Explained: Popular Paradoxes & more
Unraveling the Mind-Bending Mysteries of Space, Time, and the Universe
Paradox In General
A paradox is a statement or situation that defies logic or common sense, often leading to self-contradictory conclusions. It challenges our understanding by presenting conflicting elements that seem impossible to resolve.
Why They Are My Favorite Fun Thought Experiments
Paradoxes are fascinating because they challenge our understanding of reality and force us to think beyond the obvious. They are like puzzles that have no easy solutions. That’s what makes them my favorite topic to explore and also a fun thought experiment that anyone can enjoy.
Let’s take a detailed and fun look into some of my favourite mind-bending space, time, and universe-related paradoxes.
The Twin Paradox
Time can flow differently for two people, depending on how fast they are moving relative to each other. This paradox challenges our everyday understanding of time as something that ticks along uniformly for everyone. The Twin Paradox is a thought experiment from Einstein’s theory of relativity.
Example:
Imagine Mark (You) and his twin Jacob are 18-year-old teenagers. One day, Mark gets the incredible opportunity to travel on a spaceship that can move at nearly the speed of light, while Jacob stays behind on Earth. For Mark, the journey feels short, maybe just a couple of years exploring the cosmos. However, when Mark returns to Earth, he finds that, although he has only aged two years, Jacob is now in his forties, with a job, a family, and a life that has moved on without him.
Mark has barely changed, but Jacob has experienced decades of life. This mind-bending effect occurs because time slows down for Mark as he travels at such high speeds — a concept known as time dilation.
Time dilation means that time slows down for someone moving at high speeds. So, while you’re traveling near the speed of light, time moves slower for you. When you return to Earth, you’ve aged only a couple of years, but your twin, who stayed behind, has aged decades.
The Twist:
The paradox arises because, at first glance, it seems like the situation should be symmetrical. From Jacob’s perspective, isn’t it Mark who is moving, and thus Mark should be the one aging more slowly? However, the resolution to this paradox lies in the fact that Jacob undergoes acceleration and deceleration when turning around to return to Earth, breaking the symmetry. Mark remains in a single inertial frame the entire time, while Jacob does not.
In one of my all-time favorite movie Interstellar, Cooper experiences a similar effect. He spends only a few hours on a planet near a black hole, but when he returns, decades have passed on Earth, and his daughter has become an elderly woman. This shows how time can pass differently depending on speed and gravity.
Question: If you knew that exploring the universe would mean losing years with your family and friends, would you still take the trip? What would it feel like to come back to a world that has moved on without you?
Let me know in the comments
The Predestination Paradox
The Predestination Paradox occurs when a person travels back in time, and their actions are part of the very history they were trying to change. In other words, their attempt to alter the past is what causes the future they were trying to avoid. It raises profound questions about fate, free will, and whether our lives are preordained.
Example:
Let me share a personal story to illustrate this paradox. When I was 14, my mother passed away. It was a pivotal moment in my life; one that shaped who I am today. Now, imagine if I had the ability to travel back in time to try and save her. Suppose I go back to the day before she passed away and attempt to warn her, trying to prevent the events that led to her death.
But what if, in my desperate attempt to save her, my actions inadvertently lead to the very circumstances that cause her passing? Maybe I distract her, causing her to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or perhaps my warning stresses her out, worsening her condition. In this scenario, my journey back in time didn’t save her — instead, it ensured that the events unfolded exactly as they did originally.
This paradox suggests that some events might be unchangeable, no matter how much we wish they weren’t. It questions whether our attempts to alter the past could be what locks our fate in place.
This is why I believe that Going back in Time is not possible.
More on that in this blog here, Time Travel Myths Busted: Why Paradoxes Can’t Exist and the Arrow of Time
Question: If you had the chance to go back in time and change a tragic event in your life, would you take it, knowing that you might end up causing the very thing you wanted to prevent? How would you cope with the possibility that your actions could be part of a predetermined outcome?
The Bootstrap Paradox
The Bootstrap Paradox is a puzzling scenario that involves an object or piece of information being sent back in time, creating a loop where its origin is never clear. This paradox questions the very nature of cause and effect, making us wonder if some things might exist simply because they were always meant to.
Example:
Imagine you discover an old book in your attic titled “How to Build a Time Machine.” As you read it, you become fascinated and decide to build the time machine described in the book. After successfully creating the time machine, you travel back in time to when you first found the book. You then leave the book in the attic for your past self to find.
The Twist:
You eventually realize that the book you found is the very same one you wrote after being inspired by your own time travel experience. The book has no clear origin — it seems to exist simply because it always existed in that time loop. This endless loop where the book’s origin is unclear illustrates the Bootstrap Paradox.
Question: If you found a book that was written by your future self, would you keep it or try to change the past, knowing that the book’s existence is part of a continuous time loop?
The Grandfather Paradox
The Grandfather Paradox is a classic and most popular time travel paradox that explores the potential contradictions that arise if you were to travel back in time and change events in a way that would prevent your own existence.
Example:
Imagine you have a time machine and decide to travel back to the past. You arrive at a time before your grandparents had children. In an attempt to alter history, you accidentally prevent your grandfather from meeting your grandmother. As a result, your parents were never born, and consequently, you were never born either.
The Twist:
But if you were never born, you couldn’t have traveled back in time to prevent your grandparents from meeting. This creates a logical contradiction: your existence is both required to create the situation and impossible due to the changes you made. The paradox raises the question of how the timeline can remain consistent if actions taken in the past alter or erase the very events that allowed those actions to occur.
Question: If you could travel back in time and risk changing something crucial to your existence, would you take the chance? How would you deal with the potential paradox of creating a situation where you might never have been born?
The Fermi Paradox
The Fermi Paradox isn’t about time travel, but it’s deeply connected to our understanding of the universe and our place within it. It questions why, given the vast number of stars and potentially habitable planets in the galaxy, we haven’t encountered any signs of extraterrestrial life. This paradox explores the tension between the high probability of alien civilizations existing and the complete lack of evidence for their presence.
Example:
Imagine you’re a curious teenager, always looking up at the stars and wondering if we’re alone in the universe. You’ve read countless books and watched documentaries about the vastness of space, the trillions of stars, and the possibility of planets like Earth out there. The numbers are staggering — surely, with so many chances for life, we should have encountered some sign of aliens by now, right? But as you grow older, you realize that despite all the searching, all the radio signals, and all the telescopes pointed at the sky, there’s nothing. No messages, no visitors, no evidence.
The Twist:
This is the essence of the Fermi Paradox: If intelligent life is common in the universe, then where is everybody? Are we truly alone, or is there something preventing us from finding — or being found by — other civilizations? The paradox forces us to consider whether we’re looking in the wrong places, or if the truth is far more unsettling.
Question: Do you think we’re alone in the universe? If not, why do you think we haven’t found any evidence of other intelligent beings? What could be the reason for this eerie silence? Spoiler Alert: we’re not alone
I personally believe that we are not alone.
More on this in my upcoming blog.
At the end of this blog, I’d like to point you to a related post I wrote called Time Travel Myths Busted: Why Paradoxes Can’t Exist. It dives deeper into the nature of paradoxes and explores why they might be more fiction than fact with actual scientific concepts. Check it out if you’re interested in unraveling the mysteries of time travel and paradoxes even further!
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