clipped from: qntm.org   

Modelling time travel in fiction


Here I go with every model of time travel I can think of.


Time travel is impossible


Fixed History model


The timeline is preserved through dumb luck


The timeline is actively protected by an intelligence of some kind


The timeline is preserved by quantum


Time travel isn't always possible


Malleable History model


Sensitive History model


Pause for thought: Why single-modifiable-history models don't work


Multiple History model


Time loops


Two histories create each other


More imaginative structures


Helix


Two timelines going past each other in opposite directions


One timeline, which suddenly reverses direction