Time travel in fiction

Time travel is a common theme in fiction and has been depicted in a variety of media, such as literature, television, film, and advertisements.[1][2]

Poster for the 1960 film adaptation of H. G. Wells' 1895 novella The Time Machine

The concept of time travel by mechanical means was popularized in H. G. Wells' 1895 story, The Time Machine.[3][4] In general, time travel stories focus on the consequences of traveling into the past or the future.[3][5][6] The central premise for these stories oftentimes involves changing history, either intentionally or by accident, and the ways by which altering the past changes the future and creates an altered present or future for the time traveler when they return home.[3][6] In other instances, the premise is that the past cannot be changed or that the future is predetermined, and the protagonist's actions turn out to be either inconsequential or intrinsic to events as they originally unfolded.[7] Some stories focus solely on the paradoxes and alternate timelines that come with time travel, rather than time traveling itself.[5] They often provide some sort of social commentary, as time travel provides a "necessary distancing effect" that allows science fiction to address contemporary issues in metaphorical ways.[8]

Time travel in modern fiction is sometimes achieved by space and time warps, stemming from the scientific theory of general relativity.[9] Stories from antiquity often featured time travel into the future through a time slip brought on by traveling or sleeping, or in other cases, time travel into the past through supernatural means, for example brought on by angels or spirits.[4][10] Some even consider teleportation as a subset of time travel, being that it is immediate travelling from point to another.

Time travel themes

Changing the past

The idea of changing the past is logically contradictory, and results in a grandfather paradox.[11] Paul J. Nahin, who has written extensively on the topic of time travel in fiction, states that "[e]ven though the consensus today is that the past cannot be changed, science fiction writers have used the idea of changing the past for good story effect".[1]:267 Time travel to the past and precognition without the ability to change events may result in causal loops.[12]

The possibility of characters inadvertently or intentionally changing the past also gave rise to the idea of "time police", people tasked with preventing such changes from occurring by themselves engaging in time travel to rectify such changes.[13]

Alternative future, history, timelines, and dimensions
See also: Parallel universe (fiction), Future history, Alternate history, and Category:Multiple time paths in fiction

An alternative future or alternate future is a possible future that never comes to pass, typically when someone travels back into the past and alters it so that the events of the alternative future cannot occur,[14] or when a communication from the future to the past effected a change that alters the future.[1]:165 Alternative histories may exist "side by side", with the time traveller actually arriving at different dimensions as he changes time.[15]

Butterfly effect

The butterfly effect is the notion that small events can have large, widespread consequences. The term describes events observed in chaos theory where a very small change in initial conditions results in vastly different outcomes. The term was coined by mathematician Edward Lorenz years after the phenomenon was first described.[16]

The butterfly effect has found its way into popular imagination. For example, in Ray Bradbury's 1952 short story A Sound of Thunder, the killing of a single insect millions of years in the past drastically changes the world, and in the 2004 film The Butterfly Effect, the protagonist's small changes to their past results in extreme changes.[17]

Communication from the future

In literature, communication from the future as a plot device is encountered in various science fiction and fantasy stories. Forrest J. Ackerman noted in his 1973 anthology of the best fiction of the year that "[t]he theme of getting hold of tomorrow's newspaper is a recurrent one".[18] An early example of this device can be found in the H.G. Wells 1932 short story "The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper",[18][19] which tells the tale of a man who receives such a paper from 40 years in the future. The 1944 film It Happened Tomorrow also employs this device,[18] with the protagonist receiving the next day's newspaper from an elderly colleague (who is possibly a ghost). Ackerman's anthology also highlights a short story by Robert Silverberg, "What We Learned From This Morning's Newspaper".[18] In that story, a block of homeowners wake to discover that on November 22, they have received the New York Times for the coming December 1.[1]:38 As characters learn of future events affecting them through a newspaper delivered a week early, the ultimate effect is that this "so upsets the future that spacetime is destroyed".[1]:165 The television series Early Edition, inspired by the film It Happened Tomorrow,[20] also revolved around a character who daily received the next day's newspaper,[1]:235 and sought to change some event therein forecast to happen.

A newspaper from the future can be a fictional edition of a real newspaper, or an entirely fictional newspaper. John Buchan's novel The Gap in the Curtain, is similarly premised on a group of people being enabled to see, for a moment, an item in Times newspaper from one year in the future. During the Swedish general election of 2006, the Swedish liberal party used election posters which looked like news items, called Framtidens nyheter ("News of the future"), featuring things that Sweden in the future had become what the party wanted.[21]

A communication from the future raises questions about the ability of humans to control their destiny.[1]:165 If the recipient is allowed to presume that the future is malleable, and if the future forecast affects them in some way, then this device serves as a convenient explanation of their motivations. In It Happened Tomorrow, the events that are described in the newspaper do come to pass, and the protagonist's efforts to avoid those events set up circumstances which instead cause them to come about. By contrast, in Early Edition, the protagonist is able to successfully prevent catastrophes predicted in the newspaper, although if the protagonist does nothing, these catastrophes do come about.

The visual novel Steins;Gate features characters sending short text messages backwards in time to avert disaster, only to find their problems are exacerbated due to not knowing how individuals in the past will actually utilize the information.[22][23][24]

Where such a device is used, the source of the future news may not be explained, leaving it open to the reader or watcher to imagine that it might be technology, magic, an act of a god etc. In the H.G. Wells story, "The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper", the author writes of the newspaper that "apparently it had been delivered not by the postman, but by some other hand". As in It Happened Tomorrow and Early Edition, no explanation is offered for the source of the future news. Ackerman suggests that "[t]he longer that authors mush on with the tale of... the next-week's-newspaper-now, the more difficult it becomes to pull a new rarebit out of the hat".[18]

Precognition

Precognition has been explored as a form of time travel in fiction. Author J. B. Priestley wrote of it both in fiction and non-fiction, analysing testimonials of precognition and other "temporal anomalies" in his book Man and Time. His books include time travel to the future through dreaming, which upon waking up results in memories from the future. Such memories, he writes, may also lead to the feeling of déjà vu, that the present events have already been experienced, and are now being re-experienced.[25] Infallible precognition, which describes the future as it truly is, leads to causal loops, a form of which is explored in Newcomb's paradox.[26][27] The film 12 Monkeys heavily deals with themes of predestination and the Cassandra complex, where the protagonist who travels back in time explains that he can't change the past.[12]

Time loop
See also: Time loop and List of films featuring time loops

A "time loop" or "temporal loop" is a plot device in which periods of time are repeated and re-experienced by the characters, and there is often some hope of breaking out of the cycle of repetition.[28] Time loops are sometimes referred to as causal loops,[12][28] but these two concepts are distinct. Although similar, causal loops are unchanging and self-originating, whereas time loops are constantly resetting. In a time loop when a certain condition is met, such as a death of a character or a clock reaching a certain time, the loop starts again, with one or more characters retaining the memories from the previous loop.[29] Stories with time loops commonly center on the character learning from each successive loop through time.[28] A popular term for a time loop is "groundhog day", a reference to the eponymous movie.

Time paradox
Further information: Temporal paradox

Many time travel works explore the topic of disrupting causality leading to time paradoxes. One of the most commonly referred to in time travel literature is known as the grandfather paradox. Many works of fiction explore what would happen if a time traveller went back in time and changed the past, for example if they killed their own grandparents.[30]

Time slip
Main article: Time slip

A time slip is a plot device used in fantasy and science fiction in which a person, or group of people, seem to travel through time by unknown means for a period of time.[31][32] The idea of a time slip has been utilized by a number of science fiction and fantasy writers popularized at the end of the 19th century by Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, having considerable influence on later writers.[33] This is one of the main plot devices of time travel stories, the other being a time machine. The difference is that in time slip stories, the protagonist typically has no control and no understanding of the process (which is often never explained at all) and is either left marooned in a past time and must make the best of it, or is eventually returned by a process as unpredictable and uncontrolled.[34] The plot device is also popular in children's literature.[35][36]

Time slips featuring a child and a realistic depiction of an earlier period enjoyed a vogue in the UK in the mid-20th century. Successful examples include Alison Uttley's A Traveller in Time (1939) going back to the time of Mary, Queen of Scots; Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden (1958) returning to the 1880s and 1890s; Barbara Sleigh's Jessamy (1967) and Penelope Farmer's Charlotte Sometimes, both slipping back to the period of the First World War; Ruth Park's Playing Beatie Bow (1980), where the slip in Sydney, Australia, is to the squalor of 1873; and Helen Cresswell's Moondial, where three time periods are involved (1988, also televised).

Time tourism

A "distinct subgenre" of stories explore the possibility that time travel might be used as a means of tourism,[4] with travelers curious to visit periods or events such as the Victorian Era or the Crucifixion of Christ, or to meet historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln or Ludwig van Beethoven.[13] This theme can be addressed from two directions. An early example of present-day tourists travelling back to the past is Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder (1952), in which the protagonists are big game hunters who travel to the distant past to hunt dinosaurs.[4] An early example of the other type, in which tourists from the future visit the present, is Catherine L. Moore and Henry Kuttner's Vintage Season (1946), a story which was selected for inclusion in Volume Two of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame collection.[37]

Immortality
The console from the fictional time machine, the "TARDIS", in Doctor Who.

Instances of immortality are prevalent in time travel fiction. Oxford defines immortality as "the ability to live forever; eternal life." A distinct sub-thematic characteristic is warnings of said time-traveling immortals to other characters about the dangers of time travel. Some examples are 4th dimensional beings from Rick and Morty, Professor Paradox from Ben 10, the movies Groundhog Day and 12 Monkeys, and the Doctor from Doctor Who.

Time war

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes a time war as a fictional war that is "fought across time, usually with each side knowingly using time travel ... in an attempt to establish the ascendancy of one or another version of history". Time wars are also known as "change wars" and "temporal wars".[38]

P. Nahin compiles a variety of examples of fictional works that raise issues framed as arising in a time war:

Consider this passage from The Fall of Chronopolis (Bayley), a novel about a "time-war." Just after the detection of temporal invaders, we read of them that "They had come in from the future at high speed, too fast for defensive time-blocks to be set up, and had only been detected by ground-based stations deep in historical territory. If the target was to alter past events—the usual strategy in a time-war—then the empire's chronocontinuity would be significantly interfered with." And in Time of the Fox (Costello), American physicists battle KGB physicists in a war of time travelers in the past, each side attempting to change history to its advantage. In this novel the history changers isolate themselves from all the alterations taking place outside of their Time Lab, and they compare their stored historical records with those of external libraries. That allows the staff historian to adjust for each new round of changes. As the historian explains, outside of the Time Lab "History might change, but here [in the Time Lab] the past lives on." In a novel of a galaxy-wide confrontation between humans and androids—Time and Again (Simak)—the use of time travel to alter history is central: "A war in time ... would reach back to win its battles. It would strike at points in time and space which would not even know that there was a war. It could, logically, go back to the silver mines of Athens, to the horse and chariot of Thut- mosis III, to the sailing of Columbus. ... It would twist the fabric of the past."[1]:267

Hitler and World War II

In Western fiction, one common use of time travel technology is to travel back in time and attempt to kill Adolf Hitler in an attempt to avoid World War II and the Holocaust.[39]

Fiction that applies the Novikov self-consistency principle that the past can't be changed results in plots where attempts to assassinate Hitler or avert the war are destined to fail, or where they actually result in the rise of Hitler as history records it. Fiction that does allow the past to be changed often explores the unintended consequences of time travel or the butterfly effect, which result in Germany and Japan winning World War II. This outcome is also explored in parallel world fiction such as The Man in the High Castle.

gollark: The economy *does matter*, though, even in a "lives saved" sense. As someone on the interweb put it:> Damage to productivity eventually results in damage to people, since we use part of our productivity to preserve life.
gollark: Well, we could engineer humans with better DNA error correction or something, eventually.
gollark: Forever might be an overestimate, but cancer generally will probably stick around for a while as it is a complex and hard-to-cure thing.
gollark: ... maybe these are just hard problems which they're working on, rather than some kind of conspiracy?
gollark: It seems like the problem here might be lack of systems to track and respond to demand, since I think lots of people probably would be willing to pay some money for a ventilator to be available if they need it during this pandemic.

See also

References
  1. Nahin, Paul J. (1999). Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction (2nd ed.). New York: Springer. ISBN 9780387985718.
  2. Nahin, Paul J. (2011). Time Travel: A Writer's Guide to the Real Science of Plausible Time Travel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. ix. ISBN 1421401207.
  3. Sterling, Bruce (2016-05-03). "Science fiction - Time travel". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2017-12-28.
  4. Kuiper, Kathleen (2012). Prose: Literary Terms and Concepts (1st ed.). New York: Britannica Educational Publishing. pp. 63–64. ISBN 1615304940.
  5. Sterling, Bruce (2016-05-03). "Science fiction - Time travel". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2017-12-28.
  6. Alison Flood (2011-09-23). "Time travel in fiction: why authors return to it time and time again". The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-11-29.
  7. charliejane (January 31, 2008). "Can You Escape Your Fate? Science Fiction Has The Answer!". io9. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  8. Redmond, Sean (2014). Liquid Metal: the Science Fiction Film Reader. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 114. ISBN 0231501846. Retrieved 30 September 2015. [...] the time travel motif also has an ideological function because it literally provides the necessary distancing effect that science fiction needs to be able to metaphorically address the most pressing issues and themes that concern people in the present.
  9. Stephen Hawking (1999). "Space and Time Warps". Retrieved February 20, 2016.
  10. Alkon, Paul K. (1987). Origins of Futuristic Fiction. Athens: University of Georgia Press. pp. 95–96. ISBN 082030932X.
  11. Norman Swartz (1993). "Time Travel: Visiting the Past". SFU.ca. Retrieved February 20, 2016.
  12. Klosterman, Chuck (2009). Eating the Dinosaur (1st ed.). New York: Scribner. pp. 60–62. ISBN 9781439168486.
  13. Stableford, Brian (2006). Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia. New York: Routledge. p. 534. ISBN 0415974607.
  14. Prucher, Jeffrey; Wolfe, Gene (2007). Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN 9780195305678. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  15. "Journeys in Space and Time". Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Episode 8. November 16, 1980. Event occurs at 36 minute mark. PBS.
  16. Hilborn, Robert C. (April 2004). "Sea gulls, butterflies, and grasshoppers: A brief history of the butterfly effect in nonlinear dynamics". American Journal of Physics. 72 (4): 425–427. Bibcode:2004AmJPh..72..425H. doi:10.1119/1.1636492.
  17. Peter Dizikes (June 8, 2008). "The meaning of the butterfly". Boston Globe. Retrieved May 31, 2016.
  18. Forrest J. Ackerman, ed., Best Science Fiction for 1973 (1973), p. 36.
  19. "The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper". Gutenberg.net.au. 1971-11-10. Retrieved 2015-12-24.
  20. Young, R.G. (1997). The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film: Ali Baba to Zombies. New York: Applause. p. 318. ISBN 1557832692.
  21. Gunnar Jonsson (29 June 2006). "Fp satsar på löpsedlar som valaffischer" [FP focuses on headlines as election posters] (in Swedish). Dagens nyheter. Retrieved 9 September 2015.
  22. 秋葉原に時間の扉が開かれる 『シュタインズ・ゲート』 [The gate of time can be opened at Akihabara, "Steins;Gate"] (in Japanese). Famitsu. June 13, 2009. Archived from the original on October 21, 2012. Retrieved November 1, 2009.
  23. Ishii, Senji (October 15, 2009). 時間という禁断のテーマに挑んだ本格派ノベルゲーム『シュタインズ・ゲート』インプレッション [Impressions of "Steins;Gate", a novel game about the forbidden topic of time] (in Japanese). Famitsu. Archived from the original on November 13, 2009. Retrieved November 7, 2009.
  24. "Steins;Gate". Famitsu (in Japanese). Enterbrain: 231. June 2009.
  25. Price, Katy (December 2014). "Testimonies of precognition and encounters with psychiatry in letters to J. B. Priestley". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences. 48: 103–111. doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2014.07.006. PMID 25176614.
  26. Craig, William Lane (October 1987). "Divine Foreknowledge and Newcomb's Paradox". Philosophia. 17 (3): 331–350. doi:10.1007/BF02455055. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
  27. Dummett, Michael (1993). The Seas of Language (1st ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 356, 370–375. ISBN 9780198240112.
  28. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. "Time Loop". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Retrieved 2015-10-18.
  29. Jones, Matthew; Ormrod, Joan (2015). Time Travel in Popular Media: Essays on Film, Television, Literature and Video Games. McFarland & Company. p. 207. ISBN 0786478071.
  30. Langford, David. "Time Paradoxes". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  31. Charlie Jane Anders (2009-06-12). "Timeslip romance". io9. Retrieved 2015-08-27.
  32. Palmer, Christopher (2007). Philip K. Dick: Exhilaration and Terror of the Postmodern (Reprint ed.). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 146. ISBN 9780853236184. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
  33. James, Edward; Mendlesohn, Farah (2002). The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 106. ISBN 9781107493735. Retrieved 11 February 2017.
  34. Schweitzer, Darrell (2009). The Fantastic Horizon: Essays and Reviews (1st ed.). Rockville, Maryland: Borgo Press. p. 112. ISBN 9781434403209. Retrieved 22 September 2017.
  35. Lucas, Ann Lawson (2003). The Presence of the Past in Children's Literature. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. p. 113. ISBN 9780313324833.
  36. Cosslett, Tess (1 April 2002). ""History from Below": Time-Slip Narratives and National Identity". The Lion and the Unicorn. 26 (2): 243–253. doi:10.1353/uni.2002.0017. ISSN 1080-6563. Retrieved 22 September 2017.
  37. Bova, Ben (2003). "Introduction". The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two (1st ed.). New York: Tor Books. pp. ix-xi. ISBN 9780765305343.
  38. Langford, David. "Changewar". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Retrieved November 17, 2015.
  39. Burnett, Dean (February 21, 2014). "Time travellers: please don't kill Hitler". The Guardian. Retrieved October 26, 2018.

Further reading
  • Gleick, James (2016). Time Travel: A History. Pantheon. ISBN 0307908798.
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