Doc. Brown Enterprises

Time travel.


Let's face it, who doesn't want to do it?

Whether you want to go forward in time to see what the future may hold, or travel back to witness events of the past. There have been innumerous fantasies written about Time Travel, reaching the page, stage, screen or silver-screen according to their commercial potential. But they all hinge themselves on the same idea: Hope. Either hope that somewhere in the future things get better or, a hope that one could change things to get better by alterring the past. However, how this is all achieved varies through the different fantasies.

In "Goodnight Sweetheart" Nicholas Lyndhurst plays the role of Gary Sparrow, the owner of a shop for nostalgia in London. He discovers (can't quite remember how) that the wall behind the shop is actually a portal back in time to the 1940s, where he sets up another life, and he is Gary Sparrow secret agent. Through his time living in the past and the present he learns and tries to change the course of history. The series ends with him trapped in the past, to live out his life.

H.G. Wells' novel the Time Machine has recently (2002) been adapted into a futuristic sci-fi movie. This is where the hero of the tale travels back in time with the hope of preventing the death of his sweetheart. Instead he is catapaulted 800,000 years into the future. Unfortunately I have not read the novel or seen the film (as yet) and so cannot comment on this in great detail.

Anyone else remember Command and Conquer: Red Alert? That strategy game of old for the computer? Well, I loved that game (and its sequels!), and funnily enough the storyline revolves around time travel. Now, in Red Alert, Einstein invents a time machine and in an attempt to prevent the third reich gaining popularity hence preventing World War 2, he assassinates Adolf Hitler as a youth. The death of Hitler results in Stalin rising to power and the free world fighting communism instead of Nazism. This point is one of the reasons I started writing this blog in the first place. The Philosophy of time-travel.

Now, Back to the Future (film and a half!) happens to subscribe to the same thinking in regards to time travel as most other fantasy authors. In Back to the Future Doctor Emmett Brown invents a Time Machine (A Delorian no less), the entire existence of which is due to the invention of the Flux capacitor (also invented by Doctor Brown). Before Doctor Brown can even use the Time Machine however, he is hunted down by the Libyans from whom he stole the Uranium required to power the reactor, and is shot. Marty (a youth who befriended Doctor Brown), then leaps into the Time Machine and in an attempt to outrun the Libyans hits the 88mph required to time travel and is catapaulted back to 1955. In 1955 Marty discovers that the future is easily changed and (long story short) Marty alters his future.

Ok, so the philosophy of Time Travel... There are two popular beliefs. The first, and the one portrayed in movies, is that of (what I like to call) Flux-Time. This is the belief that time can be altered. The Second, (and that which I prescribe to) is that of Static Time or Fate. The Fate philosophy argues that IF one was to travel back in time (or forward), it would be predestined, and everything you did would be pre-ordained. Now, let's check the flaws.

Flaws with Flux-Time:
Ok, so the flaws with this are numerous. Firstly, there's the fact that if the user travelled back in time and altered the future, then they would create a paradox. The paradox would run thus; If the user travelled back in time and killed their parents, their parents could not have children, their child could not invent the time machine, their child could not travel back in time, their child could not kill the parents. Anyone else see the flaw there? The film Back to the Future exhibits these flaws clearly, when Marty almost prevents his parents ever falling in love. At another point (in Back to the Future 2) Biff Tannen (the bad guy) steals the time-machine to travel back in time to give his younger self a sports almanac (which contains sports statistics for the next 50 years and would help him get rich). Then, the film ruins its own laws of physics, by showing the older Biff returning to the same 2015 that Marty and Doc were in, meaning that he couldn't have changed anything. BUT. When Marty and Doc travel back to 1985, they find that it is an alternate 1985. When Marty suggests that they travel forward to stop old Biff stealing the Time Machine, Doc informs Marty that this is impossible because the future would be an alternate future. Major Flaw. If you're going to invent Laws of Physics and Reality for a film, at least adhere to them guys!

Now this is the problem with the whole Flux-Time philosophy; if the present (let's say that the time you came from is the present) is altered, then everything that happens is altered. This would perhaps even affect the Time Machine's creation. If the Time Machine was not created, then it could not travel back in time. If this did not happen then nothing could be changed. Badda-Boom Badda-Bing, Time travel the Flux way is not possible.

So, Static Time:

Static Time would be Time-Travel do to events that are pre-ordained. i.e. nothing you could do would alter anything and if you did alter anything, it would be because you were meant to. The question over this method of time-travel is thus: you will invariably change something through accident or intent. But what if, you were destined to perform that accident, and you fail. you fall on something you were meant to, or instead of killing the person, you miss and kill the person you weren't intending tom but you were destined to. (This is not taking into account the God Vs. Fate argument which is still a raging philosophical debate. Rather I'm assuming that fate has won. but I believe that fate is an all-powerful being following a plan, identical to God.) This actually brings to mind an appalling Jean Claude Van Damme film about Time-travelling tourists... No, wait. Sorry. Just checked that information. I'm thinking of the film "Thrill Seekers", and crossing that with "Timecop" in which Van Damme was a policeman regulating time travel. Unfortunately they're both appalling anyway.

And that's the land-lord calling time.


Appropriate really.


(I appologise for the extreme lack of pictures. I aim to remedy this shortly when Blogger lets me upload pictures)