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A bootstrap paradox, also known as an information loop, an information paradox, [6] an ontological paradox, [7] or a "predestination paradox" is a paradox of time travel that occurs when any event, such as an action, information, an object, or a person, ultimately causes itself, as a consequence of either retrocausality or time travel.
Time travel is the hypothetical activity of traveling into the past or future. Time travel is a concept in philosophy and fiction, particularly science fiction. In fiction, time travel is typically achieved through the use of a device known as a time machine. The idea of a time machine was popularized by H. G. Wells's 1895 novel The Time ...
A time slip is a plot device in fantasy and science fiction in which a person, or group of people, seem to travel through time by unknown means. [12] [13] The idea of a time slip has been used in 19th century fantasy, an early example being Washington Irving's 1819 Rip Van Winkle, where the mechanism of time travel is an extraordinarily long sleep. [14]
Seth Lloyd proposed an alternative approach to time travel with closed timelike curves (CTCs), based on "post-selection" and path integrals. [21] Path integrals are a powerful tool in quantum mechanics that involve summing probabilities over all possible ways a system could evolve, including paths that do not strictly follow a single timeline. [22]
Time travel can result in multiple universes if a time traveller can change the past. In one interpretation, alternative histories as a result of time travel are not parallel universes: while multiple parallel universes can co-exist simultaneously, only one history or alternative history can exist at any one moment, as alternative history usually involves, in essence, overriding the original ...
Kindred. Author Octavia Butler is a queen of science fiction, and Kindred is her bestselling novel about time travel.In it, she tells the story of Dana, a Black woman, who is celebrating her 26th ...
Other proposals that allow for backwards time travel but prevent time paradoxes, such as the Novikov self-consistency principle, which would ensure the timeline stays consistent, or the idea that a time traveler is taken to a parallel universe while their original timeline remains intact, do not qualify as "chronology protection".
"Sidewise in Time" was among the first science fiction stories about parallel universes. [1] In 1903 H. G. Wells wrote "A Modern Utopia" in which people from our timeline were shown traveling to another, but Wells used this mainly as a literary device to present his speculations of a perfect society. Leinster's story, conversely, introduced the ...