Summary
June 18 2005: Science now has an answer to notions of temporal paradox - they just can't happen. Breakthroughs in Quantum Theory now strongly indicate that time travelers are prevented from altering the past. The past is deterministic, even as the future is probabilistic. In other words, the latest science indicates You Can't Fight Fate.
Prior to this understanding, the notion of paradox made many physicists suspect time travel was somehow prevented, despite models of the Relative Curvature of Space-Time suggested it time loops were possible.
(My layman's take on the article is that these findings support the Novikov Self-Consistency Principle, and undermine or refute the Chronology Protection Conjecture, but I don't exactly have a degree in physics.)
Related Topics:
Causality
Relativity
Space-Time
Source
Game and Story Use
- As always, scientific articles and papers are a great source of Technobabble for your resident Mad Scientist.
- To keep your time travel in line with the latest scientific findings, make the past immutable. The probability of any alteration (of the past) is exactly zero.
- If you go back to shoot Hitler, for example, you'll end up with your gun malfunctioning, or the someone intervening, or your bullet just going wide. Alternately, you might manage to shoot him, but he'll live, and later you'll discover that your attempt on his life was one of those several failed assassination attempts that history had already recorded. You can't change what's already happened, and may even create a Stable Time Loop.
- Keep in mind, however, that the Vulcan Science Academy has determined that time travel is impossible. So there.