Questions tagged [paradox]
A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition. For the short-lived UK sci-fi series, use the tag [paradox-tv], and for the 2010 film staring Kevin Sorbo and Christopher Judge, use the tag [paradox-movie]
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What did Stephen R. Donaldson mean by "there is hope in contradiction"?
One of the many recurring sayings in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is said in full by one of the characters (a magic lord named Mhoram) as:
When you have come to the crux, and have no other ...
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Does Doc Brown sabotage himself in Back to the Future 2?
Back in 1955, Doc Emmet Brown is spotted by his past self as he is working on the cable in the park, at which point, the latter asks the unrecognizable white-haired man to "be a pal and hand my ...
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At the end of the first Back to the Future movie, how come Marty can witness the original events happening then wake up to visit an alternate family?
At the end of the first Back to the Future movie, Marty comes back ten minutes early, and sees the events from the start of the movie playing out (him running to the DeLorean and going back to 1955). ...
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Possible time paradox in Arrival [duplicate]
I have just watched Arrival, and there is a scene that has confused me a little bit.
How can this be explained? Is it a paradox, or is it all right?
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Trying to find a time travel short story
A group of scientists had almost cracked time travel - but then started dying in a series of bizarre accidents. They realised that the universe was protecting itself from the paradox of time travel by ...
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What 90's made-for-tv movie featured a time-traveling policeman who left his wife a note from the past?
I recall watching a made for TV movie in the 90's that takes place in the future about a man who works for a time-travel enforcement agency. At the beginning of the movie he got his wife an old copy ...
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What would happen if someone opened a door that is opened with a key of the keymaker from the other side?
In the Matrix Reloaded, Persephone is opening a door in the restaurant using a key from the keymaker, now leading to the Merovingian's chateau 500 miles away instead of the other part of the ...
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What caused the TARDIS to be empty in Father's Day?
In the episode, Father's Day reapers appear due to Rose causing a paradox. "The Doctor walks back to the TARDIS, he senses that something is wrong. When he gets back to the TARDIS and unlocks it with ...
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Do the time travel rules of the Indian movie 24 make sense?
There are basically three kinds of time travel stories in terms of they handle paradoxes:
Stories that obey the Novikov self-consistency principle, like the TV show LOST and the movie Interstellar, ...
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Isn't ending of Terminator 2:Judgement day a time paradox?
I have just started watching the Terminator franchise and finished till 2. But its ending had my mind boggling. If Skynet and Terminator, both are created by Cyberdyne, using the microprocessor that ...
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Story with the continuum hypothesis at the end [duplicate]
When I was in my teens, I think (if so it must have been in the seventies or early eighties), I read a short story about a single person landing in a space ship on a hostile military planet, and then ...
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What type of paradox kills Weeping Angels?
I'm trying to find ways to defeat Angels beside simply getting them to look at each other. For instance, in the episodes “The Time of Angels” and “Flesh and Stone”, you can't get a large group of ...
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Is Loki part of a destiny trap?
In Doctor Strange #385 Loki admits that he wanted to make Dr. Strange stronger for the threads to come, e.g. Damnation. However, in Doctor Strange: Damnation #1 it is established that Doctor Strange (...
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Wouldn't the paradox machine be useful for the Doctor?
If the Doctor built a paradox machine, he could save anyone and do anything he wanted to do, as the Master did. The paradox machine is powerful enough to let the Toclafane kill their ancestors without ...
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When does Professor X lose his ability to walk? [duplicate]
At the end of the X-Men first class movie, magneto deflects a bullet causing it to render professor X - who was a boy at the time - to become paralyzed in his legs. However in The last stand when ...
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Earliest instance of the grandfather paradox
I was just discussing Back to the Future with a friend of mine (I've never seen it), and he described the grandfather paradox to me. I told him the term for it, and he told me that BttF invented it. I ...
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If Marty had faded out, would that have destroyed the universe?
In Back To The Future Part 2, Doc Brown says that if young Jennifer (from 1985) were to meet her older self (from 2015), it could create a paradox that would unravel the fabric of the space-time ...
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SF short story about equation that can answer any question and agents sent back in time to destroy it
I read this short story ages ago in one of the "Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy" anthologies— it was about an equation (or series of questions? something like that) written in the 1700s or ...
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When Marty travels back to the future, why are not there two of him in 1985? Or they indeed are? [duplicate]
When Marty travels back to 1985 from 1955 at the end of the 1st BTTF movie (and meets his all new present), aren't there two Marties in that moment (the one that has just arrived and the one that was ...
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Why couldn't the Doctor save Adric?
I was regressing to childhood and watching old Doctor Who, and I just got to the episode "Earthshock" and the followup in "Time-flight". Tegan basically asks "why don't we go back in time and save ...
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Earliest example of an AI being defeated by a paradox
There is a joke in science fiction about defeating an evil AI with some sort of paradox, but there has to be a reason for this. I'm aware the the I, Robot series had a story where a rival company's ...
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Jennifer from BTTF left behind
In BTTF 2 after Marty and Doc come back from the future (to 1985) where Biff has already gone to 1955 and changed 1985, they stop off at what they think is Jennifer's house and leave her on the porch ...
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Did any universe address the problem of double DNA [closed]
When you mess up time travelling and become your own ancestor, there is a big problem:
At some point in time, a child will be born with exactly the same DNA as you.
Did any franchise address this ...
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What will happen when David-A returns after 8 years?
At the end of Flight of the Navigator, David time travels, creating an alternate timeline where he didn't go to Phalon{sic} for 8 years.
Lets call the David who disappeared for 8 years, David-A, and ...
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Where is Everybody? [duplicate]
Someone wrote a short story about the Fermi paradox—well, probably more than one person—but I have a specific story in mind.
I can only recall the broad outline.
A group of human explorers find a ...
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In Back to the Future Part II, how does Doc avoid creating a paradox?
In Back to the Future: Part II, Doc Brown discovers that the McFly family is destroyed in the future, and it can all be traced back to Marty, Jr. agreeing to some proposition by Griff and his gang. So,...
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Did Edith Keeler really have to die?
In the Star Trek TOS episode 28, "The City on the Edge of Forever", we find that McCoy's drug-fueled tear through the past caused serious and far-reaching effects on the space-time continuum; to wit, ...
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Who came up with the name Melody Pond?
On season 9 episode 4 (Before the Flood) of Doctor Who, The Doctor talks about the bootstrap paradox:
So there's this man. He has a time machine. Up and down history he goes, zip zip zip zip zip, ...
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What kind of paradox is this? [duplicate]
I was wondering something regarding the Back To The Future movie: Marty McFly is on stage and he's playing Johnny B. Goode. Marvin Berry phones his cousin Chuck Berry (the person who wrote the song).
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In the Back to the Future trilogy, does Doc ever piece together the letter about the terrorists?
In the Back to the Future trilogy, Marty writes a letter to Doc to warn him about his impending demise. We learn at the end of the first film that:
Nevertheless, at the end of the second film and at ...
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Is there a way to bypass the paradox system with a Time Turner in Harry Potter?
Is it possible to not create a paradox by using a Time Turner to stop someone (e.g Voldemort) from the past?
For example, a theory could be that somebody would go back in time by 3 hours, poison ...
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Where did 2015 Biff hide the Delorean in 1955 when giving himself the Almanac in BTTF 2?
With the 30th anniversary of the Back to the Future trilogy this year, and several networks showing it, I watched all three for the umpteenth time (and enjoyed every second of them), but wondered ...
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Red Dwarf: time and space travel paradoxes in "Tikka to Ride"?
The Red Dwarf episode Tikka to Ride has confused me more than any previous episode:
How was it possible for the crew to use the Time Drive to travel back to 1960's Earth, when in the previous episode,...
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Man goes back in time to observe WW2 and gets stranded in an alternate future
Anyone know the name of this science fiction short story. Man goes back in time to observe Second World War, falls in love, tries to return to future but ends up in a alternate future with no power ...
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Predestination (movie) - predestination or bootstrap paradox? [duplicate]
In the movie Predestination:
Is Jane's birth because of a predestination paradox or bootstrap paradox?
which one is it?
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Predestination and Bootstrap Paradox?
Can someone please help me understand the difference between Predestination and Bootstrap Paradox by pointing me in the direction of movies that deals with each of them?
For instance, Predestination ...
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Somewhere in Time - Who is this character?
In the time-travel romance movie "Somewhere in Time", a young playwright from 1972 uses an old pocket-watch to mystically travel back to 1912 and meet an actress he has fallen in love with from old ...
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Doctor Who time paradox Captain Jack [closed]
Jack is the face of Boe and has lived for millions (or billions) of years; The Doctor has called him a fixed point in time and space. In the short of 'time crash' the paradox of meeting himself and ...
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Looking for a short story about time travel; characters attempting to fix a boat
I'm looking for a short story that I read once about time travel. One thing that I remember from the story was that the characters were attempting to fix a boat using a time travel device that took ...
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Why can't the Doctor visit a particular point in his timeline to return to Gallifrey (at least temporarily)? [duplicate]
We already know the Doctor never follows the rules of space-time, so why is Gallifrey inaccessible? Shouldn't he be able to, you know, travel to a point in his past when Gallifrey still existed in ...
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Does Terminator 3 undermine the 'No Fate' concept?
"The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves… !" John Connor, quoting John Connor, quoting Kyle Reese, quoting John Connor - Terminator 2: Judgment Day
One of the fundamental ...
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I am trying to find the title to a Time Travel SF short story
I am trying to find the title of a short story published around 2009, in which a boy travels back in time and has to murder his own grandfather in order to erase his own identity and become a member ...
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Identifying a short story about time travel and paradoxes
I remember having read a short story in which the main character, thanks to a series of happenings also involving time travel, grew up, changed sex, made sex with himself and had a son... who of ...
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Short story: temporal paradox caused by experiment ends world
This might be one of Fredric Brown's short-short stories, but I've tried and could not find a reasonably quick way to look up summaries of all his stories.
A group of scientists in a lab decide to ...
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Why did future John Connor bother to send the T-101 Terminator back?
In the movie Terminator 2: Judgement Day, future John Connor sends the Terminator back in time to save himself from being killed.
But from the perspective of past John Connor (the kid), he sees a ...
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How do Future Bill & Ted know Rufus' name?
In Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, we never see Rufus introduce himself to Bill and Ted. Instead, Future Bill says to Present Bill and Present Ted: "Listen to this dude, Rufus. He knows what he's ...
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Does Doc Notice His Past/Future Self?
In Back To The Future Part 2, when Doc Brown is riding a bike and ends up coming upon himself (in the past) working on his "weather experiment" to get the old Marty back to 1985, is there any proof ...
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How do Amy and Rory know who River is in "The Wedding of River Song"?
In the Doctor Who episode "The Wedding of River Song," the entire episode is an alternate version of the season opener, which means the Amy and Rory in the alternate universe haven't been ...
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How did this [spoiler] interaction occur in Dr Who "Journey to the Centre" episode?
In the episode Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS
This character
Goes through the rift to warn
How can this even possible without destroying the fabric of space time? Or creating a paradox, or ...
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How did Clara dedicate Emmett's tombstone in Back to the Future 3?
In Back to the Future 3, Doc Brown is only able to save Clara Clayton because of Marty's presence (as they had to scout that area for the plan).
Though if Marty had not traveled back in time, Doc ...
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