# Somewhere in Time question
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhere-in-time-question/709650
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 12, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhere-in-time-question/709650 "2015-01-12T21:05:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@DooWahDiddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DooWahDiddy)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2015, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhere-in-time-question/709650/21 "2015-01-13T04:28:59Z")
Just popping in to say that there will soon be (or, there is already, but soon you’ll hear of it) a musical version of this movie. My friend Doug wrote the music, and it was workshopped in Portland; now they’re reworking it a bit and hope to bring it to Broadway sometime in the future. If you’re a fan of the movie, keep your ears out for it!
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### Author:  [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2015, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhere-in-time-question/709650/22 "2015-01-13T06:38:38Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#):
>
> Not sure what the name of that paradox would be, but it’s got to be one.
[Bootstrap paradox.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap_paradox) The article even mentions SiT.
I especially like the ones where a time traveler gives a past version of himself a hand-written note (in his own handwriting), then the past version ages into his future self, where he travels back in time and gives his younger self the very same note. Temporal-mechanically speaking, there isn’t any difference from this note and the watch (both have no “connection” to the universe) but the fact that the time traveler “wrote” it, but yet it has no beginning or end, I find especially intriguing.
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### Author:  [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2015, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhere-in-time-question/709650/23 "2015-01-13T15:53:54Z")
> [@Zebra](#):
>
> When was the watch made and how did it enter the story? Is the not the first time? Did something else make him travel back previously and then he left the watch? Or is it just a mistake by Matheson?
He goes back in time and during some down time when he’s not seducing Elise, he goes out shopping and buys a watch. He now has two watches. He leaves the new one with her.
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2015, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhere-in-time-question/709650/24 "2015-01-13T21:45:32Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> [Bootstrap paradox.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap_paradox) The article even mentions SiT.
>
> I especially like the ones where a time traveler gives a past version of himself a hand-written note (in his own handwriting), then the past version ages into his future self, where he travels back in time and gives his younger self the very same note. Temporal-mechanically speaking, there isn’t any difference from this note and the watch (both have no “connection” to the universe) but the fact that the time traveler “wrote” it, but yet it has no beginning or end, I find especially intriguing.
Yes, and in an odd omission in that Wikipedia article, the name-inspiration for the paradox(the Heinlein story) _does_ make such a piece of writing important to the plot–but the article doesn’t mention that fact. (As I recall it’s a notebook rather than a single piece of paper.)
The Talk page for the article you linked has a lot of head-scratching discussion, too:
> **[Talk:Bootstrap paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bootstrap_paradox)**
>
> Isn't this actually an example for the predestination paradox rather than the bootstrap paradox, since the origin of the key is clear? There is no information with unclear origin generated in this example.
> Compare it to the example about the person fathering themselves, in which the genetic material has no origin. 84.132.127.122 (talk) 20:04, 18 November 2014 (UTC)\[reply\]
> Is there still an ontological paradox if the pocket watch was made prior to 1912? For example if the watch was made in 1908...
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### Author:  [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2015, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhere-in-time-question/709650/25 "2015-01-13T22:41:28Z")
Nitpick: It’s Christopher Reeve, not “Reeves.”
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### Author:  [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2015, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somewhere-in-time-question/709650/26 "2015-01-13T22:43:04Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#):
>
> [Bootstrap paradox.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrap_paradox) The article even mentions SiT.
[TV Tropes calls it a “Stable Time Loop”](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StableTimeLoop)
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