Ultraviolet on 11/1/2007 at 21:51

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Star Trek II/IV Time Travelling Glasses Paradox

In Star Trek II, as a birthday present, McCoy gives Kirk a pair of glasses that we find were made in the 18th century. In Star Trek IV, Kirk sells that pair of glasses, with the lenses broken, to an antique dealer in the late 20th century on Earth. Spock advises that Kirk is selling a birthday present, and Kirk comments that the beauty of it is that they will be a gift again.

This is either poor thinking on Kirk's part, or a paradox. The glasses themselves, when Kirk recieves them in Star Trek II, have presumably not been involved in time travel. They are chronologically aged from the point they were made to the point when Kirk recieves them. Does Kirk know that that particular antique shop passes the glasses down the line to the time when they come to be in McCoy's hands as a gift to Kirk, or did they come to be given to Kirk originally by some other means?

I don't think that the glasses could have originally come to be in Kirk's hands through the process by which Kirk sold them in the past at an antique shop because of difficulties placing a true local chronological age on the glasses. The glasses themselves, if put through this time travelling loop, could concievably be of infinite or unquantifiable age by the time Kirk recieves them in Star Trek II. Glasses are originally manufactured, bought and sold various times, and find themselves with Kirk; Kirk sells glasses in the past, they are bought and sold various times, and find themselves with Kirk -- though the glasses were made in the 1700s, they did not exist solely through 1700-2300, but in addition experienced 2000-2300 again, enduring for nine centuries, not six. This presumes that time only loops the once. However, nothing done in the past prevented the alien whale-probe from arriving again in the future, thus making infinite loops necessary if Earth is to be saved. Kirk selling his glasses to the man who eventually is responsible to giving them to Kirk in the first place can't be explained by current physics because it requires a single object to behave in a way that physics can't explain, in a way that is impossible by our current model.

It is also unlikely that Kirk gets the glasses originally through other means, because that would mean there would be an exact copy (plus some age, depending on how many times the glasses have been through the time travel loop) in the universe from the point where Kirk brings them back to Earth's past. In fact, since the loop is required to repeat infinitely in order for Earth to be saved, there would be an infinite number of copies of the glasses in the universe, thus giving the universe infinite mass (but only from the point of the glasses' arrival in the past on?).

Of course, being fiction, it's more of a thought experiment. I wonder if infinite mass would explain things like the big bang, though, or if the requirement of looping keeps the universe from drifting apart and cooling down. Though we've observed the cooling, I wonder if it's just a change in the weather.

There's my naieve TV physics session of the day.

Fringe on 12/1/2007 at 00:09

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Thank you for your quick action--the Internets have been alerted. Please stand by while we deal with the problem.

Gorgonseye on 12/1/2007 at 00:21

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Star Trek sucks anyway.....

Edit: Why do you even care in the first place?

Raven on 12/1/2007 at 00:37

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god your concepts of time are so limited. don't you realise that there is no direction in time just the illusion of our perceptions - that and kirk's response to spoke was a joke.

Pyrian on 12/1/2007 at 00:59

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I'll believe that when the laws of thermodynamics are broken. I'm not holding my breath.