- If I had the opportunity to go back in time
and tell myself something,
I wouldn't do it
because who I am now
is because of who I was.
- Realistically, I'd probably go back
and tell myself to start TikTok sooner.
(laughing)
So, I'd be bigger.
(upbeat electronic music)
So today, I'm gonna be talking to Jake from Vsauce
about time travel.
H.G. Wells wrote a science fiction novella
called "The Time Machine" in 1895.
This was the story that first popularized
the concept of time travel,
by a mechanical means.
- If you did go back in the past
and change an event,
even if it was very minuscule,
it would then split the timeline.
So, it self corrects in a way
where this timeline is still the same as it was,
but now you've created a different timeline
that you exist on.
And this time is still happening--
- So, your existence in the last timeline
doesn't really,
doesn't exist anymore
'cause you've left, technically.
- Well, that's the thing.
So, you exist up until the point
when you went back in time.
- Mhm.
- And then, you're still going
but then, it always brings up this question of okay,
so when you leave,
what then happens to time in the present?
If you're no longer there.
Does it keep going?
Do people outside of that time bubble still exist
os is everyone stuck in this time loop with you?
(soft whooshing) (loud dinging)
- That's an interesting thought (laughing).
Like personally, I would like to go to the future,
just 'cause I wanna see it
but like, with that question,
I wouldn't know when exactly I would wanna go to.
And then like, thinking of the past,
it's like there's not very many places in the past
that I would be accepted (laughing), so.
I don't know.
Anywhere I go,
I'd just be a witch.
- That seems always to be the first thing.
It's like, oh, you go back in time,
you invest in Google stock or like Apple stock,
or Netflix stock (laughing). - Mhm.
- Am I right?
(laughing)
But it's like, how do you have the money
'cause the money that you have now,
unless you just collect currency from like 1997,
isn't gonna work - Mhm.
- 'cause your bills aren't going to read right.
So like, you have to then go back
in time - No.
- and work a lot to get enough money
to then invest in these things.
And then, - Mhm.
- how do you get your future self,
who is you in the present,
to know about it,
or get that stuff?
But, if we think about the time machine,
the thing I love about that story
is, because time moves at a constant rate, right?
Time is the same,
what changes is our perception of time.
Time is fixed
but our perception can adjust.
Like, your perception of a minute
might be different than my perception of a minute,
and, it time--
- It's all relative.
- Yes, it is
and in "The Time Machine,"
that story is basically,
he sits at his time machine,
everything else whizzes by him,
but, from the perspective of people going by him,
it just looks like a dude asleep in a machine.
But it brings up one of my favorite points
about time travel that they never seem to talk about.
Is when you travel through time,
let's us the DeLorean in "Back to The Future."
It's a machine, it's no longer set on the ground,
it moves, it drives,
or it flies, depending on which sequel we're talking about.
How do you know where you would end up?
Because time is fixed
but space isn't. - Mhm.
- Let's say there's a dude
that goes into like an empty field,
like 200 years ago,
and he shoots forward 200 years,
and then bam,
he's just like in the middle of concrete,
in New York City. - Yeah.
- He's inside a building now
but dead because he is in the wrong spot (laughing).
- (mumbling) the whole everything changes around him.
But in this version,
which is a little bit exaggerated, maybe,
but you have to worry about
once you pop back into like 1954,
you're just in the vastness of space.
- Oh, that, too, because--
- Because the Earth has moved.
- Moving (laughing).
- Like, it's constantly moving,
it's constantly spinning.
Our entire solar system,
our entire universe,
is constantly moving.
- But if you think of it
as like rewinding a VHS tape,
or something.
Like, the Earth, if you're going back in time,
it would,
you'd still be on Earth
'cause I'm imagining that everything
kinda like rewinding,
and you'd still be in that spot.
You wouldn't be in space.
I like that idea,
I thought about that idea for a little bit
but I feel like you would still be on Earth.
- Yeah.
- Hopefully.
- Well, that's the thing.
- Not just in the void.
- It depends on what version of time travel.
We talked about like yeah,
there's the VHS one where you just rewind.
- [Jayus] The Butterfly Effect
is a term coined
by mathematician, Edward Lorenz,
to describe events observed in chaos theory,
where one teeny tiny change in the initial conditions
can result in vastly different outcomes.
There's no proof that time travel exists
because stuff is--
The Butterfly Effect is already taking effect
and we're not aware of it.
- The Butterfly Effect, to me,
still applies, even without the idea of time travel
'cause to your story just then,
every little thing you did,
the reason that you got TikTok,
the reason you started TikTok,
showing up in the feed,
those were all ripples, right?
That went throughout,
not only your life,
but other peoples lives, then.
So, it affected change
and that's what The Butterfly Effect is,
regardless of if there was time travel involved.
Involved, like The Butterfly Effect
still is in existence.
Yeah. - It exists, yes.
Butterfly Effect exists.
It works with time travel
but it's not exclusive to time travel.
- Yeah, 'cause basically,
they use it, you know,
in moves as oh, you go back in time,
and then this ripple effect happens,
and it disrupts everything.
The butterfly flapping its wings here
cause a hurricane over here.
It's like, well, that just happens regardless,
even without time travel.
- With time travel, though,
it's you risk manipulating things
and changing it to the way that you don't want it to be.
"Groundhog Day," starring Bill Murray.
In this 90's movie,
his character is forced to relive February second,
a.k.a., Groundhog Day,
over and over until he learns from his mistakes,
becoming less selfish and more caring with each loop.
So, let's talk abut the Groundhogs Day thing.
Like, the idea that you're stuck in like
a period of time.
Day after day, after day.
I personally think that'd be hell.
Like, the first day or two would be kinda cool.
Like, you get to mess around with some stuff
but then you realize you're actually stuck there (laughing).
That's be a nightmare for me.
- I would agree with you.
I think, I mean, this is so when it comes
to differences in time travel.
This is an interesting one where it's,
what is traveling through time is the memory, right?
So, in "Groundhog Day,"
Bill Murray isn't actually, at the end of the day,
him physically isn't going back to the beginning,
it's just his memory of the day going back to the past.
And that's how he then knows.
- Yeah, 'cause nobody else around him knows what's going on.
They don't remember it,
just him, he's aware.
- Yeah.
He's aware but (mumbling),
like all of these people,
even though they don't get to have memories
go back in time,
are also in the loop
'cause they're there every single day.
He sees them, they do the same exact action.
So, they are also being in this repeat cycle
but the thing that I love about this,
just agree with you,
yeah, it'd be a nightmare,
and I would hope that never happens.
- I never wanna wake up the same day.
- Okay, excluding the times where he kills himself,
does he keep going?
'Cause again, it's just his memory
that's going back in time.
So again, are we stuck on another little loop
and time is still going forward,
after that day,
it's just that the memory that this Bill Murray has,
is from the future, from a day in the future?
But that could still mean that Bill Murray
is still traveling forward to the future,
it's just his memory goes back
to him a day ago. - Yeah.
On a grander scale,
I love the genre time travel in entertainment
because it begs a huge set of fascinating questions
about what would be possible in a world
where time wasn't fixed.
Like, time tourism,
teleportation,
and even immortality.
With time tourism,
like the idea that like, you said,
the airport like just going 1962,
like going to the future,
the cool part would be like seeing everything
like with your own eyes.
Like, experience history.
There's so many negatives to it.
Like, one that I like to think of
is the whole like germs
and like how you're probably not,
you're probably gonna get other people sick,
they're gonna get you sick
just 'cause you're not immune to different things.
Like, that's one big one (laughing).
- Yeah, that's a really good point.
Basically doing chemical warfare
to a whole entire population.
Um, you don't wanna do that.
- No.
- I mean, I--
- If you go back in time,
you're gonna kill everybody.
If you go in the future,
they're gonna kill you (laughing).
- Most likely
and that's the like, I guess you could do it.
I guess it'd be more like time voyeurism
instead of tourism
because you can't really interact with things.
You'd have to specifically not interact.
You could watch
but you can't, obviously, influence anything
'cause those implications that we've talked about,
like The Butterfly Effect, stuff like that,
could be far-reaching and never ending.
- But wouldn't you just being there already affect things?
Like, I feel like when they talk about The Butterfly Effect,
it's like oh, we can't mess with anything.
Then, it's like but you're existence there
is messing with things already.
Like, stuff is bound to happen
just by you being there.
- Yeah.
Well, that's another thing, if it ever works (mumbling).
It would have to be more of a,
almost like VR experience,
where we just have like a little camera
that goes in there.
It's like ooh, now you can look in
but you are not in that time.
You're here
and you're just seeing a feed of that time.
- That'd be the safe way to do it.
Theoretically, time slips could be possible,
via what physicists refer to as Wormholes.
- I don't, I wish I had a piece of paper next to me
but you know, what's the point of--
- (mumbling) whole fold the piece of paper
with the pen through it (laughing).
- Yeah, from "Event Horizon."
That's where I learned it
but it's my favorite - Uh-uh.
- visualization of it,
is that it basically ends point A and point B
and puts them together.
It's a shortcut through time and space.
You know, (mumbling),
Einstein think they exist.
So, who am I to contradict him?
(laughing)
I just make videos on YouTube
but it makes sense.
They should exist
but the thing is we don't know what's on the other end,
we don't know what happens to you when you go in it.
- Mhm.
- There's no clue.
Would it take you to a different time?
Ostensibly so
but it would also take you
a completely different place.
If we just sort of find one in space,
we have no idea what's on the other side.
- We have no idea how to find them
if they're real,
what they do.
It's kinda just a math idea
that some smart dude thought of (laughing).
- And if, and big if,
if time travel were possible,
both backwards and forwards,
then, to me, I think the most realistic way
that would happen
is that, if all of time is happening on top of itself,
right?
So, the past, the present, an the future
are all happening at the same time.
- What you mean is like this moment
that I'm experiencing right now
is the present
but, technically, also the past,
but also kind of the future
because it's all happening at the same time?
- Yeah.
So, it's like 1950 - Same time (laughing).
- is happening right now.
So, if you wanted to get to it,
and this could like involve a Wormhole.
You just have to travel through space and time
to get to that timeline.
- Now, write the blueprints to make the machine
that does this.
Jake, thank you so much for being on the show.
I had a lot of fun
talking about time travel and all that.
Let the people know what you have going on (laughing).
- Well, you can check me out
on YouTube.com/vsauce3
and that's really about all I got.
That's all I have in my life
is that YouTube channel.
- Check out Vsauce3.
(laughing)