I think I read the ‘cute idea’ in a Niven article first. However, you’re missing the point by saying “not discovered yet”. If time travel is possible and the past can be changed, that scenario is saying the only stable path for history/existence is one where it isn’t discovered. Any timeline where it is found will be changed until it isn’t discovered. And that would happen as many times as necessary, I guess.
It would be hilarious if it was discovered that time machines have been invented dozens of times and work exactly like in The Terminator, but nobody wanted to write a paper on how they turned up in the Victorian era buck naked.
No, the point is that there’s a timeline where time travel isn’t discovered at all. Are you arguing that in millions of different timelines, there isn’t even a single one where time travel isn’t discovered? It doesn’t matter how obvious it is - it’s possible that the idea got missed.
Easily gotten around by postulating that the Many Worlds model of quantum mechanics is true; you travel back in time and kill your parents, and all you do is create a new universe where they and you no longer exist while your original past remains intact.
I’ve heard that used as an explanation for why we don’t see time travelers. Every time someone comes back they split off a new alternate universe; so if a million time travelers show up at an important historical event like the Crucifixion there’s not a mob of a million time travelers, there’s a million new universes with one time traveler each. Most of whom may well try to blend in, making it even harder to find evidence.
Would all 1 million ppl try to blend in? I think if 20 ppl went back to then it would be difficult to make even all of them agree to blend in for many different reasons.
It would show up as a perfectly normal reply; once in the past, the time traveler would interact with the world just like any other person. In fact, before the person went back, he would be able to read the post his future self would have left in the past!
Source: personal experience (I read this post on January 28, 2014, just before I arrived today to post it)!
The point is that if those 20 people or a million people went back, there would be at least a million separate new universes created, one for each (assuming they went back as individuals). It doesn’t matter if Time Traveler #4629 doesn’t blend in if he’s in another universe; you’ll never hear about him.
