Facts confirming the transition to another time. "Time Travelers" tells about a terrible future. Nobody believes them. Andrew Karlssin - crook from the future

If time travel is possible in principle, then sooner or later we must encounter “visitors” from the past or future. Indeed, in the history of paranormal phenomena there are many cases that can only be explained with the help of this fantastic theory. Or maybe it’s not such a fantasy after all? Let's look at the facts...

The minister gone mad

Several years ago, in a train compartment traveling from Mexico City to Acapulco, a man in an old-fashioned doublet and wig suddenly appeared out of nowhere. In one hand he had a quill pen, in the other a leather wallet. The stranger was very scared. He introduced himself as Minister Jorge de Balenciaga and tried to find out where he was... While one of the passengers, a surgeon, was running after the conductor, this man disappeared. True, the pen and wallet remained on the floor.

The surgeon picked them up and subsequently showed them to historians, who found out that both items were made in the 18th century. Documents were found in the archives, from which it followed that Minister de Balenciaga one night, returning home, encountered a long iron “devilish carriage” full of fire and smoke, and then somehow found himself inside it and saw bizarrely dressed people there. of people. After reading the prayer, the minister again found himself on the streets of Mexico City. After this incident, he lost his mind, and remained unconscious until his death.

Mummy in sneakers and watch in the imperial tomb

A female mummy more than one and a half thousand years old was discovered in Mongolia. She was wearing modern Adidas sneakers. True, apparently, the lady was not an alien from the future - she was wearing clothes and jewelry from that long ago era, and obviously she did not occupy an ordinary position, since she was buried along with her horse.

And this is by no means an isolated episode. In 2008, in Shanxi, the tomb of the Chinese Emperor Xi Qing of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) was opened, and a modern watch from the Swiss company Swiss Made was found inside, representing Golden ring with dial. It is possible that all these are things of chronotravelers, which they gave to people from the past. Or they appropriated them themselves. By the way, note that both the sneakers and the watches went to members of the elite...

But the most amazing story is connected with a resident of the city of Zhirnovsk, Volgograd region, Evgeniy Iosifovich Gaiduchko. Gaiduchok died in 1994 at the age of 76. In 1985 in Moscow, he met with the famous researcher of anomalous phenomena, the leader of the Cosmopoisk association, Vadim Chernobrov, and told him that he had arrived in 1985 from the future in a time machine and that he had read about this machine from Chernobrov himself. By the way, the book about time was written by Vadim Aleksandrovich only many years later.

Evgeniy said that he comes from the 23rd century. Like, as a teenager, he decided to “hijack” a time travel machine and go back in time with his girlfriend... They ended up in the 30s of the twentieth century, but here they vehicle had an accident. The machine’s energy could only be enough to send one person back, and Zhenya sent his girlfriend there.

No one from his native era came to his aid. Soon there were people who adopted the boy, and he began new life in a Soviet country... Gaiduchka's daughter Svetlana Bulgakova recalled that as a child she heard from her father amazing stories about cosmodromes, interplanetary flights, strange creatures... And once, in 1951, he retold her the continuation of "The Wizard of the Emerald City", which was published only in 1963 m...

Passing through the doors

Recently, an interesting video appeared on the Internet, which shows how a man dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt with a hood hiding his face approaches a store in the dark and calmly walks through a closed door. At the same time, strange interference appears on the video... When the visitor is inside, flashes of light are visible through the window. About ten seconds later the strange visitor goes out the same way, without opening the door.

One would think that this is a montage, but next to the store there is a homeless man sleeping overnight, who is awakened by flashes of light and who looks at the stranger in amazement... In addition, on the recording, the date strangely changes from 2016 to 2019...

According to some users, there was an overlap of space-time, which is why the stranger managed to easily overcome the locked door...

The most careful people do not leave evidence of their stay, but even among time travelers there are people who are not always careful - it was from their tracks that scientists realized that teleportation exists. If you are still full of doubts, check out the 15 most famous cases of time travel!

Cell phone in Chaplin's film

This phenomenon was recorded in a documentary about the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's film "The Circus". A woman was accidentally walking into the frame, holding her hand near her ear as if she were holding a mobile phone. Moreover, she also talks, although no one is observed next to her. But this is 1928!

Hipster in the 1940s

A photograph of this man, whose identity was not established, spread around the world. It captured a group of people who attended the opening of the South Fork Bridge over the Shenandoah River in Arkansas. Most of the people in the picture practically blend into one, but one of them is clearly not like the rest. He is dressed in modern clothes, he is wearing fashionable sunglasses and the camera is definitely not from the 40s. These things simply did not exist at that time. Naturally, this photo was checked, but the experts did not find a photomontage.

TV presenter - time traveler

On the left is a photograph of an unknown man from the USA in the 19th century. On the right is a photo of the famous American TV presenter of the early 21st century, Conan O’Brien. The resemblance is striking! But that's not all. The press has repeatedly called the TV presenter a time traveler. His demeanor and appearance are strikingly different from everything they have seen before.

Time traveler in plein air

This photo was taken in 1917 in Cape Scott Park near Vancouver. Just take a closer look at how the young man in the middle is dressed: his rather modern shorts and T-shirt are clearly different from the prim clothes of people from the last century!

Marilyn and the Time Traveler

It's hard to take your eyes off Marilyn, but try and take a closer look at the woman in the background. What's in her hands? Digital camera? Miniature video camera? Be that as it may, this technology simply did not exist at that time...

Is Andrew Karlssin a rogue from the future?

This traveler was arrested in 2003 for stock exchange fraud. He claimed that he came from 2256 and knew all the information about the market. With $800, he made 126 successful deals and in a short time increased his fortune to 350 million! As experts say, without accurate knowledge of how stock quotes will fluctuate, it is impossible to do this.

Flight through the years

Pilot Victor Goddard (pictured left) claimed to have had a time travel experience in 1935. Flying over an abandoned airfield in Drem, Scotland, he flew into a strange yellow cloud. Having got out of it, Victor saw that the airfield below was full of planes and people dressed in clearly military uniforms of strange colors. Arriving at his airfield, he shared a strange observation with his friends. Four years later, the previously abandoned airfield in Drem was again given to military pilots, and after some time they changed their uniforms, giving them exactly the same ones that Victor Goddard observed in his strange flight through time.

Jay-Z, what fate?

Jay-Z is a fairly famous singer, and he is also the husband of singer Beyoncé. There is nothing strange about him, and it would be difficult to suspect him of being a time traveler. But maybe this photo taken in 1930 will convince you?

Through time through the water supply

Hakan got the opportunity to travel back in time when he crawled under the sink to fix a pipe. Yes, yes, you heard right! Arriving home, the man saw water on the floor. To fix the leak, he reached into the cabinet under the sink and saw a tunnel. At the end of it, as is customary, there was light. Hakan was not afraid and decided to check what was there at the end. He came out in his own kitchen, however, 36 years later. There, Hakan met his 72-year-old self and made a video of himself, showing off identical tattoos.

Cell phone in 1938

Just a regular shot of a girl talking on a cell phone, isn't it? But this photograph was taken in 1938. And again, the time traveler was betrayed by advanced technology beyond his years!

And again cellular communication!

This photograph was taken in the early years of the twentieth century. We can't see exactly what the man in the vest is pressing to his ear, but it's clearly some kind of portable technology. How did she get there?

Nicolas Cage and you?!

Actor Nicolas Cage also turned out to be one of these, time travelers. Do you have any doubts? Then take a look at the photo taken about a hundred years before Cage was born! Do you believe it now?

Smartphone and Mike Tyson

This photo was taken during Mike Tyson's fight with Peter McNeely in 1995. In the front row, a person is clearly visible, filming what is happening on a smartphone or miniature digital camera. However, such equipment will appear on the market only a few years later.

Andrew Basiago

In 2004, Andrew Basiago, a lawyer from Seattle, made a public statement that as a child he participated in a secret US government program that involved time travel. Most of the movements, according to the man, were carried out on the basis of documents of the famous engineer Nikola Tesla. Andrew allegedly managed to visit Ford's Theater five or six times on the night of President Lincoln's assassination. Each time he met his “copies” and changed the course of history.

Is there a more exciting subject for science fiction books than time travel? For example, I adore the writers Oscar Wilde and Ray Braedbury precisely for their unique ability to see the future and describe travel in it in the most talented way. Not everyone can do this! But, as we know, time travelers, if they exist, love to travel not only to the seductive future, but also to the past.

Cell phone in Chaplin's film

Hipster in the 1940s

A photograph of this man, whose identity was not established, spread around the world. It captured a group of people who attended the opening of the South Fork Bridge over the Shenandoah River in Arkansas. Most of the people in the picture practically blend into one, but one of them is clearly not like the rest. He is dressed in modern clothes, has fashionable sunglasses and a camera that is definitely not from the 40s. These things simply did not exist at that time. Naturally, this photo was checked, but the experts did not find a photomontage.

TV presenter - time traveler

Time traveler in plein air

Marilyn and the Time Traveler

Is Andrew Karlssin a rogue from the future?

Is Vladimir Putin a time traveler?

Vladimir Putin controls not only space, but also time! Look at these decorated Soviet soldiers of the 1920s and 1940s - and you will understand everything for yourself!

Flight through the years

Jay-Z, what fate?

Through time through the water supply

Cell phone in 1938

Just a regular shot of a girl talking on a cell phone, isn't it? But this photograph was taken in 1938. And again, the time traveler was betrayed by advanced technology beyond his years!

And again cellular communication!

Nicolas Cage and you?!

Actor Nicolas Cage also turned out to be one of these, time travelers. Do you have any doubts? Then take a look at the photo taken about a hundred years before Cage was born! Do you believe it now?

Smartphone and Mike Tyson

Andrew Basiago

The idea that you can go into the past or the future has given rise to a whole genre of chrono-fiction, and it seems that all possible paradoxes and pitfalls have long been known to us. Now we read and watch such works not for the sake of looking at other eras, but for the sake of the confusion that inevitably arises when trying to disrupt the flow of time. What tricks eventually form the basis of all chrono-operas and what plots can be assembled from these building blocks? Let's figure it out.

Wake up when the future comes

The most simple task for a time traveler - to go to the future. In such stories, you don’t even have to think about how exactly the time flow works: since the future does not affect our time, the plot will be almost no different from a flight to another planet or to fairy world. In a sense, we all already travel through time - at a speed of one second per second. The only question is how to increase the speed.

In the 18th-19th centuries, dreams were considered one of the fantastic phenomena. Lethargic sleep was adapted for traveling into the future: Rip van Winkle (the hero of the story of the same name by Washington Irving) slept for twenty years and found himself in a world where all his loved ones had already died, and he himself had been forgotten. This plot is akin to the Irish myths about the people of the hills, who also knew how to manipulate time: the one who spent one night under the hill returned after a hundred years.

This "hit" method never gets old

With the help of dreams, writers of that time explained any fantastic assumptions. If the narrator himself admits that he has imagined strange worlds, what is the demand from him? Louis-Sébastien de Mercier resorted to such a trick when describing a “dream” about a utopian society (“Year 2440”) - and this is already a full-fledged time travel!

However, if travel to the future needs to be plausibly justified, doing this without contradicting science is also not difficult. The cryogenic freezing method made famous by Futurama could, in theory, work - which is why many transhumanists are now trying to preserve their bodies after death in the hope that future medical technologies will allow them to be revived. True, in essence this is just Van Winkle’s dream adapted to modern times, so it’s difficult to say whether this is considered a “real” journey.

Faster than light

For those who want to seriously play with time and delve into the jungle of physics, traveling at the speed of light is better suited.

Einstein's theory of relativity allows time to be compressed and stretched at near-light speeds, which is used with pleasure in science fiction. The famous “twin paradox” says that if you rush through space for a long time at near-light speed, in a year or two of such flights a couple of centuries will pass on Earth.

Moreover: the mathematician Gödel proposed a solution for Einstein’s equations in which time loops can arise in the universe - something like portals between different times. It was this model that was used in the film "", first showing the difference in the flow of time near the horizon black hole, and then using a “wormhole” to build a bridge into the past.

All the plot twists that the authors of chronoopers are now coming up with were already in Einstein and Gödel (filmed on an iPhone 5)

Is it possible to go back in time this way? Scientists strongly doubt this, but science fiction writers are not bothered by their doubts. Suffice it to say that only mere mortals are prohibited from exceeding the speed of light. And Superman can make a couple of revolutions around the Earth and go back in time to prevent the death of Lois Lane. What about the speed of light - even sleep can work in the opposite direction! And Mark Twain got the Yankees on the head with a crowbar at the court of King Arthur.

Of course, it’s more interesting to fly into the past, precisely because it is inextricably linked with the present. If an author introduces a time machine into a story, he usually wants to at least confuse the reader with time paradoxes. But most often the main theme in such stories is the fight against predestination. Is it possible to change your own destiny if it is already known?

Cause or effect?

The answer to the question of predestination - like the concept of time travel itself - depends on the principle by which time is organized in a particular fantasy world.

The laws of physics are not a decree for terminators

In reality, the main problem with traveling to the past is not the speed of light. Sending anything, even a message, back in time would violate a fundamental law of nature: the principle of causality. Even the most seedy prophecy is, in a sense, time travel! All scientific principles known to us are based on the fact that first an event occurs, and then it has consequences. If the effect is ahead of the cause, it breaks the laws of physics.

To “fix” the laws, we need to figure out how the world reacts to such an anomaly. This is where science fiction writers give free rein to their imagination.

If the film genre is a comedy, then there is usually no risk of “breaking” time: all the actions of the heroes are too insignificant to influence the future, and the main task- get out of your own problems

It can be stated that time is a single and indivisible flow: between the past and the future there is, as it were, a thread along which one can move.

It is in this picture of the world that the most famous loops and paradoxes arise: for example, if you kill your grandfather in the past, you can disappear from the universe. Paradoxes arise because this concept (philosophers call it “B-theory”) states that the past, present and future are as real and unchangeable as the three dimensions we are familiar with. The future is still unknown - but sooner or later we will see the only version of events that must happen.

Such fatalism gives rise to the most ironic stories about time travelers. When an alien from the future tries to correct the events of the past, he suddenly discovers that he himself caused them - moreover, it has always been so. Time in such worlds is not rewritten - a cause-and-effect loop simply arises in it, and any attempts to change something only reinforce the original version. This paradox was one of the first to be described in detail in the short story “In My Own Footsteps” (1941), where it turns out that the hero was carrying out a task received from himself.

The heroes of the dark series "Dark" from Netflix go back in time to investigate a crime, but are forced to commit actions that lead to this crime.

It can be worse: in more “flexible” worlds, a careless act by a traveler can lead to the “butterfly effect.” Intervention in the past rewrites the entire time flow at once - and the world not only changes, but completely forgets that it has changed. Usually only the traveler himself remembers that everything was different before. In the "" trilogy, even Doc Brown couldn't keep track of Marty's jumps - but he at least relied on the words of his comrade when he described the changes, and usually no one believes such stories.

In general, single-threaded time is a confusing and hopeless thing. Many authors decide not to limit themselves and resort to the help of parallel worlds.

The plot, in which the hero finds himself in a world where someone canceled his birth, came from the Christmas film “This wonderful Life"(1946)

Split time

This concept not only removes controversy, but also captures the imagination. In such a world, everything is possible: every second it is divided into an infinite number of similar reflections, differing in a couple of little things. A time traveler doesn't actually change anything, but only jumps between different facets of the multiverse. This kind of plot is very popular in TV series: in almost any show there is an episode where the heroes find themselves in an alternative future and try to return everything to normal. On an endless field you can frolic endlessly - and there are no paradoxes!

Nowadays, in chrono-fiction, the model with parallel worlds is most often used (a still from Star Trek).

But the fun begins when the authors abandon the B-theory and decide that there is no fixed future. Maybe the unknown and uncertainty are the normal state of time? In such a picture of the world, specific events occur only in those segments where there are observers, and the remaining moments are just probability.

An excellent example of such “quantum time” was shown by Stephen King in “”. When Strelok unwittingly created a time paradox, he almost went crazy because he remembered two lines of events at the same time: in one he traveled alone, in the other with a companion. If the hero came across evidence that reminded him of past events, the memories of these points formed into one consistent version, but the gaps were as if in a fog.

Quantum approach in Lately popular - partly due to the development of quantum physics, and partly because it allows you to show even more intricate and dramatic paradoxes.

Marty McFly almost erased himself from reality by preventing his parents from meeting each other. I had to fix everything urgently!

Take, for example, the film “Time Loop” (2012): as soon as the young incarnation of the hero performed some actions, the alien from the future immediately remembered them - and before that, fog reigned in his memory. Therefore, he tried not to interfere once again with his past - for example, he did not show his younger self a photograph of his future wife, so as not to disrupt their first unexpected meeting.

The “quantum” approach is also visible in “”: since the Doctor warns companions about special “fixed points” - events that cannot be changed or bypassed - it means that the rest of the fabric of time is mobile and plastic.

However, even a probabilistic future pales in comparison to worlds where Time has its own will - or its guard is guarded by creatures that lie in wait for travelers. In such a universe, the laws can work as they please - and it’s good if you can come to an agreement with the guards! The most striking example is the langoliers, who after every midnight eat yesterday along with everyone who is unlucky enough to be there.

How does a time machine work?

Against the background of such a diversity of universes, the technology of time travel itself is a secondary issue. Time machines have not changed since the time of time: you can come up with a new operating principle, but this is unlikely to affect the plot, and from the outside the journey will look approximately the same.

Welles's time machine in the 1960 film adaptation. That's where steampunk is!

Most often, the principle of operation is not explained at all: a person climbs into a booth, admires the buzzing and special effects, and then gets out at a different time. This method can be called an instantaneous leap: the fabric of time seems to be pierced at one point. Often, for such a jump, you first need to accelerate - gain speed in ordinary space, and the technology will already translate this impulse into a jump in time. This is what the heroine of the anime “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” and Doc Brown did in the famous DeLorean from the “Back to the Future” trilogy. Apparently, the fabric of time is one of those obstacles that can be attacked with a running start!

DeLorean DMC-12 is a rare time machine that deserves to be called a car (JMortonPhoto.com & OtoGodfrey.com)

But sometimes it happens the other way around: if we consider time as the fourth dimension, in three conventional measurements the traveler must remain where he is. The time machine will rush him along the time axis, and in the past or future he will appear at exactly the same point. The main thing is that they don’t have time to build anything there - the consequences can be very unpleasant! True, such a model does not take into account the rotation of the Earth - in fact, there are no fixed points - but in extreme cases, everything can be attributed to magic. This is exactly how it worked: each revolution of the magic clock corresponded to one hour, but the travelers did not move.

Such “static” travel was dealt with most harshly in the film “Detonator” (2004): there the time machine rewinded exactly one minute at a time. To get to yesterday, you had to sit in an iron box for 24 hours!

Sometimes a model with more than three dimensions is interpreted even more cunningly. Let's remember Gödel's theory, according to which loops and tunnels can be laid between different times. If it is correct, you can try to get through additional dimensions to another time - which is what the hero “” took advantage of.

In earlier science fiction, a “time funnel” worked on a similar principle: a kind of subspace that can be entered on purpose (on Doctor Who’s TARDIS) or by accident, as happened to the destroyer crew in the film “The Philadelphia Experiment” (1984). Flight through the funnel is usually accompanied by dizzying special effects, and leaving the ship is not recommended, so as not to be lost in time forever. But in essence, this is still the same ordinary time machine, delivering passengers from one year to another.

For some reason, lightning always strikes inside temporary craters and sometimes credits fly

If the authors do not want to delve into the jungle of theories, the time anomaly can exist on its own, without any devices. It is enough to enter the wrong door, and now the hero is already in the distant past. Is it a tunnel, a puncture or magic - who can figure it out? Main question- how to get back!

What can't be done

However, usually science fiction still works according to rules, albeit fictitious ones, which is why restrictions are often invented for time travel. For example, one can follow modern physicists in declaring that it is still impossible to move bodies faster than the speed of light (that is, into the past). But in some theories there is a particle called a “tachyon”, which is not affected by this limitation because it has no mass... Maybe consciousness or information can still be sent into the past?

When Makoto Shinkai takes on time travel, he still manages to create a touching story about friendship and love (“Your Name”)

In reality, most likely, you won’t be able to cheat like that - all because of the same principle of causality, which doesn’t care about the type of particles. But in science fiction, the “informational” approach seems more plausible - and even original. It allows the hero, for example, to find himself in his own young body or to travel through other people’s minds, as happened with the hero of the series “Quantum Leap.” And in the anime Steins;Gate, at first they could only send SMS to the past - try changing the course of history with such restrictions! But plots only benefit from restrictions: the more complex the problem, the more interesting it is to watch how it is solved.

Microwave-phone hybrid to connect with the past (Steins;Gate)

Sometimes additional conditions are imposed on ordinary, physical time travel. For example, often a time machine cannot send anyone back in time before that the moment it was invented. And in the anime “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”, time travelers forgot how to go into the past beyond a certain date, because on that day a catastrophe occurred that damaged the fabric of time.

And this is where the fun begins. Simple leaps into the past and even time paradoxes are just the tip of the iceberg of chrono-fiction. If time can be changed or even damaged, what else can be done with it?

Paradox on paradox

We love time travel for its confusion. Even a simple leap into the past gives rise to such twists as the “butterfly effect” and the “grandfather paradox,” depending on how time works. But this technique can be used to build much more complex combinations: for example, jump into the past not just once, but several times in a row. This creates a stable time loop, or “Groundhog Day.”

Do you experience deja vu?
“Didn’t you already ask me about this?”

You can cycle for one day or several - the main thing is that everything ends with a “reset” of all changes and a journey back to the past. If we are dealing with linear and unchanging time, such loops themselves arise from cause-and-effect paradoxes: the hero receives a note, goes into the past, writes this note, sends it to himself... If time is rewritten each time or generates Parallel Worlds, it turns out to be an ideal trap: a person experiences the same events over and over again, but any changes still end with a reset to the original position.

Most often, such stories are devoted to attempts to unravel the cause of the time loop and break out of it. Sometimes the loops are tied to the emotions or tragic fates of the characters - this element is especially loved in anime (“Magical Girl Madoka”, “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”, “When Cicadas Cry”).

But “Groundhog Days” have an undoubted advantage: they allow you, through endless attempts, to sooner or later achieve success in any endeavor. It’s not for nothing that Doctor Who, having fallen into such a trap, recalled the legend about a bird that, over many thousands of years, chipped away a stone rock, and his colleague managed with his “negotiations” to drive an extraterrestrial demon into a white heat! In this case, you can break the loop not with a heroic act or insight, but with ordinary perseverance, and along the way you can learn a couple of useful skills, as happened with the hero of Groundhog Day.

In Edge of Tomorrow, aliens use time loops as weapons - to calculate the ideal battle tactics

Another way to build a more complex structure from ordinary jumps is to synchronize two periods of time. In the film "X-Men: Days of Future Past" and in "Time Scout", the time portal could only be opened to a fixed distance. Roughly speaking, at noon on Sunday you can move to noon on Saturday, and an hour later - only at one o'clock in the afternoon. With such a limitation, an element appears in a story about traveling into the past that, it would seem, cannot be there - time pressure! Yes, you can go back and try to fix something, but in the future time goes on as usual - and the hero, for example, may be late to return.

To complicate the traveler's life, you can make time jumps random - take away control over what is happening from him. In the TV series Lost, such a misfortune happened to Desmond, who interacted too closely with a time anomaly. But back in the 1980s, the TV series Quantum Leap was built on the same idea. The hero constantly found himself in different bodies and eras, but did not know how long he would last in this time - and certainly could not return “home”.

Spin time

The heroine of the game Life is Strange stands in front of difficult choice: undo all the changes she made to the fabric of time to save her friend, or destroy an entire city

The second technique used to diversify time travel is changing speed. If you can skip a couple of years to find yourself in the past or future, why not, for example, put time on pause?

As Wells also showed in the story “The Newest Accelerator,” even slowing down time for everyone except yourself is a very powerful tool, and if you completely stop it, you can secretly sneak somewhere or win a duel - and completely unnoticed by the enemy. And in the web series “Worm,” one superhero could “freeze” objects in time. Using this simple technique, it was possible, for example, to derail a train by placing an ordinary sheet of paper in its path - after all, an object frozen in time cannot change or move!

Enemies frozen in time are very convenient. You can see this for yourself in the shooter Quantum Break

The speed can also be changed to negative, and then you will get the countermotors familiar to readers of the Strugatskys - people living “in the opposite direction.” This is possible only in worlds where the “B-theory” works: the entire time axis is already predetermined, the only question is in what order we perceive it. To further confuse the plot, you can launch two time travelers in different directions. This happened with the Doctor and River Song in the Doctor Who series: they jumped back and forth through eras, but their first (for the Doctor) meeting was River’s last, the second was the penultimate, and so on. To avoid paradoxes, the heroine had to be careful not to accidentally spoil the Doctor's future. Then, however, the order of their meetings turned into complete leapfrog, but the heroes of Doctor Who are not used to this!

Worlds with “static” time give rise not only to contrarians: often in science fiction there appear creatures who simultaneously see all points of their life path. Thanks to this, the Trafalmadorians from Slaughterhouse-Five treat any misadventures with philosophical humility: for them, even death is just one of many details big picture. Doctor Manhattan from "" due to such an inhuman perception of time, moved away from people and fell into fatalism. Abraxas from The Endless Journey regularly got confused with his grammar, trying to understand which event has already happened and which will happen tomorrow. And the aliens from Ted Chan’s story “The Story of Your Life” developed a special language: everyone who learned it also began to simultaneously see the past, present and future.

The film "Arrival", based on "The Story of Your Life", begins with flashbacks... Or does it?

However, if the countermoths or Trafalmadorians really travel in time, then with the abilities of Quicksilver or Flash everything is not so obvious. After all, in fact, they are the ones accelerating relative to everyone else - can we really assume that the whole world around is actually slowing down?

Physicists will notice that the theory of relativity is called that way for a reason. You can speed up the world and slow down the observer - this is the same thing, the only question is what to take as the starting point. And biologists will say that there is no science fiction here, because time is a subjective concept. An ordinary fly also sees the world “in slow-mo” - that’s how quickly its brain processes signals. But you don’t have to limit yourself to the fly or the Flash, because in some chronoopers there are parallel worlds. Who's stopping you from letting time pass through them at different speeds - or even in different directions?

A well-known example of such a technique is “The Chronicles of Narnia,” where formally there is no time travel. But time in Narnia flows much faster than on Earth, so the same heroes find themselves in different eras - and observe the history of a fairy-tale country from its creation to its fall. But in the Homestuck comic, which, perhaps, can be called the most confusing story about time travel and parallel worlds, two worlds were launched in different directions - and when contacts between these universes arose the same confusion that the Doctor had with River Song.

If dials haven't been invented yet, hourglasses will do too (Prince of Persia)

Kill time

Based on any of these techniques, you can write a story that would make even Wells's head crack. But modern authors are happy to use the entire palette at once, tying time loops and parallel worlds into a ball. Paradoxes with this approach accumulate in batches. Even with one leap into the past, a traveler can inadvertently kill his grandfather and disappear from reality - or even become his own father. Perhaps the best mockery of the “paradox of causation” was in the story “All of You Zombies,” where the hero turns out to be both his own mother and father.

The story “All You Zombies” was adapted into the film Time Patrol (2014). Almost all of his characters are the same person

Of course, paradoxes must be resolved somehow, which is why in worlds with linear time it often restores itself, according to the will of fate. For example, almost all novice travelers first decide to kill Hitler. In worlds where time can be rewritten, he will die (but according to the law of meanness, the resulting world will be even worse). Asprin's assassination attempt in "Time Scouts" will fail: either the gun will jam, or something else will happen.

And in worlds where fatalism is not held in high esteem, you have to monitor the safety of the past on your own: for such cases, they create a special “time police” that catches travelers before they do anything bad. In the film "Looper" the mafia took on the role of such police: the past for them is too valuable a resource to allow someone to spoil it.

If there is neither fate nor chronopolice, travelers risk simply breaking time. IN best case scenario it will turn out like in Jasper Fforde’s “Thursday Nonetot” series, where the time police went so far as to accidentally cancel the very invention of time travel. At worst, the fabric of reality will collapse.

As Doctor Who has shown more than once, time is a fragile thing: one explosion can cause cracks in the universe across all eras, and an attempt to rewrite a “fixed point” can cause both the past and the future to collapse. In Homestuck, after a similar incident, the world had to be recreated anew, and all eras were mixed together, which is why the events of the books are now impossible to combine into a consistent chronology... Well, in the manga Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, the son of his own clone, erased from reality, had to replace himself with a new person, so that in the events that have already happened there was at least some kind of character.

Some heroes of the Tsubasa multiverse exist in at least three incarnations and come from other works of the same studio

Fans' favorite pastime is drawing for the most confusing works of chronology

Sounds crazy? But this kind of madness is why we love time travel - it pushes the boundaries of logic. Once upon a time, an ordinary leap into the past must have driven an unaccustomed reader crazy. Nowadays, chrono-fiction truly shines at long distances, when authors have room to expand, and time loops and paradoxes are layered on top of each other, giving rise to the most unimaginable combinations.

Alas, it often happens that the structure collapses under its own weight: either there are too many time jumps to make it worthwhile to keep track of them, or the authors change the rules of the universe on the fly. How many times has Skynet rewritten the past? And who can now say by what rules time works in Doctor Who?

But if chrono-fiction, with all its paradoxes, turns out to be harmonious and internally consistent, it is remembered for a long time. This is what bribes BioShock Infinite, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle or Homestuck. The more complex and intricate the plot, the stronger the impression left on those who reached the end and managed to look at the entire canvas at once.

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Time travel, parallel worlds and the rewriting of reality are inextricably linked, so now almost no work of science fiction can do without them - be it a fantasy like Game of Thrones or a sci-fi exploration of the latest theories of physics, as in Interstellar. Few plots give the same scope for imagination - after all, in a story where any event can be undone or repeated several times, everything is possible. However, the elements that make up all these stories are quite simple.

It seems that over the past hundred years, the authors have done everything possible with time: they let them go forward, backward, in a circle, in one stream and in several... Therefore, the best of such stories, as in all genres, rest on the characters: on the one who has yet to come from ancient Greek tragedies on the theme of struggle with fate, on attempts to correct one’s own mistakes and on the difficult choice between different branches of events. But no matter how the chronology jumps, the story will still develop only in one direction - in the one that is most interesting to viewers and readers.

Sensational photographs, videos and eyewitness accounts pop up on the Internet again and again, which are immediately accepted as irrefutable evidence of the existence of time travelers. Ten of the most ridiculous arguments of those who are trying to justify the possibility of traveling to the past and future are collected in this article.

On the back cover of this “watch” there is allegedly an engraving “Swiss”

In December 2008, Chinese archaeologists discovered an ancient burial place. The grave in Shanxi province, they believe, remained untouched for 400 years.

Before archaeologists managed to open the coffin, a strange metal object resembling a ring was discovered in the ground next to it. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a tiny gold watch, the frozen hands of which showed five minutes to ten. The word "Swiss" ("made in Switzerland") was engraved on the back cover of the find. There is no way a watch like this can be more than a hundred years old. So how did they end up in the ground above a sealed grave from the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644)? Is there really a traveler from the future involved here?

Perhaps the Chinese archaeologists just wanted to draw a little attention to their hard and underappreciated work, and just in time they found an ordinary ring that bears a funny resemblance to a modern watch. All that remains is to take a couple of photos, carefully avoiding the angle from which the treasured back cover with the “Swiss” engraving will be visible, and trumpet the sensational find to the media.

Moberly-Jourdain incident

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France from 1774 to 1792, whom the time travelers from 1901 met

Reports of time travel are, of course, not limited to the modern era. Descriptions of such cases have been periodically encountered for many decades. One of them dates back to August 10, 1901.

Two English teachers, Charlotte Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, who were spending their holidays in France, decided to visit the Petit Trianon castle, but were unfamiliar with the surroundings of Versailles. Having lost their way, they finally reached their destination... 112 years earlier.

Travelers recall seeing a woman shaking a white tablecloth out of a window and an abandoned farm in the distance before something strange began to happen.

“Everything around suddenly became unnatural, unpleasant,” writes Jourdain. “Even the trees seemed flat and lifeless, like a pattern on a carpet.” There was no light or shadow, and the air was completely still.”

After some time, Moberly and Jourdain encountered a group of people dressed in the fashion of the late 18th century, who showed them the way to the palace. And on the steps of the palace they met the French queen herself, Marie Antoinette.

Somehow, the travelers managed to return to their rented apartment in 1901. Taking pseudonyms, they wrote a book about their adventure, which was received very controversially by the public. Some considered their story a hoax, others - a hallucination or an encounter with ghosts.

There are also more down-to-earth versions: Moberly and Jourdain witnessed a historical reconstruction, or simply wrote a fantastic story, inspired by H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, published in 1895.

A pilot's journey to the Scotland of the future

Illustration for the film “The Night I Was Destined to Die,” in which an official predicts a plane crash

The life of RAF Marshal Victor Goddard was full of strange, inexplicable incidents. For example, one day his plane crashed exactly like in a dream that one of his acquaintances had told him about shortly before. This incident formed the basis for the film “The Night I Was Destined to Die.” And in 1975, Goddard published a photograph in which a ghost can allegedly be seen.

Long before the film was released and he gained fame among fans of mysticism, Goddard was an ordinary Air Force pilot who served in the First and Second World Wars. He also lectured in engineering at Jesus College, Cambridge and Imperial College London. In 1935 he was appointed Deputy Director of Intelligence at the Royal Air Ministry. Apparently, the British government considered Goddard to be a completely sane person without the slightest hint of paranormality, but in popular culture there was a different opinion.

In his book Time Travel: New Perspectives, Irish writer D. H. Brennan recounts a strange incident that allegedly happened to Goddard while he was inspecting an abandoned airfield near Edinburgh in 1935. The airfield was dilapidated and dilapidated; grass emerged from under the asphalt and was chewed by local cows. On his way home, Goddard was caught in a storm and had to turn back. As he approached the abandoned airfield, he was surprised to discover that the storm suddenly stopped, the sun came out, and the airfield itself was completely transformed. It was repaired, mechanics in blue overalls were scurrying around, and four yellow planes of a model unknown to Goddard stood on the runway. The pilot did not land and did not tell anyone about what he saw. Four years later, the RAF began painting planes yellow and mechanics began wearing blue uniforms - exactly as in his vision.

It’s a pity, after all, that Goddard didn’t land at the airfield of the future and bring back some artifact from there. Then perhaps there would be at least some reason to believe his words.

Fantasy by an unknown artist on what the secret Philadelphia experiment might have looked like

The US Navy is known for its interest in dangerous futuristic technologies, from mind control and psychological weapons to robots and time travel. The legend of the Philadelphia Experiment states that on October 28, 1943, they conducted a secret experiment codenamed Project Rainbow, during which the destroyer Eldridge was supposed to become invisible to enemy radar, but instead traveled 10 seconds into the past.

Reports of this experiment are somewhat vague, and the US Navy has never confirmed that it actually took place, but of course, no one believes the US government, and rumors continue to spread.

Some argue that the ship experiment is based on the unified field theory developed by Albert Einstein. Allegedly, in accordance with this theory, a special electromagnetic field was created around the ship, which caused the “bending” of light, and with it the entire space-time continuum, which is why the ship became invisible and moved in time. But immediately after the experiment, for some reason everyone forgot about this amazing technology. Including the sailors who served on that destroyer, who unanimously claim that this whole story was invented by some crazy person.

Montauk Project

A scary-looking radar in Montauk is leading locals to believe secret experiments are being conducted somewhere nearby.

And again about the secrets of the American government, which is distrusted by the people last years only increased due to the Edward Snowden story. The Montauk project, like Rainbow, is strictly classified and is associated with electromagnetic fields. Frightening experiments, including time travel, are allegedly being carried out at the Camp Hero aviation station in Montauk near New York.

The founder of the legend is considered to be the American writer Preston Nichols, who claims that he managed to restore his memory, which was erased after his participation in time travel experiments. In his own words, Nichols holds a degree in parapsychology. He dedicated a video on YouTube to his experience of time travel and it is, I must say, quite strange.

Let's try to be as unbiased as possible given the above facts. Nichols claims that the US government is conducting secret mind control experiments, which may be true given Project MK Ultra, a secret CIA program aimed at finding ways to manipulate human consciousness using psychotropic drugs.

It's just that drugs and interrogation methods are one thing, and something completely different - electromagnetic fields and time travel. The influence of electromagnetic fields on human consciousness or the space-time continuum has not yet been proven anywhere or by anyone.

The Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is a particle accelerator built on the border between France and Switzerland

There are very few real experts in the hadron collider. Why, most people can’t even pronounce its name correctly. And yet everyone has their own opinion about what researchers at CERN do. Some are convinced that a time machine is being built there - what else could all these complex devices be needed for, if not to realize our fantasies inspired by science fiction films?

Today, the LHC is the most complex experimental facility in the world. It is located at a depth of 175 meters above the ground. In the “ring” of the accelerator, which is almost 27 thousand meters long, protons collide at a speed close to the speed of light. Both scientists and the press are concerned that the collider's work could create black holes. However, after several launches of the installation, nothing like this has yet happened, but in 2012 the Higgs boson was discovered. It was because of him that the rumor began that the LHC was the first step towards building a time machine.

Physicists Tom Weiler and Chui Meng Ho from Vanderbilt University suggest that in the future it will be possible to discover another particle - the Higgs singlet, which has incredible properties that violate cause-and-effect relationships. According to scientists' hypothesis, this particle is capable of moving into the fifth dimension and moving through time in any direction, to the past and to the future. “Our theory may seem presumptuous,” says Weiler, “but it does not contradict the laws of physics.”

Unfortunately, to an ordinary person, far from physics, it is difficult to verify whether this is really the case. We have to take the authors of the theory at their word.

Mobile phones in old films

It seems that this elderly woman, who can be seen in the extras for Charlie Chaplin's film The Circus, speaks on mobile phone(1928)

The internet collective is the greatest detective mind in history. Reddit users are investigating the 2013 Boston bombing, another group of volunteers is looking for scammers online, and everyone else is busy looking for evidence of time travel in the most unexpected places. For example, on the DVD edition of Charlie Chaplin’s film “The Circus,” attentive detectives found an interesting fragment, which they immediately uploaded to YouTube. When the film's extras show the crowd gathered for the premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theater in 1928, a woman can be seen talking on a cell phone in the background.

Or rather, given the quality of the video, the only thing we can say with certainty is that she really is holding something near her ear. Historians cooled everyone's ardor by reporting that this could be one of the first models of Siemens hearing aids, but this version did not seem convincing enough to conspiracy theorists. They found another video, this time from 1938, in which a girl who would hardly need hearing aid. Still, it's not very convincing. Perhaps we need more old videos of people holding something to their ear and talking.

And in the following excerpt from the 1948 film, our contemporaries persistently see the iPhone at 18 seconds. Have you ever wondered how people rode carriages without GPS? It turns out they had to use smartphones! In fact, the actor in the video is holding an ordinary notepad, and Internet detectives should look for something more convincing.

Immortal Nicholas Cage

Nicolas Cage look-alike from the 19th century

It's hard to imagine anyone taking this seriously, but it's quite popular on the Internet to search for vintage photographs and portraits of people who look like modern celebrities. Here, for example, is a copy of Nicolas Cage from the 19th century. The ignorant compilers of the textbook in which the photo appeared claim that it depicts Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. How could they not notice such a striking resemblance to the actor from “National Treasure” and “Ghost Rider”?

Of course, this case is far from the first and not the only one. Portraits of Keanu Reeves from 1570 and 1875 and a photograph of John Travolta from 1860 are widely known.

Keanu Reeves with a “double” from the past

Is John Travolta a vampire or a time traveler?

Opinions differ regarding such coincidences. Some claim that all these actors are immortal vampires, while others consider them time travelers. Cage himself refuted the version of his vampirism on David Letterman's show, so only the second option remains.

Apparently, Hollywood has a secret time machine at its disposal specifically to help actors better prepare for roles in historical films. But irresponsible actors perceive it as additional leave: taking pictures, ruling Mexico... What kind of people are they.

John Titor

One of John Titor's drawings, with the help of which he tried to explain the structure of his time machine

It turns out that on the Internet you can find not only evidence of time travel, but also the travelers themselves. Today, however, we all fall into this category: you just have to look at the news feed for five minutes, and three hours are gone.

Early 2000s social media were not so popular. In those days, people communicated on so-called boards - forums that look quite unusual to us today. To start a conversation, you had to start new topic. The author of one of the popular topics was a certain John Titor, who claimed that he arrived from 2036, and cited a number of predictions to support his words.

Some of them were quite vague, some more specific. Titor argued that the America of the future was on the verge of destruction due to a nuclear attack, after which it split into five regions. Most other countries ceased to exist. He also posted drawings of his time machine, but no one ever tried to build anything from them. None of his predictions have yet come true.

What can I say, you can really be anyone on the Internet. I wonder why no one pretends to be a time traveler these days? Is it really more interesting to pretend to be a celebrity?

Information leak from the future

A researcher is waiting for messages from the future to appear on the Internet.

And again about the Internet. John Titor and others like him simply could not leave indifferent people Sciences.

Robert Nemirov and Teresa Wilson from Michigan Technological University have been studying the network for several years for traces that could have been left by time travelers. To do this, they use special Google magic to look for references to certain events that are dated earlier than these events actually happened, for example, information about comet C/2012 S1 that appeared before 2012, or the phrase “Pope Francis” that appeared somewhere or until March 2013, in which Francis was elected pope. It is assumed that if time travelers use the Internet to communicate, then somewhere there must be phrases that do not correspond to their date. Agree, the idea is quite interesting. So what did the researchers find? - you ask.

Nothing. There are no information traces of time travelers on the Internet. As if to console those whose hopes were dashed, the scientists write: “Although the study has not confirmed that time travelers from the future are among us using the Internet to communicate, it is also possible that they simply cannot leave any traces of their presence in the past, even intangible ones.” . In addition, discovering information about them may be impossible for us, since this would violate some of the currently known laws of physics. Finally, time travelers may not want to be found and carefully hide their tracks."

It turns out that time travelers exist, they are just invisible, hiding and cannot leave any traces! Very convincing, isn't it?

Time travel is not as mysterious as it seems. In theory, all you have to do is reach faster than the speed of light and you'll find yourself in the future. But no one yet knows how to do it. There is one more problem: you will not be able to return, because this would break the cause-and-effect relationship. Therefore, as Stephen Hawking said: “Time travel is possible, but not useful.”