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Temporal Anomalies

Main Page
Discussing Time Travel Theory
Miscellany
Conversation
Other Films
Perpetual Barbecue
About the Author
Contact the Author

See also entries under the
Temporal Anomalies/Time Travel
category of the
mark Joseph "young"
web log
elsewhere on this site.

Quick Jumps

A Primer on Time
The Science of Time Travel
The Two Brothers
The Spreadsheet Illustration
The Uncaused Cause
Mass Suicide and the Grandfather Paradox
Toward Two-Dimensional Time
A Critique of the Spreadsheet Theory
Response to A Critique
Temporal Theory 101
Temporal Theory Questions
  (From The Examiner)

Temporal Theory 102

Theory Pages
in no particular order

Discussing Time Travel Theory
A Primer on Time
The Science of Time Travel
The Two Brothers
The Spreadsheet Illustration
The Uncaused Cause
Mass Suicide and the Grandfather Paradox
Toward Two-Dimensional Time
A Critique of the Spreadsheet Theory
Response to A Critique
Temporal Theory 101
Temporal Theory Questions
  (From The Examiner)

Temporal Theory 102

Movies Analyzed
in order examined

Terminator
    Addendum to Terminator
    Terminator 3:  Rise of the Machines
    Terminator Recap
    Terminator Salvation
    Terminator Genisys
    Terminator:  Dark Fate
Back To The Future
Back To The Future II
Back To The Future III
Millennium
Star Trek Introduction
    Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
    Star Trek: Generations
    Star Trek: First Contact
    Star Trek (2009)
12 Monkeys
    Addendum to 12 Monkeys
Flight Of The Navigator
  Flight Of The Navigator Addendum
Army of Darkness
Lost In Space
Peggy Sue Got Married
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Frequency
Planet of the Apes
Kate and Leopold
Somewhere In Time
The Time Machine
Minority Report
Happy Accidents
The Final Countdown
Donnie Darko
  S. Darko
Harry Potter and
    the Prisoner of Azkaban

Deja Vu
Primer
    Primer Questions
Bender's Big Score
Popular Christmas Movies
The Butterfly Effect
  The Butterfly Effect 2
  The Butterfly Effect 3:  Revelations
The Last Mimzy
The Lake House
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Hot Tub Time Machine
Premonition
Los Cronocrimines a.k.a. TimeCrimes
Timeline
A Sound of Thundrer
Next
Frequently Asked Questions
    About Time Travel

Source Code
Warlock
Blackadder Back & Forth
Watchmen
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
11 Minutes Ago
Men in Black III
La Jetée
Triangle
Midnight in Paris
Meet the Robinsons
Looper
H. G. Wells' The Time Machine
The Jacket
Safety Not Guaranteed
The Philadelphia Experiment
    The Philadelphia Experiment II
Time After Time
TimeCop
About Time
Free Birds
X-Men:  Days of Future Past
Edge of Tomorrow
Mr. Peabody & Sherman
Predestination
Project Almanac
41
Time Lapse
Synchronicity
Paradox
O Homem Do Futuro
    a.k.a. The Man from the Future

Abby Sen
When We First Met
See You Yesterday
Mirage
The History of Time Travel
Copyright Information

The temporal anomaly terminology used here is drawn from Appendix 11:  Temporal Anomalies of Multiverser from Valdron Inc, and is illustrated on the home page of this web site.  This site is part of M. J. Young Net.

Books by the Author.


The Book

Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies
unravels
Discussing Time Travel Theory

Long ago a page was added to this site, a Primer on Time, in response to requests for an explanation of the theory.  That was followed by the addition of an examination of the Current Science of Time Travel, looking at the wormhole theory, and considering the two major competing theories proposed for managing paradox, the Fixed Time Theory and the Parallel (or Divergent) Dimensions Theory, and their various expressions.  Correspondence had once been posted in an effort to answer frequently asked questions, but this was not an effective way to address these, as continuing mail showed.  Several illustrations were used repeatedly in private correspondence with enough frequency that they needed to be made public.

Hence, this section of the site has been created to host those pages--the spreadsheet example, the two brothers example, and others, so that they can be referenced by those with questions, and not have to be written anew for each interested correspondent.

Click the page title below to reach the page described.


A Primer on Time

It would be incorrect to say that this is the first coherent explanation of the temporal anomalies theory used in these pages; that honor goes to Appendix 11:  Temporal Anomalies in Multiverser:  Referee's Rules, the role playing game in which everything is possible.  However, this was the first time the fragments of information scattered through the movie analyses here were gathered into one explanation on the web site.  It remains the starting point for understanding what some have dubbed the Replacement Theory of Time.

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The Current Science of Time Travel

Nova produced a special in which the science behind the wormhole theory of time travel was presented and discussed, and then blurred with the metaphysical views of several scientists who were contradicting each other.  This page distinguishes the physics from the metaphysics, and briefly addresses the flaws in the primary contenders for time theory, the Fixed Time Theory and the Parallel Dimensions Theory.

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The Two Brothers:  Why Parallel Dimension Theory Is Not Time Travel

Parallel Dimension Theory takes two major forms and a lot of variants.  Either you believe that all the universes already exist, and the time traveler merely moves to another (the primary theory, and the one least abusive to the laws of thermodynamics); or you believe that the arrival of the time traveler at a point in his own past immediately creates a diverging universe whose history has been the same to that point.  An examination of two brothers shows why the possibility of diverging or parallel dimensions to which we might be able to travel is completely irrelevant to time travel theory.

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The Spreadsheet Illustration of Temporal Anomalies

In the main, discussion of time in these pages treats it as something in motion; this page suggests for those who have trouble with that perspective that time is more easily understood as something stationary through which we move.  By looking at how a spreadsheet program works on a computer, we can see how time might function such that change is both instantaneous and sequential.

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The Uncaused Cause:  Failure of Fixed Time Stories

Most fixed time stories make the same mistake.  In an effort to show how time is unalterable, they create looped chains of events, and fail to recognize that what they have described could never happen--it is contrary to basic rules of causality, as explained in this page.

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Mass Suicide and the Grandfather Paradox

The Fixed Time theory insists that what didn't happen can't happen, and that if you attempted to create a paradox you would fail.  Yet those who advocate this position don't see the absurdity inherent within it.

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Toward Two-Dimensional Time

Upon reading Poul Anderson's collected Time Patrol stories it was evident to me that no established theory of time could account for the stories as he presented them.  I began pondering whether there was another way to consider temporal changes, and started working on such a theory.  I consider it woefully inadequate and woefully incomplete, but it is a beginning of an idea some of my readers might find intriguing.

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A Critique of the Spreadsheet Theory by Sergiy Koshkin

Although I receive e-mails frequently, it is rare that I receive thesis papers, and rarer yet that they attempt to present competing ideas in temporal mechanics.  Mr. Koshkin forwarded his paper to me, and invited me to share it and respond.  My response is linked to his paper as footnotes, as well as organized in the next page listed here.

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A Response by M. Joseph Young to A Critique of the Spreadsheet Theory by Sergiy Koshkin

Although I was impressed by Mr. Koshkin's efforts, I found his theory lacking and his criticisms insufficiently supported.  We continued to discuss some of these points privately, but this was my response to his paper.  It is linked to sections of his work, and quotes from it.

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Temporal Theory 101

Shortly after the stint at The Examiner began, the editorial staff recommended writers create a series of introductory articles for their fields, and so Temporal Theory 101 was created.  It was originally fourteen installments, and three were added over the year or so thereafter, covering the several theories of time, types of anomalies, identified paradoxes, and commonly discussed rules of time.  They have been compiled into one page here, but linked as individual sections on subjects.  There are also two sequels, the first covering questions asked by readers, the second written several years later to revisit the issues, offer more detail, and cover a few more common problems in time travel, Temporal Theory 102.

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Temporal Theory Questions (From The Examiner)

Following the release of Temporal Theory 101 there were quite a few questions, some of which were complicated enough to require their own articles in response.  These articles have been compiled and slightly edited into a single page collection, including practical, scientific, and even theological issues.

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Temporal Theory 102

Over two years it became apparent that the Temporal Theory 101 articles were inadequate in two ways.  The first was that some of the answers were not comprehensive enough, leaving significant gaps in the explanations of important issues.  The second was that there were important issues excluded from the discussion, points that kept appearing in analyses that linked to other movie articles because the explanation (e.g., of the genetic problem) was not covered in its own piece.  This created the opportunity to restate everything in a more orderly fashion, and so became the new set of explanations.

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