So what happened to the earlier Enterprise?

[BillJ]

This is in reference to The Naked Time:

When the Enterprise moves backwards through time and essentially reversed course, shouldn't they have encountered themselves from three days earlier?

How exactly does the universe proceed with two identical Enterprise existing? Did Kirk have to destroy the earlier versions of themselves? If not... wouldn't it create a loop in the timeline and many more Enterprise's being brought into existence?

This is what happens when you take on the role of "stay at home Dad", insanity at the hands of forty year old Trek episodes.

 

[robbhouston]

This will explain everything...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8w95xIdH4o

Incidentally, I'm due to become a stay at home dad at some point over the next year or so. At least, that's the plan my wife and I are working on...

Cheers,

--Robb

 

[BillJ]

This will explain everything...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8w95xIdH4o

 

[Christopher]

This is in reference to The Naked Time:

When the Enterprise moves backwards through time and essentially reversed course, shouldn't they have encountered themselves from three days earlier?

How exactly does the universe proceed with two identical Enterprise existing? Did Kirk have to destroy the earlier versions of themselves? If not... wouldn't it create a loop in the timeline and many more Enterprise's being brought into existence?

Not at all. All they had to do was hide out for three days until their earlier selves went back in time and completed the loop. You have to think of it in terms of a worldline, which is a physics term for an object's path through time and space. Who and where you are at a given moment is an instantaneous cross-section of your worldline. An object standing still (relative to your reference frame) would have a worldline that's a straight line parallel to the time axis. An object moving through space would follow an angled but still forward-moving worldline through time. Now, if you go back in time, your worldline loops backward -- but it doesn't have to intersect itself or become some kind of closed loop. It can just loop back and continue moving forward on a new path. Think of the loop on a roller coaster -- your path briefly curves backward and runs parallel with your earlier path before moving forward again.

 

[BillJ]

This is in reference to The Naked Time:

When the Enterprise moves backwards through time and essentially reversed course, shouldn't they have encountered themselves from three days earlier?

How exactly does the universe proceed with two identical Enterprise existing? Did Kirk have to destroy the earlier versions of themselves? If not... wouldn't it create a loop in the timeline and many more Enterprise's being brought into existence?

Not at all. All they had to do was hide out for three days until their earlier selves went back in time and completed the loop. You have to think of it in terms of a worldline, which is a physics term for an object's path through time and space. Who and where you are at a given moment is an instantaneous cross-section of your worldline. An object standing still (relative to your reference frame) would have a worldline that's a straight line parallel to the time axis. An object moving through space would follow an angled but still forward-moving worldline through time. Now, if you go back in time, your worldline loops backward -- but it doesn't have to intersect itself or become some kind of closed loop. It can just loop back and continue moving forward on a new path. Think of the loop on a roller coaster -- your path briefly curves backward and runs parallel with your earlier path before moving forward again.

But wouldn't their be an infinite number of Enterprise's created?

Enterprise goes back in time three days and hides out.
Another Enterprise goes through the same motions and goes three days into the past and hides out.
So on... so forth...

So I understand the first part, hiding out til the next Enterprise does their business and moves backwards in time....

Insanity I tells ya!

 

[Gepard]

But wouldn't their be an infinite number of Enterprise's created?

Enterprise goes back in time three days and hides out.
Another Enterprise goes through the same motions and goes three days into the past and hides out.
So on... so forth...

No. There is no "another Enterprise," just the one, and for three days it's in two places at once. Then the original goes back in time and becomes the one that that was hiding out for three days. The hidden one then carries on as normal. It only happens once.

 

[FormerLurker]

The only way for there to be more than the two Enterprises ever, even for that three days, would be for the Enterprise that has already traveled back in time to repeat their experiences for the last three days. Which they can't, because certain events have already happened for them, before they traveled back in time. Since they've already experienced those events, they don't have to do so again, and can then do whatever they think they might need to to get back on track. Like sit around for three days.

 

[Wingsley]

I know it would be out of sequence for TOS, but it would certainly be a propos if "The Naked Time" was immediately followed by "Shore Leave". A perfect follow-up, wouldn't you say? What else would the Enterprise do for three days?

 

[Christopher]

But wouldn't their be an infinite number of Enterprise's created?

Enterprise goes back in time three days and hides out.
Another Enterprise goes through the same motions and goes three days into the past and hides out.
So on... so forth...

No. You're overthinking it. There is only one loop. And it's only the ship that loops back; the universe itself doesn't rewind. As far as any outside observer is concerned, a duplicate Enterprise appears out of nowhere, then 71 hours later, the original Enterprise disappears and the other one continues forward, and that's the end of it.

But in reality, there is no "other" Enterprise. There's only one. It isn't duplicated, it just overlaps its own history for 71 hours. Like I said, it's like a roller coaster looping back on its own track, except it's looping through time instead of space. The apparent duplication is essentially an illusion, a sort of temporal echo. And it's temporary. There is only one ship, and it only loops back once.

 

[BillJ]

No. You're overthinking it.

Story of my life...

 

[scotpens]

What we’re discussing here, of course, is a classic time-travel paradox that isn’t unique to “The Naked Time,” nor to Star Trek.

I know it would be out of sequence for TOS, but it would certainly be a propos if “The Naked Time” was immediately followed by “Shore Leave”. A perfect follow-up, wouldn't you say? What else would the Enterprise do for three days?

Wasn’t “The Naked Time” originally supposed to be followed by “Tomorrow is Yesterday,” with the Enterprise being thrown back to the 1960s instead of just three days into the past?

 

[Christopher]

What we’re discussing here, of course, is a classic time-travel paradox that isn’t unique to “The Naked Time,” nor to Star Trek.

I don't recall this particular question being a familiar paradox. This question isn't about changing one's past (as in, say, the Grandfather Paradox), merely overlapping it.

Wasn’t “The Naked Time” originally supposed to be followed by “Tomorrow is Yesterday,” with the Enterprise being thrown back to the 1960s instead of just three days into the past?

Yes. Late in the game, it was decided not to have that kind of continuity so that the episodes could be shown in whatever order the network preferred. Which is why "Naked Time" ends with a time warp that has nothing to do with the rest of the episode and serves no purpose. It would've been better if they'd written out any mention of time travel altogether.

 

[The Laughing Vulcan]

Yeah, but couldn't they have gone back in time, then beamed back into their own bodies a'la Captain Christopher and stopped the loop from ever occurring...

Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed!

 

[Therin of Andor]

The missing three days are detailed in the novel trilogy, "The Janus Gate" by LA Graf.

 

[Skellington]

Yeah, but couldn't they have gone back in time, then beamed back into their own bodies a'la Captain Christopher and stopped the loop from ever occurring...

Just saw that episode (Tomorrow is Yesterday) yesterday for the first time in many years. It makes precisely zip sense and clearly contradicts itself. At least The Naked Time makes sense if you assume that something like the Novikov self-consistency principle applies and the probability of a paradox arising is always nil.

 

[Christopher]

You don't even need to appeal to Novikov. Like I said, all they have to do is avoid meeting their past selves for 71 hours. I mean, come on, space is huge. It's not like they'd be unable to avoid running into their past selves. And it would realistically take more than three days to get from one star system to the next, despite what The Janus Gate postulated, so all they'd have to do is proceed to their next assignment at a lower warp factor so that they wouldn't get there early.

 

[scotpens]

Like I said, all they have to do is avoid meeting their past selves for 71 hours. I mean, come on, space is huge. It's not like they'd be unable to avoid running into their past selves.

But what would happen if they did meet their past selves? Would that create a rift in the continuum that would tear the universe apart?

 

[Christopher]

Only in the most figurative sense, in that it would cause a branching of timelines.

Still, few fictional temporal paradoxes are as easy to avoid simply by saying, "Then don't do that."

 

[Hofner]

Like I said, all they have to do is avoid meeting their past selves for 71 hours. I mean, come on, space is huge. It's not like they'd be unable to avoid running into their past selves.

But what would happen if they did meet their past selves? Would that create a rift in the continuum that would tear the universe apart?

In DS9's "Visionary", O'Brien was able to meet his younger/older self without tearing the universe apart.

Robert

 

[gomtuu20]

I think you are all overthinking it. In the Star Trek universe, there would not be two, like there was in Back To The Future. If the Enterprise went back in time, the original would not be there. Of course, someone will then ask where the original one went and I can't really answer that. That's my thought anyway. It is kind of like to two time cops in DS9's Trials and Tribblations" - Temperal Paradoxes - "We hate those."