2011年6月28日星期二

Time Travel Paradox

The famous paradox about time travel is "if I change something if I go back in time, what would happen in the future when I get back". Stephen Hawkin's one is more interesting --- if I go back in time and kill my parents, then I will never be born, then I can't kill my parents...

These all seem to be paradoxes, but it can be solved if the MANY WORLD Theory is true. Many world theory suggest that the possibility wave function doesn't collapse into a straight line, but rather separate into multiple lines that co-exists ---- each possibility create a separate and parallel universe.

So, I will use a diagram:
So let's use it to solve the paradox. Suppose the reality now is reality 1 on the very left, now you go back in time. If time is a single line, it is much easier, but it's a web, you go back to an intersection of a web. When we time travel, we go back to where event A is. We know to get to our reality, Event B1 must happen, so suppose you changed something, so that Event B1 didn't happen. Since there are infinitely many other possibilities, for simplicity, and without loss of generality, we assume Event B2 happened. Well, that leads to another universe for that time. So what ever happened that caused reality 1 will not be changed at all, nothing happend in YOUR future, but rather a parallel future.

Using Hawkin's example, suppose I went back and, since I am not very violent, kidnapped one of my parent so they never met. Then if I were to travel "back" to the future, I would still exist ---- but with no identity because I came from a different universe. I can still "kidnap" my parents before I was born because they are not REALLY my parents until I am born. Hence, the paradox is not so paradox after all.

Now, another question comes up ---- when you travel "back" to the future, which future are you in? I assumed you will be in the future where Event B1 fails, but is it really?

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