One thing I never understood about Back to the Future

[Marc]

Easy, here's a piece I wrote for Oxford University to work alongisde their studys of the "Flux Capacitor"

ahem....

We will assume no previous knowledge of elementary physics. So, where do we start? How about time? What is time? The Oxford English Directionary defines time as "a limited stretch or space of continued existence, as the interval between two successive events".

We glance at our wristwatches and notice the second hand slowly counting the passing seconds. We are in our own time machines: Our hearts are pumping blood, we're breathing, we are existing through time (at least until our own personal time machines seriously malfunction).

What are the possibilities of moving through time at a rate different to one day per day? Common sense tells us that it's all nonsense - time travel is impossible. However, common sense is not always such a good guide. Some hundred years ago common sense said man could never fly, now we travel all over the world.

There are problems. The commonest are the so-called paradoxes. For example, if we could travel through time, imagine what would happen to a time traveller if he (or she) travelled back in time and killed his own grandmother at birth. In theory the time traveller will therefore never be born, so the journey could never have been made in the first place; but if the journey never occurred then the grandmother would be born which means the time traveller would have been born and could make the journey ... and so on and so on. This is a paradox.

There are two possibilities to resolve this paradox. The first is that the past is totally defined, i.e. everything that has happened or must happen, including the time traveler's attempt to kill his grandmother, cannot be altered and nothing will change the course of history. In other words, the time traveller will experience endless "mishaps" in trying to kill his grandmother and will never achieve the murder, thus keeping time (or at least events) intact.

The second possibility is more complex and involves the quantum rules which govern the subatomic level of the universe. Put simply, when the time traveller kills the grandmother he immediately creates a new quantum universe, in essence a parallel universe where the young grandmother never existed and where our time traveller is never born. The original universe still remains. Stephen hawking believes he can explain the origin of our universe in a variation of this parallel-worlds theme.

Having explained these paradoxes, how does one travel through time? The secret is to travel at speeds faster than the speed of light. The main text of the web site explains this in great detail. The obvious problem with traveling very near the speed of light is that as you approach C (the speed of light), time slows down until at C time stops. How can you go faster if time has stopped? The answer involves a complex process called quantum tunneling and is discussed at length in the main text of this web site.

Once the velocity becomes greater than C time moves backwards. We have entered into the realms of negative time.

 

[Artois]

Oh, its probably something to do with quantom physics then.

Read the novel Timeline by Michael Crichton....

 

[Seagull Stew]

If we could ever travel back in time, then surely our own consciousness would travel back with us, thus making us unable to effect anything that has happened in the past as we have no idea that we have just come from the future when we get there!
Christ, that would leave us in limbo land on a continuous loop.

 

[Easy 10]

Thats some good work there Crabbers - I look forward to you elaborating on it at half time during the next England match at the Cricks.

That theory basically falls in line with Jet Lee's The One. In that film, there are literally dozens of parallel universes in which Jet Lee exists, each one seeing him as the same person, but living a different life. Jet Lee has to travel to each parallel universe to kill all his "clones" (for want of a better word) until he exists as The One (because each time one of his clones is killed, he becomes a little bit more powerful - the theory being that by being spread over x number of parallel universes, you are basically diluting yourself).

The One doesn't really seem to deal with the altering of events in the other parallel universes though, and how that would effect the future. But there's lots of guns and fighting, so its still quite good.

 

[Marc]

The One eh? sounds pretty decent to me!

 

[The Large One]

What gets me is how come the car only needs to get to 88mph? My car can do that in third gear, and it's only a Renault Laguna Estate. You would have thought that they would need to get to something approaching the speed of light to go back 30 years.

 

[Easy 10]

If we could ever travel back in time, then surely our own consciousness would travel back with us, thus making us unable to effect anything that has happened in the past as we have no idea that we have just come from the future when we get there!
Christ, that would leave us in limbo land on a continuous loop.

But that theory would just mean that you've arrived in the past not in a physical sense but in a mental sense, and just "jumped" back into your own mind, where you would continue to act as you would have done before without going back, without knowing. I don't think it could work like that.

You can't "unlearn" something. The knowledge you have picked up through your life wouldn't be erased as you travelled back in time. You would still carry memories in your head created in the future, and you would still arrive in the past with that knowledge. You would arrive at a point in the past that you remember from your past, but also carrying memories from the future - and that awareness would mean that you could conciously do things differently to how you did them the first time round and alter your path to the future.

This would probably create a different "time strand" which would go off on its own tangent - one strand existing with time travel, the other existing without it.

 

[The Large One]

But that theory would just mean that you've arrived in the past not in a physical sense but in a mental sense, and just "jumped" back into your own mind, where you would continue to act as you would have done before without going back, without knowing. I don't think it could work like that.

You can't "unlearn" something. The knowledge you have picked up through your life wouldn't be erased as you travelled back in time. You would still carry memories in your head created in the future, and you would still arrive in the past with that knowledge. You would arrive at a point in the past that you remember from your past, but also carrying memories from the future - and that awareness would man that you could conciously do things differently to how you did them the first time round and alter your path to the future.

This would probably create a different "time strand" which would go off on its own tangent - one strand existing without time travel, the other existing with it.

So that explains England's defending at set-pieces.

 

[Easy 10]

What gets me is how come the car only needs to get to 88mph? My car can do that in third gear, and it's only a Renault Laguna Estate. You would have thought that they would need to get to something approaching the speed of light to go back 30 years.

Thats the GENIUS of the flux capacitor. It needs 1.21 gigawatts to power it (hence the plutonium), but without the plutonium, the power from a bolt of lightening is the only other thing available which would give the flux capacitor the sifficient power boost it needs to propel the car theough time. Its not so much the vehicle speed, but the massive and sudden charge of energy from the flux capacitor that makes it possible.

 

[The Large One]

Thats the GENIUS of the flux capacitor. It needs 1.21 gigawatts to power it (hence the plutonium), but without the plutonium, the power from a bolt of lightening is the only other thing available which would give the flux capacitor the sifficient power boost it needs to propel the car theough time. Its not so much the vehicle speed, but the massive and sudden charge of energy from the flux capacitor that makes it possible.

Bit like me dropping one at Rushden then.

 

[Artois]

Thats the GENIUS of the flux capacitor. It needs 1.21 gigawatts to power it (hence the plutonium), but without the plutonium, the power from a bolt of lightening is the only other thing available which would give the flux capacitor the sifficient power boost it needs to propel the car theough time. Its not so much the vehicle speed, but the massive and sudden charge of energy from the flux capacitor that makes it possible.

If the car hadn't stalled, then the car would of passed the clock tower by the time the lightening bold struck.

The doc's crappy egg-timer thingy was SHIT and was about 30 seconds off.

 

[Seagullible]

If the car hadn't stalled, then the car would of passed the clock tower by the time the lightening bold struck.

The doc's crappy egg-timer thingy was SHIT and was about 30 seconds off.

Agreed, the one thing that always got me + if he hadn't got the wheel spin when he started off would he also have been early? maybe if he'd changed gears at a different time could also have affected the time he connected with the wire?

 

[Easy 10]

Agreed, the one thing that always got me + if he hadn't got the wheel spin when he started off would he also have been early? maybe if he'd changed gears at a different time could also have affected the time he connected with the wire?

Yes, the split-second timing of this was something I wondered about as well. I guess Marty floored it and made the time up after stalling it when the alarm clock went off, but its still a bit iffy. The Doc had even calculated in WIND RESISTANCE for gods sake, which only serves to emphasis the split-second nature of the timing required.

The split-second timing of hitting that cable the exact moment when the lightning struck was stretching things. They knew the MINUTE the lightning would strike that clock, but in that situation, 60 seconds is a long time. I think perhaps Doc had gone up and had a good look at the mechanism of the clock to see when, within that minute, the clock had stopped. Presumably the clock mechanism would have revealed the precise second the lightning had struck it.

Still, timing that run-up for the Delorean to hit the cable at 88mph at the exact second the lightning struck was some feat. UNLESS - perhaps the Doc had insulated the cable in some way, so as to harness and store the charge from the lightning bolt within the cable for a little longer - maybe a few seconds - to buy some more time and give a wider window for the Delorean to hit it. Don't forget, the Doc was an absolute genius, after all.

 

[Artois]

If he had had Sky+ he could of paused the car just as it reached the cable, then released it just as the lightening stuck.

At the same time, he could of been recording another program too.

 

[Seagullible]

Just wondering but if he'd missed, surely he could've waited till 1985 and then gone back again and brought plutonium with him so he could go back at that time. Only problem is though is that if he went back earlier, he wouldn't have been around 30 years later to go back again with the plutonium so...:thud:
damn, need to reboot brain

 

[Trufflehound]

Next week, NSC will deconstruct the logical implausibilities of Dumbo.

How can an elephant fly? I don't get it. Surely it doesn't make sense?

 

[Lokki 7]

Yes, the split-second timing of this was something I wondered about as well. I guess Marty floored it and made the time up after stalling it when the alarm clock went off, but its still a bit iffy. The Doc had even calculated in WIND RESISTANCE for gods sake, which only serves to emphasis the split-second nature of the timing required.

The split-second timing of hitting that cable the exact moment when the lightning struck was stretching things. They knew the MINUTE the lightning would strike that clock, but in that situation, 60 seconds is a long time. I think perhaps Doc had gone up and had a good look at the mechanism of the clock to see when, within that minute, the clock had stopped. Presumably the clock mechanism would have revealed the precise second the lightning had struck it.

Still, timing that run-up for the Delorean to hit the cable at 88mph at the exact second the lightning struck was some feat. UNLESS - perhaps the Doc had insulated the cable in some way, so as to harness and store the charge from the lightning bolt within the cable for a little longer - maybe a few seconds - to buy some more time and give a wider window for the Delorean to hit it. Don't forget, the Doc was an absolute genius, after all.

I think perhaps you have missed the point Easy. The exact second of connection was achieved not due to mechanical analysis of the clock mechanism, nor by a clever insulation system of the wire, although both are valid propositions. Such perfect timing could only be achieved with the help of a divine power we should in this instance call "fate". The importance of this event was such that a merely scientific approach alone could not be relied upon to have a successful outcome, thus fate and perhaps "destiny" played their part to ensure a smooth transition of the space time continuum.
This is yet another clear example of a higher power at work and in my opinion irrefutable evidence of the existence of god.

 

[The Large One]

I thought that the timings were worked out in detail on page 287 of the script.

 

[Easy 10]

I think perhaps you have missed the point Easy. The exact second of connection was achieved not due to mechanical analysis of the clock mechanism, nor by a clever insulation system of the wire, although both are valid propositions. Such perfect timing could only be achieved with the help of a divine power we should in this instance call "fate". The importance of this event was such that a merely scientific approach alone could not be relied upon to have a successful outcome, thus fate and perhaps "destiny" played their part to ensure a smooth transition of the space time continuum.
This is yet another clear example of a higher power at work and in my opinion irrefutable evidence of the existence of god.

Thats interesting.
So really, there was absolutely no need for me to be sitting there shitting myself about whether it would all work, and getting all stressed when the cable connection broke while Doc was swinging around on the clock. There was no need to worry, because it was just meant to be. So FATE dictated that the whole thing would work because...well, it just had to.

But then that theory completely flies in the face of Terminator 2, which revolves around the theme of there being NO fate (quote "no fate but that what we make for ourselves"). If its fate, then it doesn't matter what we do to change events, basically "what will be will be". Naah, I can't subscribe to that. If you alter the past, then the future HAS to be different.

 

[eastlondonseagull]

headache?