Time Travel Paradoxes and Entangled Timelines

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Shoshany, Barak, Stober, Zipora
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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author Shoshany, Barak
Stober, Zipora
author_facet Shoshany, Barak
Stober, Zipora
contents For time travel to be consistent with the known laws of physics, the resulting paradoxes must be resolved. It has been suggested that parallel timelines (a.k.a. multiple histories) may provide a resolution. However, so far, a concrete mechanism by which parallel timelines can be created has never been satisfactorily formulated. In this paper we propose such a mechanism within the framework of unmodified quantum mechanics, also known as the Everett or "many-worlds" interpretation. The timelines in our model are emergent, like the "worlds" of the Everett interpretation; they are created by quantum entanglement between the time machine and the environment. Therefore, we call them "entangled timelines" or E-CTCs. As the entanglement gradually spreads out to additional systems, the timelines spread out as well, providing a local and well-defined alternative to the naive "branching timelines" picture often presented in the literature. The E-CTC model is similar to Deutsch's familiar D-CTC model, but differs from it mainly by making the entanglement explicit, which allows us to create a clearer practical definition of the resulting parallel timelines.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2303_07635
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Time Travel Paradoxes and Entangled Timelines
Shoshany, Barak
Stober, Zipora
Quantum Physics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
History and Philosophy of Physics
For time travel to be consistent with the known laws of physics, the resulting paradoxes must be resolved. It has been suggested that parallel timelines (a.k.a. multiple histories) may provide a resolution. However, so far, a concrete mechanism by which parallel timelines can be created has never been satisfactorily formulated. In this paper we propose such a mechanism within the framework of unmodified quantum mechanics, also known as the Everett or "many-worlds" interpretation. The timelines in our model are emergent, like the "worlds" of the Everett interpretation; they are created by quantum entanglement between the time machine and the environment. Therefore, we call them "entangled timelines" or E-CTCs. As the entanglement gradually spreads out to additional systems, the timelines spread out as well, providing a local and well-defined alternative to the naive "branching timelines" picture often presented in the literature. The E-CTC model is similar to Deutsch's familiar D-CTC model, but differs from it mainly by making the entanglement explicit, which allows us to create a clearer practical definition of the resulting parallel timelines.
title Time Travel Paradoxes and Entangled Timelines
topic Quantum Physics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
History and Philosophy of Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.07635