quote:
Originally posted by GruelThePurple:
Anymuch, I mention this as from one frame of reference, you can travel in time and not mess up the time line you came from.
That's actually true from several theories. There's two variants of Temporal Causality that take into account "outside influences".
Essentially, every event with any Lasting significance (whether or not you wipe your mouth with a napkin after lunch isn't likely to be one, but whether or not you get hit by a bus on the way home or notice it first could be) causes a fork in the possible resulting timelines.
One variant suggests that the different timelines are created at that instant, but only the one that actually happened is valid after that. An outsider (say, a timetraveler from the future) that may be wiping himself out by doing something would exist UNTIL the fork without him became the active one (because the key event happened), then cease to exist -- the theory accepts this without paradox because the outsider wasn't part of the timeline, and so doesn't cause the "went back in time and erased myself, but then I couldn't have gone back and erased myself, so I'm not erased..." problem.
The other one suggests that multiple timelines actually coexist around every significant event (and so end up branching into a simply MASSIVE tree of possibilities, as all branches can branch infinitely as events of note happen), and so jumping back in time will simply create another timeline at the point of an outsider's entrance, one where an outside force entered the timeline (which is significant enough to make a branch). By punching yourself into a new point in the timeline, you're an external force -- shoot your parents, who cares, you just won't exist in this one. You can still go back to your original timeline (if you can find it). This variant essentially PREVENTS paradox, though it's a little dizzying considering all of the different threads it spawns.
And yah, quantum theory predicts that you'd need somewhere between the amount of energy that our Sun has radiated since it was created until now and the total amount of energy in the universe to push something the size of a person through time.
--Chesh
Re: Transphasic Torpedoes
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