan it and email the scans so you can use it for your next Secret Origins Month. It's pretty silly--atomic bombs exploding without doing anything, random local changes, a six-foot-high "giant" mummy, and so forth. I just need your email address, or if for whatever reason you don't trust me a dummy one that you can receive it from. Hell, I can even photocopy it and mail that to you if that's better"

It amazes me that no one bothers to check the side of the blog to see if, perhaps, I post my e-mail address or some other form of contact info, which I do. XD

Hence how I seem to keep getting comments posted by people that are trying to contact me without actually looking for a better way to get in touch with me. XD

But yeah, the e-mail is on the side of the blog.

Anonymous said...

There's another, far simpler solution to time-travel, the simple idea is that 'time-travel' is a misnomer, the Doctor essentially steps outside time and enters elsewhere. This leaving causality means that anything that impacts his past can no longer influence him. It's like burning a fuse - if you cut the fuse in half only the first half will burn. This does create an issue with possible looping or infinite cloning of objects coming in or out of time and to remedy this I tied it in with the idea of 'information decay' in black holes (dubious as it is to real scientists) and the eye of harmony in turn but explaining how I worked that makes things needlessly complex.

Yours is interesting too but it depends on time-travel being just that, travel through time, which especially in the medium of the show is problematic at best. We all already travel through time so travelling backwards in time is at best indistinguishable from what we all do; travelling forwards. If an object literally travels back in time it still occupies space, interferes with cause and effect and so forth. The TARDIS would literally stay in one spot as it 'traveled back' or move across the sky like someone had hit the rewind button and yet could not be impacted by the world around it, else it would reverse causality. That'd create a whole mess of problems. Whilst it is a retcon in essence the show gives us the 'vortex' which best we can tell is outside time and allows us to re-enter at any point which fits the show much better than the ball of yarn theory.

Capt. Sake "Hancock" Mangusto said...

Time Travel is more Art than Science, really guys at this point why bother ?

Like the good people from Big Picture Studios used to say : "Ars est pecunia" and i will buy any movie, tv series, comic or book for an affordable price if had a good story.

Who want's to buy Atop the Fourth Wall #1 for US$1,99 ? I would if was not available on line, Thanks Capitalist Old Russia for that.

How much would you like to pay to see how Atop the Fourth Wall goes from a relative obscure internet show into the realm of mainstream media ? Ask Linkara, he is the one owning the rights for that time travel back-to-the-future-esque story, not our Linkara of course, that other one from the alternate time line where the space race never take a break in the mid 80's and Stephanie Meyer becames the first woman on the moon instead of a bad writer.

In a World where we don't have time travel, interdimensional parallel alternate time line travel or even space interstellar travel yet:

"IMAGINATION is the best way you can get to achieve the real stuff and also the safest since there is no danger implied at dreaming about or dream on something you don't have it or can't have it or probably should not have it even when you finally get it - trust me when i say dealing with one Fourth Wall at safe distance on the web is all joy you need to yourself from any time line you may came from".

Dream whatever you want FourthWalleer friends, just be careful with the things you get from it that you can realize, Reality is a Harsh Mistress.

Meanwhile Atop the Fourth Wall premiers on theaters on 07-23-2012 with Tobey Maguire starring as Lewis Lovhaug/Linkara and Brittany Murphy as Iron Liz (Linkara's major love interest,that implies they are probably keeping the minor ones for the sequels), the movie is directed by Robert Rodriguez with screenplay written by Frank Miller.

This production is a partnership of Asylum, Legendary Pictures and Marvel Studios and is the milestone picture made under their united labels.

Available at any where closer to your corner of the multiverse in Betamax and Laser Disc shortly after release.

Screening for Test Audiences and Critics already stated this as "...better than Episodes 7, 8 and 9 of Star Wars put all together, not even Robert Zemeckis could do it in all Star Wars nine movies what this one will made for this generation next summer..."

And so on and on and on.... after all that said do you really need a time machine to explore life, the universe and everything else ? If not in your own mind at least at the next step outside your room adventure awaits you....always.

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPIyAeS4IQ0

Lewis Lovhaug said...

Okay, Sake, that was cute...

...but it had nothing to do with this comment thread.

Stop it.

Stop posting off-topic nonsense. You are starting to remind me of Jeremy Patterson's posts. I waited far too long to lay down the hammer on his comments and I am not going to wait here. I try to be a very nice guy, especially with my fans, and I try to give a lot of leeway, but I have to say, in all honesty and sincerity:

YOU ARE STARTING TO BUG ME.

I know English is not your first language, and for that I am willing to grant enormous amounts of patience, but you are making posts that are absolutely NOTHING. You post links to youtube videos for no reason other than to provide soundtracks to comments. When you actually DO stay on topic, you refuse to just let your point stand on its own - insisting on repeating it in new posts with different wording, as if you're afraid it will simply be buried in other comments and it absolutely MUST stay fresh, by golly!

Half the time it seems like you are living in your own little world with your posts, trying to express fanfic-y ideas and the like. It's cute, but it has nothing to do with this post.

You want to post a dissenting opinion, that's okay. You want to espouse the glories of Frank Miller, fine. But I am tired of this bullcrap. There are ways of having fun in these comment threads that don't involve the stuff you keep pulling.

I have been exemplary in my patience with you, but I have had enough. This is your final warning: cut it out or I will simply delete your comments without reading them.

I know that may seem harsh, but when I am actually starting to DREAD seeing your name in my inbox informing me of new comments to approve, something has to be done, and for that I'm sorry, but it's the simple truth.

Bruce said...

LIGHTBRINGER YES! YES! YES!

Anonymous said...

The web of lines thing sounds an awful lot like a logical progression of what the Ellimist allowed Elfangor to see near the end of the Andalite Chronicles, actually.

That's from the book series "Animorphs" for anyone who, unlike Lewis, has done themselves the disservice of not reading the series.

Capt. Sake "Hancock" Mangusto said...

Okay, whatever, thanks for your politeness.

Every criticism is welcome and is your show anyway so you have the right to do whatever fits best here.

Just don't start to delete anything coming from someone just because the name give goosebumps on you, seriously i doubt anybody just writing comments on the internet can do any harm to you or your blog. For a good measure i am on the other side of the planet and i am not Doctor Doom or anything like so relax.

What an average Joe can do with a keyboard that can't be ignore and deleted ?

On sideways topic: Cute ??? I think casting Tobey Maguire would make you feel disgusted more than asking any parallel reality Frank Miller to write the script, the guy's tone is far far away from the right for your voice for your role and he is too skinny.

And i think i keep my self and contribute to the topic anyway because writing is the only practical way to do any time and space travel that doesn't involve billions of any currency and dozens of the most brilliant minds working together 24/7 in the next billion years, if wasn't cheap and fun you will not do it by yourself.

Read, write, listen,hearing and dreaming about are the basic pillars of wisdom or like Socrates said : "Wisdom begin in wonder." And i blame you and few other dozen boys and girls for making me wonder and compelling to actually having fun with.

If isn't fun for you reading anything i have to say please don't be shy and deleted all together with the rest of the crap i know plagues the fourth wall on a daily basis but at least please read before deleted, i can't be that obnoxious anymore, can i ?

P.S.: "I AM ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FRAKKING PLANET AND IS NOT SNOWING HERE, STOP THE GOOSEBUMPS PLEASE!"

weckar said...

To improve reception on the cybermat, it may help to also coat the inside of the head with silver or aluminum foil. That way, the signal will reflect and receive no matter what angle it enters from.

Ideal would of course be simply extending the antenna through the tail.

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"To improve reception on the cybermat, it may help to also coat the inside of the head with silver or aluminum foil. That way, the signal will reflect and receive no matter what angle it enters from.

Ideal would of course be simply extending the antenna through the tail."

While those are good ideas, unfortunately they don't apply to the RC car I've got. It doesn't use an antenna - it uses an infrared receiver, like on a TV remote. There is nothing to extend.

Capt. Sake "Hancock" Mangusto said...

There are larger infrared remote receivers you know, but that's probably will ruined cybermat's design and made it look like a big weird eye ball with a tail.

Any plans for a bigger bot ?

CoreDumpError said...

I'm shocked that no one has commented on your great plug of Schlock Mercenary! That particular storyline of SM (spanning across most of Book 6: Resident Mad Scientist) is one of my own favorites and well, and the comic as a whole is god damn awesome.

Le Messor said...

I'm gonna go with my theory, which is:
Time travel is one of those things with different rules for every work it appears in.

groverfield. said...

Regarding your time travel contemplations, I'd suggest you give a gander at Steins;Gate, not for any sort of hard science on the topic, but it's an interesting watch that handles the subject with moderate maturity, while walking the path of "Rule of Cool."

Anonymous said...

SO, im planning to build my own cybermat as well, if i use a backet like u did, should it be like a perfect cylinder, and how big exactly would u recommend?

Lewis Lovhaug said...

"SO, im planning to build my own cybermat as well, if i use a backet like u did, should it be like a perfect cylinder, and how big exactly would u recommend?"

Not necessarily. The advantage of using a bucket that comes in (as if it looks like a trapezoid when viewed from one side) is that when you put the other half into one end, it'll stay in a little better.

Alexander Gordon Jahans said...

Hi, new to comics, fairly new to your channel but I've been a Whovian for more than three years. (Seven rocks!)

I've got this scifi multiverse that I set numerous stories in, be it fanfic, novel or script and despite being pretty much anything goes I like to have a ring of plausibility to things.

The general explanation being that before the universe there was a nothingness so empty of anything that not even logic existed, meaning the nothingness could actually be anything. Infinite, eternal, green, even capable off spontaneously creating and sustaining bubbles of logic which over time develop to become our universes.

My theory of time was similar to yours in that I saw each person's timeline as a thread sewn through the various dimensions of a universe, of which time is one. I couldn't grasp though what the wider implications of that were and how it related to the illogical nothingness though.

Having watched your vid I think I have a better idea. Time is a form of logic, not a result of it (as backed up by Einstein's theory of general relativity no less) therefore the sponge is not just a representation of navigating time within a logic bubble but a more literal representation of the timey wimey ball because 'The Web Of Time' alluded to in Doctor Who is not just a cool metaphor but the physical outcome of multiple timelines, if we take spiders as a metaphor for beings with personal timelines since they literally weave thread behind themselves.

In other words causality is formed by timelines interacting and the act of observation changes outcome of the event so if time travellers existed they would cause multiple linked logic bubbles. It's still the same universe, same timeline even but following the threads can get very confusing. A fact only exacerbated since for every universe where something is real there is at least one where it is fiction and vice/versa, at least in my stories.

Anyway thanks for prompting a mild temporal related epiphany.