[Guest]

Well I gave my friends a scenerio and thought the answer was easy to come by but some agreed with me and others didn't

A man has two kids, and one day he travels back in time without his kids. Unfourtanetly he dies in the past. Assuming that drastic changes did not occur due to the butterfly effect would his children still be born?

I think they would be

Edited January 30, 2011 by young scientist

[MissKitten]

no, because the mother would have married a different guy with different genes, so children would have been born, just not the same children.

[peace*out]

the dad would be dead, and the kids stuck in the past, right? but if he died in the past, as long as the kids werent born by then, who knows. if they would, theyd probably be at that age again w their parents or whatever

or are you saying the thing never happened. if thats the case, than everything would be as it be if it didnt happen.

[MissKitten]

but then, this is like the wizards of waverly place movie, so the kids would be sucked into a time-space vortex that looked like a sand tornado.

[Guest]

I always thought that when the dad went back in time there would be 2 of him for a while but then one because the other one died and then the remaining one would carry on his life as the other one did because the other dad also was in the same time period as his future self and the death of that dad did not affect him. Therefore the 2nd dad I mentioned earlier was doomed to have kids and then be killed a gain. It creates sort of a cycle. Does that make any sense?

[MissKitten]

well, it makes sense if the dad goes to a time he was already in, but i assumed he didnt because that creates a whole other world of problems, like in Harry Potter.

[phaze]

I always thought that when the dad went back in time there would be 2 of him for a while

3 (everyone forgets to count the one who's travelling backward)

[Guest]

Dad would now not exsist at all.

[Guest]

So children never exsist

[Guest]

Why would dad not exist at all? The dad who died followed a linear path. His actions had no other effect (no butterfly effect). Hence the path he already traveled is unchanged. He existed and he had kids. He just now is dead.

[MissKitten]

Yeah, that makes sense. This got me thinking about Back to the Future, and how there are, like, 3 Docs and Martys in the second movie and what YS is saying about there being two dads in past [not counting the one traveling through time since he isn't doing anything] really makes sense.

[Guest]

If went in past X time (when kids were not born) and dies, universe will ahead to slightly changed future, the future where the same kids will not exist. And if you are sending their DAD in an other world simillar to the X time past of our word, the kids will remain and enjoy but no copy of kids will exist in the future of new world of their dad where he died unfortunatly.

[Guest]

If went in past X time (when kids were not born) and dies, universe will ahead to slightly changed future, the future where the same kids will not exist. And if you are sending their DAD in an other world simillar to the X time past of our word, the kids will remain and enjoy but no copy of kids will exist in the future of new world of their dad where he died unfortunatly.

But why? He already had the kids before he died. He did nothing to alter that history. If he like killed his grandfather, ok. But he did nothing to alter his history, theoretically. So history continues, he's born has kids, goes back in time and dies.

[Guest]

Why would dad not exist at all? The dad who died followed a linear path. His actions had no other effect (no butterfly effect). Hence the path he already traveled is unchanged. He existed and he had kids. He just now is dead.

i agree with this

there would be two dads, one from our time and one from the past

the dad from our time would die having no effect on the past dad ( until he becomes present dad) and therefore have no effect on the children

[Molly Mae]

But why? He already had the kids before he died. He did nothing to alter that history. If he like killed his grandfather, ok. But he did nothing to alter his history, theoretically. So history continues, he's born has kids, goes back in time and dies.

Agreed.

Imagine instead that the dad traveled back to the Roman Empire and died back there without changing the world in any way.

Consider the attached image which I just generated from an astoundingly powerful computer that observes space-time anomalies.

The blue line represents the timeline of a man who does not time travel. His life appears linear from this perspective. The red line represents the life of the father. Although it doesn't appear linear, it actually is. Time is a jumbled mess of a thing. I tried to make the image as clear as possible.

If the man traveled to the year 325 (arbitrary), everything he has done so far is in his past, even if it is in the future of the rest of earth. He didn't begin existing in the year 325. Even the direction of the time travel doesn't matter. If he went into the future 5000 years, he would still have existed linearly (is that a word) relative to his own observation.

I love Doctor Who, but I hate Matt Smith. A good example of this linearity is observing the timelines of the eleventh doctor and River Song. I wouldn't use the media to build any theories, but this is a great example of how linearity works.