In the beginning....

[Guest]

Here's food for thought.

Let's assume that time travel into the past has NOT been pre-ordained, and is therfore an alteration to history = creates an alternate reality.

Now let's assume that someone (human or alien, using a time machine/ship travels back to when the universe was very young - no life yet, creating a parallel reality at that point. He/she/it then decides they don't like it there very much and returns to the point from which they left, which would presumably be in the parallel that they have created. Would there be a difference? Would the brief interaction with the gases etc of the young universe have a knock on effect that would somehow alter the universe's developement?
They may not be able to percieve the changes because of their own limited experience/perspective, but maybe chaos theory would have really kicked in and there is only half the amount of stars in this alternate reality. Or whatever else.

What if they travelled right back to the instant of 'the Big Bang', thus creating a parallel and were destroyed by the unimaginable conditions. What effect would the addition of these extra 'ingredients have'?
Would they create a wildly different universe?
Would they distabilise the delicate balance with disastrous results?

If you could create a parallel reality from 'the Big Bang', but somehow not interact with it at all, so that your reality and the new one started off exactly the same, would they develop exactly the same?

Or is there some random factor inherent in the interaction of the particles etc, that would create a completely different result?

 

[Guest]

This is the EXACT premise of "The Time Ships" by Stephen Baxter.

It's excellent, and he uses a "classic" H. G. Wells "Time Machine" to do it with as well as Well's writing style. (But then Baxter IS British so go figure!)

It's on amazon.com

 

[Guest]

Re:Re:In the beginning....

I'll probarbly look that up actually, thanks.

There's perhaps a reason that I boarded that particular train of thought..I'm British too..

) (Although I actually think of myself as English, just like the Scottish rightfully think of themselves as Scottish..and the Welsh and the Irish etc..

..Let's face it, the British Empire is looking rather...small these days.....8))