How does time change work?

Excellent questions. I have no answers. I wondered about that very thing (#1) when they were bringing in Lucy and the dude--I forget his name--and it didn't seem like there had yet been any fallout from the bad guy already having gone back.

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(1) why doesn't history change the instant the villain goes into the past? If it doesn't change immediately, how long does the agency have to fix things up? An hour? A day? A year? If it's something like a year, why are they so frantic about it?

I've always wondered this, myself... Although it wouldn't be much of a show if this happened. 

(2) If the villain intended to mess things up in Lincoln's time, why bother messing with the Hindenburg? Wouldn't changing history in 1865 automatically change it in 1937?

I'm assuming that each changed event affects something different from the original timeline. Related, but not the same. Though if this is the case, IMO it would make more sense to start changing things from the earliest time period first, to make sure the change doesn't affect another happening you'd planned on altering... 

(3) They say they can't be in two places at the same time ( a clever way of avoiding "let's try that again" plots). But how far does that go? Suppose they go back 20 years -- wouldn't they coexist with child versions of themselves?

This has always been a cop-out to me... I mean, if the three are time travelers, obviously they're aware that they can go back in time. So what if a second set of the same people show up? They just explain to themselves why they came back again, and presto! they have double the team members to help set things right.  As far as other people seeing two of each... I dunno. Tell everyone there's a meeting of the National Identical Twins Society? 

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Keep in mind the scene in 2016 when they returned. The PC monitors showed the Hindenburg explosion and the terrorist "responsibility" paper. This is NOW the history. Except for the three heroes, everyone at the base who didn't travel, and everyone else for that matter, that is how the history has always been.......

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Since it's not actually possibly, any theory of how it might work is just a theory and nothing more. How Primer showed time travel, and how Prof Hawking also explains it, is how it would likely work: to go back a certain amount of time, you have to stay in your "machine" for that same amount of time. But of course that's not very feasible for more than a few hours of travel.

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I was about to post a comment on this.

As is commonplace these days, the writers couldn't be bothered to do any real research, so they make everything up without even establishing a solid set of rules.
As far as we know time travel is not yet possible, but if it comes to be there are two possibilities:

1. You travel to the past and your actions created the original history.

2. You travel to the past and your actions change history.

Clearly this show is applying option 2, but you're absolutely right when you question the logic. Temporal mechanics are not linear in relation to different moments in time, so the instant the first pod vanished the new reality would have been established with no one even aware of it. Worse, the changes wouldn't have been so selective. If her sister could be erased, Amy most likely wouldn't have been born, or would have been born at a different time, completely changing her appearance and personality (both genetically and environmentally). It's unlikely her mom would live in the same house, nor have it decorated the same, as her life would have also been reshaped. For all we know, the entire time machine project would have never existed, creating a paradox. They needed to take the time to figure out a method by which the 'terrorist' could be sure he wouldn't destroy the universe, or on a smaller scale, himself.

Also, there would be no point changing history in one time if you then intend to go back farther to change things, as that would have a direct impact on the first set of events, possibly even negating them. A Sound Of Thunder (the book, not the awful movie) was designed to demonstrate how even a seemingly insignificant event can alter our history.

This is why time travel works best as a single, standalone story. As soon as you serialize it you end up breaking your own rules, or must avoid establishing any.


Oh, and I'm tired of shows establishing a character as elite special forces, only to have him get his butt handed to him by a common thug, usually after a brawl no less. Those guys would take someone out before they knew what hit them.



http://writerblalley.wix.com/home

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!. That depends on the time travel theory you are talking about, one theory is, once you go back, you split off into another alternate universe / timeline. so the events in that new timeline are changed while the events in the original one stay the same, they just know that someone went back. And since they split off into that new timeline, when they went back to the future, they went into the new timelines future and not the original one.

2. Well they plan failed on the Hindenburg, so now it is plan B.

3. Well for all of them if they go back only 20 years, their would be 2 of them so doubt they would do that. So probably they will be going back at least about 35 years ago+. Also the more recent event you change, the longer it will take for it to have any real change. Say you start out in 2016. You change something in 1865 will have a much bigger impact on 2016 then if you went back and changed a date in 1980.

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(1) why doesn't history change the instant the villain goes into the past? If it doesn't change immediately, how long does the agency have to fix things up? An hour? A day? A year? If it's something like a year, why are they so frantic about it?

It should change everything instantly and none of the science team in that warehouse would have any idea of what changed. Another thing, when the time travelers return, why are they returning hours later? Wouldn't it make sense to return to their current timeline the moment they left, almost instantly? In my mind, an observer would NOT even see the time machine move. It would appear the crew got in, then came out. However, I get it, that isn't visually interesting at all.

Also, it doesn't appear the agency is interesting in "fixing" things and the writers have now told us you can't go back twice. But back to back to your original point, once the bad has gone back in time to mess things up, how would they know what needs to change??? That is a huge hole or paradox in this thought process. Because before the historian lady even went back in time, to her, the Hindenburg always exploded on the ground and the result of terrorists.

I enjoyed the show actually. Hardcore sci-fi is not the point of the show obviously, and those type of stories can be a drag. I don't mind nitpicking the science, it makes it fun. However, with the fact that GPS exists, etc. I do not buy that they can know what time the main craft is in but not where it is. I mean when it has returned to the current timeline. They should know where it is.

All that said, it is said that type of air travel ended with the Hindenburg. It would be amazing to travel like that today.

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Answers to all the questions: "It's a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey....stuff" - Doctor Who

--
If vampires hate "plus signs" - imagine how they feel about the "square root" symbol.

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