I Love Time Travel - Part 22 - Interstellar and Harry Potter's Wand

Let's all be grateful to this guy right here.

            Medium-sized spoilers ahead.

            What I know of quantum physics I learned from Neil deGrasse Tyson’s reboot of Cosmos last year.  I had Physics in high school, but I did not pay attention. I was too busy… not paying attention. Interstellar is a film about travelling through a black hole, and putting the theory of relativity through practical paces. There is no time travel per se, and what I gleaned from it was merely an observation about the entire idea of time travel.

            So, it is a bit of a tease that I wrote about this movie.  Sue me.

            McConaughey’s character, an astronaut on a mission to find another habitable planet, unexpectedly finds himself adrift through a black hole. During a sequence that is sure to break some brains, he observes his daughter from decades before. (I kinda saw this coming. ) It is time travel by observation only, and the slightest of interaction.  What Interstellar and the science behind black holes does is alter our perception of time.  It is, as mentioned it the film, another dimension; one that can be manipulated and bent. 

            That is the physics behind what we have theorized about the mechanics of time and gravity.  What is also understood is that there is no backwards.  There are no working theories behind travelling backward through time.  As of today, it is a concept.  An idea.  A fiction.

            That’s where I come in. 

            I’ve watched all of these movies and read a sizeable stack of books about time travel.  One thing is clear, the way in which time travel works is completely up to the writer.  Can you go back and kill Hitler or not? What happens when you come back?  Can you come back?  We don’t really know if it is anything more than an idea, so we can shape that idea to fit our narrative.  There is no wrong way to do it scientifically.  It only makes sense if we make some sense out of it for the reader.

            Harry Potter’s wand can shoot out spells, remember spells, have relationships with other wands, and, it knows exactly who is wielding it.  We know this because Jo Rowling said so.  Those are the physics of this magical stick that doesn’t exist. George Lucas created a laser beam that just stops in midair after about 3 feet.  It is a lightsaber, and we bought it.  I have to try and sell my version of disturbing space-time.

 I am attempting a story of my own.  It is big and it is made out of a few other projects that stumbled or ran out of steam.  I have to make a very big decision how the time travel will work. I get to do it.  I get to create time travel.  It is like creating a tiny system of governance for one small world. It has to be consistent, and obey the laws that I establish.  I get to also make the laws and decide when to disclose them. I am the creator!  My ego aside, I am hesitant, because it needs to be just right for the story I want to tell.

Loop time travel? Single string? Consciousness time travel won’t work.  A combination?  Can combinations work?

Every single idea of time travel is fraught with paradox. It is one of the reasons we can’t get our heads around it.  It is a zero in the denominator.  It is undefined. I have to make an excuse for the paradox, or accept that there is no way around it. I have to remember that this is fiction first; I’m not trying to prove my favorite flavor of travelling through time would actually work. 

So there was a method to the madness of writing all these blog things where I break down time travel stuff.  It’s all a bit of research.  

Walking Through an Oregon Neighborhood While Listening To Sly and the Family Stone

Spring reboots once again and I’m never ready for it.  Years of no transition between dry winters and deathly humid summers dulled my senses; I was color-blind. I try to start with the smells that drift in an out like waiters in a restaurant, each carrying their own aromas of blossoms, pine needles and the faint background of a farmer’s manure. There are too many to sort.

            I follow one to a tree with tiny buds and the beginnings of red leaves.  I curse myself every year for not know the names of trees.  I don’t know why it makes a difference, they are all still here every year, names or not, but I want to know all the same.  The tree stands near the street, shading a patch of grass that is surely a popular spot for dog walkers to stop and let their little guys mark some territory.  Up ahead there are a dozen trees of different varieties (Damn, it would be so cool if I knew what to call them!) The pines reach up the farthest, and the candy-corn shaped flat-leaved fellahs, some with rusty yellow, some with burgundy, and some with a deep plum shade keep them company.

            The sky cannot be ignored.  It is what my wife and I call “an Oregony day”.  The weather is cool, not cold and the sky is overcast.  When it lasts a week, it’s a bummer, but when it sneaks in and interrupts the sun, I welcome it.  To me it’s a giant blanket, tucking me in and loosening my shoulders.  These days are in balance with the sun, each one trying not to stay too long at the party. 

            I see a blue cardboard sign for a garage sale pinned to a telephone pole. “BABIES FOR SALE”.  Looking closer, they have intentionally made the rest of the print smaller.  What it actually reads is: “BABIES’ clothing FOR SALE”.  I appreciate the hell out of the writer and wish I had a few bucks on me to buy some of their crap.  I see a lot of that here.  Intentional dips into a creative pool, all for the collective enjoyment of the rest of the community.  I hear the nearby dogs bark and I move on.

            It seems that everyone here owns a dog.  I see my fair share of kitties and a handful of horses and pigs as well, but the dog is number one.  I am a dog person, as in I own one and the majority of dogdom just flat-out loves me.  Even these two yipping assholes that spend their lives in a backyard, who have barked at me 20 times a month for the last eight years, would love me if I hopped their fence and played with them.  Dogs live and breathe for love.  They pass the time with food and sniffing butts, but it is love they give and love they want in return.  It is an inescapably comfy energy.

            Oregon has changed me.  It changed me two or three times over.  I have seen my darkest lows and my sweetest highs in the same place, surrounded by all these gorgeous trees I can’t name.  We look for that sense of belonging in people our entire live, but we also try to find it on earth.  Many of us are not born or raised in the place that suits us.  There is no substitute for it.  You either feel it or you don’t.  I feel thankful to this place.  I want to thank you for letting me be myself.

            (Again.)