time travel is a subject often explored in sci-fi and for good reason it offers an endless amount
of possibilities for the story to develop and an equal amount of opportunities to torment
its characters given its esoteric nature the interpretations can be quite various
ranging from Paradox causing predicaments to once more grounded in reality well as
much as they can be I was surprised to find steinsgate while operating in a medium that
pushes the boundaries of the Absurd to be part of the latter it was exhilarating to watch something
that didn't just regurgitate scientific sounding nonsense but instead of its plot be rested upon
a foundation of something resembling scientific theory kurusu gives a speech to the start of the
visual novel explaining several theories of time travel and each one is an existing proposal for
the phenomenon she mentions that out of all the theories 11 of them are widely accepted
in Academia one of which is the same one that science gate seems to adhere to the black hole
Theory the show is surprisingly scientifically accurate almost enough to fall under the umbrella
of hard sci-fi a genre of Science Fiction that places an emphasis on real-life plausibility from
the many any world's interpreter it starts off and they're talking about string theory in this class
she's a strength theorist how cool is that yeah it's pretty good black holes to the concept of
strange attractors the show utilizes a lot of what we understand about physics and quantum mechanics
today first things first however we should Define some terms time travel typically falls into one
of two categories of temporal mutability mutable or immutable this simply refers to whether or not
you can actually affect the timeline Through Time Travel if time is immutable then the past present
and the future are one okay we're already venturing into misinformation and just BS
territory because um no time travel is something physicists sometimes try and do for fun but it's
not a very serious area of research because one big elephant in the room which most people not
in physics don't understand is time is not a well understood concept nor is it really understood at
all like you can understand it in in separate theories like established series like general
relativity or quantum theory but they're different and so you know talking about time travel you have
to give context to what the [ __ ] you're talking about and you know and then there's the time in um
you know coming from it uh statistical mechanics thermodynamics perspective and entropy but that
one is probably the hardest one to talk about because it's sort of very abstract but let's
continue I'm just saying spidey sense is already like ringing because it's like the way he's
talking about it you know it's just not how you do it entity if you change the past you would have
already experienced the effects in the present there's a story I read back in middle school that
uses this concept two teenagers have to travel back to the past to stop Hitler because the only
reason the Allies win World War II you see what I mean like he's just talking about like as if this
is just a yeah you know if you're going to talk about time travel you're really going to have to
first explain what time is and no one can do that so what do you think it's not sound
as good as it yeah it's like yeah this guy's like travel back in time it's like man like
there's so much to think about but it's like the physicist of me like you were saying that the
overarching umbrella hat of experiment you can't run an experiment backwards in time like I can't
prepare an experiment and get results before I prepare the experiment so until you could actually
do that you can't prove or disprove any Theory so all of it is basically pseudoscience yeah like
um but there's no even like Theory either like you know people claiming this theory of just uh
cooks and wackos basically I won't miss them but it's just like they oh they absolutely should be
dismissed like you if we can't even explain time to take this seriously it's just adding complexity
to something that's already we don't understand the complexity of it's like there are so many
people out there that want to like think about time in from a Quantum a loop quantum gravity
perspective and it's like dude that is you know trying to connect general relativity and
Quantum field Theory we don't even know if that it works Loop quantum gravity is a very sort of
alternative version of you know connecting it which not many people buy and then you want
to talk about time travel in Loop quantum gravity or just time in general and that's
what that Carlo Ravalli guy does and I think he's awesome but he doesn't give enough context when
he's talking about it he's not telling people that he's basically lying to them you know he's
not saying hey this is a very hypothetical area which we don't even know if it's real
and I'm just going to now start talking about time and take you along for this talk about time but
not you see what I mean yeah yeah it's frustrating very frustrating for me is because they went back
to the past to stop Hitler confusing right the problem of temporal immutability is that it brings
forth a lot of paradoxes if the kids already stopped Hitler then they would have no reason to
go back to the past in the first place primarily the issues of causality and a lot of there are a
lot of paradoxes in physics they're a good place to look to find new physics and there's a lot of
paradoxes which are actually what we call physics now like superposition sounds like a paradox but
it's not it's just that the quantum world doesn't behave there's no an analogy to our physical world
so how did we figure it out then experiment so talking about it this guy is just talking
about it like philosophically it's like that's a paradox yeah but guess what reality can do
whatever it wants and you know that's why we use experiment to like I'm what I'm saying might sound
counter-intuitive right now but this is literally what you do in physics you have to do experiment
so it doesn't matter if there's a paradox there essentially you know we don't understand how this
stuff works and if you're not going to even give the perspective of what you're talking about like
he's clearly talking about general relativity now that perspective but that's very different to say
like if you're going to start talking about the standard model of particle physics you know and
Quantum field theories stories that involve time travel either have to work around this or they
ignore it entirely Harry Potter is one that comes to mind fortunately Steins Gate mostly sidesteps
his problem by having its timeline be mutable as you can see with every d-mail that Agape sends the
new president he finds himself in is drastically different Steins get a code just for another
reference fin uh in the show they definitely take with general relativity approach because they talk
about world lines a lot and there's all this and then mixing general relativity and Quantum field
Theory all the time because they're talking about CERN and black holes created its own but basically
CERN right but if you're going to mention soon you're talking about particle physics and Quantum
field Theory but then they talk about time from the general relativity perspective worldwide
these things are not connected yet standard model of particle physics wraps up three of
the four fundamental forces in the universe right three of them it doesn't include gravity we don't
even know how gravity fits into you know the standard model of particle physics or how it
interacts at the atomic scale so this is why you know just bringing those two and confusing them
um is a bit of a No-No currently accomplishes this by using the many worlds interpretation and the
many worlds interpretation there are an infinite amount of parallel universes where the events in
our past that did not happen did happen and the way Steins get applies this interpretation is
really what do you think about that but what he just said like he just claimed the many world's
interpretation means in the past everything has happened and it's like that's not that's no that's
not what it does like what the guy just said about I'm just sort of responding to what this
guy is saying not in the show and what the guy just said doesn't make sense like that's not so
that is now established this guy doesn't really know physics and he's kind of just talking about
stuff you know like he's Googled it so so what he's talking about is he goes back in time and
he makes changes to time and he comes back to the future and things are different no no no he was
just talking about the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and he said that means in the
past everything has happened like I just meant that one line like it's like that's enough for
us to go okay this guy is just sort of talking you know it's not like this isn't that's not
what it says the many world's interpretation is hyper-specific about the collapse of the wave
function and there's very very very little we can say about it that's why it's an interpretation and
there's multiple interpretations and there's no one agrees on it in physics so it's like going
beyond the like a few little things you could say about the wave function collapse and whatever and
then this guy just goes to that means everything happened in the past it's like no it doesn't
really quite ingenious when someone who sees a demo the timeline that okabe resides in
and the one where the dmail is received are now fundamentally incompatible the past is information
that it should not have in an effort to resolve the resulting Paradox the timeline shifts into the
so-called correct one where the change pass event did happen Steins Gate refers to these infinite
universes as World lines borrowing the infamous John Titus terminology just to be clear okay so
now it is venturing into like what's happening in the anime and you might be like okay here
and the show does clarify this only one world line exists at any given moment the others are
simply mathematical probabilities an Endless Sea of what ifs waiting to be summoned into existence
through an inadvertent email on that subject how is it possible for a text message to be
sent back in time in the first place the anime takes some liberties with this but essentially
okabe and his future Gadget lab unintentionally create a per black hole generator the specifics
are a little complicated but essentially his phone microwave name subject to change
generates black holes that are stabilized by electrons emitted by Mr eponymous Brawn tubes
John Ryder the actual John Tyler from the event in our world asserted that this was the method
through which his own time travel machine worked in the beginning okabe and Company are only able
to send text messages the average size being about 140 kilobytes or so so black hole is a rotating a
spinning black hole I'm just thinking how much to go into this you know you couldn't stabilize
a black hole with electrons that's absurd take it anywhere near that thing Beyond The Event Horizon
and yeah electrons are going to go bye-bye and um I was in the show they also talk about
how there's microscopic black holes are being created at CERN which was you know some kind of
ideas that came out before CERN that we might create but no we didn't um because they're
we're being hit with energies from cosmic rays at a much higher energies than we're dealing with at
um at certain right and we're pretty sure we're not being pelted with microscopic black holes we
could be and they're just evaporating very quickly we could be making the member evaporating very
quickly but we we should see that like we should see some behavioral stuff with the particles and
so far it's like doesn't look like it eventually however kurusu works the magic and okabe is able
to send himself back or the contents of his brain rather with a Time leap machine the human brain is
thought to be able to store 2.5 petabytes of data an astronomical increase compared
to a lowly text message it would be inaccurate however to refer to the timeline of Steins games
being completely mutable the show also introduces the idea of attractor Fields collections of world
lines that have events that cannot be changed or prevented suzahar brings up the example of string
string is composed of many strands but they all end up heading towards the same direction
what's incredible is that a tractor Fields actually exists as a concept in science it's
used in the context of dynamical systems and how some systems tend to move towards the same set
of numerical values even with disturbances and wide starting conditions for a very simplified
example you can think of a pendulum no matter how high you begin the swing it always converts
to a single point here lies the central conceit of steinsgate and the whole reason for okabe's
suffering in the anime we follow three main interactive Fields the beta field the alpha field
and of course the Steins Gate itself any thoughts on this I've never heard of an attractive field
yeah I mean his example of the pendulum I don't want to get on the bagging train but it goes back
to its original position because of gravity but what if I had like okay you could have a pendulum
suspended by an electric field it's not gonna like say it's like the string itself is polarized or
something it's not going to to go back to its original position or you know like if you had
a perturbation of any kind like he's saying like oh attractive Fields it's all going to go back to
its original position if you perturb a pendulum which is what these attractive Fields would be
doing as he's like said before it won't go bet to its original position it will be perturbed off
it won't it I don't know yeah I'm not sure about these electric Fields his example though I've just
never he's yeah I think he's pulling something that's just an idea like something else some
concept and someone's like oh this might be a but I've never you know this isn't something that's
hard physics could be just something in math yeah no it is in the mathematical field of dynamical
systems okay so it's a state of so dates set of States towards which a system tends to evolve
so it's like you know how you have like chaos theory and things can go from chaotic to like
an ordered system over time that is a potential example that's not the universe we live in though
it's going the other way entropy is increasing disorder is increasing so we're going from order
to chaos and complexity there was a new piece of news yesterday they showed that black holes
might actually outlive the heat death of the universe and they come up with an analog for
uh suskin Leonard suskin for uh the second law of Thermodynamics fit I just wanted to
tell you this and they're calling it the second law of quantum complexity it's an analog for
entropy always increases because it's classical so this is a Quantum analog
um and basically that complexity always increases and they TR like if you go read about the paper
there actually is they're trying to formalize like a new law which is really cool I'm not sure if
it's going to work but it's fun [ __ ] coming back to this why that's a big No-No what he's just done
is because he's just pulled a concept from math which is not the same as physics and applied it to
physics and physics like we as we said earlier the Arbiter of Truth is experiment this is where you
can't just pull something from math it's like you you can but you'd call that theoretical physics
because it's like there's no if it was physics it means we have evidence in this universe that's
what's happening it could be you we did one Google search and it said mathematical thing right maybe
there is some evidence that this is happening but if there is it's probably like General because
that sounds like a very complex like like complex system science you know where things tend to go
in that general direction so interesting but I don't know I don't know we start off in the beta
field where Kudos who has gruesomely murdered after the conference by inadvertently sending
an email to daru okabe exceeds a Divergence margin of the beta tractor field and he's thrust into the
alpha field where he's the witness mayuri's death time and time again finally okabe figures out how
to avoid both Mayuri and kurusu's death resulting in the titular steinsgate as well as the ending
that actually allows us to finally Breathe Again the question is just how does okabe accomplish his
feet remember how earlier I said science gate only mostly sidesteps issues of causality so sending a
demo that is enough to change the past creates a new world line however when okabe is trying
to save kodusu he doesn't use dmails he physically goes back in time with the use of the time machine
his first attempt to save her fails horribly and this is what sets up the upcoming Steins Gate 0
where the issue comes up is a strange message he receives in the first episode this message is sent
from okabe himself from the future within the same world line but the reason it's all staticky at
first is because the okabe that sends it doesn't exist yet you see the problem this is where Steins
Gate 0 comes in the first time okabe tries to save kurusu and fails doesn't exist yet so this
is another where you know going before you even to talk about this stuff you have to get which which
landscape are you in which perspective because say you're in general relativity well guess what
that's just determinism you know like things are predetermined the past and the present are but
a stubborn illusion and now you have this thing called The Block Universe um so you know saying it
doesn't exist yet but you're talking about world lines which is a general relativity thing doesn't
he's confused again you know it's like actually it does the past does exist in general relativity
but now if we step over to Quantum field Theory the standard model apart which is not connected
um yeah well then you could because we don't really know what's going on there with this
stuff he doesn't have future okabe to help him we'll call this guy okabe beta he breaks down
and gives up entirely and after everything he's been through I don't blame him akabe beta is the
one that makes it to the Future and sends the keys to the kingdom to true okabe the secret to getting
to the science gate timeline Steins Gate 0 will focus on okabe beta's journey to that point and
all the trials and tribulations he'll face along the way what the existence of science gate zero
technically this means there's a new watch order now I wouldn't recommend it to New viewers unless
they're a complete masochist but it could be an interesting experiment for re-watchers you'd start
with episodes 1 to 22 as Steins Gate transition into the alternate episode of 23 complete science
gate zero watch The Original Episode 23 and then finally get sweet sweet closure out of episodes 24
and 25 of the original series your heart would probably be in pieces by the end but it'd be
interesting to say the least it was really cool to watch steinsgate and actually recognize some
of the concepts they used in the show while there certainly are elements that don't quite fit within
the realm of science like okabe's reading Steiner ability steinsgate stands upon a solid foundation
of scientific theory it uses the many worlds interpretation to its fullest potential resulting
in the soul-crushing depression of watching okabe break into tiny pieces its proposed method of time
travel is actually somewhat plausible at least in theory and the way it ends both rap stings neatly
in a bow while also being open-ended enough to give us the gift of more Steins Gate through
steinkate zero for rewatchers I encourage you to I think he's kind of redeemed himself the way he
was talking about at them was pretty good like he sounded like someone in science in physics and now
it's believable that he could be and he just sort of hasn't written he hasn't got far enough along
the physics Advanced courses yet to know he's confusing some stuff because it's advanced stuff
talking about general relativity and Corner field Theory and how it's related but um he certainly
sounds now like a physics student to me what do you think I need to watch the film by the team I'm
just talking about what he's saying though right I don't mean like what he's talking about but the
way he's talking I think it makes sense yeah he sounded okay there like yeah I think we're pretty
much first something to the new watch order with me we all know the ending is well worth it thanks
for watching and be sure to like And subscribe for more content so the first 10 episodes there was
like not much on time travel there was a lot of talking about really sciency things which a lot of
really good sciencey stuff so I think you should watch it Finn if you ever bought it yeah because
it's actually the site the time travel and these what's going on it's like it doesn't tell you
and at like episode 10 it was just starting to sort of touch on that but I was really
enjoying it cool okay I have a lot but anyway my friends I think that should um that could do it