Time travel is one of science fiction’s favorite tropes of all time. The ability to go fix the mistakes of the past or see the wonders of the future has inspired hundreds of novels, movies, TV shows, and who knows what else. A fresh study by scientists at the University of Queensland, Australia, posits that not only is time travel theoretically possible, it could be paradox-free.
By the study Germain Tobar, there are some high mathematics-based issues when it comes to time travel. These problems are grounded in to prevailing theories physics has about our universe – classical dynamics and Einstein’s famous theory of relativity. “Classical dynamics says if you know the state of a system at a particular time, this can tell us the entire history of the system,” explains Tobar. “For example, if I know the current position and velocity of an object falling under the force of gravity, I can calculate where it will be at any time.”
A paradox is what happens when you go to change something in the past. However, changing that thing would remove the reason you ever went back in time. “Say you travelled in time, in an attempt to stop COVID-19’s patient zero from being exposed to the virus,” says Tobar. “However, if you stopped that individual from becoming infected, that would eliminate the motivation for you to go back and stop the pandemic in the first place.” The possibility of time paradoxes is a logical flaw that some physicists say proves that time travel is impossible. Others say that you might be able to go back to the past, but you’d be unable to do anything that would cause a paradox in the future.
“The math checks out – and the results are the stuff of science fiction”. The work he’s carried out shows that events would adjust themselves to be “logically consistent” with any action a time traveler would make, preventing paradoxes from occurring. “In the coronavirus patient zero example, you might try and stop patient zero from becoming infected, but in doing so you would catch the virus and become patient zero, or someone else would”.
“No matter what you did, the salient events would just recalibrate around you. This would mean that – no matter your actions – the pandemic would occur, giving your younger self the motivation to go back and stop it.” In essence, that means time travel with free will is logically possible.
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