The Time Travel Paradoxes of Back To the Future

brumgrunt sent in a fun little piece to get your brain going on a cloudy monday morning. Despite countless viewings of BTTF I still never thought of a few of these. "Throughout Back To The Future Part III, there has to be two Deloreans in 1885. Also, why don't George and Lorraine recognize their son? Why doesn't the time machine disappear in the alternative 1985? These and more Back To The Future paradoxes explored..."

Comments

The one they always overlook

[elrous0]

If you travel back in time to the exact same spot, just in a different time, then (unless you're REALLY precise on the exact time of day and year), you'll most likely end up floating in space. People who make time travel movies don't seem to realize that the earth moves around its axis and around the sun. The spot I'm standing on right now will be vaccum in just a few minutes.

If Marty had went back to a different time of year without a space suit, Biff would have been the least of his worries.

Of course there are two DeLoreans

[rarel]

Of course there are two Deloreans. Doc's and Marty's. It's not a plot hole at all, the whole point is that they can't gut Doc's DeLorean for parts since it would create a paradox and prevent Marty from going back in time to 1885.

The cool thing is that at one point there are FOUR DeLoreans for a few hours in 1955, Marty I, Cowboy Doc, Marty 2 (with Doc) and Biff's.

Re:Frame of Reference Problem

[maxwell demon]

I don't even understand why this needs explanation. We all travel forward through time, and no-one needs an explanation of why we don't phase through the planet as time moves forward.

Of course we need an explanation. Fortunately we have it: Because the matter below us causes a force on us (combined gravitational, elastic and friction), keeping us at "the same" place relative to the ground. For the very same reason there's no problem with H. G. Wells' time machine, because it's at its place all the time (he constantly sees the surrounding, just in another pace; of course that sort of time travel has its own set of problems, but that's another story), so it also should be subject to this force. However the time machine in BTTF (as well as the time machines in most stories/movies/series today) basically makes a jump in time, i.e. it simply isn't there in the intermediate times, thus there's no force which would keep it in place.

Of course one could argue that since "the same place at another time" isn't exactly defined anyway, the inventor of the time machine must have built in some calculation of the relative position of earth at the destination, and manages to move the time machine to exactly that place. However, that should enable you to not only choose the time, but also the place where you appear (possibly restricted to the future/past light cone, but that covers all of the earth for any reasonable time travel; of course if you only travel a microsecond, your choices of reentry are severely limited). There's absolutely no reason then to restrict the time machine to enter at the "same" place.