"I'll See You Yesterday" A Look Back, Forward, and Sideways at Time Travel

One of the most exciting concepts and theories in Science Fiction is time travel, the ability to spontaneously leap a great distance into the future to see what comes next, or into the past to either observe or change what has happened before.

There is even a bit of a joke that time travel is not only possible, but it is occurring at this very moment. Each and every person alive is moving forward in time at a constant, steady pace.

The concept of time travel has been explored in every type of entertainment media I can think of, including books, movies, and to some extent, video games. The concept and possibility have been around for decades, with one of the best known stories, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, being over a century old.

Ever since the theory was created, people have wondered on the possibility. Not simply considering if time travel is possible, but wondering how it would be done and what the potential consequences would be. People have speculated of traveling in numerous ways, which can be broken down into basically two categories, dozens of possible results, and various types of rules on the matter. Some of the possibilities can be quite interesting.

The most popular method of time travel, is physically moving back in time. Most often a machine is built for this purpose for it to work. A person is able to use the machine to send themselves as they are through time, coming out at the other end. Explanation wise, pretty simple and straight forward.

This method demonstrated in:

• The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
• Back To The Future
• Dr. Who

There are many different questions that arise from the possibility of time travel. One of them is the question of what will happen if a person meets themselves when traveling through time within their own lifespan.

This is not always a question that is asked, even if it does in a way come up. The movie Back to the Future includes a moment in the second film where a character travels back in time to meet his younger self. Aside from some insults and scheming, there are no major consequences.

A different result was quite more dangerous. In the movie Time Cop starring Jean-Claude Van Dam, a person could meet a version of them from the other time, but had to be careful not to touch. If they did, the two versions of the person would become unstable and deteriorate.

A TV series called "Seven Days" worked its way around this possibility so it should not be able to happen. A rule was instituted in the show based on the law of physics stating that an object cannot exist in two places at the same time. As such, if a person traveled back in time in their own lifespan, they and any objects with them would be the only version that exist in the time they arrive out. This was, however, in a series where time travel was limited to only seven days, so how it would work at a greater distance, such as childhood, never came up.

The major questions when it comes to time travel is the matter of whether or not we can affect events in the past (or present), and to what extent. There has been much speculation about whether or not someone could influence events and to what extent. several possibilities have been thought up as a result.

The idea that when time is affected, anything can happen. A person can travel back in time, manipulate events, then return to his own time and see the extent in which his actions had altered the way in which the history between the two points unfolds. As far as anyone else recalls, this is the way it is, or was, since whenever history was changed. I say anyone else because most often the character who traveled back through time to manipulate the events still has memories of how the timeline had originally been

Examples of a fully manipulative future are demonstrated in Back to the Future, Timecop, and The Butterfly Effect.

Limited time manipulation is a concept where you might make be able to make a small change to what happens, but any and all major events will still pretty much occur as they happened at the point of time travel, just with minor differences.

Example: A person decided to try and prevent World War 2. They travel back in time and successfully assassinate Hitler. Believing his plan a full success, he returns to his own time. Upon arrival, the time traveler finds that World War II still occurred, but was simply led by someone else.

An idea shown in the short film The Jettee, and the full length American filmed based off of it, "12 Monkeys." The idea is that the future cannot be changed by traveling back in time due to the fact that the actions of the time traveler had already occurred. The result is that by trying to change the past, the person actually causes the very actions which led to the creation of the future he or she was trying to change. The idea is that since it is the past, the events have already occurred, including the attempts to travel through time and change things.

This concept is the reason I did my article on alternate realities first. The idea is that the present cannot be changed with time travel. Events as they have occurred in history cannot be changed in the current reality.

Instead, when a person goes back in time and change things, they do not simply go back in time, but into a parallel reality. There, the events they have affect occur as they are influenced by the time traveler. However, upon returning to their own time, the individual finds that everything is exactly the same. Their actions affect a reality different from their own.

This was mentioned once in a TV series from the early nineties called Time Trax. The overall idea of the series was a cop had traveled to the present to chase down a large number of criminals who had escaped by traveling back in time. One episode had a character who was assassinating people who were the ancestors of people he blamed for the death of someone close to him. It is mentioned at one point that what happens in the current time will not change the future they come from as it is a different reality.

The reason several possibilities exist for how time travel can work out is due to what has been considered an issue in time travel possibilities due to cause and effect.

A person travels back in time to try and prevent a certain event from occurring. They are successful, so the event never occurs. This then causes an issue. Since the event in question never happened, the person had no reason to travel back in time. If the time traveler does not go back in time, they cannot prevent the event from occurring, so it happens. Now that it has happened, the person has a reason to go back and try to prevent it, causing the problem over again.

Time travel does not yet exist, and we don't know what the future holds. The possibilities could be terrible (such as a person trying to change the past to how he thinks it should be), or beneficial (full historical accuracy and the finding of lost technology). Only time will tell, and I have yet run into anyone from the future who will let me know now.