A prodigious University of Queensland undergraduate student has indicated that it is possible for a paradoxical free time travel. He determined this by using theoretical physics combined with mathematical models.
Germain Tobar, Fourth-year Bachelor of Advanced Science (Honours), has been doing his time travel research under the supervision of UQ physicist Dr. Fabio Costa.
Tobar set out to square both the physics of classical dynamics, which states that it is possible to know the entire history of a system if you know its state at a particular, and the Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which paints a possibility of the existence of time loops which allows matter to be both in the future and the past. To date, the two physics theories have been contradictory to each other, but Tobar’s indicated that he had managed to square the two theories.
Paradox-free time travel
Tobar said that a unified theory between traditional dynamics and theory of relativity offered the clearest path to understanding the universe’s most basic and underlying laws. However, Tobar continued, both theories cannot be true at the same time.
This motivated the student to come up with a way to square the numbers. Costa said that these calculations proposed by Tobar would have fascinating consequences for science, saying that the math checked out and the results are stuff that is only imagined in the realm of science fiction.
Dr. Costa described a situation where an individual travels through time to stop COVID-19 patient zero from being infected by the virus. This would mean that the time traveler would successfully prevent the world from ever suffering from the current pandemic. However, Dr. Costa indicated that stopping this individual from becoming infected would negate the need for time traveling in the first place, creating a paradox. This paradox is one of the reasons why the possibility of time travel seems impossible, according to Dr. Costa.
The debate on what a successful time travel would entail has always divided scientists. Paradox-free time travel would affect the traveler’s ability to make arbitrary decisions. This would mean trying as much as possible not to make a decision that would cause a paradox.
However, Dr. Costa and Tobar’s research would eliminate the need for these cautions for time travelers. The argued that events would be able to realign themselves and produce an exactly similar fate as the one that would have caused a paradox.
For the example of patient zero and the coronavirus, Tobar said that by stopping this patient, in the new system, it would mean that the time traveler would now become patient zero and set in motion the pandemic exactly has it has unfolded.
Tobar said that no matter what the time traveler did, the salient events would just recalibrate around them, causing no change to the course of history and hence creating zero paradoxies. He continued by indicating that no matter how much the time travel tried to create a paradox, the event would realign perfectly to paint a future that existed before time travelers’ conscious actions meant to trigger paradoxies.
The research was published in Classical and Quantum Gravity.
Featured image by Pixabay
