Three Laws of Chronodynamics

[thenumbersix]

Re: Three Laws of Chronodynamics

heheh, reject is very definite, I would say I doubt their accuracy . Our agreed laws of phyics do match the agreed observations and supply us with a means to calculate their effects and make use of it. There is no doubt that the laws of thermodynamics fit our current observations whilst under 1G and travelling at whatever speed we are.

I'm not prepared to accept that this must be true in all areas of our universe and under whatever conditions, we have no proof, thus we have no right to lay down any laws on...well anything really. We've already shown that things in Earth orbit experience ageing fractionally slower than we do I feel like a primate poking at an ants nest with a stick ignoring the fact that the ants travel in waves sometimes and on their own at others, maybe it's when we look at them they magically change....WHAT ???

I suppose my point is to look at everything with no preconceptions to cloud the issue, just a good understanding of the fundamentals and the ability to observe and see the whole picture... I've been frustrated by coming to a brick wall in our understanding of this stuff we live in , it seems the only people who are now going to answer our questions are ourselves.

Physics has slowed to the snails' pace of capitalism, if you can't sell it then you're not researching it. Try convincing a corporate panel you want funding on advanced physics applications, let alone Time Machines, they'd be pissiing themselves at your expense for weeks...

I digress by a long way, I'm curious on the roots of the three laws of chronodynamics, they do seem well thought through, simple yet all encompassing. Am only questioning to get a better understanding. Also not looking for a fight for sure, a good debate yes. Arguement, fight, defence of un-substantiaited formulae, no..

 

[Lucidus]

Re: Three Laws of Chronodynamics

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"thenumbersix\")</div>

heheh, reject is very definite, I would say I doubt their accuracy . Our agreed laws of phyics do match the agreed observations and supply us with a means to calculate their effects and make use of it. There is no doubt that the laws of thermodynamics fit our current observations whilst under 1G and travelling at whatever speed we are.

I'm not prepared to accept that this must be true in all areas of our universe and under whatever conditions, we have no proof, thus we have no right to lay down any laws on...well anything really. We've already shown that things in Earth orbit experience ageing fractionally slower than we do I feel like a primate poking at an ants nest with a stick ignoring the fact that the ants travel in waves sometimes and on their own at others, maybe it's when we look at them they magically change....WHAT ???

I suppose my point is to look at everything with no preconceptions to cloud the issue, just a good understanding of the fundamentals and the ability to observe and see the whole picture... I've been frustrated by coming to a brick wall in our understanding of this stuff we live in , it seems the only people who are now going to answer our questions are ourselves.

Physics has slowed to the snails' pace of capitalism, if you can't sell it then you're not researching it. Try convincing a corporate panel you want funding on advanced physics applications, let alone Time Machines, they'd be pissiing themselves at your expense for weeks...

I digress by a long way, I'm curious on the roots of the three laws of chronodynamics, they do seem well thought through, simple yet all encompassing. Am only questioning to get a better understanding. Also not looking for a fight for sure, a good debate yes. Arguement, fight, defence of un-substantiaited formulae, no..[/b]

Sounds reasonable. But remember that Jim is not suggesting that these are actual physical laws like thermodynamics but just a set of principles to produce better time travel sci fi. Here is a quote from his first post.

One last point I wish to make before opening this topic up for discussion. When I presented these Laws several months ago on the earlier incarnation of these forums, I think the impression was made that I was putting these forward as a real honest to god scientific theory. I am doing nothing of the sort! The Laws of Chronodynamics are nothing more than a guideline for time travel as Science Fiction, more Laws of Robotics than Thermodynamics.

So on this thread I stick to Chronodynamics but on other threads I will happily consider parallel universes, altered timelines, astral travel etc.

As far as the origin of these laws, I suppose only Jim knows that.

 

[Chronodynamic Jim]

Re: Three Laws of Chronodynamics

Lucidus, that whole Chronodynamic Time Machine the Movie was spot on! You get an A+!

thenumbersix, Didn't mean to be blunt and sarcastic to you, but I have a reputation to uphold.

Origin of Chronodynamics to be explained shortly.

 

[Chronodynamic Jim]

Re: Three Laws of Chronodynamics

So one day my dad asks me, "Say Son, what would be the first thing you would do with a Time Machine if you had one?"

I remember that day clearly, as if it were yesterday, though it was closer to 15 years ago. Dad would ask me lots of questions like that. He was that kind of dad. So anyway, he asked me, and I said I didn't know (I was only 15 at the time and didn't want to say something stupid). He went on to tell me, "If I had a time machine, I would go back in time and give myself the plans to the time machine so that I would be sure that I invented it."

I was duley impressed and the conversation moved on to other things. However something nagged at me about his plan. I imagined how his proposal would work out. He would be sitting there one day, doing nothing, when suddenly a copy of himself shows up and gives him a set of blueprints to a time machine. In my 15 year old mind, uncluttered by thoughts of parallel universes and other such nonesense, I percieved this event as taking place first of all. Since my dad went back in time to give himself the plans it made sense that this event took place in the past relative to the point when he finished the machine. (The Laws in infancy!) He recieves the plans and builds the machine. Upon completion, he goes back in time and delivers the plans as per his scheme. It all seemed nice and tidy, but looks can be decieving.

The more I thought about it the more I came to feel that something was wrong. And then I had a thought, a most happy thought. The thought was in the form of a quetion, and the question was this: Who drew the blueprints? Really, who did? Not my dad. He got them from his future self. After building the machine, he traveled back and gave them to himself. The world line of the blueprints was a circle. Of course I didn't think of it in those terms back then, but I percieved that the blueprints in the story's current form came from nowhere and returned there. This was rather discomforting to me, so I set about resolving this paradox.

I did so by writing a short story entitled appropriately enough, Paradox. In this short story, the protaganist experiences the events laid out above and percieves the same paradox I just explained. He then formulates a plan to correct the situation. I won't get into the details here, but suffice it to say that looking back on the story after fifteen years, I have come to realise that it was the first occurance of the Chronodynamic Laws in a story. Though they were not explicitly stated or spelled out, they were there in spirit, and that is enough.

From there I began to consider other well known time travel movies and study them to see if any similar errors cropped up. They did. In disturbing numbers. The most notable was the Back to the Future Trilogy. I began devising edits to fix what I percieved as lazy science fiction. Space does not permit me to go into detail concerning these edits, but what was important was that I was developing a feel for time travel, at least for how I percieved it should work. This continued for several years untill one fateful day, circa 1993.

I was engaged in a conversation with a good friend of mine name of Mike Mijo. He told me about a story he read called By His Bootstraps. I was intriuged and read it for myself. Here was a piece of Time Travel literature that I could find no fault with. It was not only self-consistent, but it made use of self-consistency in its plot. That story was an inspiration to me. It put into words my feelings on time travel in a way I had never come across before. It served as a template and standard for everything time travel related since.

Recently I began reading Isaac Asimov's robot stories. I was enamored of the Three Laws of Robotics and read all I could concerning them. I was impressed how simple, yet all encompassing they were. I read how Asimov was fed up with the sub par robot literature of his time and decided to combat it with excellent robot stories of his own. Stories where the robots conformed to the standards he felt they should. Standards laid out by his Laws of Robotics. So I thought, in my arrogance, "Why not I?"

I grabbed a dictionary and researched the entomology of the word thermodynamics. I then sought a similar form for time, and arrived at Chronodynamics (I also considered Chronomechanics, but chose Chronodynamics because it sounded more... well, dynamic! I picture Chronomechanics as a theory on the nature of time with Chronodynamics being a branch of that theory dealing specifically with the manipulation of time. This all falls under my fictional Theory of Everything, Alpha-Omega Theory.).

At first Chronodynamics was not made up of Laws, but of Axioms, and there were a great deal more, nor were they quite as general as they are in their present form. Eventually though, as I worked on them, I came to feel that there should be three, seeing as how my two influences were the Three Laws of Robotics and Three Laws of Thermodynamics. So I widdled them down, and reworded them untill they were in their current form. I wrote a story, where I explicitely refered to them, called The Intern. This was the first story to do so, and it is not going to be the last. My vision is to write a collection of time travel short stories in which the individual stories are all connected and are in the same fictional universe so to speak. Think Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina.

I discussed these ideas with a couple of my friends for souding board purposes, and got favorable responses. I wanted a non-biased response however and so I searched the 'net and found a time travel discussion forum. Here was a place that I could float my ideas and gauge the all-too-honest responses. I could use it as a test bed to see what kind of response I could expect from a more general audience. I'm pretty happy with the results thus far.

That answer your question, thenumbersix?

 

[Harte]

Re: Three Laws of Chronodynamics

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Chronodynamic Jim\")</div>

I discussed these ideas with a couple of my friends for sounding board purposes, and got favorable responses. I wanted a non-biased response however and so I searched the 'net and found a time travel discussion forum. Here was a place that I could float my ideas and gauge the all-too-honest responses. I could use it as a test bed to see what kind of response I could expect from a more general audience. I'm pretty happy with the results thus far.

That answer your question, thenumbersix?[/b]

I like the idea of 3 basic laws you have here. Simpler the better I say.

I disagree with the second law personally but without it you can't get too much good science fiction. Without the second law and ruling out alternate realities, protagonist keeps screwing up his own future is almost every plot line. I subscribe to the alternate reality theory myself.

I remember a story about a guy in the future that was obsessed with Isaac Newton and the fact that Newton spent many nonproductive years studying religion, a waste of time from future guy's viewpoint. Also, he wondered what Newton could have accomplished if he'd had a calculator to work with.

So the guy goes back in time to give a calculator to Newton. Only the calculator was an old Texas Instruments SR10 with the red LED display, see.
When Newton lays his eyes on those bright red numbers shining up at him, he thinks it must be from Satan and spends many nonproductive years after that in religious study. (Second Law of Chronodynamics).

 

[Chronodynamic Jim]

Re: Three Laws of Chronodynamics

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Harte\")</div>

So the guy goes back in time to give a calculator to Newton. Only the calculator was an old Texas Instruments SR10 with the red LED display, see.
When Newton lays his eyes on those bright red numbers shining up at him, he thinks it must be from Satan and spends many nonproductive years after that in religious study. (Second Law of Chronodynamics).[/b]

I like it.

 

[Lucidus]

Re: Three Laws of Chronodynamics

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Chronodynamic Jim\")</div>

I like it.[/b]

I really like your laws Jim, in fact I am becoming something of a Chronodynamic snob. Time travel sci fi that is not chronodynamically correct just seems lazy by comparison. If you ever do publish your stories I will be sure to buy and read them.

 

[Chronodynamic Jim]

Re: Three Laws of Chronodynamics

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"lucidus\")</div>

I really like your laws Jim, in fact I am becoming something of a Chronodynamic snob. Time travel sci fi that is not chronodynamically correct just seems lazy by comparison. If you ever do publish your stories I will be sure to buy and read them.[/b]

[Mr Burn's voice] Eeeexcelent! [/Mr Burn's voice]

 

[Dmitri]

Re: Three Laws of Chronodynamics

I do not understand the fuss about killing folks in the past and pondering over the bad consequences. Killing is sure bad. Go create something there, even your grandfather, without any paradoxes at all. Maybe just apart somebody?s asking about your grandfather: "Do you know the guy, where does he come from? - I think Germany, I am not sure." I think all life was/ is created in the future. Maybe all matter too, I am not sure about this one.

 

[StarLord]

Re: Three Laws of Chronodynamics

Sure beats finding out that you were a cheap Texas Instrument Scientific Calculator in the last life with red Led's and you were responsible for causing a genius to quit thinking and start praying.