On Some Paradoxes of Chrono Trigger
By Sam Alexander
Herein the author brings to light several paradoxes and discusses them.
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1. The Magic Grass Paradox
When Frog (Glenn) uses MasaMune to slice open the Magic Cave (600 a.d.), carefully observe the patch of ground revealed which was covered by the sheer cliff. Shouldn't it be rocky and scratched and scuffled? The grass there is uniform to the grass elsewhere. This doesn't make sense. Even if magically the grass lived forever, wouldn't it at least have distinguishable bend marks?
A wild theory could be that the grass has Lifeline cast on it... but this is not very stable theory. Or another theory is that the grass, while under the cliff, was curved in a way which wount counteract the force exerted by the cliff being thrust open, to wit, leaving it standing straight after the Magic cave opened. But wait, a man in a tavern said he saw the cave open and a troop of ghouls run in, so this implies if this curve theory is true, then the grass must be pushed back into place when the cave closes again. Now, assume this theory, and assume the ground is slanted. Then a simple principle of physics (see "Mathematics In Western Culture" by Morris Kline, page 436) tells us that because of the slant, more force is exerted one way than the other, where by way I mean either the opening or the closing of the Magic Cave. But by this, we see that the afore-mentioned curve of the grass cannot entirely be revived by the closing of the cave, so we have derived a contradiction, whence our initial assumption of the ground being slanted must be false, whence THE GROUND IS TOTALLY STRAIGHT. However, it is well known to any relativity theorist that there are in fact no straight lines in the universe, so we have a contradiction, whence the whole theory of the "magic" grass being curved is wrong.
Having thus discussed these theories, I propose a problem to the community of Chrono Trigger researchers:
Problem: To accurately explain the strange properties (mentioned above) of the grass at the Magic Cave.
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2. The conservation of energy theorem
The phycisist/mathematician Bernoulli has demonstrated what is now called the Conservation of Energy Theorem, which states that there is always exactly the same amount of energy. No energy is created and none is destroyed.
Further, the well known physicist A.Einstein showed that energy is mass times the square of lightspeed (in a vacuum), to wit, E=mc2. In otherwords, mass is energy. Now consider Marle's body: it is mass and thus energy; when it time travels from 1000 a.d. circa to 600 a.d. circa, the energy which is the mass of Marle is thus *destroyed* in 1000 a.d. and *created* in 600 a.d., and a similar argument holds for EVERY instance of time travel in the game. This contradicts the Conservation of Energy Theorem. Can anyone adequately explain this inconsistancy?
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3. The Center of the Universe.
When the man in Zeal said that Zeal Palace was the center of the universe, the author immediately thought it was just arrogance on the Zealan's behalf. However, upon further meditation, I have realized it isn't so ridiculous. Let me explain why.
In theory, the Epoch time travels across *time* but not *space*, for example if you are directly over Guardia castle in 600 a.d. and time travel to 1000 a.d. you will still be over Guardia castle. Assume, then, that Terra (the planet in CT) orbits some spacial body or collection thereof. Thus Terra is constantly in motion at a rate which is astoundingly large (as any astronomer will assure you); indeed, in the 400 years which pass from the time 600 a.d. circa to 1000 a.d. circa, Terra would have moved quite a considerable distance, and the chances are extremely slim that it will end up at the same position around the sun (or whatever it orbits) as it was at 600 a.d.; so, after travelling through time, Epoch would thus appear IN EMPTY SPACE in Terra's footsteps, so to say. Thus our heroes would die of asphyxiation in approximately 30 seconds. You might say that by coincidence Terra DOES end up at the same place at 1000 a.d. as it was at 600 a.d., but if you then conjecture the same coincidence for all other ordered time period pairs (62mil b.c. to 12k b.c., 600a.d. to 2300 a.d., etc.) then the chances of your assertion are exceedingly small. Thus it is safe to say that sooner or later Epoch would land in empty space. Clearly, this never happens. It seems, therefor, that Terra does not move whatsoever.
However, when Red Star hit Terra in 62mil b.c., it inevitably exerted some force on Terra, and Newton's 2nd Law of Motion tells us that Terra must therefor move in a straight line in the direction of the force thus exerted, until hit by some other force. This immediately brings thousands of questions to mind. Was there some other meteor that hit Terra to reverse the motion of Red Star? If so, it would have to exert the same amount of force as Red Star and thus be relatively the same size... does this imply that there were TWO RED STARS?? read: TWO LAVOS'S. I will let the reader consider the implications.
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The author can be contacted at mainnight@aol.com.
Sam Alexander.