"The main headache stems from the idea that if you went back in time you could, theoretically, do something to change the present; and that possibility messes up the whole theory of time travel.
Clearly, the present never is changed by mischievous time-travellers: people don't suddenly fade into the ether because a rerun of events has prevented their births - that much is obvious. So either time travel is not possible, or something is actually acting to prevent any backward movement from changing the present.
For most of us, the former option might seem most likely, but Einstein's general theory of relativity leads some physicists to suspect the latter.
According to Einstein, space-time can curve back on itself, theoretically allowing travellers to double back and meet younger versions of themselves.
And now a team of physicists from the US and Austria says this situation can only be the case if there are physical constraints acting to protect the present from changes in the past."
But here's the thing: 1.) people do go missing all the time, who's to say someone didn't go back in time and prevent their birth??? and 2.) Would we really even be aware that the future was altered, since we would just be living in the altered future (and wouldn't have a concept of the "original" future?) Just throwing that out there.
2 comments:
I'm glad I'm not the only weird one who thinks about that second point.
Obviously there are a lot of physicists out there that have a lot of Quantum Leep to catch up on.
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