A thought about time travel

[wayfriend]

100%

But only the cool people like us can be in it. Right?

LM: Surely you can help us out here. Does the Earth go to the market with us, or not?

[Krazy Kat]

One of the best sf/fantasy books I've ever read on time travel was the Timeliner trilogy, by Richard C Meredith. I wonder who else has read these books?

It's been a long time since I read the trilogy but I vaguely remember some of his ideas on the "time-lines" and they've always fascinated me.

The idea is that the Earth situated in the multiverse has it's time-lines running east and west, as if the Earth was flanked by two cosmic mirrors. Now here's the interested thing - due east/point 1+, and due west/point 1+ are pretty much identical to Earth/point 0. This means that if you moved through time and space by a small distance then you wouldn't really notice it. But if you warped a greater distance, say point 10 or 20, then the Earth would have an aternative history from your starting point. Your destiny on Earth point 20 might have you living like a millionare, or stuck in a filthy dungeon.
In the Timeliner trilogy this concept was based on a time machine that stayed fixed on one spot, (just like H.G.Well's machine). The (Timeliner) machine technology was used by the Paratimers, an elite sqaud fighting in an arms-race againt the alien Krith. The race to make a machine that could move forwards or backwards as well as point/east and point/west would control time, and hence rule the universe.

Returning to you query, Wayfriend. What if you were on your way to the market to buy some bread and you bumped into an ex-girlfriend say, and you both went into a cafe for a coffee and a chat. Then after you say bye-bye you proceed to the market, get the bread, and return home to eat a sandwhich. Your destiny for that day might be on a positive high. Or to put it another way, you set off for the market and bump into and old college buddy and go into a pub for just a quick pint. 6hrs later you're both drunk and get into a fight with some hooligan's. The next day, you wake up with a hangover a torn t-shirt and a black eye - and when you go to make some plain toast to ease your stomach you find that the bread bin is empty! I put that down as a negative low.
So maybe destiny is linked to the concept of a multiverse.

Anyway, just thought I would throw some ideas into this thread.

[wayfriend]

The idea is that the Earth situated in the multiverse has it's time-lines running east and west, as if the Earth was flanked by two cosmic mirrors. Now here's the interested thing - due east/point 1+, and due west/point 1+ are pretty much identical to Earth/point 0. This means that if you moved through time and space by a small distance then you wouldn't really notice it. But if you warped a greater distance, say point 10 or 20, then the Earth would have an aternative history from your starting point. Your destiny on Earth point 20 might have you living like a millionare, or stuck in a filthy dungeon.

This same theory was explored by Heinlein in The Number of the Beast, if I recall.

[Krazy Kat]

Thanks Wayfriend. I'll check it out.

[wayfriend]

Oh, I wouldn't go that far. It wasn't a very good book IIRC.

[Rawedge Rim]

Actually RAH addressed this issue in "Time Enough for Love", by using a space ship to travel back in time, then using same ship to find the Earth at it's position in the universe at the time period the ship was occupying. Therefore you didn't have to worry about the fact that the Earth had moved several millions of miles away from your "machine".

[Vraith]

Oh, I wouldn't go that far. It wasn't a very good book IIRC.

That's an understatement.
I also HATE Lazarus Long and his whole damn family...which makes a few RAH books among the VERY few books I've thrown away...

[aliantha]

Oh, I wouldn't go that far. It wasn't a very good book IIRC.

That's an understatement.
I also HATE Lazarus Long and his whole damn family...which makes a few RAH books among the VERY few books I've thrown away...

I wouldn't go *that* far. But I did get pretty tired of Lazarus showing up in every freakin' one of Heinlein's books by the end there...

[wayfriend]

Oh, I wouldn't go that far. It wasn't a very good book IIRC.

That's an understatement.
I also HATE Lazarus Long and his whole damn family...which makes a few RAH books among the VERY few books I've thrown away...

I wouldn't go *that* far. But I did get pretty tired of Lazarus showing up in every freakin' one of Heinlein's books by the end there...

I wouldn't go THAT far ... ... I kinda like Lazzy Long. But there needs to be a name for when an author like Heinlein or King starts having characters from one book show up in another. "Lazy", perhaps?

[aliantha]

That's an understatement.
I also HATE Lazarus Long and his whole damn family...which makes a few RAH books among the VERY few books I've thrown away...

I wouldn't go *that* far. But I did get pretty tired of Lazarus showing up in every freakin' one of Heinlein's books by the end there...

I wouldn't go THAT far ... ... I kinda like Lazzy Long. But there needs to be a name for when an author like Heinlein or King starts having characters from one book show up in another. "Lazy", perhaps?

Oh, I dunno -- I wouldn't go *that* far.... (Sadly, I didn't realize I'd parroted you 'til I looked at your post, WF. Great minds think alike, huh? )

[wayfriend]

Oh, I dunno -- I wouldn't go *that* far.... (Sadly, I didn't realize I'd parroted you 'til I looked at your post, WF. Great minds think alike, huh? )

There's a Mallorys game here somewhere.

[aliantha]

Oh, I dunno -- I wouldn't go *that* far.... (Sadly, I didn't realize I'd parroted you 'til I looked at your post, WF. Great minds think alike, huh? )

There's a Mallorys game here somewhere.

Yeah, but I'm not gonna go that far. Go for it!

[Krazy Kat]

Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2009 2:50 am

Is there an alternate time line where this thread doesn't exist? Because if there is, I'm so there.

I guess the answer has to be NO!

OR, at approx 1 light year through timespace...MAYBE.

[hue of fuzzpaws]

One of the best theories I have seen is in issue 27 of Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday.

. . .then brings up the discovery of a working theory of time travel in Dowling's files. Unlike so many time travel theories and machines made popular in television and movies, this one has a novel limitation: you can't go back in time to a point before the time machine was invented. This creates a scary possibility. Drummer explains that there's a possibility that the moment you complete the machine and turn it on, everyone who will ever use it in the future to go back to this earliest point will immediately appear. He cites the famous Schrödinger's cat problem (which, oversimplified, simply holds that the cat is both in alive and dead states until it is observed; at that point, the probabilities of the cat being in one state or another collapse and the actual state of the cat becomes fixed). The time machine makes something similar possible, but on a large scale, as future probabilities become locked certainties. "The whole of the future can be said to have happened at once," says Drummer, since the appearance of everyone using the time machine means that all of the uncertain decisions that may or may not have made future actions possible have happened. The future is set; all other possibilities vanish.

Planetary Comic Appreciation Page, home.earthlink.net/~rkkman/frames/

[Krazy Kat]

Interesting link, hue of bone!

In an odd way, if I consider the technology in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, as having elements of real physics and theoretical application as a means to an end, I can come up with the fact that I do have an uncle named John Cassidy who once visited me when I was living with a woman named Lorraine Ellis, but alas Warren=0. Ah well, very close is better than nowhere near.

Infinite Improbability Drive

The Infinite Improbability Drive is a fictional faster-than-light drive. The most prominent usage of the drive is in the starship Heart of Gold. It is based on a particular perception of quantum theory: a subatomic particle is most likely to be in a particular place, such as near the nucleus of an atom, but there is also a small probability of it being found very far from its point of origin (for example close to a distant star). Thus, a body could travel from place to place without passing through the intervening space (or hyperspace, for that matter), if you had sufficient control of probability.

The Heart of Gold was the prototype ship for infinitely improbable travel. It is the infinite improbability drive in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that saves Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect from very probable death by asphyxiation in deep space after being thrown out of the Vogon ship; the improbable odds against being rescued being two raised to the power of the Islington (London) flat phone number (2079460347) where Arthur had met Tricia McMillan, aka Trillian, who is aboard the Heart of Gold with Zaphod Beeblebrox. Incidentally, Adams explained in the annotated volume of the original radio scripts that it was the eviction of Arthur and Ford out the spacelock of the Vogon ship that led to his own "invention" of the Infinite Improbability Drive. Adams realized that he had worked the story into a dead end, thinking in frustration that the only solutions would be "infinitely improbable." In a flash of insight and what Adams called "mental jujitsu", the Infinite Improbability Drive was born.

In the third book, the Infinite Improbability Drive is discovered to be the Golden Bail of Prosperity in the Wikkit Gate. It is stolen by the white Krikkit robots; however, it was returned and the Heart of Gold returned to operational status.

Adams developed the notion of the improbability drive having greater causal (and narrative) effects in later books. For example: when Zaphod's great-grandfather discusses his great grandson's career-to-date he explains that he (Zaphod) cannot escape his destiny now the improbability field "controls you".

Karey Kirkpatrick, who adapted the novel for the screen in 2005, described the improbability drive as a "a plot contrivance machine", allowing Adams to construct elaborate plotlines based on coincidences that would, in other narratives, be considered too improbable to be believed.

[Shuram Gudatetris]

I have a pair of jeans with a hidden pocket. I have no memory of ever actually having used the pocket before. Four weeks ago, however, I was playing with the zipper of my hidden pocket, and discovered a five dollar bill. Quite amazing really. I had no recollection of having put it there. So I just shrugged and said, "Cool."

Two weeks later, I went to the bank and pulled $85.00 out for my electric bill, which was 77 and some change. See, I wanted an extra five dollars for spending money. I left all the money in the bank envelope until I got to the city office to pay my bill. I pulled the four twenties out and handed them to the lady, then I took the five out and held it in my hand. When she gave me back the two dollars and change, I put all seven dollars worth of bills into my wallet at once.

Later that day, after work, I stopped at the gas station to buy a soda. I opened my wallet, only to discover a mere two dollars within. No five. I found the bank envelope and checked it. Empty. That was two weeks ago. The five still hasn't resurfaced.

[Krazy Kat]

That's a strange story, SG, and also quite funny.
There's maybe a perfectly simple explanation that just escaped your notice, but then again, who can say.
I hope you'll update this post if the $5 resurfaces.

I think it was Jung that spoke about some kind of collective subconscious in order to dispel the freaky coincidence experience. You know the type. You suddenly think about someone you haven't seen in a long time and then the next day, from out of the blue, you bump into the person.
What Jung had to say about this I've absolutely no idea, and don't really care that much. I just accept that there's no such thing as a coincidence and for what ever reason leave it a that.

I popped into my local Oxfam shop today to see what books they had. I've scored some pretty cool books from that shop over the past two years. Anyway, there was nothing much there so I looked at the DVD and PC games. I was tempted to buy some Tetris games and thought for while if it was worth it, but bought Pink Floyd's live in Pompei instead as I've never seen it before...and as this stray's drastically from the main point, I'll leave it at that...

[wayfriend]

Anyway, there was nothing much there so I looked at the DVD and PC games. I was tempted to buy some Tetris games ...

Tempted to buy some Tetris games.

And then, the same day, discussuing time travel with Shuram Gudatetris.

Coincidence? I think not!

[Krazy Kat]

This was the point I was making. You see the last time I exchanged words with Shuram it was about a dream I had involving Roger Waters and a Pink Floyd in the park concert. I'm sure he remembers this and knew what I meant, where others might not.

But to attempt to make sense out of coincidence will always drive me round the twist, and as I said, it's something I find fascinating but will always leave it at that. The spiral-graphics of the universe is way, way, way, over my head.

[Fist and Faith]

Oh, I wouldn't go that far. It wasn't a very good book IIRC.

That's an understatement.

That's a HUGE understatement.

I also HATE Lazarus Long and his whole damn family...which makes a few RAH books among the VERY few books I've thrown away...

I'm very fond of TEfL. Yes, Heinlein's need to have people having sex who shouldn't be having sex is annoying here, as with every other book of his that I read. But at least it's not the main point of the book, like some of his. *looks up* Aside from that, though, I enjoyed it a lot.