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Feb 2022 - "The Theory and Practice of Time Travel: A Syllabus" by David DeGraff
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I found this vaguely amusing, but the syllabus fails to justify the existence of the class in my opinion. Also, there seems to be an odd contradiction: at the beginning it says "This is my last time teaching this class" and later it says "I really want to keep teaching this class, so be safe." I suppose it could be justified by saying it's only a partially updated syllabus, but that seems like lazy writing to me.
Ryan wrote: "I found this vaguely amusing, but the syllabus fails to justify the existence of the class in my opinion. Also, there seems to be an odd contradiction: at the beginning it says "This is my last tim..."Since it involves time travel it may be the last time chronologically he teaches the class but intends to continue teaching it in the past.
Fun story. I liked the reference to "- All you Zombies -", my favorite time travel story.
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I didn't notice that! But if you take the class, you'll see that you will learn to "Be able to resolve paradoxes…"
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I really hate stories that take time-travel paradoxes seriously. But it is okay when a story approaches it with humor.
I wouldn't vote for this as story of the year for Hugo's or whatever, but I still like it. My favorite story of the year was, however, present in that same issue of the magazine. It is fantasy, not SF, so I can't talk about it here!
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Jim wrote: ""The Theory and Practice of Time Travel: A Syllabus" by David DeGraff is our short story this month courtesy of Ed. It's short & fun. It also introduced me to an online magazine, the Translunar Tra..."I actually read this long before it was published on my special Kindle with time machine app.
Jim wrote: "Since it involves time travel it may be the last time chronologically he teaches the class but intends to continue teaching it in the past."This explanation doesn't satisfy me because of the distinction of Personal (Proper) Time in the syllabus. It is written in such a way that there is a pretty clear linear structure of time with respect to the professor. And I think every time travel book I've ever read has a consistent timeline for the characters who travel in time.
I agree with Ryan that the "last" vs "continue" paradox doesn't appear to have a satisfying resolution. In contrast it was quite fun to think about the explicit naming of students in the "Classroom Behavior" section. I enjoyed the idea of a class that has both latin and calculus as prerequisites - can that be said to apply to any university classes these days?
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Or it could be a mistake.
Ryan wrote: "Jim wrote: "Since it involves time travel it may be the last time chronologically he teaches the class but intends to continue teaching it in the past."This explanation doesn't satisfy me because..."
I guess I need to brush up on theory. Has anybody been able to locate a copy of "Time Travel for Dummies"?
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Yes! It is available for free on Kindle Unlimited.
Time Travel For Dummies: Beyond the manual guide you're on your own!
Wow! Thanks. I didn't think it really existed. Unfortunately when I looked at the description it wasn't what I expected. I was looking for a typical "for dummies" book that would explain the theory in simple terms for us dummies and show me how to build a time machine. I already have "FTL For Dummies" but haven't gotten very far yet.
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"It is the first [SF novel] to focus on two nerds growing up in 1980's rode island"
I don't know what "rode island" is, but I don't really want to know.
I had a good time reading this piece. I might have even enjoyed it in another time.
Read it yesterday, totally worth the journey! Do I get at least a B+ for effort? :D
Katie wrote: "Read it yesterday, totally worth the journey! Do I get at least a B+ for effort? :D"Given that the day before yesterday
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