Heres a question

DR2005

Project QL Intern
Aug 16, 2005
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In Time
In the episode "Good Morning Peoria"
why did Al act as if he wanted to leap when he saw how much trouble it caused Sam
 
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DR2005 said:
In the episode "Good Morning Peoria"
why did Al act as if he wanted to leap when he saw how much trouble it caused Sam

I think that's just the way Al is. I mean, he would get excited everytime he saw a knockout woman...fully knowing he's gone through 5 traumatic divorces. So pretty mucu, I'd say that, like his previous marriages, it seemed cool to him at the time.

Actually, that scene is a glaring continuity gap in the show. In "Good Morning, Peoria" Al sees a blue glow around him and states "I'm leaping!" Yet, in the series finale "Mirror Image", Sam asks Al if he is surrounded by a blue light when he leaps and Al tells him he doesn't know because he automatically finds himself in the Imagining Chamber once Sam leaps. Interesting...but probably just an overlook by the writers.

Hope that helped.

-J.J.
 
I guess we can always assume that Al's memory of what it looks like to leap was erased or fuzzy after he leaped that one time.
pimp.gif

.............
Actually, that scene is a glaring continuity gap in the show. In "Good Morning, Peoria" Al sees a blue glow around him and states "I'm leaping!" Yet, in the series finale "Mirror Image", Sam asks Al if he is surrounded by a blue light when he leaps and Al tells him he doesn't know because he automatically finds himself in the Imagining Chamber once Sam leaps. Interesting...but probably just an overlook by the writers.

Hope that helped.

-J.J.[/QUOTE]
 
ProfessorLoNigro said:
Actually, that scene is a glaring continuity gap in the show. In "Good Morning, Peoria" Al sees a blue glow around him and states "I'm leaping!" Yet, in the series finale "Mirror Image", Sam asks Al if he is surrounded by a blue light when he leaps and Al tells him he doesn't know because he automatically finds himself in the Imagining Chamber once Sam leaps. Interesting...but probably just an overlook by the writers.

I've actually never considered this a continuity gap or mistake in the series. I always saw it as Al assuming that the glow was what it looked like to leap. It was an effect that never happened to him before (it was different than the black light in "Star-Crossed"). So, I think that he simply attributed a strange effect like that to leaping, like, "Wow, I'm glowing! I must be leaping!" or something to that effect. Even though he didn't say it that way, it doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't thinking it.
 
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QL Nut said:
I've actually never considered this a continuity gap or mistake in the series. I always saw it as Al assuming that the glow was what it looked like to leap. It was an effect that never happened to him before (it was different than the black light in "Star-Crossed"). So, I think that he simply attributed a strange effect like that to leaping like, "Wow, I'm glowing! I must be leaping!" or something to that effect. Even though he didn't say it that way, it doesn't necessarily mean he wasn't thinking it.

Yeah, that's possible too. However, there is the fact that Al may have watched someone leap in the past, or at least we assume he did - his younger self in 'Leap for Lisa' - but we don't know for sure, obviously, or if you can even see what's going on in that crazy accelorator chamber.

Speaking of 'Leap for Lisa', I guess we don't know exactly how the timeline was changed after that episode - so maybe the QL universe was slightly different then before - i.e. Al doesn't know what leaping looks like for some reason. I wonder if Al, Gushie, etc. have memory of that leap or if because it affected someone in the project - and perhaps the project itself - it kind of just 'wrote over' history. Then again, maybe QL staff is immune to this problem. We see Al in 'Honeymoon Express' sitting in front of the Senate Committee and time changes around him, a different senator suddenly overseeing the committee as if she were there the whole time. Why isn't Al affected by changes in the timeline? Everyone else in the room seemed to be. Is it his exclusive contact with Sam that somehow shields him? To that point, is Al or anyone aware of the events that occured in 'Star-Crossed'? Did Donna just materialize out of thin air with a backstory at the project and everyone, or at least Al, went along with it? Sam certainly remembered her. Is he then not immuned? Questions, Questions...
 
ProfessorLoNigro said:
Speaking of 'Leap for Lisa', I guess we don't know exactly how the timeline was changed after that episode - so maybe the QL universe was slightly different then before - i.e. Al doesn't know what leaping looks like for some reason. I wonder if Al, Gushie, etc. have memory of that leap or if because it affected someone in the project - and perhaps the project itself - it kind of just 'wrote over' history. Then again, maybe QL staff is immune to this problem. We see Al in 'Honeymoon Express' sitting in front of the Senate Committee and time changes around him, a different senator suddenly overseeing the committee as if she were there the whole time. Why isn't Al affected by changes in the timeline? Everyone else in the room seemed to be. Is it his exclusive contact with Sam that somehow shields him? To that point, is Al or anyone aware of the events that occured in 'Star-Crossed'? Did Donna just materialize out of thin air with a backstory at the project and everyone, or at least Al, went along with it? Sam certainly remembered her. Is he then not immuned? Questions, Questions...

Whoa, a lot of questions to tackle here... And just a warning, if all my time-travel talk confuses some people, you may want to not even bother reading this!

In regards to time changing around Al in "Honeymoon Express," I do believe that Al's brainwave connection with Sam does have something to do with his memory of the original history. I believe that Al is a leftover product of the original history which no longer exists, with the committee hearing being a good example.

I also believe that after "Star-Crossed," Donna did suddenly materialize at the Project with a backstory and that only Al and Ziggy noticed the change (Ziggy is the one connecting the two, obviously). It would be consistent with my theory and what happened in "Honeymoon Express." And the same goes for Sammy Jo as well; Al explained to Sam that she was now a member of the Project, and he says it in a way that suggests he knew that history had been changed and she was not previously there. I can't imagine Al giving Sam that information having his memory replaced to conform with the new timeline. Furthermore, Al and Sam know of the original history at the end of every leap after they've changed it.

However, there is one flaw with my theory (or maybe it's just another continuity flaw in the series): Al had become temporarily erased from existence in "A Leap For Lisa." If he is a leftover product of the original timeline, he should have still been able to remain in existence. (And by this reasoning, every subsequent Al would be executed in 1960.)

I realize how confusing I probably sound, so, in other words, I think of it this way: "our" Sam and Al are sort of the leaders of an infinity loop in time; they are the ones creating the changes and they remember both histories. Every subsequent version of themselves are different people; they grew up only knowing the new history (for example, a subsequent version of Sam in the past will grow up with Tom alive and never know that he died, etc.).

And when I talk about an "infinity loop," think of it as what happened when Sam visited Beth in "Mirror Image"; he overwrote his previous leap there in "M.I.A." It seems that he just missed his past-self by a minute or two after he had leaped out originally, and that past version of Sam would have a different history than "Mirror Image" Sam. The "M.I.A." Sam who had just leaped out before "Mirror Image" Sam got there would be one of those "subsequent" versions of Sam that I'm talking about. I hope that doesn't sound too complex!

It seems, though, that only changes that are directly part of Al's life are the only changes that he cannot remember. And examples of this are his "return" from existence in "A Leap For Lisa" and his marriage to Beth after the events of "Mirror Image." When Al came "back to life," he did not seem to have any recollection that he had actually just been dead for 40 years. At least this is the only way I can have my "leftover product" theory make sense with the show's logic.
 
Regarding changes to Al's life....I often theorize that post-MI he might have dreams (or nightmares) in which the events of the original timeline feature prominently. i.e., nightmares about Beth leaving him for someone else, etc.

But I agree that it's the connection to Sam and Ziggy that allow Al to retain memories of the original timeline versus the new one....and to notice said changes.
 
McDuck and QLNut, that theory almost works for me, except I don't think that Sam is as protected from the rewriting of time as Al. When Sam gets home in 'The Leap Back', he has a full slue of memories about Donna, obviously he's been overwritten by the new timeline created from 'Star Crossed'. This would lead to theorizing that when Sam, as the leaper, gets back home, his memory is overwritten with the new timeline. However, this doesn't hold up for two reasons:

1) Black on White on Fire - Early in the episode, Sam makes an offhand comment while talking about his feelings for the girl in the episode, saying hed only felt that way about one other person, then straining himself to remember who. Al cuts off his thought. Obviously this was Donna he was trying to remember and I would argue that such a memory suggests he remembers her as his wife.
2) In MI, which took place after the Leap Back when Sam's memories would have been overwritten, he vaugely recollects saving his brother in TLH2. Wouldn't this information have been erased? Or maybe his 1998 memories vanished, replaced by his 'leaping memories' once he leaped again; Sam does state in TLB that he felt like holes in his head were filling up but that he was forgetting about leaping. The overwrite history effect. Could leaping again reverse it? Sounds right to me.

As for Al disappearing in Leap for Lisa, I think maybe it had to do with the high probability there was for his death. Only at 100% certainty did Roddy McDowall appear. Other situations perhaps are not so probably certain.

Thoughts?
 
Oh I see what you're saying, Prof, and I agree with you.....I should have gone into more detail. I think....over time and integration...the new memories gradually "gell" with the old ones. But the old ones are still there--at least for a time. How long this time is....hard to say. I suspect it could vary.

There's further support for this in Leap for Lisa, where Sam starts to forget Al once that 100% probability is reached and St. John (Roddy McDowall) appears.
 
Ah, yes. I forgot about the memories fading. Good memory. It's been years since I've seen that one. I'm wish I could be looking forward to season 4 on DVD but we all know how that goes. There is some evidence though, suggesting that the original music will be included in Region 2 DVDs. Heres for hoping.-J.J.
 
I think a simpler explanation could lie within Ziggy's program itself. Ziggy is first and foremost a "parallel-hybrid computer," which I think in and of itself is what gives Ziggy the ability to detect changes in the timeline and keep track of every history before and after those changes. And since both Sam and Al's brainwaves are linked together through Ziggy's program, they are able to remember variant histories as well.

From Al's perspective, I often think it would be a lot like the movie Frequency where he remembers both histories simultaneously. Eventually, I'm sure that Al's memories of the original history sort of "fade" after time as he becomes reintegrated with the new timeline. Sam, on the other hand, has that pesky Swiss-cheese memory problem always afflicting him, which, in and of itself, is probably a side-effect from leaping. The most logical theory when dealing with time-travel is that the actual time-traveler is immune to changes because he/she is displaced outside the normal flow of history. Think the Back to the Future movies: Marty and Doc are always aware of each change that they themselves are directly or indirectly responsible for.

The point is that to some degree, Sam and Al would always need to have some kind of memory of the original histories, otherwise there would no longer be a need to leap back and change things in the first place: a paradox. But, I think that once Sam returns home, all of his "altered" memories sort of catch up to him (which would explain what he told Donna about the past four years of leaping fast becoming a blur, like a reverse Swiss-cheese effect). It wouldn't affect the actual leaps though, because at the time Sam made a specific leap, his memory had not been altered yet. For example: when Sam first leaped in the pilot episode, "Genesis," he was not married to Donna and therefore had no memory of her. Even though Sam changed that in a later leap, the "Genesis" version of Sam would still be unaffected.

As Don Bellisario himself has told fans many a time: "Do not inspect this too closely." ;)
 
ProfessorLoNigro said:
McDuck and QLNut, that theory almost works for me, except I don't think that Sam is as protected from the rewriting of time as Al. When Sam gets home in 'The Leap Back', he has a full slue of memories about Donna, obviously he's been overwritten by the new timeline created from 'Star Crossed'. This would lead to theorizing that when Sam, as the leaper, gets back home, his memory is overwritten with the new timeline. However, this doesn't hold up for two reasons:

There is another idea that I'm not sure has been addressed on this board much, and that is, in "The Leap Back," the reverse swiss cheese effect took Sam's memories of what he did on the leaps and caused those memories to merge back with the previous leapees. (In return, the void is filled with memories of his history, either the new or original.) When each leapee returns to their own time, they may eventually acquire new memories that Sam experienced, and therefore they may be able to make more sense out of the context surrounding their absences. And this all goes back to my theory that since Sam's first leap, his mind had always merged with the leapees, only it wasn't until the shock treatment in "Shock Theater" that they would surface from time to time.

Anyway, getting back on track, I have another idea. Sam could have remembered that he had changed his own history in "Star-Crossed," and therefore all that he remembered was that now he must have been married all this time. Although, I'm not quite sure that his memory got overwritten by the new timeline or not. And unfortunately, I can't use "Mirror Image" as a reference, because it was never made clear if Al only knew his new history, if he only remembered his original history, or if he remembered both. The series really does seem to imply that it could be anyone's guess, as "A Leap For Lisa" screws up all my theories. :banghead

And speaking of that episode, I forgot all about the fact that Sam began to forget about knowing Al... I should watch that episode again before I comment further on it, though.

ProfessorLoNigro said:
1) Black on White on Fire - Early in the episode, Sam makes an offhand comment while talking about his feelings for the girl in the episode, saying hed only felt that way about one other person, then straining himself to remember who. Al cuts off his thought. Obviously this was Donna he was trying to remember and I would argue that such a memory suggests he remembers her as his wife.

Well, this case doesn't necessarily prove that Sam was trying to remember his new history; he did love Donna in both timelines, married or not. However, it could be Sam's leap in "Star-Crossed" that he was remembering and NOT any actual memories of a new timeline. He had also made a comment referring to his brother Tom in another episode when asked if he's lost anybody, where Sam replies something along the lines of, "Yeah...but I got him back." This, to me, implies that he remembers the original history and the fact that he changed it, but doesn't actually recall memories of the new timeline. Now, this could possibly be because of being swiss-cheesed as well, which "The Leap Back" seems to suggest with the reverse effect.

ProfessorLoNigro said:
2) In MI, which took place after the Leap Back when Sam's memories would have been overwritten, he vaugely recollects saving his brother in TLH2. Wouldn't this information have been erased? Or maybe his 1998 memories vanished, replaced by his 'leaping memories' once he leaped again; Sam does state in TLB that he felt like holes in his head were filling up but that he was forgetting about leaping. The overwrite history effect. Could leaping again reverse it? Sounds right to me.

The information should be erased if your theory is true that once Sam returns to the present, his memory conforms to the new timeline. But I don't think this is the case, as I stated above. Also, again, it could be that he remembers both histories like Al and Ziggy.

ProfessorLoNigro said:
As for Al disappearing in Leap for Lisa, I think maybe it had to do with the high probability there was for his death. Only at 100% certainty did Roddy McDowall appear. Other situations perhaps are not so probably certain.

Thoughts?

Maybe that could be. I'm not sure. But, once Sam makes any changes in any of his leaps, he makes a 100 percent chance of someone's survival once he saves them, right? So this seems to go back to what Jennie was saying, where the memory of the original history remains only for a short period of time before it fades away forever. Hmmm...
 
You both bring up some very good points, and it frustrating to wrap the mind around this stuff most certainly. But might I just say, wherever these most likely non-existent answers may lie, I think that it is fantastic that we Quantum Leap fans have such a welcoming place to discuss such trivial, if not captivating, hypotheses. Three cheers for Al's Place!

BINGO, BANGO, BONGO!

-J.J.
 
I've never actually thought of the word "parallel" in parallel-hybrid computer meaning parallel timelines. I like that explanation though, because it backs up my idea of time in Quantum Leap, which is intertwining parallel timelines. Al, Sam and Ziggy are sort of intertwined between these timelines (original history, new history), thus allowing them to remember both timelines. It would be like the show Sliders, only with time-travel. Memories merge, neurons and mesons merge, so why not time itself?
 
Ql Nut,

I agree with your post. Totally see what you mean. After Sam saved Tom, he would have grown up with Tom not knowing he ever died. So, in reality, the Sam and Al we watched each week were anomalies. The only glitch in this idea is how Sam remembers Donna when he gets his memories back. It would make sense he didn't remember her because the Sam leaping never really married her. Still, we can assume God or Fate or Time gave Sam the memories of marrying Donna.

Scott
 
Ah, the vagaries of time travel...and what one might or might not remember. It is a wonderful philosophical discussion. There have been so many books and movies about this. "The Butterfly Effect" presents having one's memories rewritten in a most painful fashion, but since the brain is a chemical computer, physical changes in one's brain chemistry would have to accompany a new timeline, with the new memories it embraced.
But I have a theory, one which holds that the farther one is from the changes wrought by a temporal shift, the less of an effect it will have on one's memory. For instance, if you were to keep a neighborhood child from being run over and killed by a car, and 10 years later that child shovels your driveway, preventing you from having a heart attack, that would be direct involvement. But making a difference in the events of someone far removed from you wouldn't affect your memories, if your lives never meshed in the first place.
But then again, as the Blue Man told Eddie, "We are all connected".
In QL, there had to be a degree of separation between "what was" and "what now is" in order for the show to work. So, Al became "insulated", for lack of a better term. But wasn't there an ep where everyone outside the imaging chamber was different? So, there were limits to the "ripple effect".
The blue glow Helen references is caused by neutrons interacting with oxygen molecules, I believe. Cerenkov noted it after moving two pieces of fissile material with a total mass exceeding critical mass together in a darkened room, then moving them apart. Thankfully, he wrote everything down before dying of radiation poisoning a few days later, like so many nuclear pioneers. Neutrons are what do the work in conventional (fission) nuclear reactors. Once the neutrons are depleted, however, the material still emits deadly gamma radiation, and must be disposed of properly, until humanity learns how to harness the more inefficient gamma rays. Correct me if I'm wrong (with website links) but there is no form of known natural energy which can exceed the speed of light.
 
Exactly. One reason why "Battlestar Galactica" is so interesting is its non-reliance on quasi-scientific plot devices. Things either work or they don't. We have seen the ship's doctor, but we haven't seen the chief engineer, nor the science officer, although both characters have been referenced.
I look at science like this: Radio waves were around long before our ability to detect and create them. Nuclear radiation was around long before our ability to detect and use it. I personally believe that the speed of light is the maximum relative velocity of electromagnetic radiation. I used to "tweak" the amateur scientists on the Andromeda board with my belief that if you create a gravity shell (warp bubble) so that a vessel within presents either a zero mass or a negative mass to the universe then you can thumb your metallic nose at Einstein, and go explore the cosmos. But I have a few questions to make you think...
If we accept that anything traveling near C will achieve infinite mass, and that the universe we live in is "closed", as in everything that is here has always been here, then where does the additional mass come from? Personally, I think that it is the same force (one of the Four Forces?) that causes dust bison to congregate under my bed!
The second is more philosophical. Reading "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" made me think. Eddie died (leaped) after saving the life of a young girl. In "Mirror Image", The old-timer (his name escapes me right now) leapt after successfully changing an outcome, saving the two trapped miners, something we know all too well here in western Pennsylvania. Think about Quecreek.
Quantum Leap is a metaphor for how our daily interactions change the lives of others. Something simple, like pushing a stalled car off a busy road, or calling 911 whan you see something out-of-the-ordinary can make all the difference.
All of us can be "Sam" at various times of our lives. Yes, Don Quixote CAN make a difference. I've done it myself.
I wonder if Sam had all of his memories intact in that episode. The philosophical interplay between him and Al still makes me think sometimes. I would have loved that ep to have been a two-hour special, so that Al could have better explained some things to Sam. I would have loved to have the two Als meet and converse, to explain that it wasn't Sam's command of theoretical physics but rather Sam's desire to do good deeds which caused him to be chosen for this work. It still was a great show. I like TV shows that make me think, and this one was all about choices and their consequences. For instance, take singer Karen Carpenter. What if you could've made a difference in her life and kept her from becoming anorexic? You save her, but the disease stays hidden and claims many thousands of women's lives because of one small change.
Some of the best eps were the ones where you went to bed with tears in your eyes because Sam had to fail...
 
Katar said:
The only glitch in this idea is how Sam remembers Donna when he gets his memories back. It would make sense he didn't remember her because the Sam leaping never really married her. Still, we can assume God or Fate or Time gave Sam the memories of marrying Donna.

Well, as I was saying above, I'm not convinced Sam actually ever received the memories of his new history of his marriage to Donna. If he had said something specific, like, "I remember the time..." or something like that, then I'd be convinced. But──as far as I can remember anyway──all Sam really seemed to remember was the fact that he was married. Maybe there even was a line like that, but unfortunately this is another episode I haven't seen in years (for some reason the episodes with the most technicalities I haven't seen in years), so disregard this if I'm wrong.

What I was basically getting at was that Sam only remembered that he'd made a change, not the new history he's made for himself since he is an anomaly. And of course by knowing that a change was made, he'd know that there was the original history that preceded it.

asearcher said:
There is no way around Time Travel Paradoxes. You can see similar paradoxes in any timeline story (eg. Terminator, Back to the Future, Twilight Zone, Peggy Sue Got Married, and multiple other sci-fi scenarios). No device (multiple parallel universes, realignment of the timeline, co-existent timeline splits, perception of linear time when time itself is an illusion, etc.) ever fully addresses these contradictions.

Well, I guess I'm going to have to "agree to disagree" on this one. Minus the equivocal language, quite simply: if a paradoxal situation occurs in a time-travel to the past, I believe having the timeline branch off into a separate direction does avoid paradox. It basically sidesteps the problem. Talking about these branches becoming intertwined of course is a different story. However, Quantum Leap is unique, and we have elements that aren't present in most (if not, any) science fiction movies. And by this, I am referring to Ziggy and her brainwave connection with Sam and Al. The underlying message here is: "Don't follow this too closely" as I see quite often, so, since this is fiction, maybe the explanation should be left at that? And that's basically because if there is no way to avoid paradox like you say, our entire beloved series is wrong!

However, I agree that most time-travel movies do have the logistics wrong. Actually, I can't really think of any film that might have it right... Interestingly enough, the movie Frequency (of all movies) seems to have a similar explanation to what I'm saying, and I always thought that movie was way off with its theories on time-travel. (I still think it's an excellent movie, nonetheless.)

And on a personal note, I feel that I should make some things clear since we have a lot of newer members here now... I understand that maybe I may seem like I get carried away explaining things, or that I try to have logical explanations for things that other people couldn't care less about, but I enjoy coming up with explanations to these problems. It's one of the reasons I even joined the board in the first place, so that maybe I could answer some of the questions I've had for some 15 years now... Some of us like analyzing the characters; some of us love the drama; some of us love the technical aspects, etc.

asearcher said:
Onto the concept of the blue light...
(from http://www.cakes.mcmail.com/cerenkov/cerenkov.htm)
Cerenkov radiation (Blue Glow in nuclear fission reactors) was discovered in 1926 by Mallet. It was observed that the light had a continuous spectrum, having no "dark lines" characteristic of emission spectrum. The radiation was extensively studied between the years of 1934-1938 by Pavel Cerenkov (1904-1990). During his research Cerenkov found that the radiation was not a fluorescence effect and that the light was partially polarised. Cerenkov succeeded in speeding particles up over 230,000,000 ms-1....This results in radiation moving faster than light.


Thus, the blue glow has a basis in Quantum fact but the red glow of the evil leapers is just a madeup device to explain the difference.

Since I know nothing about quantum physics, it's pretty cool that something fictitious in the series actually turns out to have relevance in the real world. As for the evil leapers, since we hardly know anything about them, my guess is that they are from a time a few years ahead of Project Quantum Leap, and therefore have more sophisticated technology. Maybe they've stumbled upon a new way to accelerate particles, or maybe the red glow is just a result of a supernatural power, like I've always thought.
 
Okay, heh heh, I can't help it now. Seeing the comparisons between Back to the Future and Frequency is leading me to post this excerpt from "Second Genesis, Part II," a Virtual Seasons story I wrote almost two years ago. The backdrop is that Sam has 're-leaped' into Tom Stratton and is reliving "Genesis" all over again. (For non-VS readers, Stephen is Sam and Donna's son, conceived through a leap that Sam made into himself on the day before he first leaped in 1995.)

?I think Stephen and I may be onto something, Al,? Sammy Jo said.

?I?m willing to hear anything at this point! What do ya got?? Al exclaimed back.

?Well, perhaps Stephen could explain it best. Even I?m a bit confused by what he?s saying.?

Stephen stepped forward and enthusiastically began explaining his theory. ?Okay, well, Uncle Al, you?ve seen movies like Back to the Future, right??

?Uh?yeeeah,? Al replied somewhat puzzled as to where this conversation was going.

?Okay, I think the problem everyone?s having is that they?re not thinking fourth-dimensionally. Ziggy insists it?s 1995, right after Dad first leaped, right? Well, when he first leaped into Tom Stratton, he hadn?t changed anything yet. Every time he leaps into someone, he changes history and it creates a new timeline. In fact, the very act of taking someone?s place in time creates a new timeline, because Dad wasn?t there the first time. So, let?s say the original timeline where Dad started from is Timeline A. I?m betting that in Timeline A, me and Sammy Jo, and a bunch of other people either didn?t exist or weren?t involved with the Project. That could explain why Ziggy says we all don?t ?belong? here.?

Al thought back to what Ziggy said about Beth and Donna. It barely registered in his memory, but Sam had changed Donna?s past shortly after he first leaped, which is why they were now married. Could it be that at one time, Beth and I weren?t married? That would mean that?Sam changed that too! But?how did he do it without me or Ziggy knowing about it?

?Now, based on what me and Sammy Jo saw from the leap archives, we?re like 99.9 percent sure that Dad leaped back into Tom Stratton again. Ziggy keeps track of all the different timelines that have changed over the past nine years. So, since Dad?s mind has always been linked to you and Ziggy, then he?d be experiencing small pockets from previous timelines as well?meaning he?d be able to see you from nine years ago. Only the other Uncle Al is not really you, he?s another version of you from a different timeline?one in which history hadn?t changed yet. And that?s probably why Ziggy is getting all mixed up. The merging of the original timeline and the current timeline is scrambling her program. It?s like in that movie Frequency: she?s seeing two different timelines at the same time, and she can?t determine which one is the ?correct? one because she and Dad are linked to both of them now.?

The growing pain in Al?s head made him think for a minute that his biochip was failing again, but then he realized that the pain was a result of his brain ?melting? from Stephen?s explanation. ?Okay. Sammy, you think you can try giving me the Time-Travel-for-Dummies version, please??

?Well basically, we?re dealing with the potential for a major time paradox here. Normally, whenever a leaper leaps into someone, they bump that person out into the time period they came from. I think what might have happened this time was that Dad leaped into Tom at the exact nanosecond he leaped into him nine years ago. This could have caused the past and present versions of Dad to ?merge? together, and it could explain why no one got bumped into the Waiting Room. If that?s true, then he could become trapped in a causality loop, where he?ll keep reliving the last nine years of his life over and over again with slight discrepancies each time. If you pay close attention to the archives, some glitches occur where those discrepancies can be noticed. The problem is also compounded by the fact that he can interact with?you?from both 1995 and today. And the 1995 version of you would have no knowledge of the current timeline because you usually don?t become affected by changes until after Dad leaps out. Once your memories shift, you automatically phase into the new timeline.?

?Ya gotta think Star Trek, Uncle Al,? Stephen continued. ?There are like, these infinite number of potential timelines that get created when Dad changes history. It?s the ripple effect. Any one decision he makes moves the ripple in another direction. We don?t notice the changes, but because you?re linked to his brainwaves, it takes a moment for your memories to ?shift? into that new timeline. But it doesn?t mean that the old timeline is completely gone. A ?fragment? of it still remains with whatever leap Dad is on at the moment. So, if he?s reliving his very first leap, then he?s also going to see the ?fragment? of Timeline A that stayed behind the first time he was there. Even though he changed things, the changes don?t affect the ?fragment,? otherwise there?d be paradoxes every time Dad leaps.?

?It might be simpler to think of it like this,? Sammy Jo chimed in again after noticing Al?s bewildered expression. ?Dad leaped back to save Tom Stratton. The first time around, Tom died trying to break Mach Three. But once history changed, it created a ripple that affected everything from that point on. So, when it comes time for Dad to step into the Accelerator the second time 1995 comes around, there would no longer be a need to change history because in his timeline, Tom never died to begin with. That?s a paradox. Nature works around it by making sure that every time September 14, 1956 comes around, it will be the original version of Dad from Timeline A that leaps into him, in which Tom did die. And furthermore, each subsequent new timeline?s version of Dad would simply disappear from existence every time he steps into the Accelerator. So, for all intents and purposes, it?s quite possible that we?ll never technically be able to bring Dad back home, because it?s not really ?our? Sam Beckett anymore.?

Al felt like his head was about to explode. My brain hurts! These kids have way too much time on their hands! They need to get out more!

?Uncle Al?do you understand?? Stephen asked. ?I mean?we can?t make it much simpler than this?but?um?Uncle Al, why are you laying on the floor? Are you dizzy again? Do I need to get Aunt Beth to bring the smelling salts again??

So, in other words, if you go back and watch one of Sam's leaps NOW in a post-Mirror Image reality, you'd still be seeing a pre-Mirror Image Sam talking with a pre-Mirror Image version of Al, because that particular holographic image of Al is being projected from a parallel timeline in which Sam had not yet changed his past. Simple, right? :p

Now that everyone's brains have exploded, I'll finish off by saying that I think that's part of the reason why a lot of time travel stories never seem to make sense to the average reader/viewer. It's often hard for people to wrap their minds around such complex concepts such as time paradoxes, causality loops, "sawtooth snaps," divergent timelines, etc. Everyone sees time as being strictly linear, i.e. Point A to Point B, when in fact, time travel can take you from Point L to Point Z to Point A-1 or whatever. This is also why I often cause MJ to go insane when I'm telling her my story ideas. :nut

Like, the Back to the Future trilogy makes complete and total sense to me, even the "Alternate-1985" part, which a lot of people don't understand. The only part that really is inconsistent is when they all travel into the future. Why would Marty and Jennifer's older selves be there if they disappeared thirty years earlier? But, over the years, most people have just let that one slip by. (I did something similar at the end of one of my other stories, where Sam encounters his older self in the future, but I at least explained how that was possible.) Somehow, I understand this stuff in my head without even trying; and yet I can't tie anything more complex than a square knot. It gets frustrating sometimes to have all these amazing ideas in my head and knowing that I may have to either "dumb" it down for the readers to understand or include diagrams and charts! :roflmao:
 
What'll really bake your noodle is that your INTENTION in the present could determine whether you will have a future self.

You could time travel 20 years in the future and make a conscious decision "I will be in this room in 20 years" and *pop*, your older self will appear!

I never had a problem with Back to the Future II because Marty always INTENDED to go back and live out his life. Of course if he saw enough to change his mind about having kids, then they'd pop out of existance.
 
Dman176 said:
Like, the Back to the Future trilogy makes complete and total sense to me, even the "Alternate-1985" part, which a lot of people don't understand. The only part that really is inconsistent is when they all travel into the future. Why would Marty and Jennifer's older selves be there if they disappeared thirty years earlier? But, over the years, most people have just let that one slip by. (I did something similar at the end of one of my other stories, where Sam encounters his older self in the future, but I at least explained how that was possible.) Somehow, I understand this stuff in my head without even trying; and yet I can't tie anything more complex than a square knot. It gets frustrating sometimes to have all these amazing ideas in my head and knowing that I may have to either "dumb" it down for the readers to understand or include diagrams and charts! :roflmao:

Getting off-topic for a minute here, I have a theory as to why this is possible. In the first film, the very first time-travel involved Einstein, Doc's dog, who was sent a minute into the future. For that minute, he of course was missing until that minute had ended and he re-emerged. Now, the reason Einstein was missing for that minute is proof that Doc will never send him back to his correct time continuum which is at 1:20 A.M. on October 26, 1985. If he were to ever be sent back to where he belonged, the DeLorean would disappear and reappear in the same nanosecond, because Einstein would be back in his correct continuum.

In Marty's case, however, seeing his future-self with an established family thirty years in the future is proof that he will eventually return to his correct time continuum when all is said and done. That 47-year-old Marty in 2015, however, is a different version of Marty than "our" Marty. (The same idea applies to the future as it does with the past.) "Our" Marty will grow up to live in Hilldale again, only now with the memories of his 17-year-old-self making a trip to the future. And this is because he is an anomaly in time as is Doc, Einstein and Jennifer.
 
What was it that Chakotay said to Seven..."Temporal mechanics gives me a headache". Wonderful.
I'm surprised that "Frequency" was mentioned here. It elaborates upon a subject of UFO lore, specifically how the test pattern of a long-defunct Texas TV station showed up on TV screens in the UK...where the TV protocols are incompatible with ours. I'm also a ham radio operator, and I've been in radio since I was 10. Could it be possible to "talk across time"? I have listened to stations on the 10 meter band a few miles away working "skip" stations, while I heard only the locals. But it only uses the cross-time QSO as a plot device, and focuses on the changes in the temporal event sequence *as they effect the father and son*. There would have to have been other changes, but the story can't cover all of them.
"Back to the Future" has its physics roots in "The Philadelphia Experiment". Doc Brown mentions that "the stainless steel construction..." makes time travel possible. "TPE" was predicated on creating an extremely strong magnetic field in an effort to hide ships from enemy radar. But the field they created was strong enough to push "reality" apart, and create a tunnel that no one could control. It is said that men on the deck melded into the deck, while those shielded by metal were unaffected. An enclosed conductive box becomes a Faraday cage, shielding the occupants from any magnetic fields outside it. Every atom in our universe has electrons, and a strong enough magnetic field will interact with them. So, with Mr. Fusion charging the flux capacitor, we unleash 1.21 GW (the output from a common nuclear power plant) into a set of superconductive coils. The rotation polarity of the field determines whether we're going forward or backward in time, and the discharge duration determines "when" we're going.
It really is amazing what you can read during lunch on the Internet, isn't it?
 
Slightly off-topic here....but has anyone seen the movie THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (starring Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen)? This one involved the time-traveling device of a temporal storm sending the USS Nimitz into the Pacific Ocean prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and presenting them with the dilemma of whether or not to attempt to change history. It's been ages since I've seen this one....I used to watch it often in the mid-80s when we still had HBO at my house. <g>
 
I'd like to just clarify something I said earlier, just to make sure no one misconstrues what I might say (which seems to be a habit of mine lately)... :\

It gets frustrating sometimes to have all these amazing ideas in my head and knowing that I may have to either "dumb" it down for the readers to understand or include diagrams and charts!

I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about what I was saying. It's just that you can't help but notice a general "dumbing down" in the media these days: television, movies, etc. Most average Americans don't want to think too hard when they watch something on TV or on the big screen, which is why so much of the stuff out there now seems like crap to me. I just often feel frustrated with myself because my ideas tend to be so complex that even I can't always make sense of them unless I really think them through. Perhaps my ideas are just too far ahead of my time, I don't know...but I tend to spend most of my time worrying that people won't be able to enjoy my stories because there will be so much "clutter" and abstract concepts that will cause the readers or viewers or whoever to lose interest.

And please don't think I'm using the word "average" to be derogatory. I just really can't think of a better word to explain it. I happen to be a very smart and creative person. I entered Kindergarten when I was 4 years old, had a 5th Grade reading level whem I was in 1st Grade, and was almost skipped ahead another grade because my intelligence level was "above average"...I was teased and picked on numerous times in grammar school because of all this. Kids always snidely calling me names like "Brainiac" and "Einstein" isn't much fun. I also happen to be an extremely emotional person. Probably more emotional than any man should be. I'm being honest when I say that I really don't see the world the way a lot of "average" people see it. I look at my two autistic brothers and often see myself in their behavior. I always feel like I'm "damaged" or something like that. I mean, I can't even get the guts to say anything as simple as "Hello" to a pretty woman because I'm afraid she'll think I'm just "trying to score." I always care too much about others and not enough about myself because I feel it's "selfish" to think about my own happiness when there's so many terrible things going on in the world that "need" to be fixed. But, I'd give up my imagination and intelligence in a heartbeat if it would mean I could be normal like everyone else and not have all of these feelings affect me 24/7.

So, please, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about how I might have worded something. If anyone felt offended, I apologize...yet again. I seem to be making more apologies than anything else these days...even when I'm trying to be light-hearted about what I post (the smilies, the poking fun at myself, etc.)

Damon
 
It's amazing how off-topic this has gotten from the original question, but oh well...

I might have posted these links a while ago (I honestly don't remember at this point) but I bookmarked these a while back and found them very interesting:

http://www.exaflop.org/docs/th_sci/paradox.html
http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/newtt.html

Needless to say, I understand the concept behind the theory, but the mechanics turn my brain into mush, as I suspect it does to most people. :p Ultimately, I think the most important thing to remember is that a writer needs to be consistent within the world he or she is writing about. To me, I always interpreted Quantum Leap to work very similar to how the Back to the Future movies worked; someone travels back in time and creates a new timeline that branches off from the one they originated from. Every time someone travels backward along the continuum, it's like rewinding a VHS tape and pressing the record button. Whereas movies like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure or Somewhere in Time deal with the "predestination paradox," where the time-traveler's actions were always integrated into the natural chain of events before the time-traveler even made the trip in the first place. The way I interpret it, I can't see how a paradox would even be possible using predestination paradox theory, because the effects have already occurred along a single immutable timeline. Through looking at some websites, a lot of time-travel fans seem to dismiss the single timeline theory, though...I guess because on some level, they still find it difficult to grasp the concept of an "uncaused cause" or that a fundamental cause does not necessarily need to precede its desired effect. Umm... LOL, did that make any sense? :nut

I think where a lot of people get confused with time travel and paradoxes in general is that they view events in a single chronological sequence along one timeline and a paradox obviously disrupts the natural sequence of events. But like those website links explain, the most logical theory to explain how to get around time paradoxes would be the branching timeline theory, creating two parallel timelines: one in which the past has been altered, and one in which it hasn't; in effect, the time-traveler is basically traveling from one timeline to another (much like the TV series Sliders, my second favorite show of all time for the few members who haven't heard me talk about this show a hundred times already... ;) ). It all makes sense to me, but I can sort of understand why some people have a hard time wrapping their minds around it. I guess it's just one of those subjects that requires an immensely deep fascination for. It's kind of like me with automobiles...I have no interest in cars at all (probably one of the few men in this world that do not); I couldn't tell a Buick from a Toyota if my life depended on it. (Although I will admit, games like Grand Theft Auto have helped me discern the visual differences... heh heh...)

I also think that's the problem with a lot of Star Trek time-travel stories and why I've noticed a lot of Trekkies on the STARTREK.COM boards complaining about them. Because the theories are never consistent within the Trek universe. I recently saw the movie 12 Monkeys and I have to admit, it was a great movie...a bit weird, but great. It was able to combine a lot of different time-travel aspects into something which, although disorienting at first, made complete sense at the end. Those are the kinds of time-travel stories I enjoy the best. Hopefully, someday I'll be able to write the stories I've had in my head for years. Sure, there are always going to be inconsistencies in almost any given time-travel story, but everyone always needs to just remember: unless someone proves time travel exists someday...it's fiction, not real! Heck, I've had some crazy time-travel ideas in the past that I look back on now and they just make no coherent sense at all: paradoxes running rampant, people running into multiple versions of themselves from several different time periods simultaneously, etc. (But you never know, perhaps I'll write them anyway, just because...well, why not explore every facet of time-travel theory known to man?) :nut

And most importantly to remember (which sort of brings the topic full circle to what we were talking about with Don Bellisario), I would bet that the creators and producers of Quantum Leap never really thought this in-depth into the vagaries of time-travel and how it all worked. WE'RE the ones that seem to be doing that. Sometimes, a show is just a show and doesn't need to be analyzed so much...that's not to say we can't occasionally have fun speculating and coming up with weird ideas that haven't been done in QL before...we shouldn't always obsess about it so much either, though... ;)

Again, none of this is meant to offend; just my attempt to allow people to get inside my mind to see how my brain works. ;) :wacko
 
Oh, it's clear that the time travel elements weren't really thought out, otherwise we wouldn't have the conflicts about whether it's Sam's body or just his mind, how Leon Styles ended up with a gun, and all the other PCR stuff.
 
feldon29 said:
Oh, it's clear that the time travel elements weren't really thought out, otherwise we wouldn't have the conflicts about whether it's Sam's body or just his mind, how Leon Styles ended up with a gun, and all the other PCR stuff.

I can answer the Styles question....you can see an unconscious Marine guard on the floor behind him in the Waiting Room. They just never showed how that particular encounter went down. :)