On the time traveling I think that the deaths are inescapable for the person meant to die. With Charlie was it that she had always had the blood clot or was it something that Hiro's time traveling made happen. If we are supposed to be murdered on a certain day and someone travels time to stop it are there other forces working to ensure that we die on that day. Or was it simply a coincidence that she died on the same day? It kinda makes me think of the movie The Time Machine, the guy creates time travel to save his girlfriend but no matter what he does she dies at the same time.
I believe that when Hiro teleports into the past and changes something the future that was there before the teleport changes with whatever it was he did. Kinda like like ripples in the water. if you have a perfectly still body of water and you drop a pebble into it the ripples will effect the entire body of water until the water becomes still again. When he teleports back into the future I believe that he can only go as far as he had been in that timeline, maybe a day or two more as far as we have seen. The timeline that Hiro left continues as if he was just missing, and picks up again where he left off.
When it comes to Ando and Peter I think that since they are aware of Hiro's time traveling ability that they are able to notice the changes, or maybe since they have both been around when he alters time that something happened to them at a mental level so that they are not as fragile to the changes that follow Hiro's actions.
Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 9:40 pm Post subject: About time travel...
We know so far that if someone dies in the future Hiro cannot go back and change it himself, BUT can he have someone else do it? Is that why he asked Peter to do it? Not so much the rip in the Time/Space continuum it would cause but also because the past would fix it. Can we say really that the Cheerleader is safe? Or will Isaac still die?
I just wanted to point out that it is correct to say that Ando notices that the timeline changes--perhaps that is somehow a strange ability. However, I am surprised to see how many of you don't understand how Peter can do it. Isn't it reasonable to assume that he can see the timeline difference because he is close to Ando? We already know he takes on the ability of whoever he is near.
I think Masdog is on the right track, with this train of thought, HOWEVER... if he is correct, then new york will have to be destroyed as well. It would appear the writers for the show are going to, and for simplicities sake, have to pick and choose from different theories, and let the real science go out the window. I suppose we could explain the fact that ando and peter are aware of changes in the timeline by saying it is some unknown subconscious aspect of hiro's power, to allow a certain few to be aware of what is changing, but not others...otherwise the people of the diner would have recognized hiro when he came into the resturant. If he was with Charlie for 5 months and had only been gone 3 weeks, well, he would have had a bigger welcome. So from their perspective, only ando came in at all... this could get very complicated very fast...
I think that regardless of what current scientific theory might be, it's pretty clear that the writers are going with the simple time travel theory as follows:
1) Time travel is along one time line
2) Paradoxes are self-correcting
3) Time travel creates intellectual, rather than space-time paradoxes (lol ^^)
4) Hiro can change time, but some things are simply fated to be, like Charlie dying
5) (this is my own theory, don't know if it's true, haven't fully explored it yet) Hiro cannot travel back to a space he already occupies with his power. This would explain perhaps why he jumped so far into the future on that first run and why he involuntarily jumped back to the "real" Hiro and couldn't go back to Texas through his power...
I think Masdog is on the right track, with this train of thought, HOWEVER... if he is correct, then new york will have to be destroyed as well. It would appear the writers for the show are going to, and for simplicities sake, have to pick and choose from different theories, and let the real science go out the window. I suppose we could explain the fact that ando and peter are aware of changes in the timeline by saying it is some unknown subconscious aspect of hiro's power, to allow a certain few to be aware of what is changing, but not others...otherwise the people of the diner would have recognized hiro when he came into the resturant. If he was with Charlie for 5 months and had only been gone 3 weeks, well, he would have had a bigger welcome. So from their perspective, only ando came in at all... this could get very complicated very fast...
I think that regardless of what current scientific theory might be, it's pretty clear that the writers are going with the simple time travel theory as follows:
1) Time travel is along one time line
2) Paradoxes are self-correcting
3) Time travel creates intellectual, rather than space-time paradoxes (lol ^^)
4) Hiro can change time, but some things are simply fated to be, like Charlie dying
5) (this is my own theory, don't know if it's true, haven't fully explored it yet) Hiro cannot travel back to a space he already occupies with his power. This would explain perhaps why he jumped so far into the future on that first run and why he involuntarily jumped back to the "real" Hiro and couldn't go back to Texas through his power...
I didn't realize this got sticky'ed. I suppose I should have checked back here more often this week.
I will someday look up string theory to see if I'm talking through my hat, but based on a slightly dusty bachelor's degree in physics, I will say that there is no scientific theory about time travel. Relativity addresses speed of light and dilation effects, but not jumping forwards or backwards. (Dilation allows for something like time travel to the future, I guess, but you can't go back.) When discussing Heroes, we try to keep things consistent by doing thought experiments, which usually result in paradoxes, and/or staying consistent with time travel we've seen described in other forms of science fiction (comic books, Star Trek, H. G. Wells, Harry Potter, etc.)
The writers may be doing their own thought experiments, they may have their own rule book, or they may just sometimes be choosing drama over coherence.
Science is supposed to edit itself so that it is the best model of the universe we can have at the moment. Theories are supposed to be supported by the current information and reproducible observations. When new information or observations are added, the theory can change. So I'm not saying that there can never be a theory of time travel, or that every single idea out there about it is wrong. I'm just saying there is no science to back any of it up at this point.
Until an article is published for peer review in a scientific journal or (what I would like!) a course on time travel is taught in college from a science department, there is no established scientific theory, so we can have the behavior of time travel be whatever we want.
I will someday look up string theory to see if I'm talking through my hat, but based on a slightly dusty bachelor's degree in physics, I will say that there is no scientific theory about time travel. Relativity addresses speed of light and dilation effects, but not jumping forwards or backwards. (Dilation allows for something like time travel to the future, I guess, but you can't go back.) When discussing Heroes, we try to keep things consistent by doing thought experiments, which usually result in paradoxes, and/or staying consistent with time travel we've seen described in other forms of science fiction (comic books, Star Trek, H. G. Wells, Harry Potter, etc.)
The writers may be doing their own thought experiments, they may have their own rule book, or they may just sometimes be choosing drama over coherence.
Science is supposed to edit itself so that it is the best model of the universe we can have at the moment. Theories are supposed to be supported by the current information and reproducible observations. When new information or observations are added, the theory can change. So I'm not saying that there can never be a theory of time travel, or that every single idea out there about it is wrong. I'm just saying there is no science to back any of it up at this point.
Until an article is published for peer review in a scientific journal or (what I would like!) a course on time travel is taught in college from a science department, there is no established scientific theory, so we can have the behavior of time travel be whatever we want.
I can understand why you would state such an argument, but what you say is filled with inaccuracies and at some points is just flat wrong.
There are scientific theories (I prefer hypothesis myself) and papers written on the subject of time travel, but none of them are falsifiable at this time AFAIK.
There is a lot of room for conjecture and speculation, but what I require from a time travel hypothesis is that it be internally consistant and preserve the idea that cause *always" precedes effect. I think another important concept to recognize is that there are no prefered frames of reference.
I agree there is a lot of scientific hypothesis. When I talk about scientific theory, I mean something like the theory of gravity. It can be demonstrated. Or at least its effects can, and we have a mathematical model to predict behavior. AFAIK, time travel has never been demonstrated.
Again, I'm not saying time travel is impossible. It's just more in the thought-experiment stage and great fodder for philosophical discussion. So when people were writing about the Heroes plot line agreeing with scientific theory, I took the definition of "theory" we get when we learn about the scientific method in school, rather than the more typical one we use in everyday conversation.
Thanks for the link to Wikipedia, I will try to remember to read some of the references in that article when I have more time. I apologize for the "full of inaccuracies" and invite you to send me a private mail with more details so I can check them out. And if you can, please cite me a reference (really! I'm not being sarcastic! Because I'd want to read it.)
its gonna be funny if ando is not affected by timelines cuz that would make my theory from back in october correct in saying he will be the only one to know timelines of hiros leaps. I mean if you think about it noone there remembers him being there with ando at the present but ando knows the whole story of the killing the leaping and the mistake of going too far. It may not even be a power but just more along the likes of a uneffected character bond.
its gonna be funny if ando is not affected by timelines cuz that would make my theory from back in october correct in saying he will be the only one to know timelines of hiros leaps. I mean if you think about it noone there remembers him being there with ando at the present but ando knows the whole story of the killing the leaping and the mistake of going too far. It may not even be a power but just more along the likes of a uneffected character bond.
what I've gotten from the way time works is that it is a continuous straight line. Think about it, time is a cirlce but it would take forever to get back around to that circle. Isaac isn't dead and when Peter is exploding he was there. So time was changed yet at the same time isn't because everything is just happening...ARGH! I hat trying to explain time travel cause this makes no sense. Maybe I'll draw a diagram at some point.
...ARGH! I hat trying to explain time travel cause this makes no sense. Maybe I'll draw a diagram at some point.
Diagrams don't usually help - time travel used to change history very quickly defeats any attempt to fully explain it...
By the way, I recommend Deja Vu as a movie that does an excellent job with the same kind of problem that Hiro struggled with (saving someone he loved). It was easier to resolve in Deja Vu than in Heroes, though, because Deja Vu had no one with super powers, just an incredible machine.
See my Levinson news clips for two brief 1-2 minute podcast reviews of Deja Vu - one with no spoilers, the other with a spoiler explanation.
what I've gotten from the way time works is that it is a continuous straight line. Think about it, time is a cirlce but it would take forever to get back around to that circle. Isaac isn't dead and when Peter is exploding he was there. So time was changed yet at the same time isn't because everything is just happening...ARGH! I hat trying to explain time travel cause this makes no sense. Maybe I'll draw a diagram at some point.
Don't try to think about it logically. It can, and will, give you headaches.
I think the writers are taking from the Back-to-the-Future school of time travel for a lot of their plot points. The main idea that they're presenting is that the future isn't set in stone, and advance knowledge, through Hiro's travels and Isaac's paintings, can be used to avert disasters.
It's like the pictures in B2tF3 - when Marty changed things in the past, the picture faded because the future changed.
By the way, did anyone catch some of the time travel references in the last couple of Episodes. In Ep. 10, he quoted Doc Brown when he accidentally called himself, and in Ep. 11, he made a reference to Bradbury's The Sound of Thunder when he said "I hope I don't step on a bug."
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- time travel used to change history very quickly defeats any attempt to fully explain it...
