Headscratchers / 11/22/63

• What happens if two people go through the rabbit hole at the same time? Or, even scarier, what happens if someone goes through in the two-minute span before the first "rabbit" comes back?
  • Couple of possibilities with the second question. First, its possible that the 'reset' can't happen until the first "rabbit" returns. So for instance if Al goes back to 1960 (or 1958 as in the book) and stays there till, say 1962 from his perspective, and Jake decides to go back as well before Al returns, Jake may end up in 1962, at the exact moment Al is at from his perspective. Granted this raises questions about the passage of time in the past vis a vi the present. Alternatively, in the book, there's some talk about how each trip creates a new 'string' or alternate timeline. So maybe each of them end up in their respective alternate timelines?

• Can somebody from the past jump through the rabbit hole and end up in the present? If that person resets the past, do they disappear?
  • Unknown. Jake certainly thinks Sadie can come back with him to the future but we never get to find out if that can happen. Maybe someone from the past can only go to the future if accompanied by a time-traveler from the future (if at all it even is possible for someone from the past to go to the future)? Hypothetically, if that person did reset the past, its possible that he/she might become severed from their original timeline and now be treated as a time-traveler to the future...in which case resetting the past has created an alternate timeline and an alternate version of themselves. So, for instance, if Sadie went with Jake back to the future from 1963, and then went through the rabbit hole again, she'd end up in 1960 and see a younger alternate version of herself in the car (going by the show, not sure about the book), but she herself would be unaffected.

• If somebody goes back in time, waits 50 years until that timeline passes the original timeline they were in, then goes back through the rabbit hole, do they still end up two minutes in the original timeline's future, effectively meaning they traveled to the past twice. If so, does that mean that the older version can meet their younger selves at the exact moment they come out of the rabbit hole? What happens if they reset this? Does the traveler forget the encounter they had with their older self because it never happened? What is happening to my brain!?
  • Its possible that once the traveler lives out his/her life in the past till after the point when they originally went through the rabbit hole, then the hole itself 'resets' for them, since they're now no longer 'time travelling' as such, and functions as it originally did. To illustrate - let's suppose Jake lived out his life in the past until 2016 (2011 in the book). Once he reaches passes the point in time when he originally went through, the rabbit hole ceases to be a path to the future. So if Old!Jake were to go through it again, he would simply end up back in 1960 'resetting' the past again and erasing the timeline where he lived 50 years (which would be kinda tragic).
  • If the mill no longer exists, how are you supposed to go back through it? Al's diner would be in the way,

• So how did time travel cause earthquakes?
  • Gravity is a distortion of the spacetime continuum by mass. Altering time would alter the spacetime continuum and ultimately affect how gravity works, which might cause earthquakes.
  • There are some hints that time is "alive" in some way; at very least, something seems to be actively intervening to try and prevent Jake from making any drastic changes to the timeline. The earthquakes, then, are presumably a symptom of the damage Jake has done to time.
• Why did Jake feel the need to change his name to George Amberson in the past? Since he hadn't been born yet, there was no risk of anyone figuring out who he really was or that something strange was going on even if he used his real name.
  • In the book Al sets up a lot of George Amberson's identity before he even asks Jake. He had Jake in mind but didn't know he'd do it, and George Amberson's a real guy - Al saw it on a gravestone and wrote off to get the real birth certificate to bring to Jake. Far easier than forging a certificate in 1958.

• How did Al's scheme to make money by buying meat from 1958 and selling it cheaply uptime work? It's not like cash from 1958 and earlier is super common these days, and most change from that era was 90% silver. Did he spend days scrounging for pennies and nickels from 1958 and earlier for every trip, or what?
  • Al's small fortune from gambling in the past is one of the very first things established. All he would have had to do is scrounge up a few bucks for his first bet, take those winnings for a bigger bet, and in a few short days he could have a significant pile of time-appropriate cash.