The Butterfly Effect

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Posted: Aug 25, 2011 by Emily

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I think it can. You see, only those tracvelling in time would see any change on return. I'll try to explain, say you invent a time machine and decide to, say, go back to 1939 and kill Hitler. You then travel back to your original starting point, say 2011, history would state that Hitler was assasinated in 1939 and that would actually now be fact for everybody else. The only person aware of any change in history would be you, the time traveller. This is why we could never tell if time travellers have already changed our history, because it is now just that History. So your question about the butterfly effect theory holding probably applies more here than in any other situation, we would just never know it. I could talk for hours on time travel theories, oh i just did


I watched an episode of "The Universe" that explained the theory behind this. They came up with three theories. Their example was a little more extreme - what would happen if you went back in time and prevented your grandparents from ever meeting? One theory was that no matter what you did, you could not do it. No amount of persuasion would talk him out of going on a date with her, or even if you persuaded him against it they would just meet later on. The second theory was that when you travel back in time, you leave our "world" (think many worlds theory), and alter another one. If you changed anything, it would just branch out into a new universe and both universes would exist simultaneously, each having a different future. The third theory was that you could alter history and change the future... but if that were the case then why does Hitler even exist in our history books still? You would think that someone from the future would have altered that one out of books by now.


Hi M. Good points but here's something to consider with the grandparent example. My opinion is, that this would be tantamount to suicide, and when the crunch came i dont think most of us would be able to do it. However if someone did go back and do it then the butterfly effect would almost certainly apply. It would alter the future history of the grandparents (even if they did remeet later on) then it would effect all those that had dealings with the grandparents (very subtle changes but they would be there) then it would effect the people they in turn effected. (eg. they dont buy off the salesman who fails to hit his target and is fired, son no longer goes to uni, so no longer becomes the doctor who discovers the cure for diabetes). As for the Hitler case its a little easier...we dont know that someone didnt go back and bring about his downfall. We know(?) hitler died in 1945 by commiting suicide (or at least it looked like that when he was found), but do we know it was suicide? Perhaps 1945 was a deliberate choice, something may have been discovered in that year that benefits man too much to lose, hence the hold off to that point. Maybe in our alternate future he did something far worse, like give the order to execute all those still in camps or, well you get the picture. there are other things too you could look at, was JFK assasinated because in a future reality he had one stand off too many with the russians, did Jack the Ripper kill 20 or more women and was stopped. Was appollo 1 prevented from completing its mission because it discovered aliens living on our moon and pissed them off. there are many things in our history that could be pivotal moments that never materialised due unforseen curcumstances, but were they altered deliberately and, if so, what would the consequences have been had they not been. (i really need to stop thinking about this stuff, i have a perpetual motion machine to build )


Wow again too much information to help my brain explode... lol. I actually have to read that again n again to understand... But ok, so the thing is, whenever someone goes back in time- they do make changes in history then, right? Coz as I said, some blades of grass will be bent. So will that alter history? Killing of Hitler is a big thing. I'm talking abt the smaller things- killing of a mosquito, walking on grass... stuff like that


You got it. the thing is, because the change is now established, time moves on from that point as history, so everything from that point on becomes fact, and we would not know of the change. Thought for a bit about your mosquito so how bout this. Our hero the mosquito bites a man who ultimately dies from malaria, his young son becomes fascinated with the disease that killed his father and spends his life learning and researching, becoming a world reknowned Dr in the treatment of malaria, eventually he discovers the cure. You go back in time and kill that mosquito (meany)...there's your butterfly effect


Oh wow.... nicely explained


I had a random thought regarding this (sorta). If one went back in time just before a huge cataclysmic event, say, the day before earth was hit by astroids millions of years ago and wiped out most life on earth. If you arrived just before then, took some dna samples or what-not, then come back...actually, you could do this hundreds of times most likely, get tons of data and NEVER alter the course of history.


this is true kiyomi and here's the thing, if you look back throughout history there are many tales of , what we would now assosiate with ufo's and/or alien beings. I mean the bible, whether your religious or not, contains many references that could be a primitive (relatively) outlook on UFO phenomena. Burning bush? Angels? ladders to heaven? survival of death? healing? taken to heaven in clouds? Lights above stables? the whole book is full of it. If you also look at supposedly mythical gods too, Greek, Norse, Egyptian, roman, take your pick, strange how they all seem to have corresponding beings. Now consider this "WHAT IF" we are actually wrong and all this is not down to Alien visitors but our future selves doing exzactly what you have suggested. they set up camp, watch us for a bit take a few samples then move on elsewhere...now if they are reading this I would really appreciate the winning numbers for tomorrows euromillions draw. PM me Thanx...


I'm not an expert on this but traveling back in time is not possible, time it self as we understand it is a measure of movement of an object from point a to point b. Even if you return said object to its original position time would have elapsed and you would be at point c not a. How can I put this better.. if an object does not move at all then "time" is standing still if it does move, then time passes but there is no third option there. its either moving or standing still. Regardless if the object moves up down left or right.. it is still moving "forward" so there is only movement and non movement and thus time can either stand still or move but not "move backwards". Say for instance you want to see the earth 100 years in the future, you take a space ship outside of earths orbit.. then you can either stand still and let the earth move away or move faster than the earth and arrive at a point in space before the earth gets there. But you would still have to wait for the earth to get there. So you might as well just stay on the earth and wait the 100 years.. Time and travel are essentially the same word. Hope this clears some things up.


I agree that there are many complications to the matter. But I suppose that time travel is possible to some extent. It might not be as glorious as the movies have us believe. Please also go through my other time travel post. It talks about 2 twins and how time travel is possible. I would love to hear your views about that too. PS: Sorry I responded late