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In speculative fiction, time travel refers to any ability or mechanism by which characters may journey into the past or future.

Paranormal

Time travel has been proposed as an explanation for UFOs (they are time travellers from our future). Spontaneous, unintentional trips through time (Time Slips) have been reported. Some people have claimed to be able to intentionally travel through time (physically or otherwise), and have even produced photographs to back up their claims.

Paradoxes

Many time travel stories center around the paradoxes that could be created by altering the flow of events. The stereotypical example of this is often called the "Grandfather Paradox": if a person were to travel into the past and kill his (or her) grandfather before he had any children, would that person cease to exist? And if that person does cease to exist, how could he ever travel into the past to kill his grandfather?

Examples

Literature

• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain (1889)
• The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (1895, expanding from his earlier magazine serial The Chronic Argonauts 1888)

Film

• The Time Machine (note several remakes of this work, based on the Wells novel)
• Back to the Future (including two sequels)
• Time After Time
• Timeline
• Star Trek: First Contact
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
• The Final Countdown
• The Butterfly Effect
• Donnie Darko
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Television

TV series based on time travel

• Doctor Who
• It's About Time
• Life on Mars
• Phil of the Future
• Quantum Leap
• The Time Tunnel
• Time Trax
• Seven Days
• Timecop

Episodes featuring time travel in other TV series

• Star Trek:
  • "The City on the Edge of Forever"
  • "All Our Yesterdays"
• Star Trek: The Next Generation:
  • "All Good Things..."
  • "Yesterday's Enterprise"
  • "Time's Arrow (Parts I and II)"
  • "Cause and Effect"
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
  • "Trials and Tribble-ations"
  • "Past Tense (Parts 1 and 2)"
• Babylon 5:
  • "Babylon Squared"
• Star Trek: Voyager:
  • "Futures End (Parts 1 and 2)"
  • "Timeless"
  • "Engame (Parts 1 and 2)"
• Stargate SG-1:
  • "2010"
  • "1969"
  • "Moebius (Parts 1 and 2)"

Games

Related Terms and Articles

• Time Slip (unintentional time travel)
• Time Loop: A period of time that repeats itself over and over
• Precognition: Knowledge of the future
• Retrocognition: Paranormal knowledge of the past

To see specific information, such as individual movies and books, please click the Time Travel category link at the bottom of this article. To see other articles that reference time travel, please click the What Links Here tool in the toolbox at the bottom of this page.

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It's usually best to give a very general overview to a story first, then plot details. When including the plot or essential details in your article (which could ruin the pleasure of discovery for some readers), it is important to include the spoiler tag before any give-away material.

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It's usually best to give a very general overview to a story first, then plot details. When including the plot or essential details in your article (which could ruin the pleasure of discovery for some readers), it is important to include the spoiler tag before any give-away material.

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