 Upon investigating the case, the duo discover an increasingly bizarre series of events that leads Mulder to believe time travel is involved.Gordon and Greenwalt wrote the episode after being inspired by an article in "Scientific American" about time travel and quantum physics.The idea of a scientist trying to stop the invention of something terrible was inspired by Manhattan Project physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who complained to Harry S. Truman about the 1945 atomic bombings of Japan.