19Mar/106
Time Machine
by Jeff
Image text: We never see any time travelers because they all discover it's a huge mistake. This is also why your friend at the lab suddenly looked about a year older recently.
So, future Rob travels back in time to kill past Rob to prevent him from inventing the time machine, which we see in the image text is a bad idea. Then future Rob assumes Rob's identity and preventing the time machine from being invented at all.
But, wouldn't future Rob cease to exist if he prevented the time machine from being invented?
March 19th, 2010
Perhaps it’s a paradox free time code?
March 20th, 2010
maybe future rob did cease to exist. Present Rob now has amnesia. The bat was found in present rob’s time thus it still exists, same with present rob’s blood.
March 20th, 2010
It could be set from a multiple reality universe, in which case the future belonging to future Rob is still real but the past he went too is that of a different Rob (in which case the universe referred to in the image text [our universe] is the one in which all time travellers arrive in order not to be in their futures). Alternatively a second after the final frame reality ceases to exist, result.
March 21st, 2010
This is an obvious reference to the film “Primer” also featured in http://xkcd.com/657/ . I am surprised nobody on explainxkcd has realized it yet.
[5d6a096c093704b95475d137263b48e54ecd902e]
March 22nd, 2010
the comment “you’re about to have an idea about a time machine” means that rob is continuing to develop the time machine, but that the present Rob was stuck and the future Rob needed to take his place in order to insure that the time machine was built correctly.
March 24th, 2010
OK, I see how it is. . .there’s no love for my Futurama reference?