I remember back before these forums were subscription based, there was a thread about this. The basic idea was that there are items which exist because of time loops. For example, a guy goes to the future, and digs up a wierd object that no one knows what it was. He sells it to a museum, and over time the museum crumbles to the ground, depositing the object back where the guy eventually comes and finds it. In the thread, I believed these artifacts were called “jins”, but I can’t remember for sure. I tried googling for this, but there wasn’t anything that matched. Anyone remember what they’re called or have any extra information on this topic? Thanks in advance.
They are called jinn particles (or possibly djinn particles). Close, but no eternal and self-creating cigar.
I believe they’re called djinns. “Djinn” is an old name for a genie. The implication is that the object can only exist thru magic, because it has no real origin.
Perhaps the most famous example is: a man goes back in time. He meets a woman, falls in love, marries her, and has a son. Years later, that son goes back in time. He meets a woman, marries her, and has a son. It turns out that the time traveler has married his own mother, and he is his own father!!!
Another, less incestual, example of a d’jinn goes something like this:
I’m sitting here at my computer one evening, when all of a sudden a time portal opens up, and a future version of myself steps out. Future Diceman gives Present Diceman (me) a watch, and tells me that 30 years from now I’ll be involved in some time travel experiments, and to hold onto the watch until then. Future Diceman then goes back thru the time portal into the furture.
So, 30 years pass, and sure enough I join up with some cutting-edge scientists who invent a time machine. They send me back in time 30 years and I meet myself. I give my past self the watch, and tell him what Future Diceman told me, and then I return to my own time.
The watch seems to have no origin. It just goes around and around in an endless loop.
For the best take on this idea out there watch Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
See also The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson, Hyperion, & The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
[nitpick]Djinn is the original Arabic word that we derived “genie” from.[/nitpick]
OK, I’m working on a time machine at 2:00 pm, and it’s almost ready to test. Suddenly someone who looks just like me pops up and says, “Hey, so far so good. Now to test the return. Meanwhile, here’s my wristwatch, let me have it back when you see me next”, and disappears.
Understanding perfectly, I put it in my pocket. It takes about an hour to finish setting up the machine and suddenly, my apparent twin appears again in it, saying, “Hey, the return works too! Wow!” I say “Great!” and hand her the watch she gave me, and get into the machine and start it up to perform the one-hour back-in-time test. This is at 3:00 pm by the watch on my wrist.
What time does the watch she is holding show?
It shows 4:00, and there’s no paradox
What if the loop starts by the past me handing her watch to the timetravelling me?
It shows 2:00, and there’s no paradox. If I take it back with me for the test, it will come out even. If not, it just needs to be reset by one hour.
I’m thinking the djinn object can’t happen, any more than any other object without a source can happen. Prove me wrong? 
You’re right it probably can’t happen unless you buy into the Many Universes interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (not sure how else you can get around these issues if you want to say it can happen).
The issue here isn’t what time your watch reads. It is where did the watch come from? In your case you presumably bought the watch then gave it to yourself (you were wearing the watch at the outset).
In the OP his future self gave him a watch that he carried into the future (the normal, slow way we all progress forward…no time machine) then goes back and gives himself the watch which is carried into the future. Repeat ad naseum (time loop). The issue is where did the watch come from? There is no external event where future or present person went out and got a watch. It is just there hence a paradox (can’t get something from nothing).
How does time flow as observed by the watch?
At 1 second = 1 second like any watch.
It does not rewind or fast forward itself as you jump back and forth in time.
I was afraid to follow the linked threads back in time for fear I’d find a subsequent link to a previous thread which would turn out to be this one.
Not quite what I was getting at. MaryEFoo has it.
Imagine looking out from the watch. Say that, just before it is given from the older MaryEFoo to the younger (as in the example upthread), it reads 2:00. It travels forward an hour, and reads 3:00. The older MaryEFoo then gives it to the younger MaryEFoo again.
From the watch’s frame of reference, reality would seem to be an endless stream of the following events:[ol][li]Be given from the older MaryEFoo to the younger.[]Travel back in time.[]Experience an hour while MaryEFoo sets up the time machine.[*]Go to step 1.[/ol]If this could happen, it would seem that the watch would wear, break, and disintegrate eventually as it travels round and round the loop.[/li]
The only way around it would be for the watch to reverse-change while it is traveling backwards through time.
I recall a science fiction story with this exact premise, but I quite conveniently cannot recall the author or title. Maybe one of you can help me.
The protagonist (or his grandfather… isn’t my memory great?) goes into the future and finds a knife in the ruins of a museum. He takes it back with him and it proves quite impervious: The best modern man is capable of is etching a small notch in its body. It is placed in a museum, which (of course) becomes the ruins of a museum I referred to in the beginning of this paragraph.
I probably read it in Analog, a magazine I no longer subscribe to. Can anyone help me with this?
Sunspace: That’s interesting. It would imply that you could judge how many loops the watch has made, even though observers outside the loop would only see it twice. In other words, it isn’t really a loop.
Of course, you could also judge by how many MaryEFoos are running around.
Wasn’t Donnie Darko about this sort of concept?
Something like this.
I suppose it would be possible to travel back in time and post again to this thread, or something like that, but if I do that, the post will already be there now, before this one, so I should be able to quote it:
Yllaria
Heh. You make my head hurt.
Likewise, I can go into the future and quote a post that I haven’t yet made; hang on a second…
Yup: