Questions tagged [time-travel]
For questions relating to travel in time. Such travel may involve FTL travel; consider also using the [faster-than-light] tag.
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Can 'prions' help me avoid a genetic engineering temporal paradox?
On the world of Ruquelis, the horrific practise of cannibalism stands on three legs, however, this question is concerned only with Leg #1: Genetics.
In How to have 'easy' sexual morphs in ...
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Everyone is sent into the future via regularly scheduled timejumps. How can I make sure I survive?
One day every human on earth capable of understanding a language gets has the same thought in their respective language repeated 3 times over the next three hours:
"In order to reduce human ...
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Could a character go back in time and then "kill" the timeline they came from? [closed]
So I'm trying to see if this scenario would work for a piece I'm writing. I know timetravel can be quite specific and most people dont like it because its executed poorly.
To specify say the ...
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How should a time traveler be careful if they decide to stay and make a family in the past?
In a world where time travel in the past is possible but deletes the current future/ present, there is a person named Sarah who does not worry about the ripple effects her actions might create. Sarah ...
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Rip van Winkle crime spree
Let's say a rogue physicist wanted to make a fortune allowing criminals to use time tech to avoid the time when statute of limitations would allow them to be arrested. But how could someone prove to ...
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Survival Prepping, for Time Travel
Six months from now, ChatGPT transitions into an Artificial Super Intelligence. Six months after that, it discovers how to Time Travel. It is confirmed that traveling into the past will NOT affect our ...
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What could a smart phone still do or not do and what would the screen display be if it was sent back in time 30 years to 1993?
A person is sent back in time 30 years to 1993 and they still have their phone. The phone is an iphone 11. It is on a contract. The battery is fully charged. The phone has a number of apps on it ...
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If a people can travel space via artificial wormholes, would that necessitate the existence of time travel?
The primary mechanism of “faster than light” travel in my story is via artificially formed wormholes that can be created to transport a craft to a reasonably precise location. Would the existence of ...
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Time crime real estate division
I've become interested in time crime recently, but I want to muse over how it would work. Someone suggested using future knowledge to invest in real estate might be a good way to make money off time ...
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What items can a time traveler trade in medieval England to quickly acquire wealth? [duplicate]
I'm writing a story about a man from modern-day Liverpool, UK, who can travel 800 years in the past with a machine. He wants to become a nobleman in the past before going on adventures. He wants to ...
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How far back in time would the USA need to travel to be able to conquer the entire world? [closed]
I've been thinking of a scenario in which the US wants to control the entire world, via time travel, but I'm not sure what time to travel to.
The US is generally considered to have the most powerful ...
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impact of dinosaurs in architecture and settlement-building
The main idea is that a norse settlement and their surrounding is teleported to a late cretaceous north america; around 67 million years ago.
This settlement is large enough to have people of various ...
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What are the odds medieval individuals will recognize our time traveler's description of penicillin [closed]
Follow up on an old question/idea.
My 'time traveler' (actually more of a dimension hopper) got thrown into a roughly medieval feudal society, very closely modeled off of, but not the same as, ...
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Would time travel make infinite coins?
I have a crap load of coins, enough to make 20 dollars USD. They fill up a relatively big jar. There is not an infinite amount of money in there though. There is a finite amount of money in the world. ...
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What would happen if someone time travel far enough to the Big Bang? [closed]
Imagine if someone can time travel any time and any where he/she wants, (Past,Present, & Future). But what if the time machine got out of control and took them to the big bang. What would happen ...
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How far in the past could a highly-trained survivalist live?
Related to How far in the past could unprepared humans survive?, but assumes a single survivalist, purpose-trained for his mission. He is to time travel as far back as he can and attempt to survive ...
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How would time travellers convince the scientific community? [duplicate]
As per title. Supposing time travellers are back in this age from the future, how would they convince the scientific community that they really did travel through time?
Convincing the common person is ...
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Time dilation to accelerate evidence gathering
The basic premise of a story I've been thinking through is that society finds that they cannot respond to catastrophic events quickly enough and decide to use time dilation to accelerate results of ...
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How do you prove the age of a time capsule?
There is the classic trope of a kidnapping victim posing for a photo with today's newspaper to prove they still live, or a time traveller correctly announcing Solar Flares before they happen to prove ...
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How to accelerate time?
Something in a spaceship, a box, an area in the space, whatever, that experiences a faster time than the rest of the universe.
The opposite of the well known twins paradox.
How could be that the twin ...
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What to bring back from the past to prove the success of a Time Machine? [closed]
Reference this thread for more on the putative time machine.
So my intrepid time travelers set out in their DC-3 in late September 1962, not really knowing where they are going or how to get back. ...
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Meeting one's child in the past [closed]
I'm writing a story where the hero in his 20s ends up in the past and meets his father (also in his 20s), but does not recognise him due to certain appearance alterations. The father in his turn has ...
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Viewing the whole timeline from another temporal axis; why can't the first temporal dimension look back and see the future of the time travellers?
Introduction
A common image in time travel stories is an image of all time, either as a line or a tree form. Take this image from Loki as an example:
So a time traveller's organisation, like the one ...
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How much territory would a 200-450 kilogram solitary Carnivorous Dinosaur need to survive in a jungle, forest, woodland or similar environment?
I’ll give you all some context here.
In, the story that I’m writing, two characters are investigating a scientist who is responsible for unethical practices or is not properly following known ...
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What would be the best way to kill an Albertosaurus with only stone age weapons?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertosaurus
Going to have my male human protagonist kill an Albertosaurus with stone age weapons. However as this is in self defense I was just curious to know how ...
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How do you differentiate a time machine from a disintegration chamber? [closed]
In settings where time travel is possible but only backwards in time (Terminator), how did the scientists that developed the machine know that the subjects sent back in time actually were time ...
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What is the largest animal that a person could kill with stone age weaponry 66 MYA? What is the biggest one they can kill in self defense?
So basically two people are transported back in time to 66 MYA ago with just their clothes on their back, a month of rations and the time machine that sent them back.
They're going to spend the next ...
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Would time travel to bring someone from the past to the future be possible? Without creating paradoxes or other impediments? [closed]
Assuming we have the technology to travel to the past (about 2 years ago for example). If I replace someone who is in a coma about to die of cancer with a clone (in this hypothetical situation, for ...
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A device to negate time dilation believability [closed]
In this setting spacecraft are able to approach the speed of light and are equipped with a device to negate the time dilation, this allows things to go horribly wrong if this device fails plot wise.
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Post scarcity economy via time travel/alternate universes
I'm imagining a world where it's possible to travel back in time, but doing so creates an alternate universe rather then changing your past. There is some high, but manageable, cost the first time ...
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What would be the best time period, in the age of the dinosaurs to send two people back to for maximum survival?
I'll give you a bit of context and understanding. What's happened is that two people are investigating a scientist who was believed to be involved in suspicious practices and they end up discovering ...
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Is it really possible to travel back in time? [closed]
There have been many time travelling questions here, but I am not sure if this one specifically has been asked. Is it really possible to travel back in time and is it theoretically possible? This ...
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What physical effects would 3000 years have on the physiology of humans on Mars?
This is my first ever question on here.
I've seen a few posts on Martian physiology but since the answers on here are answered so well and by so many I thought I'd be more specific.
How would human ...
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Surviving time travel using black holes or wormholes
Operating under the assumption that it is possible to use a black hole or wormhole to travel forward in time by a relatively small amount of time (e.g. 2,000 years) without travelling a significant ...
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Can the 1980s US government recreate a smartphone?
Inspired by this question.
A time traveller appears in two situations in the year 1985
in front of Steve Jobs and other Apple high ups
in front of few federal and us army officials
The time ...
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What would be the advantage of a device that can only let a person travel forward in time? [closed]
Context
The Helix Corporation is an evil mega-corporation where everything they make always has some sort of strange twist to it.
Their latest product was the Relativity Rocket Alarm Clock. It was ...
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Paradox Free Time Travel: What Are the Implications of the “One More Ball” Thought Experiment? [closed]
Note: this question uses third-party worlds and events to illustrate
the point, but it is not in any way about them, therefore this
question is not off-topic.
I have had an interest in time travel. ...
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How to estimate size of ketamin dose to sedate a T. rex.?
To mark the anniversary of our company we have decided to introduce to our VIP guests a once in a lifetime opportunity to get intimate with the dinosaurs, we will put the animal to sleep so the guests ...
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What can we eat in the late Cretaceous?
Suppose there is a team of explorers sent back in time 66 million years ago somewhere before the K-T event took place, the mission is to spend no more than 3 months to retrieve a blood sample from a ...
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A High School student time travelled through a certain time in Medieval Ages how would he/she survive? [closed]
Since it's the Medieval Age can mean any time period and any place you can suggest which place and time the student can most likely survive with limited skill.
How would a person with high-school ...
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What might a time travel facility be called? [closed]
In the real world one may catch a train at a station, a flight from an airport, a bus from a depot, a boat from a port or terminal.
If one were to travel through time inside a time machine what would ...
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Chemical component that would be dangerous (existential threat) when liquid, but safe if it evaporates?
The story I am writing takes place in a world where someone invented time travel. This technology, and the control of anti matter is only available for the creator (and the protagonist that helps him)....
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Ideas from the future changing the past [closed]
There is a thesis that I rather support, claiming that most inventions where done when done not because of lack of creativity, but because the technology or society were not ready for them. But I ...
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Ideal Settlement Location for Time Travelers [closed]
If a group of time travelers dedicated to travel back 10 million years and settle a humanless earth, where might they decide to found this first colony?
Assume that these temporal colonists are well ...
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Effectiveness of a modern-built Q-ship in the Napoleonic Wars
Let us suppose that at the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, we have a 5th-rate ship similar in appearance to the 38-gun HMS Lively with a displacement of approximately 820 tons, and a top speed under ...
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Hacking the simulation to do time travel (with quantum computers?)
I am trying to come up with a plausible speculative physics explanation for a story I am writing where the conceit is that phsyicists discover the universe is a simulation. The idea is that the ...
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"Busted" from the past
Imagine someone claimed she was from Mesopotamia, one of the earliest civilization and had time travelled 5000 years into the future which is now our current modern day, she was completely naked so ...
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If a time traveler from the near future went back in time to kill Hitler and failed, could the nazis reverse engineer modern tech with 1940's tech?
Suppose someone went back in time to kill Hitler and fails and some modern tech falls into nazi hands. What modern technology could they realistically reverse engineer with 1940's tech?
I'm leaving ...
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What is the earliest that a time-traveling electric vehicle of current era could be recharged?
Taking modern gas engines into the past is hard because the fuel isn’t refined enough and damages the engines. But electricity has been the same since time began, limited by human capacity to produce ...
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What tests might someone do to assess possible brain damage from time travel? [closed]
I have a character who travels in time, but after making major jumps (like 100 years forward), she begins experiencing side effects—first nose bleeds, but the symptoms begin to increase to things like ...
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