this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Only in its future. Probably you’d have to find the electron precisely at the end of its timeline.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

So I have to destroy 2 electrons to fuck over causality.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

How could you destroy 2, if there's only one?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

That's why it would fuck over causality. If I destroyed 1 that could be the natural end of the electrons "life" of bouncing back and forth through time. I would need to destroy a 2nd which would then have to be the same electron from earlier in it's timeline.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Ah, you're viewing it as a timetravellers' dilemma.

My view was more that we're an observer in the lagrangian solution to the differential equation we call life. The electron, being a constant in the equation. Remove the electron, you alter the equation, therefore destroying known life.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Careful, reality might just destroy you instead to avoid the paradox. I suspect that's how it avoids all of the paradoxes if time travel is possible in a single timeline universe. And this idea isn't compatible with the multiple timeline time travel idea (otherwise the electron will end up in a different timeline each time it jumps backwards).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

If you destroy it, that will be the end of its timeline

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

To destroy every other quantum state of the single electron, wouldn't you need to destroy it at its beginning state? The end state would be at/just after the heat death of the universe, so it wouldn't really make any difference then.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

The end state doesn't have to be at the end of time if the electron can travel backwards in time. It can go to the end, head back towards the beginning, and get destroyed somewhere in between.

Strictly speaking it would have to get destroyed at some point, or at least have something stop it from going back and forth, otherwise the universe would be all electron.