Here are a few thoughts just in case you ever get caught in a time paradox.
The simplest scenario for a time paradox is that you have traveled back in time and met yourself. In more complicated scenarios, a different person travels back in time and meets you (or you travel back in time and meet someone else). Sometimes before you travel, you have knowledge of what happens. In even more complex scenarios, an object travels between you and someone else or you and yourself – the object travels back in time but then survives until you pick it up again in the future – often the object is a communication medium such as a letter or in the case of Dr Who Season 3 (Blink), a DVD easter egg.
The problem with time paradox’s is that if you stuff it up, the whole of the universe might implode so you have to be careful. For example, if you have traveled back to the past and you alter the past in such a way that you are never born, then all hell will break loose. The process is similar to solving simultaneous equations, the universe has to be able to settle into a stable time loop.
Another way to think of this is like sound feedback. When you put your microphone near the speakers, the sound from the speaker is picked up by the microphone and then played out of the speaker again. If you are far enough away, the sound picked up by the microphone will only be small and all that will result is a bit of an echo. There is a point at which the sound picked up by the microphone is amplified to be more than the original sound in which case there is a buildup at the resonant frequency which gets louder and louder until the electronics become saturated (at maximum volume) or the plug is pulled. In the case of a bad time paradox, all of the universes energy will be sucked into the feedback loop until all existence collapses in on itself – not unlike the big bang in reverse.
Thinking of this another way. The universe as we know it is just one of infinite billions of universes in the multiverse. The multiverse consists of universes where nothing can exist and other universes where existence is possible. Think of it like the bounded (black) and unbounded (coloured) regions of a mandlebrot set. Now all the interesting stuff happens at the very edges of existence which is where we are where existence is dynamic and interesting things such as atoms and galaxies and planets have formed. Within the infinite multiverse, all possible universes exist. If something like time travel is possible, then it will happen not only in one of the many universes but probably in millions and billions of them. Now when we travel in time, it’s like we are able to merge universes or link one adjacent universe to another through the time machine. If the universes are incompatible, then a run-away time paradox occurs and the unstable universe ceases to exist. And there are millions and billions of universes in the multiverse where this is happening all of the time.
Because of this, it actually doesn’t matter what you do when you find yourself in a time paradox. If you can see the paradox and are talking to it or whatever, then everything that will happen has already happened and the universe has been able to achieve a steady state. On the other hand, at all times during the paradox, millions of spawned alternative universes are imploding for the whole time that the paradox happens. You just aren’t aware of them because you don’t exist in those universes as soon as the paradox happens.
The best thing you can do when in a time paradox is try not to think too much about it because while it is unlikely that the universe will implode, the thought of how narrowly you escaped the fate of non-existence could potentially blow your mind.
In conclusion, I just want to press home my point that it is incredibly risky to initiate a time paradox in the first place and I strongly advise against it. Time travel is best left to the experts.
Science
