X-Message-Number: 22185
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 04:24:58 -0700
From: Edgar Swank <>
Subject: Time Travel Paradoxes

Mike Perry wrote in Msg #22183 Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 22:42:24:

>>As for the usual paradox of killing your grandfather etc., the latest answer
>>I read is that you just can't.
> 
> How much *can* you do, and does this qualify as time travel?


I have my own ideas about paradoxes, based on the many-worlds interpretation of
quantum mechanics. This accounts for the observed phenomena of wavelike 
interference patterns in light going through a slit while light is also 

definitely made of particles that appear in a definite place, and do not spread
out like waves.

Basicly, for every quantum event that can have multiple outcomes, all multiple 
outcomes occur, each in its own universe or timeline. So as we go forward in 

time, we have a lot of branching out and creation of new universes, which have a
common past, but diverging futures.

Time travel into the past would certanly be a big event, creating a lot of new 
timelines. The result of killing your grandfather, for example, would be that 

you would observe that your grandfather stayed dead, and you would not be born.
But this isn't your universe any more and you stay alive also.


There is supposedly no communication possible between timelines (except for the
interesting interference patterns observed in light), so a brave cryonaut on a 
time travel rescue mission would never be able to return to his own timeline 
(universe). But from the point of view of the rescued person, he doesn't care 
which future he exists in, as long as he's alive!


Even if travel between timelines proves possible, the cryonaut would have a hell
of a time finding and even recognizing the one he came from, among a lot of 
close matches.


Perhaps we can solve this problem by sending intelligent robots back as 
rescuers.


Note that I don't claim to be an expert in quantum mechanics, so give me a break
if some of this is not exactly matching the latest theories.
-- 
Edgar W. Swank   <>
Edgar W. Swank   <>
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