Time Travel

Time Travel is today, as flying was in the 19th century; an impossible feat that only dreamers and people who don't understand aerodynamics or science think about. Thus, Time Travel is mostly confined to science fiction. But I for one, find that it is quite the thought provoking topic, so today I will present a few theories that I have heard. Note that even though I saw "theory", that isn't necessarily correct. A theory has some evidence in it's favor, and there has been much experimentation to see if it can be disproven, but so far it holds up. Time Travel on the other hand, is more like a weak, unconfirmed, hypothesis.

Also note that when I say "time travel", I mean being able, to some extent, control the flow of time. Because technically, we time travel every day, but it is at the same controlled rate. I also do consider the slight travel to the future, by a billionth of a second (as observed by scientists), to be time travel.

1. If you go back in time, the future you came from is affected. Example: You help Napoleon win the battle of Waterloo, thus allowing him to take over Europe. When you go back the future, world history is drastically changed.

Problem: Primarily, the Grandfather Paradox, and other similar paradoxes. In the Grandfather Paradox, a time traveling grandchild goes back in time and kills a grandparent. Thus, he was never born. Thus, he could not exist to go back in time to kill his grandparent. Thus, he is alive because his grandparent is alive because the grandchild wasn't alive to murder the grandparent. It just keeps on going in a cycle...

2. When you go back in time and change something, you are creating an alternate reality; the future that you came from is not changed. Example: If you go back and stop the Mario games from being created, there would be one reality with Mario, and one without him.

Problem: There would be great difficulty navigating the parallel universes. How would you know which was which? And any length of time traveling would produce a great number of different realities.

3. Instead of being separated from time while it is flowing, you and everyone else must re-live it. Example: A guy punches you in the face and you get a black eye. You force time to reverse, and time goes backwards. Your face is miraculously healed as his fist retreats. At this point, time starts again. You duck, and give him a black eye.

Problem: Because it is essentially pressing the "rewind" button, there can be some difficulty going to the future. Depending on the theory, impossible. Also, one could not go farther back in time than his birth.