Time Travel

[Cas]

Have you guys ever dedicated some time to thinking about time travel?  I'm sure you have. Of course, some of us love science fiction, others are just nostalgic of their past, others may be fascinated with the idea of seeing something historic... or prehistoric, etc. There may be different reasons. But... if you were told there exists a method, that one has been discovered... before you were told anything else about it.... What would you imagine it to be like?   When you have thought about time travel, how did it work in your mind?  Think of this for a moment before reading on, or I'll be influencing you with what I'll say next... and I'll still want to know the old answer.

- The style in Back to the Future makes the movie fun, but it's easy to find lots of pieces that don't match. It's like the grandfather paradox. Easy to see it doesn't work. Although, maybe you still think something like this could be possible if we just make some touches to prevent those contradictions.

- The one way that sounds the simplest for me, in the sense that it's the one that leads to minimal contradiction is to imagine that you can only travel to the moments you've lived, in your own body of the time. In this sense, you could also travel to the future if it's one you already lived and you're currently in a "past" relative to it. This would be like a "savegame" system. But this doesn't allow to travel beyond your lifetime. And there's also the problem that you wouldn't be going to the real moment you lived, since your new knowledge would be different from the one at the time. It would be an "extremely similar configuration", but not the same.

- There's also the idea that you can be physically transported, like in the first case, but to a parallel configuration, so you can do whatever you want. It's a copy, it won't affect the original. The actual problem with this is how to define a position. How can you tell if you're "at the same place"?  For instance, if you say "the place where I'm standing right now, but ten years ago", you could mean the same spot on Earth back then, or the same distance and angle from the Sun or from any other object. If you go so much into the past that plate tectonics make a difference, even the continents would be somewhere else.

Anyway... there are tons of ideas that can come up. This topic might be very interesting or too boring, but I just wanted to drop something in case you'd like to post your ideas. Then again, how do you imagine time travel?  And which time travel film or book have you enjoyed the most, if any?

[dreadnaut]

I wrote a short story about time travel, a long time ago, because I'm a pedantic nerd. The original is in italian, but here's a rushed translation.

Three dimensions too many

I curse without producing a sound, while what looks like Earth shrinks in the distance. It's a beautiful light blue, just like my freezing hands. I stare at it and curse again, while I wait for the traditional flashbacks of my life, floating in space.

I'm the one who invented the time machine. You'll never know about it though, because I decided to test it right away. It works great, if the lack of oxygen is not tricking me: I just made a perfect jump of one minute in the future. And I landed in the precises spot from where I left.

Only thing, in that short lapse of time, Earth had left me behind. Damn ball of mud, hurling through space at a hundred thousands kilometres per hour.

---

I also have another one about time travel and doing dishes, but it's longer and I like it less

[Cas]

Oh, I didn't know you enjoyed writing. I've tried many times, but never feel satisfied and end up scrapping everything. I quickly fly away from the central topic. Hard thing. I like the way you've put it. I'll try tomorrow to read the longer one. I can understand "some" Italian because of its similarities to Spanish, but it's not that easy and it's 2:30 am, ha, ha. I met an Italian girl when I was in New Zealand and I tried talking with her each in their language. It kind of worked, but we had to often ask questions to make sure we had understood well. It was easier to just speak English. Never saw Marina again

[JTK]

I wrote a short story about time travel, a long time ago, because I'm a pedantic nerd. The original is in italian, but here's a rushed translation.

Three dimensions too many

WhoW! I enjoyed that one! 

[dreadnaut]

WhoW! I enjoyed that one! 

Wooo, glad you liked it!

I've tried many times, but never feel satisfied and end up scrapping everything. I quickly fly away from the central topic. Hard thing.

Practice, and don't listen to the inner critic! There is always worse stuff on the internet   And the things you write don't need to be perfect: you can show half-done stuff around, and you'll get suggestions if anything needs improving.

[Cas]

Yes, you're right. The same thing happens to me with music. I come up with something and then I think "naaah!" and I scrap it because it's too cheesy or not very intelligent and then, I'm sitting at my computer and my next door neighbour turns up his reggaeton to max volume and I realise it all makes no sense!