The Butterfly Effect, Time Travel, and You

^{(Cris A's Portraits of Gentlemen Hubbers!)}

Fellow poetic thinker, Mentalist acer, has yet again asked me a question. This instance, he inquires about the butterfly effect and how it might affect time travel.

Good question!

Good news, everyone! I'm about to seriously hurt your minds with theoretical physics.

Ready?

Don't forget to put on groovy music, take a few deep breathes (or swigs of drink of choice) and perhaps a few puffs on that cigar, cigarette, or cigajoint .

Hold on, my young padowan of theoretical physics and quantum theories.

I've been asked the question before: what is the butterfly effect, and how does it relate to time travel and the grand father paradox?

I think I'm more equipped to answer this today, but here's my original response:

^{(from "Message of Hope")}

mythbuster: Still thinking upon the grandfather paradox...it's sort of like a butterfly effect, right?

lxxy:

Hey Mythbuster!

Yes, the grandfather paradox I suppose is "sort of" like a butterfly effect, in that they're both easy to understand through a simple thought experiment. ;)

Actually, to be more specific--the butterfly effect deals with chaos theory. It basically says that any minute difference in initial conditions in a dynamic/open system can cause wildly divergent and great deviances in the long run for said system.

There's a movie, I'm sure you may have seen that utilizes this idea to talk about time travel and different "what-if" scenarios. But to not totally be dodgy, perhaps it's best to think of it this way:

Let's say I'm going to make a cake: eggs, flour, water, sugar. If I varied what ingredients I put in said cake, even by a pinch more or less the outcome would vary and have profound affects. Maybe with a lil more egg I go on to rule the snack cake world, or a bit more flour I kill someone.

You get the idea, right?

Whereas the Grandfather Paradox is more of a closed system event. Basically, it involves you and one of your grandparants. Let's say you have a time machine, you go back through time, and prevent them from meeting each other.

Your parents would no longer be, hence how could you be alive yourself? But here's the kicker--if you did cause this to happen--how did you time travel to begin with? This means that you must not have been able to travel back at all and so your grandparents DID meet and you WERE born. It's basically a logic loop.

Proponents of this mind boggling question have used this to discredit time travel. Except they've not fully come to grasp with one basic concept: when you travel back in time it's impossible to end up in your exact past or future.

It's more akin to the old time television series Sliders. Yes, I am able to traverse time and repeat (or see future events) that have occurred. But I'm not just sliding from one end of the spectrum of time to another, I'm creating a divergent quantum path that is now a new and separate universe.

So if I wanted to kill my grandfather, I certainly could. It just wouldn't be "my" grandfather, because the other me that is native to that reality has yet to be born.

Does this clear things up a bit?

...there are 10 dimensions, and technically, one extra. The "eleventh," where space-time has no concept, and all permutations of reality exist at once. There, quite possibly, you just might find a God-like being who started all of this so many aeons ago. Hence the term "There is no God in Space."

But I digress.

But before I show you said pre-requisite, without getting too into the details (scroll down for more) here's something I can do to alleviate all of that mounting anxiety:

Time travel and the butterfly effect (or chaos theory, as one might call it) don't coincide with one another. The two ideas are mutually exclusive. For the why, continue below.

And for those of you pressed for time, let's elaborate a bit on what we know about that very subject.

• It's the fourth dimension.
• It's existence is arguably moot, it can be seen as a fictional creation by man.
• So far, very few of you have yet to reliable travel back in time, only dilate it and send information instantaneously from one part of the universe to the next.

As one might consider when broaching this subject, you have to be prepared to think laterally and not just in a linear fashion.

In short, think of every action you've made--from picking your nose, to picking your outfit, to what kinda car you drive. Then add on top of that the layers of actions that have externally, be it directly or indirectly affected you.

That's right. Think about whether or not someone ahead of you gets a cab instead of you, perhaps getting into the Cash Cab or into a wreck. Perhaps you lost your wallet in  cab, one person might take, another might try to return. All occur simultaneously, but as our observation collapses the quantum particles of probability only one occurs in your native space-time.

Now, call that all of "reality."

This is the sort of thinking one must have to understand the nature of the universe, and the nature of time travel.

Is it possible to shift from one point of space-time to another? Well, duh, of course. It's done already--they're called wormholes, black holes, and even Einstein's Spooky Action at a Distance.

If you want to get technical, all of space-time and the omniverse it's self has a constant speed: light. Why? Because as light travels at 186,000 miles per second, our universe and the reality contained therein is laid down.

You see, all that you witness is constantly being written to your neuropathology. You are, in effect, in the Matrix. And yes, Neo, there are pills to take to cure that issue.

Never thought it was this complicated, did you?

By now you're stroking your beard (if guy, or circus performer.) or chin and wondering what all of this, or any of this so far has to do with time travelling and the butterfly effect.

Well, I'm getting there.

Hold on, okay?

What most people assume is that when they travel through time and go either into the future, or into the past...they're going back into the world they know of. Indeed, it's just as if you are Marty McFly and must make your mother fall in love with your father or risk never have time travelled before.

Now, think about that.

Does it make sense? It shouldn't. It's what's commonly referred to as "Hollywood Physics." As in, it's fake. That issue does not exist in time travel what so ever.

You see, the Butterfly Effect is Chaos Theory. This means that in a dynamic system any difference in initial conditions could cause wild and divergent distinctions in the long term.

For example, early on in your planet's history it had wildly different oxygen content in the air. It had a lot more than you're used to, so much so that there were dragonflies with ten foot wing spans, and when lightening struck--anywhere with something to burn--it ignited.

Yet, thousands of years later..here you are!

Yet, what if the ratios staid the same? Your planet would have stagnated in many ways, and grew in others. What if the planet that collided with yours early in formation never struck, and hence, you'd have no moon?

It would hardly be the earth you know and love today.

Just as John Titor described his method of time travel which utilized miniature worm-hole technology (among other things.), he explained the whole reality of the situation to those who were following his posts online. In it, he describes the "many worlds theory," and confirms what most scientists already know: it's much easier to travel through space-time, than just time it's self.

If that alone wasn't the case (I'll go more in depth in a second.), just by time travelling you are already creating a divergent path, a new alternate reality.

As it happens, space-time seem to be intertwined. So whatever mechanism it may be, it's harder to go linear forward and backward than to do so and end up in a completely separate, but mostly similar worldline.

Think Sliders.

It's quite often said that reality is stranger than fiction.

And the more your scientists discover about your universe, both seen and unseen, the more relevant and true this statement becomes.

To boil everything down to the final point:

It is not possible, and quite useless, to try and apply the Butterfly Effect to time travel. If I went back to kill the scientist that cultivated me in the test tube, I'd be creating a completely new reality whereupon I never existed. But I still would be an event in space-time. To adjust for this lack of "symmetry" the omniverse would just create a divergent time line.

If I came back to my own space-time it would actually be a space-time I knew to be very similar, but was just a teensy bit off, if there was any noticeable measure.

Likewise, I could end up in a seriously different world line. Perhaps in a universe whereupon the laws of physics aren't the same, and I end up dying in a flash as I'm exposed to plasma clouds that just can't quite form anything.

As many permutations as one can entertain in their mind, there's probably more out there.

I mean, between you and I--we've only about six senses.

So now it's your turn. What's your take? Did I justify this question enough? Or am I being unclear? Let me know, and I'll try to broaden the scope of this document!

He rose up from a toilet,
Bearing gifts and bleeding from his ass.
Inside his disinfected mausoleum,
He scrubbed his hands and prepared for surgery.

Inside the operating room he screamed,
I believe this patient is already dead.
The nurse's laughter echoed through the halls,
As the doctor lit a smoke and shook his head.

"I've discovered another flaw in god's sick invention,

We have built a time machine to travel through other dimensions."

The mercitron engaged the patient in,
A defenseless war against brutality.
Angered by the latest turn of events,
The doctor felt he should part company.

Upon arrival on the planet mars,
While waiting for the mothership to come.
Dr. Piranha and his faithful disciples,
In orbit searched for a baboons heart...

We are what we are,

We are, what we are...

Christ clones are imprisoned,

In slave camps on a planet of trolls!

As coal mines and tar pits,

Are filled with dead astronauts!

Malpractice in the cosmos,

The garden of stars is filled with vengeful enemies.

Assassins and hitmen eagerly await orders for research subjects to be

purchased by the highest bidder....

I will be hunted for infinity!

Detected with a DNA radar they'll watch my every move,

The voices in my head will never cease,

Mocking me over and over and over again...!

We are what we are,

We are, what we are...

Christ clones are imprisoned,

In slave camps on a planet of trolls!

As coal mines and tar pits,

Are filled with dead astronauts!