# Time Travel in fiction **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 5, 2025, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-in-fiction/1019240 "2025-06-05T18:00:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 6
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2025, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-in-fiction/1019240/6 "2025-06-05T14:33:45Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Either they go through with the test 5 minutes later, and create a closed loop in which the scientists at the T-5 mark would actually have gotten infinite blue widgets, No, just one, the one they sent back. Why would there be infinite? > [@Everyone gets this wrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-gets-this-wrong/1019166/89): > > Except the problem with this one is that, by handling the blue widget during that 5 minutes, they cause a tiny amount of wear to it, so the widget they send back is 5 minutes older and more worn out than the one they received, which I think means it wears down to nothing instantly because it’s a loop No, they get the blue widget out of the closet where they’d been storing it, and send that back. So for those five minutes, there are two instances of the blue widget in the lab, one slightly older and more worn than the other. > [@Everyone gets this wrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyone-gets-this-wrong/1019166/94): > > I have no idea. I don’t think the movie suggested this. You do realize, I hope, that the trope of the Holy Grail dates back long before there was ever any such thing as any movie? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-travel-in-fiction/1019240)._