the history of time travel ending explained

A history of time travel: the how, the why and the when of turning back the clock

Pop on Aqua's 'Turn Back Time' and settle in

For most of human history, the world didn’t change very quickly. Until the 1700s, kids could largely expect their lives to be similar to their parents, and that their children would have an experience very similar to their own, too. There were obviously changes in how humans lived over longer stretches of time, but nothing that even different generations could easily observe.

My first introduction to science fiction was Valérian and Laureline. I was ten years old. Every Wednesday there was a magazine called Pilote in France, and there was two pages of Valerian every week. It was the first time I’d seen a girl and a guy in space, agents travelling in time and space. That was amazing.

The past is written. The present? We have to deal with it. But the future is a white page. So I don’t understand why people on this white page are putting all this darkness.

God! Let’s have some color! Let’s have some fun! Let’s at least imagine a better world. Maybe we won’t be able to do it, but we have to try.

The industrial revolution changed all of this. For the first time in human history, the pace of technological change was visible within a human lifespan. 

It is not a coincidence that it was only after science and technological change became a normal part of the human experience, that time travel became something we dreamed of.

Time travel is actually somewhat unique in science fiction. Many core concepts have their origins earlier in history. 

The historical roots of the concept of a 'robot' can be seen in Jewish folklore for example: Golems were anthropomorphic beings sculpted from clay. In Greek mythology, characters would travel to other worlds, and it's no coincidence that The Matrix features a character called Persephone. But time travel is different.

The first real work to envisage travelling in time was The Time Machine by HG Wells, which was published in 1895. 

The book tells the story of a scientist who builds a machine that will take him to the year 802,701 - a world in which ape-like Morlocks are evolutionary descendants of humanity, and have regressed to a primitive lifestyle. 

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The book was a product of its time - both in terms of the science played upon (Charles Darwin had only published Origin of the Species 35 years earlier), and the racist attitudes: it is speculated that the Morlocks were inspired by the Morlachs, a real ethnic group in the Balkans who were often characterised as “primitive”.

Real science

But of course, this was science fiction - what about science fact? The two have always been closely linked, and during the early days it was no different. In 1907, the physicist Hermann Minkowski first argued that Einstein’s Special Relativity could be expressed in geometric terms as a fourth dimension (to add to our known three) - which is exactly how Wells visualised time travel in his work of fiction.

The development of Special and then General Relativity was significant as it provided the theoretical backbone for how time travel could be conceived in scientific terms. In 1949 Kurt Gödel took Einstein’s work and came up with a solution which as a mathematical necessity included what he called “closed timelike curves” - the idea that if you travel far enough, time will loop back around (like how if you keep flying East, you’ll eventually end up back where you started).

In other words, using what became known as the Gödel Metric, it is theoretically possible to travel between any one point in time and space and any other. 

There was just one problem: for Gödel’s theory to be right, the universe would have to be spinning - and scientists don’t believe that it is. So while the maths might make sense, Gödel’s universe does not appear to be the one we’re actually living in. Though he never gave up hope that he might be right: Apparently even on this deathbed, he would ask if anyone has found evidence of a spinning universe. And if he does ever turn out to be right, it means that time travel can happen, and is actually fairly straightforward (well, as far as physics goes anyway).

Since Gödel, scientists have continued to hypothesise about time travel, with perhaps the best known example being tachyons - or particles that move faster than the speed of light (therefore, effectively travelling in time). So far, despite one false alarm at CERN in 2011, there is no evidence that they actually exist.

Chancers and hoaxes

Of course, the lack of real science when it comes to time travel has not stopped some people from claiming to have done it. With the likes of Marty McFly and Doctor Who on the brain, chancers and hoaxers have realised that time travel is immediately a compelling prospect. Here’s a couple of amusing examples.

At the turn of the millennium, when the internet was still in its infancy, forums were captivated by the story of John Titor. Titor claimed he was from the year 2036, and had been sent back in time by the government to obtain an IBM 5100 computer. The thinking appeared to be that by obtaining the computer, the government could find a solution to the UNIX 2038 bug - in which clocks could be reset, Millennium Bug-style, leading to chaos everywhere.

Posting on the 'Time Travel Institute' forums, Titor went into details on how his time machine worked:  It was powered by “two top-spin, dual positive singularities”, and used an X-ray venting system. He also gave a potted history of what humanity could expect: A new American civil war in 2004, and World War III in 2015. He also claimed the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum physics was true, hence why he wasn’t violating the so-called “grandfather paradox”.

Titor claimed he was from the year 2036, and had been sent back in time by the government to obtain an IBM 5100 computer.

Okay, so he probably wasn’t a real time traveller, but in the early days of the internet, when anonymity was more commonplace, he truly captured the imaginations of nerdy early adopters who perhaps, just a little bit, hoped that he might be the real thing.

More recently, in 2013, an Iranian scientist named Ali Razeghi claimed to have invented a time machine of sorts. It was supposedly capable of predicting the next 5-8 years for an individual, with up to 98% accuracy. According to The Telegraph , Razeghi said the invention fits into the size of a standard PC case and “It will not take you into the future, it will bring the future to you”. The idea is that the Iranian government could use it to predict future security threats and military confrontations. So perhaps it is time to check in and see if he managed to predict Donald Trump?

So is this the best we can do? Will we ever manage to crack time travel? Some scientists are still sceptical that it could ever be possible. This includes Stephen Hawking, who proposed the 'Chronology Protection Conjecture' – which is what it sounds like. Essentially, he argues that the laws of physics are as they are to specifically make time travel impossible – on all but “submicroscopic” scales. Essentially, this is to protect how causality works, as if we are suddenly allowed to travel back and kill our grandfathers, it would create massive time paradoxes.

Hawking revealed to Ars Technica in 2012 how he had held a party for time travellers, but only sent out invitations after the date it was held. So did the party support his argument that time travel is impossible? Or did he end up spending the evening in the company of John Titor and Doctor Who?

“I sat there a long time, but no one came”, he said, much to our disappointment.

Huge thanks to Stephen Jorgenson-Murray for walking us through some of the more brain-mangling science for this article.

To celebrate the release of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets , Luc Besson is today behind the lens at TechRadar. Here’s what we’ve got in store for you:

• Luc Besson presents TechRadar
• From Verne to Valerian: how France became the home of sci-fi
• Luc Besson talks streaming, viral videos and cinema tech
• Star spangled glamour: making space travel cooler than ever before
• A history of time travel: the how, the why and the when
• 20 best sci-fi films on Netflix and Amazon Prime
• Amazing future tech from sci-fi films that totally exist now

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is released in UK cinemas August 2nd, and is out now in the US.

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Changing the world, one TV recap at a time.

Movie Review: The History of Time Travel

The History of Time Travel * 2014 * Ages 13+ * 1 Hour 11 Minutes

😸😸😸😸🌑 4 Happy Lap Cats

“One small step for Russia, one giant leap for Communism.”

The History of Time Travel is a quiet, low budget fictional documentary that asks the question, “What would happen if time travel were developed secretly, for personal reasons, by a single family of scientists? Would anyone notice the changes?” It answers the question as the documentary is being made, in small increments, that require the viewer to keep up with the details of the storyline. Easter eggs abound, as the story plays out on both the intimate scale of a family drama and the large scale of 20th century history.

The story is told through fake interviews, staged photographs and stock footage. The science of time and time travel are explained early on. We’re introduced to physicist Dr Edward Page (Daniel W May), who’s assigned to work on the secret Indiana Project during World War 2 after President Roosevelt is informed that the Germans are disturbingly close to developing time travel. Dr Page works diligently on the project throughout the war, becoming obsessed with his subject and ignoring his family.

After the war, Edward’s wife Anne (Elizabeth Lestina) develops health problems, to which she eventually succumbs. Edward blames his obsession with the ongoing Indiana Project for her death and throws himself even further into his work, hoping to solve the problem of time travel so that he can save his wife from her illness. When their son Richard (Ben Everett) grows up, he also becomes a physicist and becomes involved in his father’s work. Time travel gets invented, the Russians get involved, and so does the CIA.

The History of Time Travel is the story of how the Cold War affected one family; a story of alternate histories and fates; a look at the effects of ambition, workaholism, obsession, isolation and more on the family; and a study of the effects of scientific progress on the 20th century. It quietly, but subversively, asks how much progress is enough? When is it time to stop?

Ricky Kennedy, the writer and director, made The History of Time as his graduate school thesis film at Stephen F Austin University. It’s been screened at several film festivals and won awards at some. It’s now available on Amazon Prime Video , where I found it when Amazon suggested it to me.

The film isn’t an outright satire, but it does have a mockumentary sensibility and is best watched with that in mind. It’s light on the science of time travel and more concerned with ethics and the human toll time travel might take. The film and the time travel are DIY operations, but so were many of the most important technological inventions- the PC, the light bulb, the telephone.

The writing is more complex than it might seem at first, and the visuals should definitely be watched closely. This is a time travel film, and temporal anomalies aren’t out of the question. The basic production style is gritty documentary and period specific, with a vague Cassette Futurism look for the present day-ish material that’s fun and fits the tone of the film.

There’s is a lot of plot in this film, but I could see the delivery feeling dry and slow for some viewers. The film asks viewers to put the story together in their own minds and keep up with the changes. It requires close attention and might require a second viewing for some to put all of the details in order.

I don’t want to say more and spoil the fun for first time viewers.

Austin Film Festival Interview with Writer/Director Ricky Kennedy

***** SPOILERS BELOW THIS LINE *****

*****SERIOUSLY, DON’T RUIN IT FOR YOURSELF! *****

Oh my gosh, this film was so much fun! I loved trying to keep up with the changes to the timeline in time travel and in the family history, plus watching the wardrobe changes and prop changes. Be sure to watch the newspaper headlines, captions and photographs change!

Of course the Pentagon, CIA and KGB never changed. That was perfect. Their operations were the same no matter what happened. This film was a Cold War political thriller as much as it was a time travel show.

The changes to Anne and Edward’s history were fascinating, as the film had each of them cycle through various forms of mental illness that stemmed from knowing that things weren’t the way they were supposed to be. I love that in the end, Aden stopped Richard from continuing to tinker. Aden didn’t exist in the first timeline and understood that he or his mom could easily be wiped from the timeline again.

Richard had devoted his life to this work, in several lifetimes, gone through the entire progression of changes, including living through his father’s obsessions, and just didn’t know how to quit. That obsessiveness ran in the family. In the end, it seemed like the Indiana Project itself was the anomaly that didn’t belong in the timeline, since everyone survived and had good mental health in the timeline where they got rid of it at the end of the war. Except for Richard, who was too far gone at that point and probably carrying the memories of every timeline.

And then there’s Aden, who flipped back and forth between being a scientist and an MD, depending on the timeline. Richard may have invented time travel, but it feels in the end like he’s the villain and we come in mid story. Maybe the first timeline we’re seeing isn’t even the original one. Maybe the Indiana Project was meant to end at the end of the war and Richard screwed that up somehow when he went back in time for the first time, with the result that he caused his mom’s death, also wiping out Aden’s existence. In the end, Aden is the hero who stops Richard from making things worse again.

That little note that Anne had nightmares of someone sticking her with needles was hilarious. I haven’t even talked about all of the crime drama and medical drama, like Aden going back and delivering himself, the faked murder-suicide and the stealth vaccination against polio. Those were some amazing additions.

So was the entire sequence of the Russians stealing history. That’s begging to be filled out if this ever gets sold to be made into a higher budget film or a TV show. It would make a fantastic successor to The Man in the High Castle .

This film also reminds me of Ursula K LeGuin’s The Lathe of Heaven , and Netflix’s Maniac . There’s a whole mindbending side to the film to be explored, as you ride the wave through the characters’ unknowing changes in mindset and knowledge. That was complete genius.

I really want this story to be a TV series. It has everything a great show needs, just waiting to be expanded into several 8-10 episode seasons. Not that I’ve started making them up in my mind already or anything. Are you listening, Television Gods and Goddesses? By which I mean Amazon. Hopefully the film is on Prime because they have plans.

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Published by Metacrone

Retired teacher, homeschooling mom and lifelong film, television and theater enthusiast living in Albuquerque, NM. Choose love. View all posts by Metacrone

2 thoughts on “ Movie Review: The History of Time Travel ”

I just wanted to thank you for bringing this to my attention. Have now watched it on Amazon Prime and really enjoyed/appreciated it.

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It’s a gem, isn’t it? It shouldn’t be missed by time travel fans.

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SIGNALS FROM THE EDGE

The History of Time Travel: A Sci Fi Movie on Amazon Prime

Every once in a while, you come across that one movie that really stick out, whether it’s a super unique concept or just an off-the-wall sort of film.

I recently found a sci fi movie on Amazon Prime that presents itself as a documentary, when it’s actually a sci fi concept film. The History of Time Travel is filmed like a classic documentary but it’s anything but that, and it’s certainly not a Doctor Who film, either.

Here’s a complete review of The History of Time Travel .

Some History

The History of Time Travel was an Austin Film Festival movie in 2014, but it had been in various stages of production since 2010.

The writer and director, Rick Kennedy, has worked on a few other films, most of which you’ve probably never heard of. A Year from Now is a Christmas Carol meets Groundhog Day film, and his first film, The Line, is about a prisoner escaping from Nazi Germany.

Of his work, The History of Time Travel stands out as a unique entity, mainly because the idea of filming an obviously fictional story as a documentary is particularly boggling.

In an interview with the Austin Film Festival , Kennedy says that some people “might enjoy the sci-fi elements more, or find the alternate histories interesting, or appreciate the humor and the absurdity of the whole thing,” and I certainly think he’s hit the nail on the head there.

The Premise

So, as you’ve probably guessed, The History of Time Travel is a fake documentary. It employs the classic documentary narrator to make ominous comments, and all of the “experts” and first-hand accounts seem to be on the same page about the story.

And the story revolves around Edward Page and his family. Page was an MIT graduate in the late 1930s and later became a researcher for the Indiana Project, a clandestine project funded by the Pentagon to create time travel.

The Indiana Project and the Manhattan Project ran parallel for many years, but after WWII ended with the atomic bomb, the Pentagon began to cut funding to time travel research.

At some point, someone designs a portable time machine. And I say someone because as the film goes on, it becomes unclear who invented the machine. Originally, it was Edward’s son, Richard, but as Richard goes back in time to fix his family, the timelines start to get jumbled.

Just know that there is a time machine, and it does work, and you’ll know. The history gradually starts to change as the film goes on. Even though Richard only intended to change one or two aspects of the world when he went back in time, he ended up changing the whole trajectory of American history.

Nixon is assassinated in Dallas instead of JFK, Russians land on the moon first—the list goes on.

Eventually, we reach a point where the rabid flurry of timelines convene, and the world returns to normal. Not to the normal of the first half of the film, but to our normal. The History of Time Travel becomes The Theory of Time Travel , and it’s on the Science Fiction Channel instead of the History Channel.

The Verdict

At first, the scripted nature of the movie made it feel very stiff and unrealistic. Sure, they had the conventions of a documentary, but everything seemed to line up too easily, and that’s how you knew it was scripted.

The experts—which included a sci fi author, a philosopher, and a few time-travel physicists and historians—all had a similar way of storytelling, which made it evident they were reading a script. Instead of acting as individual characters, they were simply voice actors reading lines.

They spent a lot of time in the first minutes of the movie discussing the family life of Edward Page, in pretty vivid detail. I didn’t quite understand why until the movie started to branch off into different timelines, and we literally saw our history change before our eyes.

I think that the film is bold and interesting. It takes the medium of the documentary and turns it into a sci-fi concept film, and that’s something I would have never paired together. It gives me the vibe of the Ancient Aliens TV show and other similar conspiracy-theory documentaries, but with a more creative flair.

The History of Time Travel had a fairly small budget, but the production value was pretty good. There were a few points where I giggled at the poorly Photoshopped “evidence”, but I think that only contributed to the humor.

Overall, I’d give the film a 7/10. It had an original concept, and even though it stumbled through the first twenty minutes, it ended with a potent question about time travel: “Would we even notice if it happened?”

Is it the best sci fi movie on Amazon Prime right now? Not by a long shot, but it’s certainly worth watching if you’re tired of all the lasers, spaceships, and aliens that populate mainstream sci fi film.

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Film / The History of Time Travel

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The History of Time Travel is a 2014 sci-fi docu-fiction movie written and directed by up-and-coming film student Ricky Kennedy about the history behind the invention of time travel as framed as a network TV documentary on the subject.

The movie's plot involves an Alternate Timeline where a letter by Albert Einstein to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning FDR of the potential Nazi time travel program and urging him to start one as well, resulting in the creation of the Indiana Project with the express purpose of creating time travel before Those Wacky Nazis can. It chronicles the life of Edward Page, a scientist working on the Indiana Project and his son Richard who continues his work after his death and the process which resulted in the creation of the time machine and the younger Page's attempt to save his mother from dying from Polio when he was a child.

This film provides examples of:

• Alternate History : The film begins in an alternate history where the Nazis begin experimenting in creating a time machine, inspiring a US government research project into time travel called the Indiana Project. Resulting in Richard Page's success in creating a time machine in the 1980s. Which in turn results in several more alternate timelines as Page alters history.
• Bland-Name Product : "You're watching History Television "
• Dramatic Irony : In one of the altered timelines where the Soviets use a stolen time machine to handily win the Cold War, one of the interviewees comments that time travel must be the only explanation for how the Soviets were able to get Sputnik into orbit before anything American-made, despite the fact that in actual history, Sputnik was the first unmanned space satellite, without the aid of time travel. Of course, the interviewees don't know this due to not having Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory , as detailed below.
• Foreshadowing : The Soviets winning the Cold War is foreshadowed by a globe in the background of an interview altering as the film goes on to have more and more nations shaded in red, implying that each successive alteration of the timeline resulted in the USSR-aligned bloc getting bigger and bigger .
• Mockumentary : The film is presented as an in-universe history documentary about the events and people surrounding the creation of time travel.
• Giving Radio to the Romans : Richard attempts to help his father expedite his research in the 1940s by leaving him a prototype and all necessary notes. Unfortunately part of Edward's inability to make a breakthrough was that 1940s technology wasn't sufficiently advanced for his needs and Edward is unable to recreate his success after the KGB steals the prototype and destroys the Indiana Project facilities.
• He Knows Too Much : Edward Page is tailed by the CIA and KGB in one timeline because of his knowledge of time travel; both he and his wife are eliminated when Edward attempts to use facilities at MIT to replicate his 1940s work with the Indiana Project .
• Despite the Soviets using time-travel to gain an advantage over the United States at every stage of the Cold War in one Alternate Timeline , history broadly follows the same pattern - a US President is assasinated in 1963 (though it's Nixon rather than Kennedy), the first man walks on the moon in 1969 (though it's Yuri Gagarin rather than Neil Armstrong) etc.
• Kid from the Future : In one timeline, Edward encounters his two time-traveling adult sons from the future, who give him the completed time machine and their time-travel research. Decades later, when he tells their younger alternate selves about this encounter, they initially refuse to believe him and take it as a sign of his deteriorating mental health.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero : Richard and Aden attempt to alter history by giving their father their completed time machine and the research used to build it during WWII in an attempt to alter their family history after their mother kills herself. The end result is KGB infiltrators stealing the prototype and the research papers, destroying the Indiana Project to prevent the Americans from building another one and then the Soviets use the time machine to effectively win the Cold War, the implication being that in the altered 2014, the USA is one of the few if not the last remaining capitalist nation on Earth .
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup : Averted completely. Edward Page's hidden research notes allow Richard to build a working time machine in two different timelines. Ultimately invoked in the end when Richard makes one last trip to the past to completely destroy the Indiana Project, break his father's obsession with time travel research in order to save his family, and deny success to the KGB agents who had infiltrated the project .
• Our Presidents Are Different : at least from 1960 onwards in one timeline, with Nixon beating Kennedy and then subsequently being assassinated, with the implication that the Soviets orchestrated the assassination. A segment taking place in 2014 has the picture on the wall switch from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton repeatedly.
• Reset Button Ending : The film ends with history being altered by the Page Brothers so that time travel was never invented, the Page family earns their (mostly) happy ending and the documentary goes from being a history documentary to a sci-fi documentary where the stillborn Indiana Project is mentioned as a point where time travel could've been invented in real life but wasn't .
• Ret-Gone : In his attempts to save his mother's life through time travel, Richard manages to unwittingly pull this on one of the people currently being interviewed about the story. After preventing his mother from dying in a car crash, a newspaper reveals that the crash instead claimed the lives of a couple with the same last name as an older man being interviewed in the present, who we can presume are his parents. The next time that interview location is shown, the man has been completely replaced by a younger woman, who remains there until the end of the movie where the time-travel machine prototype in the 40's is destroyed, thus preventing the story from ever happening in the first place, at which point the man returns.
• Ripple Effect Indicator : This film itself is intended to be one for the audience , with the "History of Time-Travel" that the interviewers are discussing changing throughout the course of the film every time a time-traveler changes history, with none of the characters in-universe being any wiser. Word of God describes this film as being analogous to Marty McFly's photograph in Back to the Future .
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory : Averted. Changing the past results in the time traveler lapsing into a 3-day coma upon returning to the present, from which they emerge with their memories altered to match the new timeline and only vague recollections of the old one. It's taken up to eleven when the whole documentary crew and all the interviewed talking heads likewise lose all memories of the original timeline and treat the new one as if it was always the history they knew mid-movie, with their clothes, hairstyles and interview locations changing as well (in one case, the interviewee changes completely from an older man to a younger woman) and the same title cards appearing multiple times as different versions of the same events are recapped and discussed .
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong : The whole movie chronicles successive attempts to do this beginning with Richard Page attempting to save his mom from dying from Polio when he was young and ending with his cosmic retconed-in brother traveling back to destroy the Indiana Project in order to prevent time travel from ever being invented .
• also, Richard remains in a coma that Aiden expects him to wake from.
• Spoiler Cover : The ads for the film show an astronaut planting a soviet flag on the moon. When you watch it, you know it's gonna happen.
• Stupid Jetpack Hitler : The in-universe justification for the creation of the Indiana Project, create time travel before the Nazis can. Which leads to Soviet Superscience when KGB agents infiltrate the Indiana Project and steal the prototype time machine, allowing the Soviet Union to beat the US to the Moon, stay one step (or more) ahead of every advance in US military technology, and change the geopolitical picture for the remainder of the 20th century completely.
• Temporal Sickness : Time-travelers who return to the present after successfully changing the past suffer a form of this - inexplicably slipping into a coma, and reawakening with no memory of the original timeline or what they've done. In the final timeline, Richard never recovers from his coma.
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Where Does the Concept of Time Travel Come From?

Time; he's waiting in the wings.

The dream of traveling through time is both ancient and universal. But where did humanity's fascination with time travel begin, and why is the idea so appealing?

The concept of time travel — moving through time the way we move through three-dimensional space — may in fact be hardwired into our perception of time . Linguists have recognized that we are essentially incapable of talking about temporal matters without referencing spatial ones. "In language — any language — no two domains are more intimately linked than space and time," wrote Israeli linguist Guy Deutscher in his 2005 book "The Unfolding of Language." "Even if we are not always aware of it, we invariably speak of time in terms of space, and this reflects the fact that we think of time in terms of space."

Deutscher reminds us that when we plan to meet a friend "around" lunchtime, we are using a metaphor, since lunchtime doesn't have any physical sides. He similarly points out that time can not literally be "long" or "short" like a stick, nor "pass" like a train, or even go "forward" or "backward" any more than it goes sideways, diagonal or down.

Related: Why Does Time Fly When You're Having Fun?

Perhaps because of this connection between space and time, the possibility that time can be experienced in different ways and traveled through has surprisingly early roots. One of the first known examples of time travel appears in the Mahabharata, an ancient Sanskrit epic poem compiled around 400 B.C., Lisa Yaszek, a professor of science fiction studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, told Live Science 

In the Mahabharata is a story about King Kakudmi, who lived millions of years ago and sought a suitable husband for his beautiful and accomplished daughter, Revati. The two travel to the home of the creator god Brahma to ask for advice. But while in Brahma's plane of existence, they must wait as the god listens to a 20-minute song, after which Brahma explains that time moves differently in the heavens than on Earth. It turned out that "27 chatur-yugas" had passed, or more than 116 million years, according to an online summary , and so everyone Kakudmi and Revati had ever known, including family members and potential suitors, was dead. After this shock, the story closes on a somewhat happy ending in that Revati is betrothed to Balarama, twin brother of the deity Krishna. 

Time is fleeting

To Yaszek, the tale provides an example of what we now call time dilation , in which different observers measure different lengths of time based on their relative frames of reference, a part of Einstein's theory of relativity.

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Such time-slip stories are widespread throughout the world, Yaszek said, citing a Middle Eastern tale from the first century BCE about a Jewish miracle worker who sleeps beneath a newly-planted carob tree and wakes up 70 years later to find it has now matured and borne fruit (carob trees are notorious for how long they take to produce their first harvest). Another instance can be found in an eighth-century Japanese fable about a fisherman named Urashima Tarō who travels to an undersea palace and falls in love with a princess. Tarō finds that, when he returns home, 100 years have passed, according to a translation of the tale published online by the University of South Florida . 

In the early-modern era of the 1700 and 1800s, the sleep-story version of time travel grew more popular, Yaszek said. Examples include the classic tale of Rip Van Winkle, as well as books like Edward Belamy's utopian 1888 novel "Looking Backwards," in which a man wakes up in the year 2000, and the H.G. Wells 1899 novel "The Sleeper Awakes," about a man who slumbers for centuries and wakes to a completely transformed London. 

Related: Science Fiction or Fact: Is Time Travel Possible ?

In other stories from this period, people also start to be able to move backward in time. In Mark Twain’s 1889 satire "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," a blow to the head propels an engineer back to the reign of the legendary British monarch. Objects that can send someone through time begin to appear as well, mainly clocks, such as in Edward Page Mitchell's 1881 story "The Clock that Went Backwards" or Lewis Carrol's 1889 children's fantasy "Sylvie and Bruno," where the characters possess a watch that is a type of time machine . 

The explosion of such stories during this era might come from the fact that people were "beginning to standardize time, and orient themselves to clocks more frequently," Yaszek said. 

Time after time

Wells provided one of the most enduring time-travel plots in his 1895 novella "The Time Machine," which included the innovation of a craft that can move forward and backward through long spans of time. "This is when we’re getting steam engines and trains and the first automobiles," Yaszek said. "I think it’s no surprise that Wells suddenly thinks: 'Hey, maybe we can use a vehicle to travel through time.'"

Because it is such a rich visual icon, many beloved time-travel stories written after this have included a striking time machine, Yaszek said, referencing The Doctor's blue police box — the TARDIS — in the long-running BBC series "Doctor Who," and "Back to the Future"'s silver luxury speedster, the DeLorean . 

More recently, time travel has been used to examine our relationship with the past, Yaszek said, in particular in pieces written by women and people of color. Octavia Butler's 1979 novel "Kindred" about a modern woman who visits her pre-Civil-War ancestors is "a marvelous story that really asks us to rethink black and white relations through history," she said. And a contemporary web series called " Send Me " involves an African-American psychic who can guide people back to antebellum times and witness slavery. 

"I'm really excited about stories like that," Yaszek said. "They help us re-see history from new perspectives."

Time travel has found a home in a wide variety of genres and media, including comedies such as "Groundhog Day" and "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" as well as video games like Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" and the indie game "Braid." 

Yaszek suggested that this malleability and ubiquity speaks to time travel tales' ability to offer an escape from our normal reality. "They let us imagine that we can break free from the grip of linear time," she said. "And somehow get a new perspective on the human experience, either our own or humanity as a whole, and I think that feels so exciting to us." 

That modern people are often drawn to time-machine stories in particular might reflect the fact that we live in a technological world, she added. Yet time travel's appeal certainly has deeper roots, interwoven into the very fabric of our language and appearing in some of our earliest imaginings. 

"I think it's a way to make sense of the otherwise intangible and inexplicable, because it's hard to grasp time," Yaszek said. "But this is one of the final frontiers, the frontier of time, of life and death. And we're all moving forward, we're all traveling through time."

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Originally published on Live Science .

Adam Mann is a freelance journalist with over a decade of experience, specializing in astronomy and physics stories. He has a bachelor's degree in astrophysics from UC Berkeley. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, Wired, Nature, Science, and many other places. He lives in Oakland, California, where he enjoys riding his bike. 

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The History of Time Travel (2014)

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A brief history of time travel

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Of all time travel's paradoxes, here's the strangest of them all: hop on a TARDIS back to 1894 and the concept didn't even exist. "Time travel is a new idea," explains New York-based author James Gleick, 62. "It's a very modern myth." Gleick's entertaining Time Travel: A History , out in hardback in February, quantum leaps from HG Wells's The Time Machine - the original - via Proust and alt-history right up to your Twitter timeline. Until we get the DeLorean working for real, fellow travellers, consider it the next best thing.

The Mahabharata

Time travel appears in Hindu text The Mahabharata, and in stories such as Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle (1819) - but it usually only involved a one-way trip. "People fell asleep, and woke 
up in the future," says Gleick.

HG Wells's The Time Machine

"The idea of time travel with volition, in either direction, didn't arrive until Wells," says Gleick. It explains that time is a dimension - something not widely accepted until Einstein's theories in 1905.

Henri Bergson's Time And Free Will

Bergson's thesis is published soon after Wells's novel. "Bergson is a friend of Marcel Proust," says Gleick. Soon Proust et al are jumping on the idea of time travel to explore free will - and influencing new sci-fi in return.

Time Capsules

The idea of preserving a time stamp only arose in the 1930s in Scientific American. "It's the most pedestrian form of time travel: sending something into the future at a rate of one minute per minute."

Robert A Heinlein's By His Bootstraps

Heinlein's short story, published in Astounding Science Fiction, introduces the idea of a character appearing in multiple timelines, meeting themselves amid complex - and funny - paradoxes.

William Gibson's The Peripheral

Gleick cites Gibson's unique twist on the genre: "We can't send people, but what if you could send information back to the past?" It's a chilling new take. "It shows how our cultural conception of time is changing."

This article was originally published by WIRED UK

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5 Bizarre Paradoxes Of Time Travel Explained

December 20, 2014 James Miller Astronomy Lists , Time Travel 58

There is nothing in Einstein’s theories of relativity to rule out time travel , although the very notion of traveling to the past violates one of the most fundamental premises of physics, that of causality. With the laws of cause and effect out the window, there naturally arises a number of inconsistencies associated with time travel, and listed here are some of those paradoxes which have given both scientists and time travel movie buffs alike more than a few sleepless nights over the years.

Types of Temporal Paradoxes

The time travel paradoxes that follow fall into two broad categories:

1) Closed Causal Loops , such as the Predestination Paradox and the Bootstrap Paradox, which involve a self-existing time loop in which cause and effect run in a repeating circle, but is also internally consistent with the timeline’s history.

2) Consistency Paradoxes , such as the Grandfather Paradox and other similar variants such as The Hitler paradox, and Polchinski’s Paradox, which generate a number of timeline inconsistencies related to the possibility of altering the past.

1: Predestination Paradox

A Predestination Paradox occurs when the actions of a person traveling back in time become part of past events, and may ultimately cause the event he is trying to prevent to take place. The result is a ‘temporal causality loop’ in which Event 1 in the past influences Event 2 in the future (time travel to the past) which then causes Event 1 to occur.

This circular loop of events ensures that history is not altered by the time traveler, and that any attempts to stop something from happening in the past will simply lead to the cause itself, instead of stopping it. Predestination paradoxes suggest that things are always destined to turn out the same way and that whatever has happened must happen.

Sound complicated? Imagine that your lover dies in a hit-and-run car accident, and you travel back in time to save her from her fate, only to find that on your way to the accident you are the one who accidentally runs her over. Your attempt to change the past has therefore resulted in a predestination paradox. One way of dealing with this type of paradox is to assume that the version of events you have experienced are already built into a self-consistent version of reality, and that by trying to alter the past you will only end up fulfilling your role in creating an event in history, not altering it.

– Cinema Treatment

In The Time Machine (2002) movie, for instance, Dr. Alexander Hartdegen witnesses his fiancee being killed by a mugger, leading him to build a time machine to travel back in time to save her from her fate. His subsequent attempts to save her fail, though, leading him to conclude that “I could come back a thousand times… and see her die a thousand ways.” After then traveling centuries into the future to see if a solution has been found to the temporal problem, Hartdegen is told by the Über-Morlock:

“You built your time machine because of Emma’s death. If she had lived, it would never have existed, so how could you use your machine to go back and save her? You are the inescapable result of your tragedy, just as I am the inescapable result of you .”

• Movies : Examples of predestination paradoxes in the movies include 12 Monkeys (1995), TimeCrimes (2007), The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009), and Predestination (2014).
• Books : An example of a predestination paradox in a book is Phoebe Fortune and the Pre-destination Paradox by M.S. Crook.

2: Bootstrap Paradox

A Bootstrap Paradox is a type of paradox in which an object, person, or piece of information sent back in time results in an infinite loop where the object has no discernible origin, and exists without ever being created. It is also known as an Ontological Paradox, as ontology is a branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of being or existence.

– Information : George Lucas traveling back in time and giving himself the scripts for the Star War movies which he then goes on to direct and gain great fame for would create a bootstrap paradox involving information, as the scripts have no true point of creation or origin.

– Person : A bootstrap paradox involving a person could be, say, a 20-year-old male time traveler who goes back 21 years, meets a woman, has an affair, and returns home three months later without knowing the woman was pregnant. Her child grows up to be the 20-year-old time traveler, who travels back 21 years through time, meets a woman, and so on. American science fiction writer Robert Heinlein wrote a strange short story involving a sexual paradox in his 1959 classic “All You Zombies.”

These ontological paradoxes imply that the future, present, and past are not defined, thus giving scientists an obvious problem on how to then pinpoint the “origin” of anything, a word customarily referring to the past, but now rendered meaningless. Further questions arise as to how the object/data was created, and by whom. Nevertheless, Einstein’s field equations allow for the possibility of closed time loops, with Kip Thorne the first theoretical physicist to recognize traversable wormholes and backward time travel as being theoretically possible under certain conditions.

• Movies : Examples of bootstrap paradoxes in the movies include Somewhere in Time (1980), Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989), the Terminator movies, and Time Lapse (2014). The Netflix series Dark (2017-19) also features a book called ‘A Journey Through Time’ which presents another classic example of a bootstrap paradox.
• Books : Examples of bootstrap paradoxes in books include Michael Moorcock’s ‘Behold The Man’, Tim Powers’ The Anubis Gates, and Heinlein’s “By His Bootstraps”

3: Grandfather Paradox

The Grandfather Paradox concerns ‘self-inconsistent solutions’ to a timeline’s history caused by traveling back in time. For example, if you traveled to the past and killed your grandfather, you would never have been born and would not have been able to travel to the past – a paradox.

Let’s say you did decide to kill your grandfather because he created a dynasty that ruined the world. You figure if you knock him off before he meets your grandmother then the whole family line (including you) will vanish and the world will be a better place. According to theoretical physicists, the situation could play out as follows:

– Timeline protection hypothesis: You pop back in time, walk up to him, and point a revolver at his head. You pull the trigger but the gun fails to fire. Click! Click! Click! The bullets in the chamber have dents in the firing caps. You point the gun elsewhere and pull the trigger. Bang! Point it at your grandfather.. Click! Click! Click! So you try another method to kill him, but that only leads to scars that in later life he attributed to the world’s worst mugger. You can do many things as long as they’re not fatal until you are chased off by a policeman.

– Multiple universes hypothesis: You pop back in time, walk up to him, and point a revolver at his head. You pull the trigger and Boom! The deed is done. You return to the “present,” but you never existed here. Everything about you has been erased, including your family, friends, home, possessions, bank account, and history. You’ve entered a timeline where you never existed. Scientists entertain the possibility that you have now created an alternate timeline or entered a parallel universe.

• Movies : Example of the Grandfather Paradox in movies include Back to the Future (1985), Back to the Future Part II (1989), and Back to the Future Part III (1990).
• Books : Example of the Grandfather Paradox in books include Dr. Quantum in the Grandfather Paradox by Fred Alan Wolf , The Grandfather Paradox by Steven Burgauer, and Future Times Three (1944) by René Barjavel, the very first treatment of a grandfather paradox in a novel.

4: Let’s Kill Hitler Paradox

Similar to the Grandfather Paradox which paradoxically prevents your own birth, the Killing Hitler paradox erases your own reason for going back in time to kill him. Furthermore, while killing Grandpa might have a limited “butterfly effect,” killing Hitler would have far-reaching consequences for everyone in the world, even if only for the fact you studied him in school.

The paradox itself arises from the idea that if you were successful, then there would be no reason to time travel in the first place. If you killed Hitler then none of his actions would trickle down through history and cause you to want to make the attempt.

• Movies/Shows : By far the best treatment for this notion occurred in a Twilight Zone episode called Cradle of Darkness which sums up the difficulties involved in trying to change history, with another being an episode of Dr Who called ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’.
• Books : Examples of the Let’s Kill Hitler Paradox in books include How to Kill Hitler: A Guide For Time Travelers by Andrew Stanek, and the graphic novel I Killed Adolf Hitler by Jason.

5: Polchinski’s Paradox

American theoretical physicist Joseph Polchinski proposed a time paradox scenario in which a billiard ball enters a wormhole, and emerges out the other end in the past just in time to collide with its younger version and stop it from going into the wormhole in the first place.

Polchinski’s paradox is taken seriously by physicists, as there is nothing in Einstein’s General Relativity to rule out the possibility of time travel, closed time-like curves (CTCs), or tunnels through space-time. Furthermore, it has the advantage of being based upon the laws of motion, without having to refer to the indeterministic concept of free will, and so presents a better research method for scientists to think about the paradox. When Joseph Polchinski proposed the paradox, he had Novikov’s Self-Consistency Principle in mind, which basically states that while time travel is possible, time paradoxes are forbidden.

However, a number of solutions have been formulated to avoid the inconsistencies Polchinski suggested, which essentially involves the billiard ball delivering a blow that changes its younger version’s course, but not enough to stop it from entering the wormhole. This solution is related to the ‘timeline-protection hypothesis’ which states that a probability distortion would occur in order to prevent a paradox from happening. This also helps explain why if you tried to time travel and murder your grandfather, something will always happen to make that impossible, thus preserving a consistent version of history.

• Books:  Paradoxes of Time Travel by Ryan Wasserman is a wide-ranging exploration of time and time travel, including Polchinski’s Paradox.

Are Self-Fulfilling Prophecies Paradoxes?

A self-fulfilling prophecy is only a causality loop when the prophecy is truly known to happen and events in the future cause effects in the past, otherwise the phenomenon is not so much a paradox as a case of cause and effect.  Say,  for instance, an authority figure states that something is inevitable, proper, and true, convincing everyone through persuasive style. People, completely convinced through rhetoric, begin to behave as if the prediction were already true, and consequently bring it about through their actions. This might be seen best by an example where someone convincingly states:

“High-speed Magnetic Levitation Trains will dominate as the best form of transportation from the 21st Century onward.”

Jet travel, relying on diminishing fuel supplies, will be reserved for ocean crossing, and local flights will be a thing of the past. People now start planning on building networks of high-speed trains that run on electricity. Infrastructure gears up to supply the needed parts and the prediction becomes true not because it was truly inevitable (though it is a smart idea), but because people behaved as if it were true.

It even works on a smaller scale – the scale of individuals. The basic methodology for all those “self-help” books out in the world is that if you modify your thinking that you are successful (money, career, dating, etc.), then with the strengthening of that belief you start to behave like a successful person. People begin to notice and start to treat you like a successful person; it is a reinforcement/feedback loop and you actually become successful by behaving as if you were.

Are Time Paradoxes Inevitable?

The Butterfly Effect is a reference to Chaos Theory where seemingly trivial changes can have huge cascade reactions over long periods of time. Consequently, the Timeline corruption hypothesis states that time paradoxes are an unavoidable consequence of time travel, and even insignificant changes may be enough to alter history completely.

In one story, a paleontologist, with the help of a time travel device, travels back to the Jurassic Period to get photographs of Stegosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Allosaurus amongst other dinosaurs. He knows he can’t take samples so he just takes magnificent pictures from the fixed platform that is positioned precisely to not change anything about the environment. His assistant is about to pick a long blade of grass, but he stops him and explains how nothing must change because of their presence. They finish what they are doing and return to the present, but everything is gone. They reappear in a wild world with no humans and no signs that they ever existed. They fall to the floor of their platform, the only man-made thing in the whole world, and lament “Why? We didn’t change anything!” And there on the heel of the scientist’s shoe is a crushed butterfly.

The Butterfly Effect is also a movie, starring Ashton Kutcher as Evan Treborn and Amy Smart as Kayleigh Miller, where a troubled man has had blackouts during his youth, later explained by him traveling back into his own past and taking charge of his younger body briefly. The movie explores the issue of changing the timeline and how unintended consequences can propagate.

Scientists eager to avoid the paradoxes presented by time travel have come up with a number of ingenious ways in which to present a more consistent version of reality, some of which have been touched upon here,  including:

• The Solution: time travel is impossible because of the very paradox it creates.
• Self-healing hypothesis: successfully altering events in the past will set off another set of events which will cause the present to remain the same.
• The Multiverse or “many-worlds” hypothesis: an alternate parallel universe or timeline is created each time an event is altered in the past.
• Erased timeline hypothesis : a person traveling to the past would exist in the new timeline, but have their own timeline erased.

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Agents Of SHIELD Showrunners Explain that Ending

Agents of SHIELD showrunners Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen explain how they planned the intricate time-travel story.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD concluded its seven-season run with a two-part finale that involved plenty of complicated time travel. Now, showrunners Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen have explained how they were able to map out the complicated storyline of the final season and the intent behind the time jump at the end of the series finale.

The seventh and final season of Agents of SHIELD  centered on the team as they traveled through time in an effort to prevent the semi-robotic beings known as Chronicoms from establishing Earth as their new home and erasing S.H.I.E.L.D. from history. The season culminated with a two-part finale, titled "The End Is at Hand" and "What We're Fighting For," in which our heroes are able to defeat the Chronicoms and restore the timeline changes caused by their time-traveling adventures. The process involved a host of complicated science-fiction rules, including  divergent timelines and the Quantum Realm , that required careful planning on the part of the showrunners.

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During an interview with AV Club, Whedon explained that they approached the time-travel component of the finale by setting up ideas they would figure out how to tie together down the line. "We knew what this season was going to be at that point. We knew that we were going to be jumping through time. And so we planted little stuff that would be easily avoidable if we didn’t end up tying up those loose ends. You know, people in hazmat suits with no faces are easy to excuse as anything else. But we sort of had an idea of what we were gonna do—with no real sense of how we were going to tie that all together. But, you know, confident that we could probably figure it out. So we sort of threw some balls up in the air and hoped that we’d be able to juggle them later. We knew we would have to explain the Fitzsimmons of it and that part of it was its own little bubble. But, yeah, we went in with, I would say, some distant hopes on the horizon. But it did become a brain pretzel-twister by the end," Whedon explained.

The series closed with a one-year time jump into the future where the team held a virtual meeting at the Krazy Kanoe bar. As they reflected on the time together as agents, fans learned details on how the story of each character unfolded, with Phil Coulson ending his journey by traveling the world in a remodeled version of Lola, his 1962 Chevrolet Corvette. "I do think the one-year jump serves to amplify that bittersweet quality, because we, as the audience, are aware that they’ve been in their new lives, separate from each other, for a year. They’re established, they’re starting to settle into it. But seeing them in that room, and then learning that it’s a virtual room where they actually can’t reach out and touch one another, or give each other a hug... I think in that feeling of longing for one another and that feeling of the loss of what once was—it really lands the bond that they will have forever, even if they won’t be in each other’s lives," Tancharoen said of the decision to take the viewers a little bit ahead of time before the series wrapped .

The conclusion of Agents of SHIELD marks the end of an era for Marvel television as it's one of, if not the last, shows that started before the TV and film divisions were merged  with Kevin Feige as Chief Creative Officer. Now, Marvel Studios is set to release multiple television projects for Disney+, including The Falcon and the Winter Soldier , WandaVision , Loki , and more.

Fortunately for those who have not opted to sign onto Disney+, Marvel still has projects being lined up for other streaming platforms. Helstrom , for example, is slated to hit Hulu in mid-October of 2020.

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD is now available on Disney+.

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Source: AV Club

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The Time Travel and Ending of ‘The Adam Project’ Explained

Ryan Reynolds’ latest film, The Adam Project , was released on Netflix this week, and it’s such a fun and touching time travel adventure. Directed by Shawn Levy, the film boasts an all-star cast including Reynolds, Jennifer Garner, Zoe Saldaña , Mark Ruffalo, and Catherine Keener. There’s also a breakout performance from 13-year-old Walker Scobell , who channeled Reynolds exceptionally well in his role.

The plot follows Adam Reed (Reynolds), a time traveler from 2050, headed to 2018 to save his wife . However, he mistakenly lands himself in 2022 and meets the mouthy 12-year-old version of himself (Scobell). His younger self is struggling after losing his father in a car accident. Badly injured, Reed reluctantly accepts his younger self’s help. But their mission changes from saving Reed’s wife, to saving the whole world (by ensuring Reed’s father never invents time travel).

While the film has been praised for its performances, visuals, and premise, some viewers may be confused by the ending. This is a pretty natural occurrence when it comes to films that tackle time travel. Nearly every film from Avengers: Endgame to Predestination has its own set of time travel rules. The Adam Project is no exception. Obviously, *spoilers ahead * for The Adam Project.

How time travel works in The Adam Project

The Adam Project takes place across 3 different time periods: 2022, 2018, and 2050. In 2022, future Reed quickly relays the first rules of time travel to his younger self. Naturally, young Reed asks the question the audience is wondering, why doesn’t the older Reed remember meeting his past self, and therefore, why doesn’t he know everything that happens? The older Reed explains this is because of ‘fixed time.’ Essentially, every person has just one place in time where they belong on a quantum level. Older Reed’s fixed time is 2050, thus, his memories won’t reform and reconcile until he returns to his fixed time. It’s a pretty nifty (and surprisingly simple) explanation. When older Reed gets to his own time period, then time (and his memories) will change. Until then, he’s in the dark like everyone else.

Older Reed then fills in the younger Reed on what’s happening in the future, and how time travel plays into it. Reed crash-landed in 2022 because he was being pursued by Maya Sorian (Keener), the leader in the future (which has become a dystopian, apocalyptic nightmare). Life in 2050 is described as, kind of like the world in Terminator , but even that world would be 2050 “on a good day.”

Even with things as bad as they are, at first, older Reed has no intention of correcting the future—he was attempting to get to 2018, because his wife, Laura (Saldaña) , time traveled there, and he was told she died in a crash. He doesn’t believe it though. And he’s proved right when Laura finds the older and younger Reeds in 2022 (after Sorian attacks them) and reveals she got stuck in the past after escaping an assassination attempt in 2018.

Here’s where it gets slightly more complicated. There’s a general code of ethics with time travel in the world of this film. You’re not supposed to significantly change the future. But what Laura found out (and the reason Sorian tried to murder her) is that Sorian changed the fixed timeline, well before the events of the movie, and to her own personal gain. See, Reed’s dad, Louis (Mark Ruffalo), came up with the technology that allowed time travel in the past. Sorian was his business partner, and in the original timeline, the tech was never used again after Louis’ death. But Sorian went back in time to 2018 and gave her younger self the information to alter the course of history. This led to her controlling time travel (and the world) in 2050. Laura now knows that if they stop this event, they can reset the future to how it was supposed to be. She urges the Reeds to make a time jump into 2018 to stop Sorian. It will mean she and Reynolds never meet (they met as time travel pilots in school), but it’s a sacrifice they’ll have to make.

How does The Adam Project end?

Back in 2022, Laura is killed by Sorian while giving the Reeds time to escape to 2018. The Reeds then meet their father, Louis, before his death. Their goal is to destroy his time travel tech, thus, making Sorian’s dystopian future impossible. They aren’t supposed to tell their father who they are (time travel ethics and all that), but he immediately knows Reynolds is his adult son, and they tell him the whole deal. So much for not making waves.

Louis initially refuses to help, but eventually, has a change of heart. The Reeds and Louis go to Sorian Technology to destroy a hard drive that’s vital for Louis’ particle accelerator. There, they are confronted by the older and younger Sorians and their henchmen. A massive battle leads to the particle accelerator being damaged, overloading, and releasing a massive magnetic field. When older Sorian attempts to shoot Louis, the magnetic field changes the direction of the bullet, killing younger Sorian instead. The older Sorian disappears. And Louis and the Reeds escape the building before the particle accelerator explodes. With Sorian dead, and the particle accelerator destroyed, time travel is never created, and the grim future of 2050 is unwound.

The Adam’s Project ending explained

While time travel is never created, the Reeds don’t alter other aspects of the timeline. Louis is adamant that the Reeds don’t tell him how he died, as that could potentially save him. Hence, Louis does still die in a car accident and is still deceased when the Reeds return to their timelines. However, he seems able to accept his passing with peacefulness and acceptance. He has one last moment with both versions of his sons—where they play catch. It’s pretty adorable.

But here’s where it gets a little dicey, rule-wise. Time has been reset for both Adam Reeds. Time travel was never invented, and therefore, they never could have met or had the whole adventure. But before they go back to their futures, older Adam urges his younger self to hold something inside of him, even though he won’t remember. Be kinder to their mother or he’ll regret it later. So, while the Reeds have learned to let go of their bitterness over their father’s death in the movie, they also seem to carry a piece of that when they go back to their timelines. Instead of just being snarky to his mother, like he was in the beginning of the movie, we see younger Reed hug his overwhelmed and grieving mother at the end. We’re left to understand that the events left a trace of themselves in younger Reed on a cosmic level, even though technically, he should have no knowledge of them.

The final scene of the film occurs years after the young Reed’s adventure. Older Reed is in college and he meets Laura, in the exact same manner he had described to his younger self in 2022. This last scene is meant to confirm that even though time travel doesn’t exist, and the future is altered, Reed and Laura do still meet. The two were always meant to be together, regardless of time travel, ending the film on a sweet note. Perhaps it isn’t just timelines that are fixed in this universe, maybe, like in the Doctor Who rules , some momentous events and feelings can never change.

(featured image: Netflix)

The Adam Project Ending Explained: Ryan Reynolds’ Time Travel Adventure, Unwound

Let's look at how the Adams saved the future.

Warning: spoilers for The Adam Project ending are in play. If you’re looking to avoid the twists and turns of this Netflix original, head over to another piece of non-spoiler content from CinemaBlend.

Teamed up for their second film together, director Shawn Levy and star Ryan Reynolds scored a heartfelt time travel adventure through The Adam Project . The latest original to join the library of movies on Netflix , there’s a lot of moving parts that might need some explanation after getting to the end of this funny, but sweet journey through the fourth dimension. Luckily, we happen to have the answers you crave, and we’re about to jump into the craziness that is The Adam Project’s tale of temporal tampering.  

This is your last chance to avoid spoilers, as even Christopher Lloyd could tell you that there’s no turning back the clock after we begin. (And in a sense, he actually did thanks to a fun ad he did with Ryan Reynolds .) If you want to keep your viewing experience fresh, but want to know a little more about The Adam Project , you can read our official review . Otherwise, sticking around from this point forward will divulge many secrets, starting with what happened at the end of the movie.

What Happened At The End Of The Adam Project?

2018 is a more important year than you’d think, thanks to The Adam Project . Unknown to the world at large, it’s the year that two versions of Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds/Walker Scobell) teamed up with their dad Louis ( Mark Ruffalo , in a casting move that makes total sense ) to save the world. As Louis has just accidentally invented time travel, the boys slip back to this very year to correct that supposed error in history, and do so with flying colors. After destroying the only copy of the algorithm that makes time travel possible, in a manner befitting of an explosive blockbuster, the two Adams and their father play catch. 

It would be their final moment together, as both Adams have to return to their corrected timelines, with Louis destined to die not too long after the moment they’re currently sharing. Thanks to the catharsis of one final adventure with dad, Younger Adam learns to go easier on his poor mother, Ellie ( Jennifer Garner ), and Older Adam continues through to his much brighter future, where he meets his beloved wife Laura ( Zoe Saldana ). 

How The Adam Project’s Future Originally Turned Out So Grim

The events of The Adam Project weren’t always so rosy. By time the movie opens in an altered 2050, Maya Sorian ( Catherine Keener ) is the most powerful person in the future. She managed to do this through, among other things, cornering the market on time travel; much like Ron Silver did in the 1994 time travel classic Timecop . With Laura presumed dead at Maya’s hand, Older Adam Reed takes matters into his own hands to correct the past.

Stealing a time jet, Adam intended to jump back to 2018, and enlist his father Louis to help him restore the future. Of course, The Adam Project throws in an added wrench of Older Adam accidentally landing in 2022, which then sees him recruiting his younger self to join the fight. Though he's not the only future defender trying to protect the timeline from the past. 

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In a bittersweet twist, we find out that Laura is actually alive and well after her supposedly fatal trip to 2018. Hiding out in hopes of correcting history for the better, she and Adam are reunited in 2022, but only for a brief moment. Sacrificing herself so that both Adams can travel back to 2018 themselves, Adam loses his wife again, with the hope that they'll still meet on the corrected timeline. 

The Key Events Of The Adam Project That Needed To Change

In the long run, a whole bunch of things need to change in The Adam Project’s skewed timeline. Most importantly, all of Maya Sorian’s scheming and influencing needs to be undone, and there’s a lot of pieces to that puzzle. In order to collapse Maya’s empire, scores of illegal financial dealings and policy making need to be prevented.

Of course, there’s one easy way to wipe all of these misdeeds off the map: erase time travel from the timeline. The one key event that needs to be altered above all others is The Adam Project’s accidental invention of time travel, which means Louis’s algorithm needs to be lost before the government or Maya can even begin to capitalize on it. So long as time travel exists, it can be abused to reap ill gotten gains. 

Why Maya Changed The Original Timeline (And The Consequences)

What drove The Adam Project’s villain to try and take over the world? In a word: legacy. As we learn when Older Maya is monologuing with her younger self, Maya Sorian is consigned to obscurity in the history of time travel. The government allegedly gets their hands on it, and her lonely lifestyle of long hours and isolation were all for nothing. If Sorian is going to sacrifice her life in the name of time travel, shouldn't she at least get something out of it? 

Older Maya travels back to 2018, gives Younger Maya the tips and tricks she needs to build an empire, while ruining the world in the process. The consequences are a vastly altered timeline that stems from The Adam Project’s earliest point in time and throughout the rest of the film. Though as an added bonus, the impulsive nature of Older Maya deletes her own existence from the timeline overall.

In her attempt to kill Younger Adam, erasing him from time itself, Older Maya accidentally kills Younger Maya with the bullet she intended for her young target. The bullet then continues to damage the particle accelerator that helped accidentally introduce the world of The Adam Project to time travel, eventually resulting in the destruction of the lab Maya and Louis Reed were working in. Time travel is officially dead, Maya Sorian no longer exists, and time can now play out as it’s originally intended to.

Could Adam Have Saved His Father?

Some might be wondering if The Adam Project left the door open for Louis Reed’s life to be spared. With his fatal automobile accident occurring after the window into 2018 our heroes travelled back to, some could argue that this was an event that took place in the tangent timeline. Not to mention, the way that the story was winding up in the later acts, it almost felt like there was going to be a twist where Maya Sorian killed Louis to take control of time travel.

That’s not the case, as Louis Reed’s death seems like an accident that was always supposed to happen. Were this moment to have never happened, the characters and the story of The Adam Project would lack the personal growth we see both Adams undertake. Processing their shared trauma, Adam Reed understands that he has to cherish those he loves while they’re still in his life. 

Older Adam Reed learns from his mistakes, and creates a better life where he appreciates his mother and his younger self. By the time he meets his wife to be Laura, the traumatic events of their original future are forgotten, and they get to have a fresh start in a shiny new timeline. The Adam Project is no more, but after seeing what the results entailed, it’s for the best.

If you’ve somehow read this entire ending breakdown without seeing the movie, or if you want to run through this exciting adventure all over again, The Adam Project is available to be streamed by Netflix subscribers far and wide. For those of you who don’t mind a peek into the future, feel free to head over to the 2022 Netflix movie schedule . There’s plenty of new thrills headed our way in the year to come, and this is the sort of knowledge that won’t screw up the spacetime continuum. 

Mike Reyes is the Senior Movie Contributor at CinemaBlend, though that title’s more of a guideline really. Passionate about entertainment since grade school, the movies have always held a special place in his life, which explains his current occupation. Mike graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, but swore off of running for public office a long time ago. Mike's expertise ranges from James Bond to everything Alita, making for a brilliantly eclectic resume. He fights for the user.

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The Avengers: Endgame Timeline, Explained

Here's exactly how Marvel's time travel works, how it doesn't, and what it means for the future of the Cinematic Universe [This Article Contains Spoilers].

Editor's note: There are spoilers in this story.

Most fans leaving the theater after Avengers: Endgame will likely spend the next few days lying awake at night trying to figure out time paradoxes and drawing out visual aides of timelines. The time travel theories the MCU introduced with its latest movie are complex, but within the comics, heroes and villains have actually been jumping between both time and space for decades. It's part of what's most exciting about the vast world that thousands of creators have had a hand in building, but also why translating something like time travel to the screen can ultimately be incredibly confusing.

Time Travel in Avengers: Endgame

In Avengers: Endgame , the Ancient One explains to Banner that each of the Infinity Stones help keep the core timeline in place. But if the Avengers remove them, they'll create splinter timelines that would hypothetically each continue alongside the original one. The technical term for this would be a multiverse, and that's something that has existed for almost the entire history of the Marvel comics continuity. But when Banner convinces the Ancient One to give him the Time Stone, he theorizes that returning all the Stones back to their rightful places in time will mean that the timeline has been rectified, meaning that nothing in the timeline should be out of place.

By the end of the film there are a lot unknowns in the MCU's version of time travel. And their meddling with the past fundamentally changes the entire universe in ways our heroes couldn’t have possibly predicted.

Another part of why the Avengers exploration of time travel feels so strange is that, unlike the whirling cosmos of the Marvel Universe in the comics, the MCU has largely attempted to stay away from the complex nature of the multiverse. Intergalactic heroes like the Guardians and Thor have been more interested in adventures and scavenging than solving the cosmic mysteries of the universe.

Time Travel in The Marvel (Comics) Universe

Over the natural course of thousands of comics, the idea of a multiverse has been used to explore and explain away the often narratively muddled Marvel Universe, while also giving creators a chance to delve into numerous realities and possibilities. To explain the concept behind the Ancient One's warning, we have to go back to the earliest days of the Marvel’s fictional comic universe to hundreds of thousands of years ago when the Infinity Stones were created.

During the the "Thanos Quest" storyline it's established that the Infinity Gems, as they were known in the books, were the remnants of an ancient entity from before recorded time. According to what Thanos saw in the Infinity Well, this all-powerful being was the only living thing in any and all realities. The loneliness of this omnipotent solitude led the entity to kill itself, but out of the ashes of their death came the six Infinity Gems, which held the all the power of their former self. Eagle-eyed fans might remember that this origin was briefly summarized and reimagined in the MCU by the Collector in Guardians of the Galaxy .

But if we look back to the comics, that scope, alongside time travel has long been a part of the shared storyline of some of our favorite heroes and their most fearsome villains. Kang the Conqueror is one of the Avengers' most notorious villains and one of Marvel's most prolific time travelers. The iteration that we see of Hulk in Endgame —a smart merging of both sides of Bruce Banner—has to face down an evil future version of himself known as Maestro. Time travel is a tangible thing that scientists can access, and heroes can utilize. In the comics it is accepted that it exists and almost always has. That influence is felt here in Endgame with the sudden inevitability of time travel.

The Problem With Time Travel in Avengers: Endgame

In the world of the MCU, Banner's plan to put the Infinity Stones back where they found them kind of works. After Tony dusts Thanos and his army, the stones and the universe are theoretically safe.

Unfortunately, the film also contradicts its own version of time travel. When the Avengers go back in time to try and secure the Stones, Thanos' actions in the Infinity War dusting aren't immediately changed. When they gain all of the stones, however, Banner is able to bring the vanished back into existence by thinking on it and snapping his fingers. But surely the simple act of taking the Stones at all would've meant that Thanos would have never been able to collect them all and dust half of the world in the first place, right? Well, not quite, because what it seems like the MCU is actually presenting here is one fluctuating singular timeline.

An ever changing but singular timeline is the only way that the film's events would make any sense. It appears that the directors want us to believe that the impact of the events were such that they happened during the films we have already seen, without changing the future in 2024.

It's a messy set of rules that seem to shift depending on the needs of the story. The Russos and Feige are essentially taking a leap of faith, relying on the fact that the suspension of disbelief is needed from viewers—as if it wasn't a stretch from aliens and trees fighting an evil extraterrestrial threat to time travel being real.

The Future of Time Travel in the MCU

It's highly probable that this is just the beginning of the MCU's exploration of time travel, and Bruce's hashed-together plans might have much larger ramifications. For example, Loki's escape is a fact that is likely to be revisited in his upcoming Disney+ series, which will now probably center on the God of Mischief causing havoc throughout time and space with the cosmic cube. The tesseract has been a key part of the MCU, so this should affect the world as we know it. These moments will have an impact outside of the cinematic universe as Cap's arrival with a shiny new shield for Sam means that his Disney+ series will now focus on his tenure alongside Bucky as Captain America rather than as Falcon.

If we are to imagine that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, there's a chance that all the Avengers' time-shenanigans have just opened the door to some of Marvel's most famous dimension hoppers... the Fantastic Four and their notorious enemy, Victor Von Doom. Kang the Conqueror could be lurking in the shadows waiting to take advantage of the timescape, or maybe we will see the return of the omnipotent Adam (Warlock) who was introduced at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , and has in the comics wielded the gems. For now, let's hope that the interdimensional rift caused by Endgame doesn't create too many problems as 2020 still doesn't have any heroes lined up with no MCU films on the release slate.

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Travelers Season 3 Ending Explained

Travelers season 3 brought the story of future operatives trying to avoid a cataclysm to an unexpected conclusion — what does it all mean?

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This article contains major spoilers for the entirety of Travelers season 3!

Travelers season 3 played a dangerous game in its finale by introducing a reset that could either pay off with an innovative re-imagining of the journey to the “Twenty-First” or alienate viewers by undoing all of the relationships, consequences, and tragic deaths of the past few years.  But perhaps a reset was necessary. Glimmers of doubt had already begun to appear as consciousnesses continued to be sent from the dark future; could there be any hope that the Director would ever succeed in its mission to avoid humanity’s extinction?

Whether you agree with the choice that the writers or the characters themselves made, there are plenty of questions surrounding what really happened in those final moments of the episode. Although some might argue that the finale could serve as series ending if Travelers is not renewed, the possibilities that are left open are as promising as they are disconcerting. Might we see a reunion of our team against all odds, or is the future that Traveler 3468 set in motion too different for that to happen again? Here’s what (we think) we know.

Marcy and David

The scene on the bus at the end of Travelers season 3 may have brought hope to those who would have wished for a happier ending for fallen hero, David Mailer, but was it really happy? This Marcy is not Traveler 3569; this is pre-brain damage Marcy Warton, the nurse. Sure, David may have had a soft spot for the Marcy that ended up in his care, and he does seem to forge relationships with all of his charges — he’s just a nice guy. But the Marcy he fell in love with was from the future, the bad-ass FBI doctor, not the nurse who, in this timeline, never ran afoul of Vincent Ingram a.k.a. Traveler 001.

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Now one might say that because this Marcy has more in common with David as one who seeks to help those less fortunate, the match is more suitable, and no one could blame David for starting from a physical attraction in either case. But as a viewer of three seasons of Travelers , is it enough for the social worker to be happy with a Marcy rather than our Marcy? If we agree with Agent Yates’ admonition to MacLaren that his team did more harm than good, then it has to be enough. David’s death, heroic or not, was caused by his involvement with the travelers. Maybe he’s better off this way.

Grant and Kat

The same could be said of Kathryn, who eventually caught on to the fact that her husband Grant was a different person. By naming the exact time and date of her meeting the original Grant, her regrets led to a way out for the failed mission, but they also provided a chance for Traveler 3468 to make amends for stealing his wife’s chance at a happy life. He could easily have started from the beginning and been the only Grant that Kat would ever know, but instead he walked away, allowing Kat to be with John the artist instead of someone who would still have to go on missions in secret.

Interestingly, Kat mentions to the 2001 Grant-reboot that John, who is late for their rendezvous, “gets caught up in his work,” so her marriage may end up being very similar to the one she had with Grant anyway. Perhaps that’s just her type! But does this mean we won’t see Leah Cairns in Travelers season 4? Or Patrick Gilmore from the above example? Creating the need for a restauranteur or social worker could be a challenge in a reset timeline, so this could be a goodbye for two beloved characters.

Helios and 9/11

Grant accomplishes two tasks in the final moments of the episode. The first is to hand an envelope to a young Samantha, the scientist who pioneered the clean energy breakthrough that had to be stopped in episode 8 of season 3, “Archive.” The envelope is emblazoned with the word, “Helios,” referring to the asteroid that was set to collide with Earth in 2018 if not for the intervention of MacLaren’s team in season one. Presumably, Grant’s thinking was that if Samantha was smart enough to create such an efficient means of powering the planet, she could also alert the scientific community about the deadly threat headed their way.

The second thing Grant does is head to the Twin Towers on September 11 to stop the arrival of Traveler 001. Keen viewers will recall that the test case was supposed to arrive in the body of Anthony Corrigan, whom we see here in the finale, but instead ended up in the body of IT guy, Vincent Ingram. How Grant was able to send the vital email when Vincent could not is anyone’s guess, but assuming he was successful in stopping the Director’s failed mission, there’s another question left up in the air…

Did Grant leave the World Trade Center before the devastation began? He looks at his watch and sees that it’s around ten minutes before the first plane hit. Technically, his job is done, and he has no reason to go into Protocol 5 and live out his life. But he does appear to make a move to leave the office before we cut to Marcy and David. Could we end up with a Grant MacLaren who paradoxically remembers the previous timeline in Travelers season 4, should the show be renewed? That actually might be just the catalyst that’s needed to bring more relevance to a soft reboot.

Traveler 001

Presumably, Traveler 001 overwrote the other traveler inside Jeff Conniker after his interrogation but before he was found behind the cinder block wall. While this was a successful attempt to entrap Marcy and acquire her backdoor code to access the Director, the real question surrounds what Jeff meant when, after Marcy kills herself, he said, “The other way is going to take so much longer.” With his consciousness uploaded to the Internet, perhaps his takeover of the future progressed over decades of infiltration.

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Does this mean the Faction was always led by a disembodied benefactor that was just as much technology-based as the Director they despised? If so, why bring down the Director who supposedly couldn’t be trusted to fix the future by accelerating the apocalypse? The use of nuclear devices to blind the Director may have been a hostile takeover of the Archives, but it also guaranteed that the future would still be post-nuclear winter with a leader who was just as dictatorial (and artificial) as the quantum AI they defeated. Ironic in the extreme.

Traveler Program Version 2

Fan discussion on Reddit and elsewhere speculates that the first three seasons of Travelers was merely a simulation run by the Director, and we’ve simply been watching the predictive algorithms of an artificial intelligence. The process of watching version one fail could have happened in nanoseconds in the far-flung future before even a single traveler was sent back. How else could the Director avoid the issue of only being able to send consciousnesses back to a point in time after the most recent traveler, making a reboot seem impossible?

Except in this new timeline, the failed mission never even started. Grant’s email ensures that the above question of Traveler 001’s presence in the Internet is completely moot because Traveler 001 as we know him was never sent. Grant may think that delivering the Helios warning and stopping the traveler program was enough to ensure a future in which the Director was never needed, but clearly climate change and other factors will still devastate the planet and necessitate time travel to fix the problem all over again.

So what will version 2 look like? That’s not a question that can be answered here, but is there a plan that can survive contact with the past? Can any iteration of the first traveler ensure that the mission won’t be off-track from the very start? And how can any scenario bring the specific team of Grant, Trevor, Philip, Carly, and Marcy and the actors that play them back together? Like the travelers themselves, we must put our trust in the Director. Or at least a lowercase-d director or two, a crack writing team, and Travelers ‘ executive producers Brad Wright and Eric McCormack.

Until then, Protocol 5, everybody…

Michael Ahr | @mikescifi

Michael Ahr is a writer and multimedia producer at Den of Geek with a focus on science fiction television. Elsewhere, he teaches video production to high…

'12 Monkeys' Ending Explained: How That Time-Travel Twist Worked

One of the more perplexing elements of the film is its ending, which provides a fair share of ambiguity even to viewers paying careful attention.

Terry Gilliam 's 12 Monkeys remains one of the director's most compelling films, packed to the gills with bizarre scenery, narrative switchbacks, and fascinating performances. One of the more perplexing elements of the film is its ending, which provides a fair share of ambiguity even to viewers paying careful attention. For those confounded by the sudden delivery of the gun or the role of the scientist on the plane, let this article serve as an explanation of the time travel in 12 Monkeys and its role in this film's gripping conclusion.

What Is 12 Monkeys About?

One of the reasons that 12 Monkeys is interesting to revisit with a modern lens is its post-apocalyptic future. The film begins with James Cole ( Bruce Willis ) imprisoned in a bleak looking cell within an underground prison in the year 2035. James is forced into "volunteer duty," which requires him to brave the planet's surface. After the outbreak of a virus in 1996, living above ground is no longer safe for humankind, though it is apparently quite hospitable for fearsome creatures like bears and lions, both of which James encounters on his visit to the surface. Because of his reliability, James is chosen by a bizarre group of scientists for a special mission: he will travel back in time to the year 1996 and locate a group known as The Army of the 12 Monkeys, who are believed to be responsible for releasing the virus. The scientists' overall goal is to pinpoint the location of the virus in its purest form so that they can study a sample and thereby devise a cure for the people of 2035.

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Unfortunately for Cole the time travel device that the scientists use is a bit imprecise, resulting in him occasionally being sent to the wrong year. At one point he even finds himself in the middle of a World War I battlefield, thereby ensuring his place in history books as an example of what psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly ( Madeleine Stowe ) dubs "Cassandra syndrome," a reference to the Trojan priestess of Greek myth whose doomsaying was never taken seriously. Cole also has the habit of suddenly disappearing whenever the scientists of the future decide that he needs to return, bewildering the people of the past in the process. Cole is drugged and flung across time and space, often reducing him to a drooling, erratic mess. It should be unsurprising that, like Cole, many viewers of 12 Monkeys have struggled to keep track of what exactly happened, which events (if any) were pre-destined, and how many of these misadventures were figments of Cole's imagination.

Understanding How 12 Monkeys Ends Is All About Remembering How it Begins

In order to understand the ending of 12 Monkeys, it is important to keep Cole's dream from the beginning of the movie in mind. While asleep in his prison cell in 2035, Cole dreams of a scene at an airport in the 1990s. The dream begins with the sound of a gunshot. A young boy watches a bloodied long-haired man fall to the ground. A woman shouts, "No!" and charges toward the long-haired man, cradling him. The film cuts from a shot of the boy watching the shooting to Bruce Willis's adult Cole asleep in his cell, implying that Cole was the child in the dream and that the dream is based on his memories. Thanks to the time travel complexity in 12 Monkeys , it turns out that Cole is both the child watching the shooting at the airport and the long-haired man gunned down by airport security. In attempting to elope with Dr. Railly, his newfound lover and former psychiatrist / kidnapping victim, Cole dons a wig and Hawaiian shirt, thereby disguising himself from the police as well as the viewers, who might have otherwise recognized him in the dream at the movie's beginning. Dr. Railly is likewise wearing a blonde wig in the dream, her face only shown briefly before being partially blocked by Cole's hand. In this way Gilliam cleverly foreshadows the film's ending in a way that prevents the audience from understanding its full impact.

Even though the film forms a bit of a narrative ouroboros, there are clues that in spite of adult Cole's demise, there is still hope for ending the virus's reign of terror in the future. One of those clues comes in the form of the Astrophysicist ( Carol Florence ), one of the scientists from 2035 who appears on the plane next to the villainous Dr. Peters ( David Morse ), the virologist responsible for releasing the deadly plague. The Astrophysicist introduces herself as Jones and says that her business is "insurance." Her lack of animosity toward the man who doomed the world suggests that her presence was meant as insurance for the virus to be released. After all, the scientists' goal is not to prevent the release of the deadly virus but simply to locate a sample of its purest form so that a cure can be made for the people of the future. Though their motivation for wanting to ensure the pandemic rather than prevent it is never explained, the Astrophysicist's final scene confirms that this is indeed their goal.

When Cole and Dr. Railly arrive at the airport, their plan is to slip away together and enjoy a new romantic life. This changes when Dr. Railly spots Dr. Peters at the airport, recognizing him as both a creepy attendant of the Cassandra syndrome lecture she gave and a prominent virologist featured on the cover of a nearby USA Today newspaper. She determines that Dr. Peters is the person planning to release the deadly virus, and so she rushes to find Cole and tell him. Meanwhile, Cole has been contacted by a friend of his from the prison in 2035, Jose ( Jon Seda ), who tells Cole that the scientists want him to follow orders and outfits Cole with a handgun. Though Cole is mystified by who exactly the scientists want him to shoot, the scientists' plot becomes a bit clearer once Cole charges through airport security with a gun in his hand.

Dr. Peters makes a break for his boarding gate and Cole runs after him, aiming to kill him. Dr. Railly shouts, "No!", giving Cole pause. When he turns to look at her, he is immediately gunned down by airport security and falls bloodied to the floor while another airport visitor, young Cole, watches, thereby creating the exact situation from the dream at the beginning. If the viewer takes this sequence of events into consideration along with the Astrophysicist's mention of "insurance," it seems likely that the scientists gave Cole a gun so that Cole would be treated as a threat by security, thereby ensuring that the virus would be released worldwide. Again, the movie never explains why the scientists prefer this outcome to potentially preventing the pandemic altogether, but it makes things abundantly clear that given the choice between preventing the virus or releasing it, they desire the latter outcome at any cost.

Was the Ending of 12 Monkeys an Inescapable Fate?

Some interpretations of 12 Monkeys suggest that the events at the end of the movie were inescapable, that they were set in stone by fate and that the movie's characters could never have prevented the release of the virus. If one takes into account the Astrophysicist's mention of insurance and the fact that the scientists gave Cole the gun, one may arrive at an alternate conclusion. Had Cole and Reilly merely been fulfilling their destiny, acting as helpless pawns doomed to repeat a vicious cycle of violence and disease, the scientists never would have needed to intervene in the airport. Though it could be argued that the scientists themselves are at the mercy of fate and had no agency of their own in these matters, the fact that the Astrophysicist says she works in "insurance" suggests the exact opposite: her presence on the plane was to ensure that the virus was released worldwide whether by Dr. Peters or herself.

When Cole and Dr. Reilly decide to run away together, Cole removes some of his teeth, having been told previously that the scientists use his teeth to track him. This is confirmed when Jose appears at the airport to deliver the gun to Cole. Jose chastises Cole for removing his teeth, suggesting that the scientists had difficulty finding Cole as a result of that decision. The scientists were only able to find Cole because he called them and left a voicemail before entering airport security, a mistake that allowed them to send Jose through time to his location and outfit Cole with the weapon that would lead to Cole's death. It is evident from their behavior that the scientists believe that changing the past is possible. The unpredictability of Cole's behavior made them worry that history might be rewritten. If deviation from history was impossible, the scientists never would have needed to send anyone to ensure the virus's release, let alone send the Astrophysicist as "insurance."

In 12 Monkeys, How Does Changing the Past Impact the Future?

What is unclear in 12 Monkeys (among other things) is whether changing the past would have a direct result on the future inhabited by the scientists, i.e., following Back to the Future rules, or instead if changing the past would create a new, distinct timeline in a potentially infinite sea of parallel universes with various differentiating outcomes. As much of this movie's charm is its assortment of mysteries, misdirects, and red herrings (like the titular 12 Monkeys themselves, who turn out to be nothing more than a slapdash animal rights brigade hellbent on releasing zoo animals), it is unlikely that Gilliam wanted to make such things explicit. What is clear is that 12 Monkeys depicts a time travel cycle in which it may be possible to change the past but that the scientists are continually conspiring to ensure that things play out exactly as they wish, likely for their own benefit. That being said, if the scientists were at least honest about their end goals, it is possible that they might use their newfound knowledge to concoct a cure and save the underground people of 2035. The same cannot be said for James Cole, who is apparently doomed to be a sacrifice, at least so long as the will of the scientists is fulfilled.

Home > The Time Machine Ending Explained

• The Time Machine Ending Explained
• UPDATED: September 21, 2023

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H.G. Wells’ classic science fiction novel, The Time Machine, has captivated readers for over a century with its imaginative depiction of time travel. The story follows an unnamed protagonist known as the Time Traveller, who invents a machine that allows him to journey through time. However, the ending of the novel has left many readers puzzled and seeking clarification. In this article, we will delve into the intricacies of The Time Machine’s ending and attempt to shed some light on its meaning.

At the end of the novel, the Time Traveller returns from his final trip to the future and recounts his experiences to a group of friends. He describes how he traveled far into the future and encountered two distinct races: the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi are a peaceful, childlike species that live above ground in idyllic surroundings, while the Morlocks are a subterranean race that prey upon the Eloi.

The Time Traveller’s encounters with these two races lead him to a profound realization about humanity’s future. He comes to understand that over time, society has become divided into two distinct classes: one living a life of leisure and ignorance (the Eloi), while the other toils underground in darkness (the Morlocks). This division is a reflection of the growing disparity between social classes in Wells’ own time.

As the Time Traveller delves deeper into this dystopian future, he discovers that the Morlocks are not just predators but also caretakers for their fragile counterparts, providing them with food and shelter. This revelation challenges his initial assumptions about good and evil, forcing him to question his own biases.

In an attempt to rescue one of his Eloi companions from drowning in a river, the Time Traveller is separated from his time machine and becomes stranded in this distant future. As he struggles to survive among these warring factions, he witnesses the decline and decay of human civilization. The once-great achievements of mankind are reduced to ruins, and the future appears bleak.

Ultimately, the Time Traveller manages to retrieve his time machine and returns to his own time. However, the novel ends on an ambiguous note. He promises to return with evidence of his adventures but never does. The reader is left wondering whether he has chosen not to share his experiences or if he has met an untimely fate.

The open-ended nature of The Time Machine’s ending allows for various interpretations. Some argue that the Time Traveller’s silence suggests a sense of disillusionment with humanity’s future. Others believe that he may have chosen not to share his findings due to their disturbing nature, as they challenge conventional notions of progress and civilization.

The Time Machine serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of societal division and the potential consequences of unchecked technological advancements. It forces readers to reflect on their own society and consider the implications of their actions.

In conclusion, The Time Machine’s ending leaves much room for interpretation and contemplation. H.G. Wells masterfully crafts a story that raises thought-provoking questions about humanity’s future and the choices we make in the present. Whether one sees it as a pessimistic or hopeful ending, there is no denying the lasting impact this novel has had on science fiction literature and our collective imagination.

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• Solar Eclipse 2024

What the World Has Learned From Past Eclipses

C louds scudded over the small volcanic island of Principe, off the western coast of Africa, on the afternoon of May 29, 1919. Arthur Eddington, director of the Cambridge Observatory in the U.K., waited for the Sun to emerge. The remains of a morning thunderstorm could ruin everything.

The island was about to experience the rare and overwhelming sight of a total solar eclipse. For six minutes, the longest eclipse since 1416, the Moon would completely block the face of the Sun, pulling a curtain of darkness over a thin stripe of Earth. Eddington traveled into the eclipse path to try and prove one of the most consequential ideas of his age: Albert Einstein’s new theory of general relativity.

Eddington, a physicist, was one of the few people at the time who understood the theory, which Einstein proposed in 1915. But many other scientists were stymied by the bizarre idea that gravity is not a mutual attraction, but a warping of spacetime. Light itself would be subject to this warping, too. So an eclipse would be the best way to prove whether the theory was true, because with the Sun’s light blocked by the Moon, astronomers would be able to see whether the Sun’s gravity bent the light of distant stars behind it.

Two teams of astronomers boarded ships steaming from Liverpool, England, in March 1919 to watch the eclipse and take the measure of the stars. Eddington and his team went to Principe, and another team led by Frank Dyson of the Greenwich Observatory went to Sobral, Brazil.

Totality, the complete obscuration of the Sun, would be at 2:13 local time in Principe. Moments before the Moon slid in front of the Sun, the clouds finally began breaking up. For a moment, it was totally clear. Eddington and his group hastily captured images of a star cluster found near the Sun that day, called the Hyades, found in the constellation of Taurus. The astronomers were using the best astronomical technology of the time, photographic plates, which are large exposures taken on glass instead of film. Stars appeared on seven of the plates, and solar “prominences,” filaments of gas streaming from the Sun, appeared on others.

Eddington wanted to stay in Principe to measure the Hyades when there was no eclipse, but a ship workers’ strike made him leave early. Later, Eddington and Dyson both compared the glass plates taken during the eclipse to other glass plates captured of the Hyades in a different part of the sky, when there was no eclipse. On the images from Eddington’s and Dyson’s expeditions, the stars were not aligned. The 40-year-old Einstein was right.

“Lights All Askew In the Heavens,” the New York Times proclaimed when the scientific papers were published. The eclipse was the key to the discovery—as so many solar eclipses before and since have illuminated new findings about our universe.

To understand why Eddington and Dyson traveled such distances to watch the eclipse, we need to talk about gravity.

Since at least the days of Isaac Newton, who wrote in 1687, scientists thought gravity was a simple force of mutual attraction. Newton proposed that every object in the universe attracts every other object in the universe, and that the strength of this attraction is related to the size of the objects and the distances among them. This is mostly true, actually, but it’s a little more nuanced than that.

On much larger scales, like among black holes or galaxy clusters, Newtonian gravity falls short. It also can’t accurately account for the movement of large objects that are close together, such as how the orbit of Mercury is affected by its proximity the Sun.

Albert Einstein’s most consequential breakthrough solved these problems. General relativity holds that gravity is not really an invisible force of mutual attraction, but a distortion. Rather than some kind of mutual tug-of-war, large objects like the Sun and other stars respond relative to each other because the space they are in has been altered. Their mass is so great that they bend the fabric of space and time around themselves.

Read More: 10 Surprising Facts About the 2024 Solar Eclipse

This was a weird concept, and many scientists thought Einstein’s ideas and equations were ridiculous. But others thought it sounded reasonable. Einstein and others knew that if the theory was correct, and the fabric of reality is bending around large objects, then light itself would have to follow that bend. The light of a star in the great distance, for instance, would seem to curve around a large object in front of it, nearer to us—like our Sun. But normally, it’s impossible to study stars behind the Sun to measure this effect. Enter an eclipse.

Einstein’s theory gives an equation for how much the Sun’s gravity would displace the images of background stars. Newton’s theory predicts only half that amount of displacement.

Eddington and Dyson measured the Hyades cluster because it contains many stars; the more stars to distort, the better the comparison. Both teams of scientists encountered strange political and natural obstacles in making the discovery, which are chronicled beautifully in the book No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity , by the physicist Daniel Kennefick. But the confirmation of Einstein’s ideas was worth it. Eddington said as much in a letter to his mother: “The one good plate that I measured gave a result agreeing with Einstein,” he wrote , “and I think I have got a little confirmation from a second plate.”

The Eddington-Dyson experiments were hardly the first time scientists used eclipses to make profound new discoveries. The idea dates to the beginnings of human civilization.

Careful records of lunar and solar eclipses are one of the greatest legacies of ancient Babylon. Astronomers—or astrologers, really, but the goal was the same—were able to predict both lunar and solar eclipses with impressive accuracy. They worked out what we now call the Saros Cycle, a repeating period of 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours in which eclipses appear to repeat. One Saros cycle is equal to 223 synodic months, which is the time it takes the Moon to return to the same phase as seen from Earth. They also figured out, though may not have understood it completely, the geometry that enables eclipses to happen.

The path we trace around the Sun is called the ecliptic. Our planet’s axis is tilted with respect to the ecliptic plane, which is why we have seasons, and why the other celestial bodies seem to cross the same general path in our sky.

As the Moon goes around Earth, it, too, crosses the plane of the ecliptic twice in a year. The ascending node is where the Moon moves into the northern ecliptic. The descending node is where the Moon enters the southern ecliptic. When the Moon crosses a node, a total solar eclipse can happen. Ancient astronomers were aware of these points in the sky, and by the apex of Babylonian civilization, they were very good at predicting when eclipses would occur.

Two and a half millennia later, in 2016, astronomers used these same ancient records to measure the change in the rate at which Earth’s rotation is slowing—which is to say, the amount by which are days are lengthening, over thousands of years.

By the middle of the 19 th century, scientific discoveries came at a frenetic pace, and eclipses powered many of them. In October 1868, two astronomers, Pierre Jules César Janssen and Joseph Norman Lockyer, separately measured the colors of sunlight during a total eclipse. Each found evidence of an unknown element, indicating a new discovery: Helium, named for the Greek god of the Sun. In another eclipse in 1869, astronomers found convincing evidence of another new element, which they nicknamed coronium—before learning a few decades later that it was not a new element, but highly ionized iron, indicating that the Sun’s atmosphere is exceptionally, bizarrely hot. This oddity led to the prediction, in the 1950s, of a continual outflow that we now call the solar wind.

And during solar eclipses between 1878 and 1908, astronomers searched in vain for a proposed extra planet within the orbit of Mercury. Provisionally named Vulcan, this planet was thought to exist because Newtonian gravity could not fully describe Mercury’s strange orbit. The matter of the innermost planet’s path was settled, finally, in 1915, when Einstein used general relativity equations to explain it.

Many eclipse expeditions were intended to learn something new, or to prove an idea right—or wrong. But many of these discoveries have major practical effects on us. Understanding the Sun, and why its atmosphere gets so hot, can help us predict solar outbursts that could disrupt the power grid and communications satellites. Understanding gravity, at all scales, allows us to know and to navigate the cosmos.

GPS satellites, for instance, provide accurate measurements down to inches on Earth. Relativity equations account for the effects of the Earth’s gravity and the distances between the satellites and their receivers on the ground. Special relativity holds that the clocks on satellites, which experience weaker gravity, seem to run slower than clocks under the stronger force of gravity on Earth. From the point of view of the satellite, Earth clocks seem to run faster. We can use different satellites in different positions, and different ground stations, to accurately triangulate our positions on Earth down to inches. Without those calculations, GPS satellites would be far less precise.

This year, scientists fanned out across North America and in the skies above it will continue the legacy of eclipse science. Scientists from NASA and several universities and other research institutions will study Earth’s atmosphere; the Sun’s atmosphere; the Sun’s magnetic fields; and the Sun’s atmospheric outbursts, called coronal mass ejections.

When you look up at the Sun and Moon on the eclipse , the Moon’s day — or just observe its shadow darkening the ground beneath the clouds, which seems more likely — think about all the discoveries still yet waiting to happen, just behind the shadow of the Moon.

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The Adam Project ending, explained: What are the rules of time travel?

Ryan Reynold’s new sci-fi movie goes deep into the weeds of time travel. Let’s clear a few things up.

Time travel is a funny thing. The more you try to explain it, the more complicated it can become. This is perhaps the biggest issue in The Adam Project , a new Ryan Reynolds sci-fi adventure now streaming on Netflix that tries to bludgeon you over the head with quantum mechanics and time travel mumbo jumbo. As a result, the movie’s ending may need to be explained. Lucky for you, that’s why we’re here.

Warning! Spoilers for the ending of The Adam Project follow.

The Adam Project plot explained

The basic premise of The Adam Project is that in the not-so-distant future, time travel is discovered and the woman who discovered it (Maya Sorian, played by Catherine Keener) becomes very rich in the process. As we’re told (but never actually shown), Sorian also uses her power to make the future a terrible place. That’s where Adam (Ryan Reynolds) comes in.

Adam is a pilot for one of Sorian’s time-traveling jetplanes. He’s also the son of Sorian’s old business partner, who passed away when he was still a kid. After Adam’s wife (Laura, played by Zoe Saldana) disappears under mysterious circumstances, he travels back in time to try to save her. A lot more stuff happens, including Adam trying to help his younger self confront a school bully and even more time travel, but ultimately, they discover a few critical truths:

• Despite claiming that she wants to keep the natural timeline intact, Sorian has already traveled back in time to give her younger self stock tips and ensure she becomes rich.
• Sorian is probably responsible for the demise of Adam’s dad (played by Mark Ruffalo), who actually invented time travel.

In the end, Adam, young Adam, and Adam’s dad realize the only way to save the future is by destroying the experiment before time travel can ever exist. The only problem? This will change the future timeline, meaning Adam will never meet his wife.

While discussing this dilemma, Laura wonders if some echo of their memories can travel across timelines and bring them back together. Turns out, she was right.

The Adam Project ending explained

Adam meets his younger self in The Adam Project.

Once Adam blows up the time travel machine in the past, he and his younger self both disappear back into their correct places in this new timeline. The movie could have ended right there, but it provides audiences with two short epilogues.

First, we see young Adam give his mom a hug, confirming that the newfound empathy he picked up during this adventure carried over into the new timeline. Second, we see Adam and Laura meet again in the future. They don’t recognize each other, but they quickly strike up a flirtatious conversation. It’s almost like something intangible is drawing them together.

In the end, we get a happy ending that seems to bend the rules of The Adam Project ’s own time travel system. But then again, all the best time travel movies do.

The Adam Project is streaming now on Netflix.

• Science Fiction

Home » Endings Explained

Why the Ending of ‘The Greatest Hits’ is Wrong in So Many Ways

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS

It’s an absolute shame that the ending of The Greatest Hits is wrong. In fact, I’d argue it is morally wrong, and while Zack Snyder constantly argues for new cuts of his films, maybe there’s a case here for a rewrite and re-release. Quite simply, the conclusion to this movie unexpectedly irritated me. But to explain, I’ve detailed what the ending of this movie entails to reach a broader point.

Can Harriet Travel Back in Time?

Lucy Boynton as Harriet in The Greatest Hits (Credit – Hulu)

The obvious question that’s rife throughout the movie is whether Harriet can actually go back to the past and change things in the present. The audience never really knows whether Harriet is suffering seizures related to trauma every time she hears a song that reminds her of Max or whether the songs launch her back to a specific point in time.

She proves to David at his family’s antique store that she can change the present by going back in time. It is as if, by fate, Harriet has visited the antique store before with Max and crossed paths with David (hence why she finds David familiar). Reluctantly, David allows Harriet to test her theory; when she travels to the past, she leaves a note on an old school desk. In the present, David finds the note in the same place, which says, “Hummingbird.”

David is understandably shocked by the revelation that Harriet can time travel via specific songs and wants to find a way to save his parents. Unfortunately, as Harriet makes him aware, that’s not how it works. Only Harriet can do it, which makes the rest of the story irritating, especially with David having no choice.

How Harriet Saves Max

Harriet, played by Lucy Boynton (L), and Max, played by David Corenswet (R), in The Greatest Hits (Credit – Hulu)

And this, unfortunately, is where the story collapses entirely and spoils the good performance by Lucy Boynton. When Harriet goes back in time again, she poses a hypothetical question to Max: If not being together from when they met means Max did not die, would he still have a relationship with her? Of course, Max is stout in his answer — he confidently says he would always want to be with her. However, when the scenario is flipped, and it means Harriet is dying, he would not be with her for the sake of her living.

So, in the present day, Harriet, with David barely agreeing, decides she will save Max by changing the past. She also theorizes that it means they will not meet each other, as the timeline will be altered. They will forget each other and not have this new blossoming romance. Harriet goes back to the day she met Max at a musical festival. Instead of allowing their romance to blossom, she rejects him. 

And so, the rest of the movie is a changed timeline. Harriet does not remember David or Max in the present day. She crosses paths with Max, but he has an entirely different life. 

As the movie ends, predictably, Harriet bumps into David at a concert, and they find each other familiar. The film does not conclude what happens next, but for the sake of the audience and the hopeless romantics, we can assume they spark their romance again. They were “destined” to meet anyway, regardless of whether Max died.

The ending of The Greatest Hits is just wrong – here’s why

I probably will be accused of being a grumpy, 30-something man with this, but the ending of The Greatest Hits is wrong because this is not how life and the theory of this science work. Time travel is not meant to be a simple course correction with zero consequences. Writer and director Ned Benson is clearly one of those people who gets upset when his favorite couple does not get the ending he wants in a movie or TV show. In doing so, he decides to throw the concept of time travel out of the window for his own personal benefit.

I hate to say this, I do, but people die. It’s a part of life. It has to happen. There’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. Yet The Greatest Hits feeds into the Western taboo that we should act like death does not happen. It feeds into the idea that grief should not be healthily handled. 

Throughout the movie, Harriet struggles with her grief. She spends nights going back in time and meeting her deceased partner in the past and reliving moments with him. Knowing this is not healthy, she attends a grief counseling group. So, what’s the point of her dealing with grief if the film does not address it? Addressing it by cheating time is not a salient message at all. It’s absolute crap.

Harriet, played by Lucy Boynton (L), and David, played by Justin H. Min (R), in The Greatest Hits (Credit – Hulu)

Also, I find the entire scenario a representation of our growing narcissistic generation that believes they are privileged to do anything as long as it “feels” right, and in this case, even time travel. Harriet gives neither choice to David nor Max for the natural outcomes in life. Max doesn’t get to have his natural death, which could result in something far worse in the future, and David, who has clearly fallen in love, does not get to choose whether he continues his natural relationship with Harriet.

Harriet is the chooser of love and death — and she does so while barely caring. 

Why do you think Final Destination is a thing? Why is Walter in Fringe punished for changing the timeline by kidnapping his alternate son from another universe? Why are we not allowed to have our favorite Gamora back after she dies in Avengers: Infinity War , despite time travel in Endgame ? Why does time impact the characters and their time with their families in Interstellar ?

Because manipulating time is not meant to be natural, it’s not meant to be human. There are supposed to be consequences. Harriet has the best of both worlds: she never meets Max, so he does not die (when he was supposed to anyway), and she still manages to find David. 

It is quite possible that in the grand scheme of things, this movie will not be important, but it feels like a preview of what’s to come. When did we become so cowardly when it comes to telling stories?

I shared my thoughts on the movie overall in my review of The Greatest Hits .

Article by Daniel Hart

Daniel is the co-founder of Ready Steady Cut and has served as Editor-in-Chief since 2017. Since then, Dan has been at the top of his game by ensuring that we only produce and upload content of exceptional quality and that we’re up to date with the latest additions to the streaming and entertainment world.

All of Us Are Dead: Do Su-hyeok and Nam-ra end up together?

Spinning Out Recap: Playing The Long Game

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Your last-minute guide to Monday's total solar eclipse

A total solar eclipse will cross North America on Monday , offering millions a rare opportunity to see afternoon skies temporarily darken as the moon blocks the face of the sun.

Tune into NBC News NOW as Lester Holt hosts a two-hour special at 2 p.m. ET Monday from Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The eclipse's path fortuitously cuts across Mexico, 15 U.S. states and a small part of eastern Canada. In all other states in the continental U.S., viewers will be treated to a partial solar eclipse, with the moon appearing to take a bite out of the sun and obscuring part of its light.

Here’s everything you need to know about the rare celestial event.

What is a solar eclipse?

Solar eclipses occur when the sun, moon and Earth align. The moon passes between Earth and sun, temporarily blocking the sun’s light and casting a shadow on Earth.

A total solar eclipse is when the moon fully obscures the sun, whereas a partial solar eclipse means it blocks just a portion of the sun’s face.

Solar eclipses occur only with the new moon. Because the moon’s orbit around Earth is tilted, the three bodies don’t always line up in a way that creates an eclipse.

“Imagine if the moon’s orbit were in the plane of Earth’s orbit around the sun — if that were the case, then every new moon, you’d have a total solar eclipse and every full moon, you’d have a lunar eclipse,” Neil DeGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, told NBC News. “So, because things don’t always align, it lends to the rarity of the event and the specialness of the event.”

Where and when will the eclipse be visible?

This year’s eclipse will follow a slightly wider path over more populated areas of the continental U.S. than other total solar eclipses have in the recent past.

NASA estimates that 31.6 million people live within what’s known as the path of totality, where the total solar eclipse will be visible. An additional 150 million people live within 200 miles of the path, according to the agency.

The path travels through Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Tiny parts of Michigan and Tennessee will also be able to witness totality if conditions are clear.

After the eclipse crosses into Canada, it will pass over southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton, at the eastern end of Nova Scotia.

Those outside the path of totality can still take part in the astronomical event by viewing a partial solar eclipse — visible throughout all 48 states of the contiguous U.S. — or a NASA livestream.

The timing, including how long totality lasts, depends on the location, but some spots will see the moon fully cover the sun for up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds.

Below is a list of timings for some cities along the path of totality, as  provided by NASA . A number of other resources, including NationalEclipse.com  and  TimeandDate.com , can also help people plan.

• Dallas: Partial eclipse begins at 12:23 p.m. CT and totality at 1:40 p.m.
• Little Rock, Arkansas: Partial eclipse begins at 12:33 p.m. CT and totality at 1:51 p.m.
• Cleveland: Partial eclipse begins at 1:59 p.m. ET and totality at 3:13 p.m.
• Buffalo, New York: Partial eclipse begins at 2:04 p.m. ET and totality at 3:18 p.m.
• Lancaster, New Hampshire: Partial eclipse begins at 2:16 p.m. ET and totality at 3:27 p.m.

How to safely view a solar eclipse

It is never safe to gaze directly at the sun, even when it is partly or mostly covered by the moon. Special eclipse glasses or  pinhole projectors  are required to safely view solar eclipses and prevent eye damage. Failing to take the proper precautions can result in severe eye injury,  according to NASA .

Eclipse glasses are thousands of times darker than normal sunglasses and specially made to enable wearers to look at the sun during these kinds of celestial events.

Sky-watchers should also never view any part of the sun through binoculars, telescopes or camera lenses unless they have specific solar filters attached. Eclipse glasses should not be used with these devices, as they will not provide adequate protection.

However, during the few minutes of totality, when the moon is fully blocking the sun, it is safe to look with the naked eye.

Beware of fake eclipse glasses. On legitimate pairs, the lenses should have a silver appearance on the front and be black on the inside. The manufacturer’s name and address should be clearly labeled, and they should not be torn or punctured. Check, as well, for the ISO logo and the code “IS 12312-2” printed on the inside.

If you don’t have eclipse glasses, you can make a homemade pinhole projector, which lets sunlight in through a small hole, focuses it and projects it onto a piece of paper, wall or other surface to create an image of the sun that is safe to look at. 

All you need is two pieces of white cardboard or plain white paper, aluminum foil and a pin or thumbtack. Cut a 1- to 2-inch square or rectangle out of the center of a piece of white paper or cardboard. Tape aluminum foil over that cut-out shape, then use a pin or thumbtack to poke a tiny hole in the foil.

During the eclipse, place a second piece of white paper or cardboard on the ground as a screen and hold the projector with the foil facing up and your back to the sun. Adjusting how far you hold the projector from the second piece of paper will alter the size of the image on the makeshift screen.

What to look for while viewing the total solar eclipse

For people along the path of totality, there are some fun milestones to keep track of as the total solar eclipse unfolds.

As the eclipse progresses and the sun gets thinner in the sky, it will start to get eerily dark, according to Tyson.

When the last beams of sunlight are about to become obscured, look out for the “diamond ring effect”: The sun’s atmosphere will appear as an illuminated halo, and the last light still visible will look like the diamond of a giant ring.

As the sunlight decreases even further, an effect known as Baily’s beads will be created by the moon’s rugged terrain. Tiny “beads” of light will be visible for only a few seconds around the dark moon, as the last bits of sunlight peer through the moon’s mountains and valleys.

When the moon is fully blocking the sun, it is safe to remove eclipse glasses and look at the total solar eclipse with the naked eye.

Some lucky sky-watchers may even catch a glimpse of a comet .

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks — nicknamed the “ devil comet ” because an eruption last year left it with two distinct trails of gas and ice in the shape of devil horns — is currently visible from the Northern Hemisphere as it swings through the inner solar system.

The comet can be seen in the early evenings by gazing toward the west-northwest horizon. During the eclipse, when skies darken during totality, it may be possible to see the comet near Jupiter, but its visibility will depend on whether it’s in the middle of an outburst and thus brighter than normal.

Most likely, all eyes will be on the alignment of the moon and sun.

“Most people won’t even notice,” Tyson said. “But if you know to look, it’s there.”

When is the next solar eclipse?

The next total solar eclipse will be in 2026, but it will mostly pass over the Arctic Ocean, with some visibility in Greenland, Iceland, Portugal and northern Spain. In 2027, a total solar eclipse will be visible in Spain and a swath of northern Africa.

The next total solar eclipse visible from North America will be in 2033, but only over Alaska. Then in 2044, a total solar eclipse will cross Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, parts of Canada and Greenland.

The next total solar eclipse to cross the continental U.S. coast-to-coast in will occur in 2045. The path of totality for that eclipse will cut through California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on general science and climate change.

Lucas Thompson is a content producer for the NBC News Climate Unit.

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The Life of O.J. Simpson: A Timeline

He was a football star, actor, commercial pitchman, and a defendant in a gruesome double murder whose trial gripped the nation.

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By Victor Mather

O.J. Simpson, who died on Wednesday at 76 , lived a life that made him one of the most famous people in America, as well as, at various times, the most celebrated and most reviled.

A Heisman Trophy winner when he played football at the University of Southern California, he reached superstar status as a running back with the Buffalo Bills. As a commercial pitchman and a Hollywood actor, he became a household name across much of America.

But fame turned to infamy when he was charged in the 1994 double murder of his former wife and her friend. He was acquitted after a trial that riveted the nation.

Here is a look at a man who never seemed to stop making news, for good and ill.

Heisman Trophy Winner

Mr. Simpson, who was born in San Francisco in 1947, first came to the attention of many Americans as a football star at the University of Southern California. In his two years playing for the Trojans, he was the game’s best running back, and tallied 33 touchdowns.

As a junior in 1967, he was the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy as the college game’s best player, then won the award in 1968, his second and final year at U.S.C.

Professional Stardom

Mr. Simpson was drafted first overall by the Buffalo Bills in 1969, and by his fourth season he was a superstar. In 1973, he ran for 2,003 yards , which stood as a record for more than a decade, and won the N.F.L.’s Most Valuable Player Award; he was in the Top 5 in M.V.P. voting three other times as well.

He became known as the Juice, and his talent and likability propelled him to even greater notoriety. His on-field accomplishments and fame were all the more impressive given that he seldom played for good teams; his only playoff game, a loss, came in 1974.

He retired in 1979 after playing his final two seasons for the San Francisco 49ers.

Even those who knew little about football got to know the Juice as he began appearing in television advertisements, notably a series of ads for Hertz starting in 1975, in which he dashed through airports on his way to get his rental car. “Nobody has more of what it takes to rent you a Fairmont, Mustang, LTD or other fine car faster,” he said in one ad .

He also tried his hand at announcing, including a stretch from 1983 to 1985 on “Monday Night Football.”

Hollywood Calls

Mr. Simpson began appearing in television and movie roles even as his football career continued, including some big budget projects like “The Towering Inferno” in 1974, in which he played the building’s chief of security, and the blockbuster mini-series “Roots” in 1977.

His biggest success, though, came in the three “Naked Gun” films, in which he played Detective Nordberg. In a running series of gags, Nordberg was continuously injured, often in scenes played for broad laughs. In one particularly memorable scene , at the end of the first film, Nordberg is seen flying down stadium steps in a wheelchair before being catapulted off a ledge and flipping into the air.

Divorce and Reports of Abuse

The prosecution in Mr. Simpson’s murder trial said he abused his second wife , Nicole Brown Simpson, whom he married in 1985, throughout their relationship.

The abuse left Ms. Simpson bruised and terrified, but the police rarely took substantive action. After one call to the authorities, on New Year’s Day, 1989, officers found her badly beaten and half-naked, hiding in the bushes outside their home. “He’s going to kill me!” she sobbed. Mr. Simpson pleaded no contest to a charge of spousal abuse ; he was sentenced to probation and community service, and was ordered to pay a fine.

The confrontations continued after the couple divorced in 1992. On Oct. 25, 1993, Ms. Simpson called the police again. “He’s back,” she told a 911 operator, and officers once more intervened.

June 12, 1994

Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman Are Murdered

Ms. Simpson and her friend Ronald L Goldman, were stabbed to death at her home in Los Angeles on June 12, 1994.

Mr. Simpson was questioned and charged with murder. But he did not turn himself in initially. Instead, five days after the killings, he led the police on a bizarre, hourslong low-speed chase in a white 1993 Ford Bronco driven by his friend and former teammate Al Cowlings. The chase was shown live on nearly every television network, even pre-empting the N.B.A. Finals.

‘The Trial of the Century’

Mr. Simpson’s trial lasted for nine months and gripped the nation for all that time. Multiple television networks broadcast the trial every day, and minor figures, like Kato Kaelin, who was staying in Mr. Simpson’s guesthouse at the time of the killings, became celebrities.

In one of the most riveting moments, Mr. Simpson was asked to try on bloody gloves found at the crime scene. Mr. Simpson claimed the gloves were too tight; his lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. alluded to this in his closing argument, saying, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

The verdict, despite significant DNA and other evidence, was not guilty on both counts. The result divided Americans: A majority felt it was a miscarriage of justice and continued to assume that Mr. Simpson was guilty, while some, including many Black Americans, believed the verdict to be justified.

Civil Judgment

After the acquittal, the parents of Ms. Simpson and Mr. Goldman filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Mr. Simpson. The jury found Mr. Simpson liable and ordered him to pay more than $30 million.

But Mr. Simpson said that his no longer having acting and endorsement work meant he was broke. The families ultimately received only a small fraction of the judgment.

Theft Charges and Prison

Mr. Simpson and several other men entered a hotel room in Las Vegas in 2007; Mr. Simpson claimed they were seeking sports memorabilia that had been stolen from him. A gun was brandished.

Mr. Simpson was arrested and in 2008 and was found guilty of armed robbery and kidnapping. He was released on parole in 2017 after serving nine years of a 33-year sentence.

Release and Later Life

Upon his release from prison in 2017, Mr. Simpson settled in Florida and led what was, for him, a relatively low-key life. He played a lot of golf and posted videos regularly on Twitter, generally opening with “It’s me, yours truly,” offering thoughts on professional sports and frequently urging his 800,000 followers to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

In his final post , on Feb. 11, Mr. Simpson, as usual looking relaxed, spoke optimistically about his health and incorrectly predicted that the 49ers would win the Super Bowl.

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article referred incorrectly to a glove that was an important piece of evidence in Mr. Simpson’s murder trial. It was not a golf glove.

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Victor Mather covers sports as well as breaking news for The Times. More about Victor Mather

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‘The Greatest Hits’ Ending Explained: What Is the Missing Song?

Where to stream:.

• The Greatest Hits
• lucy boynton

‘The Greatest Hits’ Proves How Difficult It Is to Make a Great Movie about Music Fandom

Stream it or skip it: ‘the greatest hits’ on hulu, a high-concept sci-fi romance starring lucy boynton as a very sad time traveler, when will ‘the greatest hits’ movie be on hulu how to stream the lucy boynton movie, is ‘chevalier’ based on a true story.

The Greatest Hits on Hulu—which began streaming today— is a movie with a fascinating concept. Many of us have experienced a pang of nostalgia or been reminded of a memory when we hear a certain song. The Greatest Hits takes that a step further. What if certain songs could literally pull you back into the past?

That’s the conundrum faced by the protagonist of The Greatest Hits , a woman who finds herself time-traveling into her past to visit her now-dead boyfriend. Written and directed by Ned Benson ( The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby ), the movie stars American-English actor Lucy Boynton, who you may know from her roles in 2016’s Sing Street and 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody .

But though the initial concept of The Greatest Hits is fascinating, the actual execution of the plot is a bit murky. Time travel plots are notoriously confusing, after all. If you got lost along the way, don’t worry: Decider is here to help. Read on for an analysis of The Greatest Hit s plot summary and The Greatest Hits ending explained, including what the missing song in The Greatest Hits movie is.

The Greatest Hits movie plot summary:

We meet Harriet (Lucy Boynton) on the two-year anniversary of the death of her boyfriend, Max (David Corenswet). Harriet loves music and worked as a music producer before Max died in a fatal car crash. Since Max’s death, Harriet has discovered that certain songs cause her to literally time travel back to a time in her relationship with Max when they first heard the song together. But no matter how many times Harriet puts on the song that was playing on the day of the car crash, and travels back to that moment, she can’t convince Max to pull over the car to prevent the crash.

Because Harriet can’t control when she might hear a song that pulls her into the past, she wears earplugs and headphones when she’s out in public. She’s also searching for a specific “missing song” that she can’t remember the name of, but she believes it will take her back to the exact right time to prevent the car crash and save Max. Her best friend Morris (Austin Crute) urges her to let go of the past and live in the present, but Harriet can’t… until she meets a new guy named David (Justin H. Min).

Harriet meets David at a grief support group. David recently lost both of his parents. Despite his sister’s pleas to sell, David is determined to keep running his parents’ antique shop as a way to keep their memory alive. When they meet, David is immediately enamored with Harriet and asks her out on a date. They have a nice time, even though David thinks it’s a little weird that Harriet keeps her headphones on the entire time for a “medical condition,” and that she runs out on him when she hears a song that pulls her into the past. Nevertheless, Harriet tries to make the new relationship work.

After David witnesses Harriet pass out from a time-travel spell, she tries to explain her situation. He doesn’t believe her. Later, when David brings Harriet to his parents’ antique shop, she realizes she’s been there before. She rifles through his parents’ old records until she finds an album cover she recognizes, and realizes it’s the “missing song.” She promises David she will be able to prove to him that the time travel is real, and asks him where the best hiding spot in the shop is. He tells her that it’s an old school desk.

What is the missing song in The Greatest Hits movie?

Harriet puts on the song—Mozart’s Fantasia in D Minor—and travels back to a day when she visited the antique shop with Max. It’s the day of the car crash, when Max bought a chair from the antique shop, and it’s the moment when Harriet believes she can save his life. But no matter what Harriet says to Max, she can’t convince him not to buy the chair. She gives up and decides to use her remaining time—the length of the song—writing a note to David. She leaves the note in the school desk, and returns to the present-day. Present-day David finds the note, and finally believes Harriet.

David and Harriet continue to try to have a normal relationship. But after Harriet is thrust into the past yet again—courtesy of that infamous earworm jingle for “Kars 4 Kids”—she realizes she can’t spend the rest of her life this way. So she comes up with a plan.

The Greatest Hits ending explained:

As Harriet explains to David, she can’t seem to change anyone else’s behavior when she time travels—but she can change her own behavior. She decided to travel back to the day she first met Max at a music festival, and make the decision that will cause her to never have a relationship with him. This also means that she might never meet David, too. Before she goes, she and David promise to look for each other in the new timeline.

Harriet travels back in time to the music festival where she first met Max, and this time, she declines to follow him into the crowd. As a result, she and Max never date. We flash forward to the present day in the new timeline, where it’s revealed that Harriet seems to remember nothing from her other life. She sees Max in a coffee shop with another woman but does not recognize him. In the final scene of the movie, Harriet ends up standing next to David at a concert. Although they don’t remember their other life together, both of them seem to experience a spark of recognition. Or maybe it’s just interest.

Either way, the movie ends with the implication that although it won’t be the same story, Harriet and David have found each other and will be together in this timeline. So there you have it! Everything that you watched on screen was undone in the last ten minutes of the film. It’s bittersweet, to say the least. It’s not explained whether David’s parents still die, and if they do, whether he is still able to let go of the antique shop and move on from their deaths—a realization that Harriet’s struggle with grief helped him achieve. It’s a teensy bit of a plot hole!

But at least Harriet won’t have to spend the rest of her life being literally yanked into the past by music. That’s good!

• Ending Explained

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Middle East crisis — explained

The conflict between Israel and Palestinians — and other groups in the Middle East — goes back decades. These stories provide context for current developments and the history that led up to them.

Israel shoots down missiles and drones after Iran launches unprecedented attack

Becky Sullivan

Israeli Iron Dome air defense systems launch to intercept missiles fired from Iran, in central Israel on Sunday. Tomer Neuberg/AP hide caption

Israeli Iron Dome air defense systems launch to intercept missiles fired from Iran, in central Israel on Sunday.

Booms and air raid sirens sounded across Israel and the occupied West Bank early Sunday morning, after Iran launched dozens of drones and missiles toward Israel, in an attack that marked a major escalation of conflict in the Middle East.

In Washington, President Joe Biden said U.S. forces had helped Israel down "nearly all" the drones and missiles, and pledged to convene allies to develop a unified response.

Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Iran fired more than 300 projectiles at Israel overnight, 99% of which were shot down, the "vast majority". Officials reported minor damage to a military base in southern Israel and one injury to a 10-year-old child, who was reported to be in critical condition.

"We will do everything we need, everything, to defend the state of Israel," Hagari said. He added that some of the launches came from Iraq and Yemen.

How Iran and Israel became archenemies

The Israeli War Cabinet planned to meet at lunchtime. In a statement Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. does "not seek escalation" of the conflict.

G7 leaders are meeting on Sunday afternoon to coordinate on a diplomatic response to Iran's attack, and engage with officials across the Middle East. The United Nations Security Council is is also set to meet, after Israel requested the council condemn Iran's attack, and designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.

Iran had vowed to retaliate after an airstrike on an Iranian consulate in Syria earlier this month killed seven Iranian military officials . It is the first time that Iran has launched an attack on Israel from Iranian soil, Israeli officials said.

U.S. forces in the region were active in shooting down drones, a U.S. defense official said. And interceptions by Israel's anti-missile defense system lit up the skies over populous areas including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

The Israeli emergency medical service Magen David Adom reported that a 10-year-old child had been struck in the head by shrapnel in the area of Arad, a town near the southwestern edge of the Dead Sea. Paramedics also treated about 20 people who suffered from anxiety or minor injuries experienced while seeking shelter, the service said.

Saturday's attack, which was first announced by Israeli officials around 4 p.m. ET, was staged in waves and took hours to reach Israel, officials said.

In a statement broadcast on Iranian state television, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps described the attack as a "large-scale military operation" against multiple targets inside Israel.

In a post on the social media site X, Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations wrote that the attack was a direct response to the strike on the consulate and that "the matter can be deemed concluded."

Iranian commandos seize an Israeli-linked container ship near Strait of Hormuz

Following Tehran's overnight drone and missile attack on Sunday, Iran warned Israel of a larger attack on its territory should it retaliate, adding that Washington has been warned not to back Israeli military action.

"Our response will be much larger than tonight's military action if Israel retaliates against Iran," armed forces chief of staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri told state TV, adding that Tehran warned Washington that any backing of Israeli retaliation would result in U.S. bases being targeted.

The U.S. military was directly involved in the response, a senior U.S. defense official said. "In accordance with our ironclad commitment to Israel's security, U.S. forces in the region continue to shoot down Iranian-launched drones targeting Israel. Our forces remain postured to provide additional defensive support and to protect U.S. forces operating in the region," the official said.

Israelis were urged to take shelter

This video grab from AFPTV taken on Sunday shows explosions lighting up Jerusalem's sky during an Iranian attack on Israel. AFPTV/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

This video grab from AFPTV taken on Sunday shows explosions lighting up Jerusalem's sky during an Iranian attack on Israel.

Officials in Israel had explicitly urged residents of Nevatim, Dimona and Eilat — three cities in Israel's Negev desert region — and people in the northern occupied Golan Heights to take shelter. A major Israeli air base is located near Nevatim, and an Israeli nuclear research facility is located in Dimona.

Airspace over Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon was closed late Saturday, while some airlines announced the cancellation of some flights and the re-routing of others due to the attacks. Israel and Jordan reopened their airspace on Sunday morning.

Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant group, said that it had staged its own attack by launching dozens of rockets toward an Israeli military base in the Golan early Sunday.

In a Saturday night address to Israelis, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country was ready for "any scenario, both defensively and offensively."

"We have determined a clear principle: Whoever harms us, we will harm them. We will defend ourselves against any threat and will do so level-headedly and with determination," Netanyahu said.

After striking throughout the Middle East, Iran's proxies now become the targets

President Biden monitored the attack from the Situation Room alongside top defense and diplomatic officials. In anticipation of the attack, he had cut short a trip to Delaware in order to return to the White House.

Afterward, he spoke with Netanyahu and said Israel had "demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks – sending a clear message to its foes that they cannot effectively threaten the security of Israel."

"At my direction, to support the defense of Israel, the U.S. military moved aircraft and ballistic missile defense destroyers to the region over the course of the past week" the president said. "Thanks to these deployments and the extraordinary skill of our servicemembers, we helped Israel take down nearly all of the incoming drones and missiles."

Iran blames Israel for an earlier attack on its consulate

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks on March 1 in Tehran, Iran. Iran vowed to respond after an attack on an Iranian consulate in Syria. Majid Saeedi/Getty Images hide caption

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks on March 1 in Tehran, Iran. Iran vowed to respond after an attack on an Iranian consulate in Syria.

The attack on Israel comes four days after Iran's leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed retaliation for an April 1 strike on an Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Iran said the strike killed seven members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, including two generals, and it blamed Israel for the attack. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied being behind the attack, though the Pentagon said Israel was responsible.

By Saturday, as anticipation had grown over a possible retaliation, Israeli officials warned residents living in communities near Gaza and the Lebanon border to limit the size of gatherings and to work indoors or within reach of a shelter. Schools across Israel were closed through Monday.

Iranian officials accuse Israel of a deadly attack on Iran's consulate in Syria

U.S. defense officials told NPR Saturday that the U.S. military had moved assets around the region in anticipation of an attack, including aircraft, and had shored up defensive positions for forces in the region. The top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, Gen. Michael Kurilla, arrived in Israel Thursday to coordinate with the Israeli military.

In a post on Telegram on Sunday, Hamas expressed support for Iran's attack, calling it a "natural right" and a deserved response to the Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria this month. The militant group called on Arab and Islamic nations to continue their backing in its fight against Israel, according to the Washington Post.

Also on Sunday, a statement by Israel's intelligence agency Mossad announced that Hamas had rejected the latest hostage deal outline, which would have led to a six week pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas. They blamed the lapse in negotiations directly on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

The attack is a large escalation of hostilities in the region

The strike and retaliation represent an escalation of conflict in the region that many officials worldwide had expressed worry about ever since the outbreak of war between Israel and the Gaza-based militant group Hamas on Oct. 7, the day Hamas led an attack on Israel that left some 1,200 people dead.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Saturday that he condemned Iran's attack and was "deeply alarmed about the very real danger of a devastating region-wide escalation."

Egypt's foreign affairs ministry called Iran's attack a "dangerous escalation" and in a Saturday night statement urged "the exercise of the utmost restraint to spare the region and its people further factors of instability and tension." Jordan's Prime Minister said on Sunday any escalation in the region would lead to "dangerous paths", while United Arab Emirates foreign ministry called for the exercise of the utmost restraint to avoid dangerous repercussions.

Iran has long supplied Hamas with funds and weapons . The White House has not directly linked Iran to the Oct. 7 attack.

In the six months since Oct. 7, Israel has bombarded Gaza and conducted a devastating ground invasion that has left much of the territory in ruins and more than 33,000 Palestinians dead, according to Palestinian health officials.

The last time Iran launched a similar attack was in 2020 , when it fired ballistic missiles at the Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq, wounding dozens of U.S. troops, in retaliation for the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani by a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.

Additional reporting by NPR's Daniel Estrin and NPR's Carrie Kahn in Tel Aviv, NPR's Tom Bowman in Washington, D.C., and NPR's Jane Arraf in Amman. Alon Avital and Itay Stern contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.