the grandfather paradox
@normanlewisword (242)
India
March 4, 2007 12:25pm CST
There is this interesting paradox in the science of time travel.
Can you go back in time and kill your grandfather as a child?
The problem arises in the fact that since your grandpa was still a child your father wouldnt have been born and if your father is stopped from being born, how on earth would you be born?
4 responses
@jwfarrimond (4473)
•
4 Apr 07
The paradox can be resolved by looking at it as part of a multiple dimensional universe. In a multiple dimensional space - time, anything is possible. There would be one reality where the time travellers grandfather was killed and one where he was not killed. The traveller comes from the reality where his grandfather lived, back to the point of divergence, which is the killing, and then having done the deed, he returns to his own time which however is not the same reality as the one that he left from.
1 person likes this
@normanlewisword (242)
• India
5 Apr 07
And what happens in this universe?? Considering that we've left this particular dimension of the universe and have returned to somewhere else.. would it be that this particular dimension of the universe continues without me? It does continue no doubt, but will I be there? Or atleast some part of mine?
@jwfarrimond (4473)
•
5 Apr 07
His "reality of origin" would carry on without him I'd guess. There's also the line of thought that it's impossible to change the past and in that scenario, even though he could travel back and try to kill his grandfather, something would happen to prevent it happening. I suppose you could call this temporal inertia. There have been quite a few SF stories that have played about with both ideas about this paradox.
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@EvanHunter (4026)
• United States
5 Apr 07
This reminds me of futurama where fry accidentally kills his grand father only to find that he is actually his own grandfather after sleeping with some woman. My guess is if you did go back in time and kill your own grandfather if you came back and the reality hadnt change significantly than you might find that the milk man was your gramps.
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@normanlewisword (242)
• India
5 Apr 07
Scary!! The last thing you want to know is that a milkman is your gramps.. and the worst possible thing would be your grandma knowing that you know who your real grandpa is!!
@ram_cv (16513)
• India
4 Mar 07
I guess the only way to concretely resolve this paradox is to first invent a time machine. Then find a person who hates his grandfather so bad. Then send him back in time when his grandfather was a child and then kill him.
Then only we would find the solution to such a paradox.
Cheers!
Ram
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