When Jack Havig tells Robert Anderson that:
"'Mathematically speaking, world lines are allowed to have finite, if not infinite discontinuities, and to be multi-valued functions. In many ways, time travel is equivalent to faster-than-light travel, which the physicists also declare is impossible.'" (V, p. 47)
- he echoes the language used in Time Patrol training. There Will Be Time and the Time Patrol series presuppose diametrically opposed premises regarding time travel. However, all works of fiction by a single author have a common source in their author's mind and I postulate a megamultiverse with deterministic universes in parallel timelines and a mutable timeline in a sixth dimension.
Each universe has three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension. Immutable timelines would parallel each other along a fifth dimension. Therefore, the mutable timeline would have to exist in a sixth dimension.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And as we know, not all scientists, as the Alcubierre cases shows, still think FTL is totally impossible, at least in theory. Making it an engineering practicality is another matter!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: though subsequent investigations have been encouraging on the Alcubierre hypothesis.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Now THAT is very encouraging! Next some start trying to make the Alubierre hypothesis WORK, from a practical nuts and bolts, engineering POV. Not, alas, that I expect to live to see that!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: no, but the phenomena that Alubierre predicted have been found to exist; that's as close as a layman can get, I think. Though only on a very small scale; however, it's enough to show that negative energy does exist, and that infinite quantities would not be necessary for the effects he hypothesized. Large energies, yes, but not galactic or stellar in scale.
(From SM Stirling.)
Note that in the "Time Patrol" universe it's explicitly stated that infinite discontinuities in the world lines -are- possible. So in the Time Patrol stories, people can go back and prevent themselves from being born -- and then continue to exist, because they were present before the change that prevented their birth, but with memories of a state of affairs that no longer exists. The THERE WILL BE TIME discontinuities are finite, so history is not changeable. Personally, I find the Time Patrol conception more persuasive -- that if time travel is possible at all, it would permit the violation of our perception of "causation". It seems more in keeping with the general nondeterministic 'spirit' of quantum effects. For "something" to prevent Havig from altering the past, as it does, would require a cosmic consciousness to 'arrange' the accidents which continually prevent it.
(From SM Stirling.)
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: What you said about the Alcubierre FTL drive was encouraging, even if it's still only of theoretical UTILITY.
I think I grasp your reasons for favoring the mutable timeline hypothesis of the Time Patrol stories over the immutable timeline seen in THERE WILL BE TIME. Even tho I found the latter easier to get a "grip" on. The mutable hypothesis of time travel, assuming it's possible, seems to FIT better into quantum effects.
Paul: Thanks for taking the trouble to repost combox remarks that, for unknown reasons, disappear!
Ad astra! Sean
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