Time travel question

[miketx]

For the moment, assume time travel is possible. Please note that this NOT a time travel paradox question. Suppose that we have achieved time travel and we want to study history, to see how it differs from history books and learn from the past. Now, let's say our traveler is a person born in 1983, and they are sent to the past to study it with things they need to record history. But, our traveler is unlucky. For the sake of the story, let us say that he was going to Pearl Harbor on December 6th 1941, to record the attack on the American fleet. All goes well until early on the 7th, during the attack, when our traveler is struck by a stray bullet and is killed instantly.


After the smoke clears his body is found, but is in such a state that no one can ID it or figure out what the little "doo-dads" he has do, so it is all disposed of. Forensics being what they were then, he is marked off as another unknown casualty of war.


So, to the question. Our time traveler has perished in the past, 42 years before he was born. As time proceeds from the events of 1941, slowly moving forward until 1983 is once again the present, is our traveler born again? I would say that he must be, if time is indeed a constant, ever moving current. So, if he is born and follows his path as he previously did, does he once again end up being killed in the past, and if so, how many cycles does this time loop repeat itself? What is the long term effect on entropy, and will the random effect of entropy at some time or another, fix the causal loop?

 

[Auld Phart]

does he once again end up being killed in the past, and if so, how many cycles does this time loop repeat itself?

endless

 

[miketx]

endless

Not fully understanding the concept, which I fully admit to, I hope you are wrong but you may be right, and then, how screwed would we be?

 

[JoeMoma]

For the moment, assume time travel is possible. Please note that this NOT a time travel paradox question. Suppose that we have achieved time travel and we want to study history, to see how it differs from history books and learn from the past. Now, let's say our traveler is a person born in 1983, and they are sent to the past to study it with things they need to record history. But, our traveler is unlucky. For the sake of the story, let us say that he was going to Pearl Harbor on December 6th 1941, to record the attack on the American fleet. All goes well until early on the 7th, during the attack, when our traveler is struck by a stray bullet and is killed instantly.


After the smoke clears his body is found, but is in such a state that no one can ID it or figure out what the little "doo-dads" he has do, so it is all disposed of. Forensics being what they were then, he is marked off as another unknown casualty of war.


So, to the question. Our time traveler has perished in the past, 42 years before he was born. As time proceeds from the events of 1941, slowly moving forward until 1983 is once again the present, is our traveler born again? I would say that he must be, if time is indeed a constant, ever moving current. So, if he is born and follows his path as he previously did, does he once again end up being killed in the past, and if so, how many cycles does this time loop repeat itself? What is the long term effect on entropy, and will the random effect of entropy at some time or another, fix the causal loop?

Actually, your question(s) is a time paradox question. If you write a science fiction story, you can answer those questions anyway you want for the story.

 

[miketx]

Actually, your question(s) is a time paradox question. If you write a science fiction story, you can answer those questions anyway you want for the story.

Actually in the sense of the "classic" kill your grandpa paradox, it may not be. And I AM writing a sci fi story, but I wanted peoples opinion on the loop thing.

 

[JoeMoma]

A favorite time travel story: By His Bootstraps

By His Bootstraps - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[September]

If he travels into the past to get killed, but is then born "again" only to get killed "again", it isn't exactly a loop. Perhaps he had already gone back into the past and died even before he was born and time traveled the "first" time, in which case he was always destined to go back in time and die. He only died once, he was only born once.

Or

When he goes back in time, the mere fact that he interacted with the world (anyone or anything who discovered or experienced any traces of his existence, even the slightest) permanently affected the timelines of everyone and everything involved and everyone/ everything they ever interacted with afterwards, and everyone/ everything they interacted with, etc... creating an entirely new future, possibly erasing the future from before OR somehow creating a new timeline that branches off from the past the moment his existence even slightly interacted with the new past, but preserving the original timeline somewhere, like in a parallel universe or something...

Personally I like possibility #1, that he had died before he was born and was always fated to go back in time. Born once, died once, in one single timeline.


​

 

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd says ya can go back in time...

... but ya can't go forward in time...

... `cause if ya did, ya'd get there...

... before ya got there.

 

[Auld Phart]

endless

Not fully understanding the concept, which I fully admit to, I hope you are wrong but you may be right, and then, how screwed would we be?

not knowing of his death, he would make the same mistake again,

and again,

and again

 

[miketx]

A favorite time travel story: By His Bootstraps

By His Bootstraps - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good story, I have read it.

If he travels into the past to get killed, but is then born "again" only to get killed "again", it isn't exactly a loop. Perhaps he had already gone back into the past and died even before he was born and time traveled the "first" time, in which case he was always destined to go back in time and die. He only died once, he was only born once.

But...time travel did not exist until after 1983....

 

[JoeMoma]

Actually, your question(s) is a time paradox question. If you write a science fiction story, you can answer those questions anyway you want for the story.

Actually in the sense of the "classic" kill your grandpa paradox, it may not be. And I AM writing a sci fi story, but I wanted peoples opinion on the loop thing.

It may not involve killing grandpa, but there is usually a looming question, can history be changed or not? Are there different timeliness or just one. Can there be an eddy current in time. Since you are writing the story, you get to decide.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

The possibility of time travel is remote unless the travel does not take you to your own time line past. Meaning if you change the past it is a new time line not your own. Or that you can not effect the past. But to the story it would not effect time at all just the one person would be effected for no ill effect on the over all time line.

 

[JoeMoma]

A favorite time travel story: By His Bootstraps

By His Bootstraps - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Good story, I have read it.

If he travels into the past to get killed, but is then born "again" only to get killed "again", it isn't exactly a loop. Perhaps he had already gone back into the past and died even before he was born and time traveled the "first" time, in which case he was always destined to go back in time and die. He only died once, he was only born once.

But...time travel did not exist until after 1983....

Once time travel is invented,it can be used to send someone to the past. So time travel can exist before its invented.

 

[JoeMoma]

The possibility of time travel is remote unless the travel does not take you to your own time line past. Meaning if you change the past it is a new time line not your own. Or that you can not effect the past. But to the story it would not effect time at all just the one person would be effected for no ill effect on the over all time line.

So there would be no "butterfly effect"?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

The possibility of time travel is remote unless the travel does not take you to your own time line past. Meaning if you change the past it is a new time line not your own. Or that you can not effect the past. But to the story it would not effect time at all just the one person would be effected for no ill effect on the over all time line.

So there would be no "butterfly effect"?

No effect at all except on the one person.

 

[miketx]

But, if "the one person" does something to change the past, what then?

 

[JoeMoma]

But, if "the one person" does something to change the past, what then?

You are the author.....you decide.

 

[miketx]

I'll have to do some more research, as this is an intriguing concept. But what I really wanted is just people's opinions on this. Thank you.

 

[Wuwei]

I'll have to do some more research, as this is an intriguing concept. But what I really wanted is just people's opinions on this. Thank you.

Look up the "many worlds" concept of quantum mechanics:
Many-worlds interpretation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you want to be accurate scientifically, this is one way of looking at it, although in reality it sounds preposterous. Fascinating stuff that a significant, (but non-majority) of cosmologists think could happen. Near the end of the article is a note on time travel implications.

 

[miketx]

Thank you.