Fundamental Law or Fundamental Flaw

[Bob Clay]

I'd built the time machine, and decided to go for it, talk about jumping out into the dark. I don't want to bore you with M Theory, suffice to say there are 13 dimensions, not 11 (sorry Mr Witten), and the 13th is an extra time dimension, curled up of course, the entire time-line of the Universe wrapped into the Planck Time, about a billion trillion trillionth of a second.

So if you know how to wire up a few tightly wound coils and hit the right frequency, you can move across billions of years in the blink of a microbe's eye (if they've got eyes !). I couldn't follow the footsteps of H.G. Well's intrepid traveller, because you can only go back, you can't go forward, the future hasn't happened yet so there's nothing to go to, this is the Fundamental Law of time travel.

But the adjustment is tricky, it would be wouldn't it if you're playing around with trillionth trillionths, so instead of seeing Alexander marching across Persia, I'm sitting here in a vivid green forest of giant fern like plants, and for me there is no return, no 'Back to the Future', because here, 70 million years in the past, the Fundamental Law still applies, there is no travel to the future, even the future I came from no longer exists. So there is no paradox in time travel, I'm stuck here, the only choice being to go further back to possibly an empty Earth and no oxygen, which doesn't have much appeal, although listening to that roar in the distance which I think is a Tyrannosaurus Rex, I might have to chance it.

[Jodi MacArthur]

"Think of time as a moving blade, cutting through nothingness."
Bob, that's a great analogy. It almost seems to take on it's own life by simply existing and does the past stay put on the trail where it is left? Why would it stay? Why would any of it stay? Seems to me like it would be pulled ahead by the momentum. You're churning some ideas here, my friend.

I can't help but wonder if this is where ghostly places, hauntings come in. They were drawn forward or simply didn't want to be left behind. It's all about energy right? Or lack of. Or I just don't know what the heck I'm talking about it (most likely).

[Bob Clay]

It's one idea Irene. It would avoid the paradox. Think of time as a moving blade, cutting through nothingness. The edge of the blade is the present, the trail it leaves the past, and in front, well ... nothingness ... no future. Remember that quote from Terminator ... 'No fate but what we make.'
But if you travel back along the trail, you are resetting the blade ... resetting the entire Universe ... the old 'Reset' button. ... :-/

It's just an idea .... (one of those Saturday night back from the pub ideas .... :-/ .... )

(I think the men in white coats are a knocking at my door).

[Nora Ibsen]

Oh boy, you mean there is never a future, even when it has already happened?

[Jodi MacArthur]

I wonder if we'd find Buckaroo Bonzi in the 8th dimension? It'd be worth taking a trip through all 13 to find out.

[Bob Clay]

I think that was the fundamental flaw ..... I didn't take a spare battery ..... and Jurassic electrical shops are a tad thin on the ground .....

:-)

[Ian Rochford]

Nice. Couldn't you just reverse the battery cables...?

[John Wiswell]

You spin such cool longer six-sentence stories out of fantastic ideas. This and the alien declaring itself God come to mind.

[Robert McEvily]

My problems seem much smaller now. Thanks Bob!