Credit: Wikipedia
Tim suddenly found himself in a parallel world. Tim knew because he’d noticed how the things around him had changed from how they’d been when he’d gone to sleep – a sure sign that something was up. This wasn’t a new circumstance for Tim, having found himself in many a parallel world before. Tim’s mother would warn the boy. “Watch where you’re going, Timmy!” she’d shout. Tim never listened, though. But this (space-)time was different; Tim was fed up and determined never to allow himself to get so lost ever again. Tim was going to keep his eyes open from now on – forever.
Then Tim saw his grandfather. Tim’s grandfather looked a lot younger than when Tim had last seen him. Something was up, Tim knew. An urge then fell upon Tim – not of malice but of a scientific kind of curiosity – to kill his grandfather. Reaching into his pocket, Tim discovered a gun. He tried to use it to shoot his grandfather.[i] Unfortunately, it didn’t work; the gun had misfired. Evidently, something was stopping Tim, as if Tim had lost something from within.[ii]
Confused, Tim lost interest. Tim decided (or so it would seem) to sit down for a while, and, despite his better judgment, Tim closed his eyes. Sure enough, Tim fell fast asleep. When Tim woke up, everything had changed again.[iii]
Then Tim saw his grandfather. (This is what the French refer to as déjà vu. Tim didn’t know that, though, since he didn’t know French.) Recognizing the significance of the moment, Tim pulled out his gun and aimed. (Though some may find it disturbing that a kid should be carrying a gun, remember the old adage: Better safe than sorry.) Fortunately, Tim shot his grandfather, who died instantly and didn’t suffer, so don’t worry. Tim felt the world change, as if he'd gained something from within.[iv]
Feeling free, Tim kept on walking. As luck would have it, Tim stepped into a hole.[v] Tim didn’t know it was there, of course, because it was invisible.[vi] Tim didn’t even bother to struggle, knowing he was already beyond the point of no return.[vii] Coming out at the other end, Tim was now somewhere (or some-when) else.[viii]
Suddenly, Tim saw his mom. Tim’s mom looked a lot younger than when Tim had last seen her. Tim thought she was kind of hot, so Tim asked if he could kiss her. “Ok,” she said. (Though some may find it disturbing that a son should desire his own mother, remember the old adage: Honor thy father and [especially] thy mother.) Nevertheless, Tim could not shake the strange feeling that this woman, despite appearances, was not really his mom.[ix] He told himself as much, anyway. So, perhaps out of guilt for killing her father, Tim decided to propose. “Ok,” she said. They got married, bought a house, and had kids – predictable. Tim felt great; Tim was doing what he wanted to do (including his mom) without anything stopping him.
After several years, Tim got bored of the married life (who doesn’t?) and decided to leave his mom/wife and siblings/kids. Tim got into his convertible and drove off, never to see them again. Tim found a gun in the glove compartment.[x] (Tim had forgotten all about the time he had purchased and put it there after having decided to kill himself because the marriage was driving him crazy [we’ve all been there] but ultimately decided against it.) The gun had collected a lot of dust over the years.[xi] Tim put it in his pocket in case he later changed his mind about killing himself. Tim wanted to get as far away from everything as possible, so Tim hit the convert button, and the car changed into a starship.
Tim was travelling really fast in space.[xii] But, no matter how fast he went, whenever Tim looked out of the window, there was always a beam of light passing him by.[xiii] “Show-off,” Tim thought. The time away actually helped clear Tim’s mind, for he’d decided to come back home to his family. They were related, after all. However, when Tim returned back to the Earth, a million years had passed.[xiv] Intelligent machines now ruled the world, and there were no humans left.[xv] There was, though, a rather impressive pile of paper clips they’d produced. Tim looked at his watch: Only a few hours had gone by.
Tim was pretty bummed. Human are valuable, Tim thought; if they were still around, Tim could look at the losers and feel a little better. Turns out, the intelligent machines had built a time machine – predictable. The time machine, essentially, was an immense spinning paper clip in space.[xvi] Tim got back into his convertible and orbited it until he got dizzy and passed out. Later (or before), when he came to, Tim realized that the time machine wasn’t there anymore. Frustrated, Tim decided to head back to complain and tell the intelligent machines that their machine didn’t work. When Tim got back, though, there were no intelligent machines to be found. “Predictable,” Tim thought. But people appeared, providing Tim’s life with purpose and meaning, allowing him to judge and use those beneath him.
*
Tim decides to live his life in this here-now and change the world.[xvii] Thanks to breakthroughs in nanotechnology and medicine, Tim is able to live forever.[xviii] Tim still receives letters from his mom/wife and kids/siblings on occasion.[xix] But Tim doesn’t write back; Tim was already paying child support and felt that that was enough. Besides, the whole situation had become awkward all the sudden. Tim decides to marry a regular girl this time around. Turns out, she’s a robot. Tim doesn’t say, “Predictable”; Tim says, “Ok,” appreciative of what is and not what was or will be. Things go well for a time. But she ends up leaving him for a large paper clip.
*
Eventually, the end of the world will come – predictable. It will get very dark and very cold.[xx] The cyborgs of the future will decide to build a giant machine. The machine will use powerful lasers that focus all their beams on a single point of space-time.[xxi] Apparently, this will help them make paper clips. It will get very hot.[xxii] Tim will get very sleepy and, though Tim knows better, will take a nap. A window will be opened.[xxiii] And upon wakening, Tim will find himself in a parallel world.[xxiv]
[i] Theoretical time travel engenders a number of paradoxes. The grandfather paradox occurs when a time traveler goes into the past and kills his grandfather (or one of his parents) before he is born, therefore, inhibiting the series of events that lead to his future birth. However, the question then becomes: If the time traveler is never born, then how could he have traveled back in time and killed his grandfather in the first place?
[ii] This is a reference to free will, which doesn’t exist in this hypothetical universe. One of the solutions to the grandfather paradox is that there is one universe and no free will. Therefore, a time traveler to the past who attempts to kill his grandfather is somehow prevented from doing so, thereby not engendering an alteration to the timeline.
[iii] The protagonist travels into parallel universes via sleep. He now finds himself in a different universe with a different physics.
[iv] Another reference to free will, which exists in this hypothetical multiverse.
[v] This is a metaphor for a wormhole (or Einstein-Rosen Bridge), a space-time bridge connecting a black hole, which consumes matter, and a white hole, which emits it.
[vi] A black hole is not itself visible, for not even light can escape its powerful gravitational pull.
[vii] Once within the event horizon (or outer edge) of a black hole, nothing is known to be able to escape the immense gravitational attraction.
[viii] The center of a black hole, a black hole being a rupture in the space-time continuum, may, theoretically, lead to a distant part of the universe or, as is the case for the protagonist, a different point in time.
[ix] Parallel people, or the equivalents of others in a parallel universe, may look alike or have the same memories, but they are, in fact, different people within a different timeline.
[x] This is the same gun from earlier in the story. Therefore, this is an example of the ontological paradox, whereby an item, or information, is sent back in time and then becomes the same object sent back in time. Its origin in time is impossible to determine.
[xi] The accumulation of dust is what causes the gun to misfire earlier in the story.
[xii] The protagonist was traveling close to the speed of light, which is about 300,000 km/s.
[xiii] This is a reenactment of perhaps Einstein’s most famous thought experiments. Essentially, at 16, Einstein pondered what it would be like to race alongside a light beam. Older and wiser, he eventually concluded counter-intuitively that a light beam always appears to be moving away from us at a constant speed no matter how fast we may be traveling in relation to it.
[xiv] According to relativity, if one is traveling near the speed of light, time for the traveler slows down. Therefore, the traveler, effectively, journeys into the future via time dilation, or the slowing down of his “clock.”
[xv] This Terminator-like scenario is certainly a plausible reality. Many have long predicted the eventual surpassing of biological intelligence by technological intelligence. Technological intelligence is already more efficient in terms of its speed, accuracy, and instantaneous information sharing ability. Futurist and inventor Raymond Kurzweil, for instance, has estimated that a technological singularity, where the exponentially increasing rate of technological evolution will become unperceivably quick, will occur in the year 2045.
[xvi] This is a reference to a van Stockum cylinder. Named after Dutch mathematician Willem Jacob van Stockum, it’s a mathematical solution using Einstein’s equations that theoretically allows for time travel into the past or future. It involves an infinitely long cylinder spinning at the speed of light, which distorts the space-time around it.
[xvii] The world, indeed, changes due to our protagonist’s existence in a foreign timeline.
[xviii] Aging, which results from the accumulation over a lifetime of genetic damage, and by extension death, has long been theorized to have a cure. Future advances in nanotechnology may make this a reality. Nanobots could swim in our bloodstreams and instantaneously and simultaneously repair and prevent genetic damage from taking place.
[xix] According to the multiverse theory, people coexist with their parallel neighbors. Therefore, any such people a traveler to parallel worlds would encounter continue to exist whether the traveler stays in that universe or leaves it.
[xx] This is a reference to the Big Freeze, which is the most widely held scientific theory for the end of the universe. As the observable exponential increase in the expansion of the universe with time continues (known as metric expansion), eventually there will be no stars left in the sky and temperatures will reach absolute zero (or 0 K), where individual atoms stop moving.
[xxi] This is a description of a theoretical machine described by physicist Michio Kaku in his Parallel Worlds. The machine would allow a highly technologically advanced civilization to escape their dying parent universe and enter a budding baby universe.
[xxii] The theoretical machine works by “boiling” a point of space-time by raising its temperature extremely high. This temperature is known as the Planck energy, where all known physics breaks down.
[xxiii] A window into hyperspace (or the space that separates parallel universes) is opened.
[xxiv] The protagonist finds himself back where he was at the beginning of the story. This is an example of a paradox of time travel known as a causality loop; the protagonist is stuck in a loop of events which cause him inevitably to continue to travel back in time with no end.