Physicist Lorenzo Gavassino has challenged the long-held notion that time travel is impossible due to the grandfather paradox, a self-contradictory situation where altering the past could prevent one’s own existence. In a recent study on entropy, space, and time, Gavassino found a possible loophole.
The grandfather paradox proposes that if someone travels back in time and kills their own grandfather before he has children, then the person would never have been born. However, this creates a paradox because if they were never born, who killed the grandfather? Gavassino suggests that it’s possible to “murder” grandparents without breaking the timeline.
Gavassino used quantum statistical mechanics to explore the consequences of introducing a high-entropy system – like a time-traveling spaceship – back into its low-entropy past. He discovered that quantum fuzziness effectively cancels expected disorder, creating a parallel entropic timeline that begins and ends at the same points.
This has significant implications for our understanding of closed timelike curves, which are hypothetical loops in spacetime that could allow for time travel. The study’s findings suggest that these curves might not be as paradoxical as previously thought, potentially making time travel more feasible.
While this research is still speculative and doesn’t provide a concrete solution to building time-warping technology, it does offer a fascinating insight into the limits of our current knowledge about quantum mechanics and general relativity. For now, time travelers will have to rely on their future selves sending them blueprints – at least until our understanding of these complex phenomena is further refined.
Source: https://www.sciencealert.com/physicist-may-have-solved-the-grandfather-of-all-time-travel-paradoxes