I just figured out that time travel is impossible.

When Homer Simpson traveled back in time he wisely remembered back to the advice his father game him on his wedding day: “If you ever travel back in time, don’t step on anything.” But the fact of the matter is, Grandpa was wrong. If you travel back in time you can do anything you want and nothing would change.

Here’s the thing, time is linear, which means that there is only one time-line for which said time-traveler to travel. So if he wants to go back and stop the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, any interference he would cause wouldn’t be interference at all but rather the exact reason the event happened in the first place. Because we know the assassination has already taken place, this proves that any attempt to stop it would not only be futile, but could actually be the reason for its existence. So since we know that Lincoln was assassinated, it’s best to just let time be so not to have the kind of guilt that comes with the assisted murder of our greatest president. The only way changing history through time travel would make sense is if we’re talking about multi-dimensional time travel which, pft, come on, is quite silly.

And movies screw this up all the time. Marty McFly almost ceases to be when he accidentally gets in the middle of his own parents meeting (and the idea that him and his siblings would slowly fade away is ridiculous. If it were possible to screw up the past and if Marty really did jeopardize his existence, then he would disappear the moment he got in the way! Jeez!). Luckily for Marty, he is able to get his parents back together and save himself despite screwing a few things up in the process. As a result, some things do change. But how come Marty is the only one who remembers? When he gets back from the past, he remembers how crappy everything was, but how come his parents don’t? Why aren’t the McFly’s curious as to why they’re loaded all of a sudden? And how come Biff isn’t confused at his newfound lack of self-worth and dignity? The answer is because you can’t change the past.

So this also means that time travel will never exist. It will never exist because we would have heard about it by now. Someone, somewhere would have traveled back in time and let him or herself be known by now. Unless Van Damme is on the job, time-copping it.