The previous post was an intellectual exercise. In practice, there was no way that Saunders was going to perform such an experiment. He has burst into the time projector, fleeing from men firing guns and aiming a bazooka. He throws the main switch, then shudders as the projector puts as much time as possible between him and the men in black. He thinks that five hundred years is not too much.
In the conditions of time travel as they are described in this story, 3000 AD is much too far away for him to try to travel back to save Hull and he does not even think of it. We may hypothesize that such circumstances prevail in this timeline. Either a time traveller does not even think of trying to change the recent past or, if he does try to, something will happen that prevents him. We should assume a single immutable timeline unless we are given some reason to think otherwise.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
If you absolutely know someone is dead it does seem impossible to prevent him from being killed.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It is impossible in a single immutable timeline.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I strongly suspect that is the kind of time-line we are living in.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That is the simplest hypothesis, therefore to be preferred until there is contrary evidence.
Paul.
The simplest hypothesis is that backwards time travel is impossible, therefore the timeline cannot be changed.
Kaor, to Both!
I agree.
Ad astra! Sean
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