I think a better choice of wording would have been, “I can’t think of any way to explain this scientifically.”

@TexasUberAlles  
Why so and how are you thanking me?

@Ihhh  
Well, that supports my side more than his, so… thanks?

@Eeveeinheat  
@TexasUberAlles
 
MST3K mantra

@Eeveeinheat  
That’s not how I see it. The way I see it, she has high book smarts but low street smarts.

@Eeveeinheat  
it isn’t a forgotten art if it is IN A LIBRARY  
That library… wasn’t exactly Golden Oaks.  
 
The simplest and most obvious solutions are usually the correct ones, and in this case, the simple equation “SSTB fangirl Twilight didn’t know there was a time travel spell” + “the spell itself was locked up in the royal palace” equals the obvious, “time travel is a closely guarded secret technique”.

@TexasUberAlles  

 
You still fail to realize that it isn’t a forgotten art if it is IN A LIBRARY. Star Swirl’s magic is published in his own wing with many of his spells, and is complete enough for someone to be able to cast it. That is not lost research, that is complete instructions. It’s like the troupe that ancient is somehow better, which in this case makes no sense.
 
I really don’t like playing the “it’s fiction” card, but sometimes you need to step back and realize that the show is just that; a TV show. It sometimes has no logical reasoning for the character’s actions, and the world building makes zero sense. I doubt the writers of a children’s TV show cares about making it realistic. They cant weave a perfectly logical background for everything, and I doubt they even bother, because why would they?

@Eeveeinheat  
So, you argue in my favor with this analogy  
How much would the average person know about H-bombs if Hahn and Strassmann had decided to bury their research on atomic fission– or had published a paper declaring it an impossibility– and World War II had instead ended in a joint US/Soviet invasion of Japan? Once the genie is out of the bottle, sure, people know about it– kinda hard to ignore a city reduced to flaming rubble by one bomb– but if the one guy who discovers that genies are real neglects to tell anyone that they can only be summoned with a specific chant, they’re going to be considered an impossible fantasy by the scientific community.

Screw scientifically correct, Twi. You know magic is the master race.

@TexasUberAlles  

Yet, nuclear physicists know how to build one in theory, and the average joy understand that it is possible, heck the average joy almost worships the idea. So, you argue in my favor with this analogy.
 
@TexasUberAlles  

 
And that is exactly the reason why it doesn’t make sense for Twilight not to know about it. She is a huge fan of Star Swirl, so she should know about something that is so intrinsic to how the universe works. Honestly, the fact that time travel exists should be in magic 101. This is like someone taking an astrophysics course and not learning about time dilation. She would have found it in the library beforehand after learning about it in basic magic theory or something, which means the writers didn’t think when writing the episode. Sometimes that is the simplest explanation. You don’t have to make up excuses for them.

@Eeveeinheat  

 
Except Twilight doesn’t know time travel spells exist until she’s told about them by her future self (which, amusingly enough, makes that reveal a causal loop). And later, when she goes to break in and look at them, she points out that, quote, “Time spells are kept in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing, the most secure section of the archives”. All of which suggests that, yes, it actually is kind of hidden knowledge.
 
It’s also not to hard to imagine why these things would be kept from the general public. Even when it was just a spell that could only take a pony back a week or so for a few minutes, it was potentially dangerous. Twilight unintentionally drove herself crazy for several days at the mere thought that her trip was some kind of warning. Better still, look at the season 5 finale. A single sufficiently skilled magic user was able to alter the spell and, in the process, nearly wiped out everything that had ever been. Changing one event in the past unraveled an entire tapestry woven by the lives of not just Twilight and her friends, but everyone they ever met, helped or interacted with.
 
But even without those examples, on a philosophical level, this spell is likely a temptation too dangerous for most to handle. After all, who wouldn’t want a chance to alter every situation to their advantage, to make every decision the right one? Yet we forget sometimes that the most profound lessons we learn come from when we make mistakes. We overlook that our inability to reverse the flow of events means we have to make our decisions and actions count. Letting this spell out, even with the best of intentions, would lead to a world where life is lived looking back. Where decisions have no consequences, choices don’t matter, and there is no incentive to ever improve.
 
And lest we forget, this spell was created by the same mind that pioneered destiny alteration and almost left Twilight’s friends trapped in roles unsuited to their true selves. Given that kind of legacy, I’m surprised any of his studies were made common knowledge, and not locked away in a vault somewhere.

@Eeveeinheat  
You would think something as fundamental to the universe as time travel to the past being allowed would be common knowledge  
What would lead you think that, though? Practical time travel had never been mentioned in the series before, and Luna Eclipsed– also written by Larson– established Twilight as a Star Swirl The Bearded fangirl, so if time travel spells were all that common it stands to reason that she would have found them in the SSTB Wing by that point. It seems more likely to me that either time travel magic is so theoretically difficult that only SSTB had practically figured it out– and thus it was generally regarded as “impossible” by students of magic– or that SSTB deliberately made it out to be that difficult in order to minimize the chances of somepony else studying it far enough to make it work. It may also be a matter of some specific detail needing to be exactly perfect for it to work properly, and anyone who doesn’t know that detail is SOL; that’s why only five Human nations have working thermonuclear devices, even though the basic technology is now public knowledge.

@TexasUberAlles  
Very true. However, she should have known that time travel was possible if a unicorn 1,000 years ago knew that. Heck, the spell is in the castle library, so that means the scientists in Equestria know time travel is possible, so therefore she would know. It’s not like it’s hidden knowledge. You would think something as fundamental to the universe as time travel to the past being allowed would be common knowledge, or failing that common across the scientific community, but nooooo! It’s a case of the writers being dumb, which consequentially makes Twilight seem dumb.

@dekutree64  
Yes. Twilight isn’t actually that smart. Well, sometimes she is and sometimes she isn’t. The writers are really inconsistent with her character. Sometimes she is a genius, but other times she doesn’t know something that she should if she was well read like she claims to be.

I have always hated that line. The fact that the writers made her say that line when it obviously was possible really ticked me off. This is why I refuse to think of Twilight as a scientist. She is well read, but other than that she has barely any problem solving or creativity skills. Also, she must not be well read enough, because the fact that a time travel spell has existed for over a thousand years, yet she said it was impossible, says that she doesn’t know much about anything important. Especially a spell that was made by her ‘hero’.

It’s like poetry. They rhyme.

@Zahnrad  
So then… Twilight was wrong about science?

@Zahnrad  

 
Hasbro =/= the showrunners.

@dekutree64  
Science normally supports that kind of thing actually.

Science was wrong.

@DrakeyC  
Do you really believe Hasbro would set up something like that? Because I sure don’t.

@Zahnrad  

 
How do you know it all hasn’t been planned?

@FanOfMostEverything  
Well…Yeah.
 
Going by your wording, that’s exactly true.