Pure Time Travel: Let me begin this theory with an example. So, we are in 2009, you and your “squeeze" are going to Pizza Hut (where you eventually will end up doing things leading to your break up). At Pizza Hut, just before that hot waitress is going to come up to you, some shady looking guy starts hitting on “yours truly” and in your surge of jealousy you don’t notice the waitress at all. The shady guy also leaves and you successfully survive the date! The shady guy was no one but “future you” who had travelled back in time to save the date. (He returned back to 2015 once his job was done or he could lead an adventurous hidden life till 2015 when you eventually fade away and he carries on your life). Only in 2015, will you realize that the “shady guy” in your 2009 date was you and you travel back. The readers of this blog will surely be asking “what if you don’t realize that you have to go back in time to save the date?” The fact is that THE SHADY GUY WAS THERE, and that wouldn’t have been possible unless you realized that you had to travel back. So no chance that you don’t realize. (Though there’s always the case that there really was someone hitting on your girlfriend and had nothing to do with the waitress… but that’s beside the point).
According to this theory, it is assumed that every instant in the universe’s history is unambiguously defined. The major difference between Parallel Universe Theory and
Pure Time Travel theory is that, you cannot change reality in Pure Time Travel. All you can do is realize the reality where as in parallel universe theory you can actually change the actions taken by you. Let’s analyze the Harry Potter 3 book and movie to get a clearer understanding of the differences. In Harry Potter 3, the movie, Harry goes back 3 hours. But all the while, the original Harry exists too and the actions of “time-travelled Harry” affect the original Harry. This is Pure Time Travel. On the other hand, if “time-travelled Harry” had REPLACED the original Harry, it would have been a case of Parallel Universe Time Travel. The Butterfly Effect is a good example of Parallel Universe Time Travel. When the actor travels back in time, he replaces his original self and is able to change the reality. In Pure Time Travel, there may be more than one “you” existing in the same universe, while in the Parallel Universe Time Travel, each universe can have atmost one “you”. Therefore, in Pure Time Travel, the actions of “time travelled you” can affect the original “you” but in Parallel Universe Time Travel, multiple “you”s don’t exist in the same universe, so no question of actions affecting original “you”.
This brings us to Teleporting! Using Pure Time Travel, you can achieve teleporting (at least in a way). Suppose you get up to realize that you had an exam which starts in a second. What do you do? Well, use “Pure Time Travel” and travel back 10 min. Now use these 10 minutes to get to the class, and at the end of 10 min, the original “You” (who was in bed) will disappear off and that’s it! Effectively for the world, you disappeared off from your bed and appeared in the examination hall in a second!
Of course this leads us to the question… “Is this really Teleporting?”
That’s for you to answer! Its goodbye till Neel craxx another puzzle!
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Time Travel x 01 - Parallel Universe Theory
So, here’s an interesting bit of discussion I had with my roommate. Before you go to read it, I should probably introduce my roomie properly. Neel Deshmukh is a guy with seriously radical ideas about everything. Someday he would wake me up saying he has figured out why murderers and looters are imperative for our survival and on other days I would find myself getting a discourse about why Oedipus complex is actually true. Though this post does not delve into greater details about the abovementioned things, it still has some really interesting ideas.
Lately, we have been watching The Big Bang Theory and in one of the episodes, Sheldon brings up Time Travel. (This was about 2 weeks ago). So yesterday, Hitesh, Neel and I were on our way for a treat and out of nowhere Neel says, “There are 2 types of time travel possible”. (One could almost hear Hitesh say “Here We Go!” in his head… but BBT apart…) So there could be 2 ways a person could time travel.
1) Parallel Universe Theory
2) Pure Time Travel
(For the sake of all illustrations, we would be assuming that time travel came into existence in 2015 and every time you travel back in time would be from this point)
Parallel Universe Theory: The theory states that initially (before time travel is invented) there is a single universe. When a person time travels (say to a point t in time), a new universe having exactly the same properties (till the time t) as the previous one is created. From t till 2015 you would exist in both the universes and in 2015, you will cease to exist in the old universe. But for all practical purposes, the “new-universe you” will have no trouble with this and will continue to live in his altered universe. Every time a person travels back in time and brings about some change in the universe, he would create a parallel universe which would be different form the one where he time travelled from.
Let me illustrate this with an example. Suppose you had a girlfriend in 2009. You were on a date, everything was going fine, and a hot blonde waitress comes up to you and you just couldn’t help checking her out. For some reason, this angers “yours forever” and BAM! You no longer have a girlfriend. So, in 2015, you are desperate and needy and lonely and you come across this amazing thing called the time machine. You travel back in time to 2009 and just tweak the details. Instead of going to Pizza Hut (where you) you decide to get pizzas delivered to your place (just to be safe!). According to this theory, now you have 2 universes. One where you eventually end up needy and lonely and use the time machine and disappear from that universe, the other where you might still possibly be holding on to your girlfriend. The original universe would continue to exist after 2015 without you as a part of it.
References for Parallel Universe Theory:
1) The Butterfly Effect
2) Cube
3) Twelve Monkeys
Coming up in the Next Post …. Pure Time Travel …
Lately, we have been watching The Big Bang Theory and in one of the episodes, Sheldon brings up Time Travel. (This was about 2 weeks ago). So yesterday, Hitesh, Neel and I were on our way for a treat and out of nowhere Neel says, “There are 2 types of time travel possible”. (One could almost hear Hitesh say “Here We Go!” in his head… but BBT apart…) So there could be 2 ways a person could time travel.
1) Parallel Universe Theory
2) Pure Time Travel
(For the sake of all illustrations, we would be assuming that time travel came into existence in 2015 and every time you travel back in time would be from this point)
Parallel Universe Theory: The theory states that initially (before time travel is invented) there is a single universe. When a person time travels (say to a point t in time), a new universe having exactly the same properties (till the time t) as the previous one is created. From t till 2015 you would exist in both the universes and in 2015, you will cease to exist in the old universe. But for all practical purposes, the “new-universe you” will have no trouble with this and will continue to live in his altered universe. Every time a person travels back in time and brings about some change in the universe, he would create a parallel universe which would be different form the one where he time travelled from.
Let me illustrate this with an example. Suppose you had a girlfriend in 2009. You were on a date, everything was going fine, and a hot blonde waitress comes up to you and you just couldn’t help checking her out. For some reason, this angers “yours forever” and BAM! You no longer have a girlfriend. So, in 2015, you are desperate and needy and lonely and you come across this amazing thing called the time machine. You travel back in time to 2009 and just tweak the details. Instead of going to Pizza Hut (where you) you decide to get pizzas delivered to your place (just to be safe!). According to this theory, now you have 2 universes. One where you eventually end up needy and lonely and use the time machine and disappear from that universe, the other where you might still possibly be holding on to your girlfriend. The original universe would continue to exist after 2015 without you as a part of it.
References for Parallel Universe Theory:
1) The Butterfly Effect
2) Cube
3) Twelve Monkeys
Coming up in the Next Post …. Pure Time Travel …
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