Timeline for Why doesn't the world fill with time travelers?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 29 at 11:54 | comment | added | LazyLizard | Use the multiverse variant, but make it so that the time machine cannot just move you to some existing timeline. It can only move you to one point of YOUR past timeline, and that creates a new branch at that spot. That way there will never be other timetravellers. Unless you originate in a universe wich was already created by one. | |
| Aug 29 at 7:51 | comment | added | paul23 | @o.m. you should never change reality because it fits a story better though. NEVER EVER become inconsistent, readers will fall over that (see for example how terrible lord of the rings are written and the many inconsistencies people fall over in that world). And the only way to not become inconsistent is to follow physics, or spent the massive time required to built a new world model. | |
| Aug 29 at 7:02 | comment | added | The Betpet | Look up "Blinovitch Limitation Effect" | |
| Aug 28 at 17:21 | comment | added | o.m. | @paul23, the quantum interpretation also has certain narrative drawbacks. For storytelling purposes, it is great if one time traveler can follow another, e.g. to prevent mischief. But altering the timeline brings another can of paradox. | |
| Aug 28 at 11:03 | comment | added | paul23 | Second interpretation is actually a common interpretation in quantum mechanics: the many worlds interpretation that state that any quantum event creates separate "worlds". Which happen all the time around us. | |
| Aug 27 at 16:24 | comment | added | Pelinore | @o.m. I think as he's talking about sending the whole population back that we have to assume a 'time gate' or 'a time chamber' > which suggests the time machine itself doesn't go back with them? the alternative is a shed load of time machines and the resource requirements for that begin to get a bit astronomical ;) so how big can you build the 'gate', 'tunnel' or 'transport platform' is then the question. | |
| Aug 27 at 16:19 | comment | added | o.m. | @Pelinore, the question would be how many people fit into one time machine. Ten, fifty, a thousand are no real problem. You would have to transport enough people in a single hop to make a difference. | |
| Aug 27 at 16:17 | comment | added | o.m. | @JacobisonCodidact, you have this timeline with one extra person, and that timeline becomes the source of another time travel, and timelines split from that have two extra persons, etc. | |
| Aug 27 at 13:13 | comment | added | Pelinore | "Time travel creates alternate universes" if everyone travels back together it isn't helpful, not even a bit, you arrive in a xerox of the original timeline and when you go back from that one end up in a xerox of that so it's functionally the same as with no splitting. .. or are you suggesting that every individual who goes back ends up in their own individual timeline (pop back individually rather than all together)? > so 20 billion (or whatever) timelines each with just one person added to each? > that solves the issue for a very long time, and produces a whole bunch of new issues ;D | |
| Aug 27 at 7:25 | comment | added | Jacob is on Codidact | In option B you will have N extra people in N+1 timelines, or an average of N/(N+1): always less than one person. I would say that does effectively stop the "filling". But the problem now is not "where do all the people go", but "where do all the timelines go". | |
| Aug 26 at 21:40 | comment | added | controlgroup | A little piece of technobabble that might be valuable if the OP so chooses: the time machines produce time-oriented gravitational waves, similar to GWs except that they cause temporal strain over space instead of spatial strain over time. The radiation is generated when a TT gateway is opened, and it creates a localized area of space and time where trying to navigate through the chaotic timestream with another time machine would be exceedingly difficult to the point of impracticality. When embedded in the timeline, the radiation seems to dissipate right away, but in reality it lingers… | |
| Aug 26 at 18:48 | history | answered | o.m. | CC BY-SA 4.0 |