The grandfather paradox.

The grandfather paradox is a logic problem that leads us to the conclusion that time travel is impossible. The first to raise the paradox was the French science fiction writer René Barjavel in his novel “The Reckless Traveler” by 1943. In science documentaries they usually tell you that the grandfather paradox is based on the assumption that the character makes a trip through time to kill his father's biological father, that is, his grandfather, before he meets his grandmother and in this way the birth of the Time Traveler is avoided, but if this were possible where did the time traveler who killed his grandfather come from and here we are in the paradox. This is the explanation that you may have heard in numerous documentaries and in some films, but it is not like that, that was not what René Barjavel proposed in his novel. In reality, the documentaries tell a synthesized version without any logic. Why is the time traveler going to go to the past to kill his grandfather, what has his grandfather done to him, it doesn't make sense, plus you can disappear if you kill your grandfather. The reality that René Barjavel proposed in his book is that the protagonist travels to the past, but not to kill his grandfather and whoever dies is not technically his grandfather, so I am going to tell you why I think it is worth it in a way. Summarized, obviously, the true story of the grandfather paradox as posed by its author, because it is interesting and it is also a European science fiction story, I say this because in recent years it seems that non-Anglo-Saxon European culture is disappearing , As happened to the protagonist of this story, this story is quite interesting but I only found one movie, if it had been an Anglo-Saxon novel I'm sure it would have had tons and television series.

The novel itself may seem a little old-fashioned to us, but you already know that myths, good stories have updates, if we now take the original Superman Batman they would seem a little old and outdated, but obviously those characters have had updates, renewals and are In our current culture, however, non-Anglo-Saxon culture, that is, French, Spanish, German, Italian, etc., non-Anglo-Saxon European culture is sadly disappearing, so I I am going to tell the true story of the Reckless Traveler, which is how the novel was titled. The true story of the grandfather paradox, this story begins in France in the winter of 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II, our protagonist is the young mathematician Pierre Saint-Menoux who has been mobilized and his troop arrives by chance. to the town where the scientist Noel lives with his daughter, a girl named Anette, the troop looks for accommodation to spend the night where most of them can find a mattress factory, so well they were lucky, it's not bad, but our protagonist has a better plan , It is the house of a scientist, who lives in that town and whom I had previously met by letter. There the scientist says that the work of the young mathematician had served as inspiration for his great dream, to travel in time, this detail is very important and he had managed to create a substance called noelite, the scientist had created some pills, black ones and other red ones, the black one led to the past and the red one to the future, that same night they did a test that was a success, the bad thing is that the pills are very limited, they only work for short trips of 15 to 30 minutes.

The war ended quickly for France, the Nazi German offensive began on May 10, 1940 and France surrendered in just 6 weeks unfortunately, it was tremendous, this is not a novel, this is real, this is the Real part of the story that takes up this novel, the protagonist is dedicated to teaching mathematics classes at an institute, a poorly paid job that bores her, but meanwhile she continues writing with this scientist, this elderly scientist who, by the way, is paralyzed, has problems, has to ride in a chair wheels.

The scientist manages to perfect his invention and in the end creates a special green suit that allows him to make trips to distant points in time, it would no longer be minutes but years or centuries in fact, both travel to the future because the scientist is very interested in the future. in the middle of the 21st century and they see a planet devastated by a war that seems like a real premonition of a nuclear apocalypse. Remember that the novel was written in 1942 and the development of atomic weapons, although they were already underway at that time, was a secret. military, no one knew.

The novel reflects that a world devastated by a brutal and catastrophic war, they also travel further to a future 100,000 years where humans have evolved like ants, without freedom, without individualism, they are born with specialized forms to carry out specific jobs in the world. human anthill, in those trips the scientist dies in an accident but our protagonist Pierre returns to the moment before the accident and saves his life, which produces the first paradox, he was dead a moment ago and suddenly he manages to be alive again at home with his daughter Anette. The old scientist is not feeling well in that state, he goes into depression and dies naturally after a few weeks, so Pierre stays with his daughter Anette, because both of them were also in love, although this story is from 1942, do not think that The daughter is a simple vase girl who is there to be saved by the Hero, not here she puts on the suit, she also travels in time and even for other reasons, she even manages to save the boy when he was trapped in the past for a moment. for a pretty bad thing she did, but she is an action girl she is an action character, it seems that action women action heroines had been invented in recent years and did not already exist in the years 40 and before.

The couple lives together, but they are doing poorly financially, being a teacher is not well paid, neither in 1942, nor now, so Pierre has a plan, he decides to travel about 50 years in the past and dedicate himself to stealing jewels since with the suit he can appear and disappear in fact as he can do this appear and disappear whenever he wants, he does not worry about the robberies he does it in front of people and sometimes in a somewhat spectacular way, this means that he becomes famous and in his time books begin to appear out of nowhere about the adventures of the green demon, a spectacular thief who existed 50 years before Pierre existed.

This seems amazing to Pierre that suddenly books appear that for him did not exist just a few minutes ago, before making the trip in time and he begins to realize that changing the past has consequences, this is important because he begins to hatch a plan. much more complex, he then decides to do something big, change the past to avoid the entire chain of wars that Europe experienced and also to avoid that horrifying war that destroyed the world they had seen in the middle of the 20th century and perhaps also prevent humanity becomes a anthill

So the first thing he decided was to travel to the city of Toulon in 1793 not to kill his grandfather but to kill Napoleon Bonaparte, who at that time was a young officer, he had not yet achieved his first important merit, it was precisely in the city. of Toulon but when he shoots this officer crosses him and kills him by mistake and it turns out that the officer who kills by mistake is an ancestor of Pierre, so Pierre kills by mistake not his grandfather, but rather his great-great-grandfather, the effect the thing is When his ancestor Pierre dies, he fades from existence and with him everything he did and all the memories he left in others. In fact, the final scene is the scientist who is not dead since, since Pierre did not exist, he could not have access to the mathematical knowledge to create time travel and therefore he could not suffer the accident that killed him or that led him to a fatal depression and at his side is Anette who does not remember anything about her lover and who never met him, the only thing that Anette knows that that night in which we see this The scene had woken up altered since in her dreams she had heard a desperate scream but she did not know from whom. This is the true story of the grandfather paradox, altering the past brings consequences and these could be your own destruction, although if the consequences of an alteration destroy you before you are even born how could you travel to the past and create the alteration.