Types of Time Travel and its oldest story
Time travel, fiction's favourite child that allows a story to change the fate of its characters; reboot everything into a completely new reality, or make a philosophical statement. But just like several theories on the physics of space-time, there are many kinds of time travel described in fiction. These can get confusing as the logic of one story does not apply to the other.
In fiction, time travel is of three main types: Dynamic, Fixed and Multiverse. Each of them can be divided into two more sub-types. Let's see how.
In a world ruled by a dictator, the hero decides to travel to the past and kill him before he rises to power. This is to change the course of time. Ideally, when he returns to his original timeline, the world should be free from the dictator's rule.
In Dynamic time-travel, this is what exactly happens. But there are two sub-types here. The first is the most boring type where everything happens as expected. When he returns to his world everything is updated. The world has changed for the good, and it's a happy ending.
The second sub-type makes this more interesting. It is the Paradox type of time travel. Here, the hero goes back in time, kills the dictator before he rises to power and returns to his time. Now that the dictator never rose to power, there was no need to travel back in time to kill him. So, when the hero returns to his original world, he sees that he has never left his world for the past, and now there are two versions of the hero, making the original hero a paradox.
Usually, the Paradox world is explained by the Multiverse theory. A theory says that actually, the hero has created a new universe when he killed the dictator. So technically, he is in an alternate universe now. Multiverse travel has two theories: either the alternate reality gets created as a result of his actions, or it already exists and the hero lands in the wrong world. By this logic, his original universe continues to exist where nothing has changed, and the dictator is still ruling that world.
The third type is Fixed Universe time travel. Here, nothing changes as a result of the hero's actions. The hero goes to the past and kills the dictator, and returns to his world to see that some other dictator has replaced the dead dictator and nothing has changed. There is one more sub-type, called the Loop time travel. Here, the hero goes back in time but fails to assassinate the dictator. This triggers the dictator to grab power and cause becomes its effect. So, in a sense, the hero creates the dictator by travelling in time. A fixed universe like this makes a philosophical statement that whatever is destined to happen will happen, and we are simply puppets of destiny.
I hope these examples simplify time travel concepts.
Oldest Time Travel Story:
The oldest reference to time travel is found in the ancient Indian text of Bhagavata Purana, written around 800 to 1000 CE. It is the story of Kakudmi or Raivata, and his daughter Revati. As per the story, Kakudmi was the king of Kushashali and was looking for a suitable husband for his daughter Revati. Which he couldn't find, so he went to Brahma Loka to meet Brahma - the creator god for a solution. Now time ran differently in Brahma Loka. It is just like when you wake up after 5 minutes nap, hours have already passed. So, when they went back to earth, millions of years had passed. Their kingdom was gone, the human's height had become shorter, and the civilisation was technologically a lot primitive than theirs. Eventually, they met Krishna and Balarama, and Revati finally gets married to Balarama. The story here introduces three concepts:
Time runs differently on different realms.
Evolutionary changes among humans.
The past being advanced and the future is primitive.
Let us see it from the perspective of literature. The ancient Indians knew these three concepts. In modern science, we do know that gravity affects time. The stronger the gravity, the faster the time runs. Best proved by slight time dilation in satellites and space stations. Sci-Fi example is, of course, Nolan's Interstellar.
The idea of the past being advanced and future primitive could be inspired by the Bronze Age collapse which brought all the civilisations to primitive technologies due to economic depression and natural disasters. But still, it remains an important example of human speculation or exaggerated documentation.
Subscribe to my channel and stay tuned for videos on topics like these!
In fiction, time travel is of three main types: Dynamic, Fixed and Multiverse. Each of them can be divided into two more sub-types. Let's see how.
In a world ruled by a dictator, the hero decides to travel to the past and kill him before he rises to power. This is to change the course of time. Ideally, when he returns to his original timeline, the world should be free from the dictator's rule.
In Dynamic time-travel, this is what exactly happens. But there are two sub-types here. The first is the most boring type where everything happens as expected. When he returns to his world everything is updated. The world has changed for the good, and it's a happy ending.
The second sub-type makes this more interesting. It is the Paradox type of time travel. Here, the hero goes back in time, kills the dictator before he rises to power and returns to his time. Now that the dictator never rose to power, there was no need to travel back in time to kill him. So, when the hero returns to his original world, he sees that he has never left his world for the past, and now there are two versions of the hero, making the original hero a paradox.
Usually, the Paradox world is explained by the Multiverse theory. A theory says that actually, the hero has created a new universe when he killed the dictator. So technically, he is in an alternate universe now. Multiverse travel has two theories: either the alternate reality gets created as a result of his actions, or it already exists and the hero lands in the wrong world. By this logic, his original universe continues to exist where nothing has changed, and the dictator is still ruling that world.
The third type is Fixed Universe time travel. Here, nothing changes as a result of the hero's actions. The hero goes to the past and kills the dictator, and returns to his world to see that some other dictator has replaced the dead dictator and nothing has changed. There is one more sub-type, called the Loop time travel. Here, the hero goes back in time but fails to assassinate the dictator. This triggers the dictator to grab power and cause becomes its effect. So, in a sense, the hero creates the dictator by travelling in time. A fixed universe like this makes a philosophical statement that whatever is destined to happen will happen, and we are simply puppets of destiny.
I hope these examples simplify time travel concepts.
Oldest Time Travel Story:
The oldest reference to time travel is found in the ancient Indian text of Bhagavata Purana, written around 800 to 1000 CE. It is the story of Kakudmi or Raivata, and his daughter Revati. As per the story, Kakudmi was the king of Kushashali and was looking for a suitable husband for his daughter Revati. Which he couldn't find, so he went to Brahma Loka to meet Brahma - the creator god for a solution. Now time ran differently in Brahma Loka. It is just like when you wake up after 5 minutes nap, hours have already passed. So, when they went back to earth, millions of years had passed. Their kingdom was gone, the human's height had become shorter, and the civilisation was technologically a lot primitive than theirs. Eventually, they met Krishna and Balarama, and Revati finally gets married to Balarama. The story here introduces three concepts:
Time runs differently on different realms.
Evolutionary changes among humans.
The past being advanced and the future is primitive.
Let us see it from the perspective of literature. The ancient Indians knew these three concepts. In modern science, we do know that gravity affects time. The stronger the gravity, the faster the time runs. Best proved by slight time dilation in satellites and space stations. Sci-Fi example is, of course, Nolan's Interstellar.
The idea of the past being advanced and future primitive could be inspired by the Bronze Age collapse which brought all the civilisations to primitive technologies due to economic depression and natural disasters. But still, it remains an important example of human speculation or exaggerated documentation.
Subscribe to my channel and stay tuned for videos on topics like these!
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