Midwestern Gothic

If you’ve been reading this blog (regularly or intermittently) since at least December 15, you’ve noticed that the show Quantum Leap has come up for discussion. In this discussion, Rob and I debated the merits and shortcomings of Quantum Leap and The Pretender. Over here, Rob and Ryan created a tournament bracket of time travel shows (hey guys, where’s round two?) in which Quantum Leap easily defeated Sliders. Needless to say, we love the show.

But certain details have recently been uncovered that have, quite frankly, shaken my confidence in the show. The other day, Rob and I were discussing what actually happened when Sam Becket leaped from body to body. More importantly, what happened during the first leap? Did only his mind leave the project or did his entire body disappear upon entering the leap chamber? Well, Rob directed me to the wikipedia entry for the show which states:

In early episodes, it was unclear whether Sam’s mind was leaping into other people’s bodies, or whether his mind and body leaped together. Later episodes make it clear, however, that Sam’s entire body has traveled through time, and that ‘the illusion of [his host’s] physical aura’ surrounds him, making him look and sound like that person to whomever he interacts with in the past (conversely, Sam’s counterpart in the future is surrounded by a similar aura, and looks/sounds, to people at the project, like Sam).

Well, this answers one of the more important and general questions of the show, but it only raises more specific and (I think) very critical issues. First, what is this about Sam’s counterpart in the future looking and sounding like Sam? That would imply that this counterpart was talking to the people in the project. If that’s the case, it appears that this person is fully aware that he has been transported to some scientific lab in the future. So what happens when that person returns to his actual place in the past? Wouldn’t he retain the memory of having just traveled through time to the future and back again? After all, Sam retains the memory of his leaps. This person would most likely do the same. And upon returning, that person would have quite a tale to tell.

The second and much more critical issue has to deal with sex. If both Sam’s mind and body travel through time, that means that Sam’s genetic material travels with him. If the only thing that remains of the host is the illusion of an aura, then that implies that Sam’s genetic material has completely replaced the host’s genetic material. So what, you say? Well, what happens if Sam has sex with a female during one of his leaps and she becomes pregnant? She might think she’s having the baby of someone in the past, but that child is going to carry Sam’s DNA. That’s going to make for one awkward birth when the child emerges with physical features other than the host’s. But even more importantly, what happens if Sam impregnates someone in the past prior to the date he was actually born? In the dimension of time, Sam doesn’t exist at that moment. And yet, there’s the chance he could pass his DNA (which should not yet exist) on to someone else. This is huge!

Now, I am not a physicist so there’s much I don’t understand about space-time and relativity. And if Sam were aware of these issues, I’m sure he attempted to avoid copulation at all costs. And if you’ve been watching Lost, you heard Daniel’s explanation that time can be imagined as a string on which people can move forwards and backwards. They cannot, however, change the events on that continuum and create a separate branch of that string. This would imply that, according to linear space-time theories, it would simply be impossible for Sam to pass on his DNA before it actually existed. But that doesn’t settle the supposition that Sam could pass on his DNA once it existed. He could create a child during a leap if that leap was to a time after his actual birth.

So there you have it. Why am I getting so worked up over unanswered questions and possibilities from a fictional television show that ended in 1993? Because that’s what we do here.

By Matt
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