I’m a sucker for Time Travel films, even the ones that are poorly done. Of all the Sci-Fi sub-genres, it’s my favorite, and includes the best film of all-time: Back to the future.
But not all time travel films are the same. There are those dealing with alternate timelines. Others tackle different paradoxes, the most famous of them being the grandfather paradox. Others are all about escaping a time loop which is reliving the same day over and over again.
Maybe the most famous of the cinematic time travel tropes: The time traveler goes back in time and kills his own grandfather. As a result, the time traveler is never born. But, if he were never born, then he would be unable to travel through time and kill his grandfather, which means the traveler would then be born after all — but then, if he were born, he would be able to travel through time and kill his grandfather. In Back to the Future, travelling back to 1955 causes Marty to interfere with his parents’ meeting, and then races to rectify the mistake before he’s erased from existence. But… if he is erased from existence, then he never would have traveled back in time and interfered with his parents’ first meeting, and thus would have been born after all.
In the film Deja Vu there’s a perfect example of the alternate timeline facet of Time Travel in films. Someone affects the events of the past, creating an alternate timeline where his/hers present never occurred, or has been altered.
In this paradox, the protagonist travels back in time and starts a chain of events that underpin their own present, which is pretty much a chicken-and-egg scenario, with a loop sequence that doesn’t actually have a beginning. Interstellar is an excellent example of this paradox.
There are a few different kinds of time loops in film: In films like Edge of Tomorrow, Groundhog Day and Source Code, he same time loop is formed multiple times. The time period repeats over and over again, trapping the protagonist until he does it the “right” way.
In Looper and Frequency, it’s a one-and-done loop. It’s formed and then the timeline continues. In the lesser known Triangle, Timecrimes and The Route V50 there are multiple time loops overlapping each other.
The time slip is a little more subtle than the previous methods, as the protagonist or time traveller isn’t aware he has just made the change. Midnight in Paris is a fine example of this trope, as the time travel occurence isn’t explained. Unlike a lot of other films with this “time trick”, the character isn’t stranded in the new “time” he encountered but moves back and forth between “worlds”.
A scenario where, through time travel, a future event is the cause of an earlier (past). The paradox usually involves the creation or transfer of an object, an idea, or information.
For more on time travel, check out these “actual” cases of time travel, or our ranking of the best films in this category.
If you can believe it, today marks the 25th anniversary of Adobe Photoshop. This photo retouching and enhancement application has been part of my daily routine for at least 20 of those years, so it’s definitely had its impact on my work and creative life. I think I’ve spent more time in Photoshop than just about any other application I’ve ever used – though Chrome (and Firefox before that) might come in a close second.
To celebrate the big anniversary, Adobe has shared a variety of historical images, including classic icons, box shots, splash screens and a timeline of the evolution of Photoshop. I particularly enjoyed looking at the evolution of the main Photoshop toolbar:
Scroll down to check out more memories from this game-changing application…
The timeline below is pretty fascinating too, though it seems to skip over versions 4 through 5.5 for some reason. I seem rop recall using 5.5 for quite some time. Here’s a high-resolution PDF of the timeline you can download too.
Congratulations, Adobe! I wonder where the next 25 years will take our images.
If you can believe it, today marks the 25th anniversary of Adobe Photoshop. This photo retouching and enhancement application has been part of my daily routine for at least 20 of those years, so it’s definitely had its impact on my work and creative life. I think I’ve spent more time in Photoshop than just about any other application I’ve ever used – though Chrome (and Firefox before that) might come in a close second.
To celebrate the big anniversary, Adobe has shared a variety of historical images, including classic icons, box shots, splash screens and a timeline of the evolution of Photoshop. I particularly enjoyed looking at the evolution of the main Photoshop toolbar:
Scroll down to check out more memories from this game-changing application…
The timeline below is pretty fascinating too, though it seems to skip over versions 4 through 5.5 for some reason. I seem rop recall using 5.5 for quite some time. Here’s a high-resolution PDF of the timeline you can download too.
Congratulations, Adobe! I wonder where the next 25 years will take our images.
Ivy Bridge, Intel's first generation of chips to use the 22nm fabrication process, is hardly out of the gate, and yet talk has already turned to the company's next manufacturing technologies. According to Xbit Labs, which got its hands on some telltale slides, Paul Otellini et al. have the roadmap for 10nm, 7nm and 5nm processes locked down, and the company is preparing fabs in the states and Ireland to make chips using the 14nm fabrication method. Given that timeframe, Intel says 10nm chips will ship in 2015, with work on 5nm technology beginning that same year. While the slides in question look legit -- and that timeline matches previous reports -- we're not sure just when these mystery slides first made the rounds. Alas, we'll have a good few years to sort 5nm fact from fiction.
Intel sets sights on 5nm chip; already gearing up fabs for 14nm production originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 May 2012 10:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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