The Physics of Quantum Fiction

One of my favorite topics to discuss/debate/wonder about is time travel. Most people know this due to my extreme fandom of the "Back to the Future" movies. I saw the first one when I was a kid and even though the opening scene with the amplifier scared me, I still loved the movie. The concept of time travel is about the most "sci-fi" that I really like. What makes it so interesting to me is that for a concept that's unproven and most likely not possible, there are so many theories and rules attached to it. Paradoxes are perhaps the biggest argument for why time travel cannot exist. The most popular example is the so-called 'Grandfather Paradox.' Let's say you traveled back in time and murdered your grandfather (morbid, I know). Well then he would have never married your grandmother, your mother or father would have never been born, you would not have been born, and thus never traveled back in time to kill your grandfather. So how can you exist to kill your grandfather if he's dead?

While I'm sure there's no perfect answer to this, it's a basic example of why people believe that time travel cannot exist. I like to think that if I ever were to travel back in time, I would need two reasons to. One of them would have to go unresolved, thus still giving me the desire to travel back in time and not creating a paradox. But that's enough of that, I'm far from a physicist and am only a fan of what might happen. It's just fun to think about to me.

Speaking of time travel, let's go back to the mid-90's, around 95/96/97 (not exactly sure which year). Summer time rolls around, and for school kids everywhere bedtimes and schedules are pretty much non-existant. For me, that meant a lot of late nights up with my brother playing games on the Sega Channel (if you don't know what that is, google it....it was way ahead of its time), or watching TV reruns with mom. USA always had a pretty decent late night lineup, and one of the shows that we watched was 'Quantum Leap.' It ran on NBC from '89-'93, and wasn't really liked by the network (see also: 'Scrubs') but loved by the fans. Basic premise is this...Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) theorized that one could time travel within their own lifetime. He developed a project called Quantum Leap and prematurely stepped into the accelerator and vanished. (What's sad is that the name and that part of the premise tends to turn people off from the show, as it seems very heavily sci-fi.) Dr. Beckett wakes in a body that isn't his own, in a time that isn't his own. His purpose is to change the past, "putting right what once went wrong" before he can leap out to the next person. He has a guide from his own time, Al (Dean Stockwell), that only Sam can see and hear. The show did a great job of mixing drama, comedy, heart, and history.

Sam leaps into some situations that make us take a harsh look back on where we've been as a society and how far we still have to go. (When Sam leaps in he doesn't know who he is, where he is, or what he's doing. So when he leaps into an African American in 1950's Alabama and sits down at a lunch counter, this obviously causes a problem.) As a time travel fan and a fan of good story telling, this show doesn't really get any better. It's on Netflix instant viewing (mostly...some episodes are left off due to music rights or whatever reason), and I highly recommend watching a few episodes.

It's funny how some things stick with you and just the thought of them makes you sort of time travel in your mind. I watched an episode this evening, and when I was done I half expected to be sitting on the floor of our den, waiting for the next episode to come on, or going upstairs to join Josh in a game of Earthworm Jim or Monopoly or whatever was new on the Sega Channel, or have him explain the Pokemon card game to me yet again.

The saddest realization is when I actually do "leap back" and realize that those days are over, and that the feeling is just a fleeting memory, gone by much too fast, just like that time as well...

"...so do we pass the ghosts that haunt us later in our lives; they sit undramatically by the roadside like poor beggars, and we see them only from the corners of our eyes, if we see them at all. The idea that they have been waiting there for us rarely if ever crosses our minds. Yet they do wait, and when we have passed, they gather up their bundles of memory and fall in behind, treading in our footsteps and catching up, little by little." - Stephen King

That's all I have for now. So why haven't I leaped yet, Ziggy?