John Titor & Time Travel

**UPDATE (14th Nov 2010): It seems the links to photos/images to this post have mostly been taken down or the site gone inactive. Sorry about that, if anybody still reads this post. If I have the time and mood, which I rarely do =( I'll try to re-up or find backup images for it. If not, just too bad then.


I guess you guys have watched Time Travel movies since you were kids right? You go like "Whoa~! That is SOoo KEewl man... To be able to go back in time and save the world." Or think of stuff like "Wouldn't it be nice if I could see my future/past self, or even shake hands with him/her/myself?" It seems, that these things may not be very far from reality actually.


Just a month or two ago though, I actually thought about this question. "Is Time Travel possible?" And after some serious considerations, analysis, and theories I thought about, I concluded that it wasn't. However, it seems I only considered a "Serial Timeline" Theory, and overlooked the possibility of another method of Existence for our world.

Okay, I found this information a few days ago whilst having exams, thanks to a prompt from a friend while chatting over lunch.... and instead of studying, I spent my day learning about this guy John Titor and about Time Travelling. Anyway, I'm gonna present my summary of 5 hours research on him here.


Before I start, I'll give a word of Warning:

********** ~Very Long and Confusing Post ahead~

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Content below might contain heavy 'nonsensical' discussion on Time Travelling and multiple hard to imagine concepts also. You might want to consider to NOT continue reading if you do not wish to boggle your mind with weird concepts and stuff, or if you just do not have any interest in Time Travel whatsoever.

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If you're still with me. Then, prepare to be mystified.

So, the story goes that there is this guy named John Titor, who made his appearance in year 2000 ~ 2001 and claims to be a Time Traveler (I'll use TT-er from now on) from the year 2036. John appears to be a military personnel, on a mission, to go back to the year 1975, and retrieve an IBM computer UNIX 5100. This was one of the first portable computers created by IBM, and this model, unlike the rest, contained a simple but unique feature in it. However, the feature during that time did not seem to have much use, and so IBM dropped the feature in their newer computer models, leaving all of today's computer without that feature.

But in year 2036, scientists realised that the feature in that IBM computer would be the only thing that could prevent a worldwide freeze of their computers in the year 2038, which would happen due to technical issues I'll not mention here. (much like the our year 2000 Y2K problem).

He appeared in 1975 with a Time Machine loaded on a Chevvy. It is said that the Chevvy would be less obvious at that time. After his mission though, he stopped by the year 1999~2001 for personal reasons and lived with his "family" (His real self was only 2~3 years old at that time). He managed to convince his family that it was his future self, and stayed with them. And during that time, he actually made an appearance on the internet, firstly nicknamed "TimeTravel_0" on multiple chat logs. And later laid claim to the name "John Titor".

He later returned to his year 2036 sometime around End of March or early April 2001, but this time in a 1987 4-wheeled-

Of course, there were few people who believed him. The skeptics tried to expose his hoax, and the gullible took it all for real and listened to his stories.
As for me... ... am for now still unsure whether this can be true of false.

However, even if he was a hoax. He actually left behind many theories and concepts for time travel that no one else actually thought about. He explained, to a limit, how his time machine worked, and even posted parts of the operation manual (don't ask me "What for?").


All this while, MY concept of Time Travel, was travelling along a "Serial Timeline". A serial timeline means..... only a single timeline exists. And for the next event to occur, the event before that HAS to have happened.... or so to say... something like this picture.

This is what a Serial Timeline would look like. And after a couple of days and hours considering how traversing through a serial timeline would be possible, I came to the conclusion that: It was Impossible.

John Titor however, IF he were a real TT-er, stated that even though it's called Time Travelling, it still obeys the final rules of 'Time'. That is, "Time and Tide waits for No Man".

**Assuming John was a REAL TT-er**

John explained Time Travel as traveling across Multiple "Parallel Worlds", each world having it's own "Worldline". Meaning to say. There are INFINITE versions of the world today, all 'running' at the same time. He also stated that "Every possible outcome, event and possibility is happening and will happen". Meaning to say... in each of those Infinite Worlds, there is a 'Me', a 'You' and 'Everybody else' in that universe, doing nearly the same or perfectly different things.

"Parallel Worldlines" Concept
This isn't talking about TimeTravel though, it's just an example.

In the other worlds, as he said, every possible outcome will happen, maybe, in this world, you chose to drink Coffee this morning; in the other world your other 'you' chose to drink Tea instead. Another more accurate example: The 'You' in this world decided to punch your friend for stealing from you; whereas in the other world 'you' decided to forgive him instead. These list of possibilities though, are all tied down by one thing only. And that is the each and every person's personality and choices.

In that manner, it is frustrating to know that you are capable of and acting on all of the thoughts and ideas you have regardless of what the “you” HERE in this worldine is doing. How good or evil do you think you can be?

He even said that there's a specific study with supportive physics evidence that the our Dreams, deja vu phenomenons, memories, intuitions, subconsciousness are all part of the other 'you's trying to communicate with each other. Now THAT would be cool wouldn't it 0.0


But the "Parallel Worldlines" concept also meant that each world is a separate entity from each other. So even if a TT-er travels 'back' in time, and kills his younger self, it will only affect the worldline of his younger self's, and not the worldline he is from. This is also because of the universal law of Time. That is.... Time doesn't go back. So we still can't change history with a Time Machine.


And this is how the intertwining worldlines would look like in God's Eyes.

I guess that's how you could say the world looks like if you could see every single dimension as a thin line.


**Seems like my post is getting a bit long, so I won't go explanation of how he mentioned his time machine works, since it's got to do with Quantum Gravitational Physics and Micro-singularities, black holes and space-man stuff.... I won't know what I'm talking about by then either.


Anyway.... the point of my post wasn't to argue whether John Titor was a fake or not, or whether we could time travel or not, or even whether his explained theory of time travel was correct or not (but if he WAS a real TT-er, it must've been correct lol). Even though the so-called Time Traveler John Titor had 'gone back' to his year 2036 in the year 2001, till today, people still ask about him, research about him, and intelligence agencies still remain hunting for traces of him. Whether he's a fake or not... I'm not really concerned actually.

But after this guy's appearance, researches are actually now being carried out on his 'rumoured' theories relevant to time travel (it's called the String Theory btw, in case any of you nutcases are wondering what theory it is). This theory didn't exist until AFTER he mentioned it in year 2001, and is still an ongoing research until today.

And my point is, whether time travel is real or not... this guy actually managed to bring Hope into the world. Living in a world where time is never enough, where people bustle about only minding their own business, this person brought about a Plan, a Concept, an Idea, and that is the possibility of Time Travel.


Whereas he might have been a hoax that was an 18 year old teen who sat behind a 17" Plasma LCD monitor all day to think up of such nonsense; or some prison break criminal hiding in a cyber cafe... he still brought about a change in our world. And whether you know it or not, it certainly made a change in our worldline.


Oh, and the final thing I learnt through this is
Time never flows back. Not even a Time Machine can save you.