Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T04:36:01.362Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Time Travel and Consistency Constraints

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Douglas N. Kutach
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The possibility of time travel, as permitted in General Relativity, is responsible for constraining physical fields beyond what laws of nature would otherwise require. In the special case where time travel is limited to a single object returning to the past and interacting with itself, consistency constraints can be avoided if the dynamics is continuous and the object's state space satisfies a certain topological requirement: that all null-homotopic mappings from the state-space to itself have some fixed point. Where consistency constraints do exist, no new physics is needed to enforce them. One needs only to accept certain global topological constraints as laws, something that is reasonable in any case.

Type
Philosophy of Space and Time
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 70 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting of The Philosophy of Science Association. Part I: Contributed Papers , December 2003 , pp. 1098 - 1113
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arntzenius, Frank, and Maudlin, Tim (2000), “Time Travel and Modern Physics”, in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-travel-phys/.Google Scholar
Earman, John (1995), Bangs, Crunches, Whimpers, and Shrieks: Singularities and Acausalities in Relativistic Spacetimes. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lefschetz, Solomon (1937), “On the Fixed Point Formula”, On the Fixed Point Formula 38 (2): 819–822.. Reprinted in S. Lefschetz, Selected Papers. New York: Chelsea (1971), 623–626.Google Scholar
Maudlin, Tim (1990), “Time Travel and Topology”, in Fine, Arthur, Forbes, Micky, and Wessels, Linda (eds.), PSA 1990, Vol. 1. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association, 303–315.Google Scholar
Okhezin, V. P. (1995) “On the Fixed-Point Theory for Non-Compact Maps and Spaces”, On the Fixed-Point Theory for Non-Compact Maps and Spaces 5:83–100.Google Scholar
Wheeler, J., and Feynman, R. (1949), “Classical Electrodynamics in Terms of Direct Interparticle Action”, Classical Electrodynamics in Terms of Direct Interparticle Action 21:425–433.Google Scholar