eighty eight miles per hour

[gfish]

Today's stupid question: Is the 88 mph trigger for Back to the Future time travel a fundamental part of the process, or is it just an arbitrary limit so that you don't casually violate causality?

I've always assumed it was arbitrary, just another quirky design choice like using a DeLorean in the first place. But then why didn't the Doc bypass it when timing was so critical (in the first movie) or achieving that speed was so difficult (in the third). Maybe ¹⁹⁵⁵Doc couldn't understand the circuitry and ¹⁹⁸⁵Doc in 1885 didn't have the tools. But... it would just be a switch connected to the speedometer. ¹⁹⁵⁵Doc should be able to figure that out. Marty should be able to.

It doesn't make much sense as a fundamental limit to flux capacitoring, though...

Comments

[dbcooper.livejournal.com]

That makes sense to me. I would guess he probably discovered through trial and error early on that he needed to be moving for any flux to be capacitated at all (!), and then discovered that the Flux Capacitor would only open a time aperture at or above 88 mph (142 km/h).

Of course, in our world, the reason a time traveler using a Flux Capacitor-based time machine would have to reach 88 mph is to make it look cooler on screen. Also, severe tire wear is apparently part of the process, making a DeLorean less than ideal, since it can only carry one full-size spare in its default configuration. I would have used a Volvo XC60 crossover, but they didn't have them in 1985.